[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2787-H2788]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   A MAJOR ECONOMIC CRISIS IS BREWING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I wish to associate myself with the 
remarks of the prior speaker. There is no question that the value of 
our Nation's currency on international markets is a measure of our 
Nation's economic strength and economic health. And over the past few 
days and weeks, our dollar has hit historic lows against currencies of 
all the nations that we trade with. In fact, it is at the lowest level, 
our dollar's value, since World War II. That is a longer time than many 
people in this Chamber have been alive. so it has not been at this 
point for decades.
  The dollar's exchange value stands at a scant 92.8 yen to the dollar. 
I can remember when it was 240 yen to the dollar and 1.4 German marks 
against the dollar. In other words, the dollar is not looking so good 
to the rest of the world. It is losing its value. It is looking cheap.
  Little that our Treasury Department or Federal Reserve have been able 
to do over the last few days to give the dollar a boost has worked. In 
fact, they put over $2 billion into buying currencies around the world 
over the weekend and it did not do any good. Did not do any good, had 
no impact on stopping the dollar's further decline.

                              {time}  2000

  Now, what does this really mean to families in our Nation? It means 
that our money, our people's money, cannot buy as much, not just here 
at home, but abroad. It means that interest rates in our country rose 
seven times over the last 12 months, even though most people were 
going, well, why are interest rates going up? There is really 
[[Page H2788]] no inflation. What is happening here? Banks are raking 
in good money off of our people, and though there is no inflation on 
the horizon, we see that our Nation is raising interest rates to 
attract money from other places because our money is not worth as much.
  In fact, we are now, the United States of America, the largest debtor 
nation in the world, and through NAFTA, we linked ourselves to Mexico 
and Canada, and North America is now the largest debtor continent on 
the face of the planet.
  And the markets know it. For 15 years our country has been importing 
vast amounts of merchandise, more than we exported. In fact, last year, 
1994, we had the largest merchandise trade deficit in the history of 
our country; as Congressman DeFazio referenced, over $166 billion more 
of goods coming in here than we sent out.
  In effect, what we have, we have a decapitalization of the United 
States of America; production that used to be done here is being done 
somewhere else. We are importing all this stuff and then we have to pay 
for it with borrowed money. Doesn't sound like a very smart policy to 
me.
  Last year, our deficit with Japan went up even more, to over $65 
billion. Our deficit with China went up to nearly $30 billion, and the 
former surplus that we had had before NAFTA with Mexico dried up and 
went into the negative numbers in October and November of last year, 
and with the incredible devaluation of the peso, it is estimated that 
this year of 1995, the United States will yield nearly $15 billion more 
of trade deficit in the red with Mexico.
  In other words, Mexico will be sending more goods to this country 
than we will be sending down there. That is not how NAFTA was supposed 
to work. It is clear that since the middle of February, and like Mr. 
DeFazio, I have a chart that shows the value of the U.S. dollar going 
down. Since the mid-1980's until the most recent period here after the 
Mexican peso was devalued, to which we have not linked ourselves 
inseparably, the value of our dollar has dropped at the fastest rate in 
the history of our country, and like Mr. DeFazio, I am shocked there 
are no emergency hearings in the Congress. There is no word from the 
White House. At least the newspapers are reporting, and it has been in 
top headlines in USA Today, in the New York Times, in the Wall Street 
Journal. You think Washington fell comatose on this one.
  There is a major economic crisis brewing, and money is flowing out of 
our Treasury to try to prop up the Mexican peso, a few billion dollars. 
Actually there is more money that has flowed out of the Treasury to 
prop up the Mexican peso than money has flowed out of the Treasury to 
prop up the United States' dollar in international markets, we learned 
this morning. What happened today? Peso went down again in terms of its 
own value.
  Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent for an additional minute.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Vucanovich). The Chair is constrained 
not to entertain such a request during the 5-minute period. The Chair 
is advised that the 1-minute extension that was allowed the gentleman 
from Alabama earlier this evening was a parliamentary error.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Oh, was an error. All right.
  Madam Speaker, let me just say in closing, is not it time someone in 
this House rang the alarm bell to say enough is enough, and I call on 
Speaker Gingrich to allow our bills to move to the floor to stop the 
further outflow of taxpayer dollars to Mexico.

                          ____________________