[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 72 (Wednesday, May 3, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4530-H4534]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        WHY AMERICANS ARE ANGRY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Regula). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, it is no great secret that throughout the 
United States of America today there is a great deal of anger, there is 
a great deal of unrest. Fortunately not every angry person goes about 
blowing up buildings and killing hundreds of innocent people, but all 
over this country, people are feeling an unease. Something bad is 
happening and they do not quite understand what it is about.
  What I would like to do this hour, Mr. Speaker, with the help of some 
of my colleagues, is to perhaps try to explain to the working people of 
America, to the middle-income people of America, perhaps some of the 
reasons why people are angry, why people are frustrated, and then maybe 
make some suggestions as to how we can develop public policy which will 
improve life for all of our people.
  Mr. Speaker, let me begin by quoting from an I think very important 
article that appeared on the front page of the New York Times on 
Monday, April 16, just a couple of weeks ago. And what it says is that 
the United States of America today has by far the most unequal 
distribution of wealth in the entire industrialized world. And the 
article says that:

       Recent studies show that rather than being an egalitarian 
     society, the United States has become the most economically 
     stratified of industrialized nations. Even class societies 
     like Britain, which inherited large differences in income and 
     wealth over centuries, going back to their feudal past, now 
     have greater economic equality than in the United States.

  Then the article goes on to say:

       Federal Reserve figures from 1989, the most recent 
     available, show that the wealthiest 1 percent of American 
     households, with net worth of at least $2.3 million each, own 
     nearly 40 percent of the Nation's wealth.

  That in contrast to Britain where the richest 1 percent only own 18 
percent of the wealth. So in other words, we are now living in a 
country from which the richest 1 percent own 40 percent of the wealth, 
which is more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Rich are getting 
richer, poor are getting poorer, the middle class is shrinking, and I 
think that explains or begins to explain why it is that American people 
and especially working people, the middle-income people are feeling 
very, very anxious. Because the bottom line is, and we do not talk 
about that too much here, Democrats do not talk about it, Republicans 
do not talk about it, Rush Limbaugh somehow forgets to talk about it, 
but the reality is that since 1973, four-fifths, 80 percent of the 
American workers have experienced falling or stagnant real incomes.
  Now what does that mean? That means in the last 22 years the American 
people are working very, very hard, in many instances they are working 
longer hours, in fact a study came out recently, if you can believe 
this, that in order to compensate for the falling wages American 
workers are now receiving, workers are now working an extra 1 month a 
year. In my own State of Vermont it is certainly not uncommon for 
workers to be working not one job, not two jobs, but on occasion three 
jobs.
  Since 1973, for production workers, there has been a 20-percent 
decline in real wages. There has been an increase in poverty. For low-
wage workers, workers who just have a high school degree, who do not 
have any college, the drop in entry-level jobs has been precipitous. 
For young male workers there has been a 30-percent decline in entry-
level wages for young men graduating high school going into the work 
force; for young women the drop has been 18 percent.
  There was an interesting article which I think typifies much of what 
is happening in this country, that appeared in the Wall Street Journal 
some months ago and they said the good news is that in the Midwest, 
many of the factories that has been closed in the 1980's are now 
reopening, workers are now going back to work in the factories. That is 
the good news. The bad news is that those workers, same workers are 
going back to the same factories at wages which are paying them 50 
percent to 60 percent to 70 percent of what they made 10 or 12 years 
before.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SANDERS. I am delighted to yield to my good friend from Oregon, 
one of the outstanding Congressmen in this institution.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman. I think what you brought up in 
your introductory remarks here brings you to three major issues, and I 
would like to frame the debate that way as we continue the discussion.
  You pointed out the decline of incomes and the standard of living for 
middle-income families and the disproportionate accrual of wealth to 
the top 1 percent, generally those earning over $250,000 a year. And 
what I think people would be interested in is what is the majority, the 
Republican majority's response to that growing disparity of income. Do 
they have a plan to deal with it. And of course the plan is their tax 
bill. And the tables on the tax bill are pretty interesting.
  If we look at the tax bill which passed the House of Representatives 
by a fairly narrow margin, but with virtual unanimity on the Republican 
side of the aisle, 71.4 percent of the benefits of the capital gains 
tax break are going to go to people who earn over $200,000 a year. And 
if you go to the corporate tables, you find similar distributions. That 
is the largest corporations in America, and the multinational 
corporations will do well. Small businesses will get scant or no tax 
relief, and even smaller incorporated firms. In fact, we are repealing 
the corporate alternative minimum tax, something that was put in place 
in 1986 with agreement between President Reagan and a Democratic 
Congress that it was embarrassing that the largest, most profitable 
corporations in America, AT&T, $24.898 billion in profits 1982 to 1985, 
paid negative $635 million in taxes. So we had to put in place a 
corporate alternative minimum tax. But now we are being told the 
solution to the growing disparity and the unemployment in America is to 
go back to those tax policies of the 1980's.
  Mr. SANDERS. If the gentleman will yield, what we are trying to 
explore is in fact why Americans are angry, and what I get upset about 
is people are angry, they should be angry, but to a large degree they 
do not know what they are angry about.

                              {time}  1245

  What the gentleman from Oregon has just said is that in the early 
1980's some of the largest corporations in America, and in America most 
of the stock is owned by the wealthiest people, what he said is that in 
the early 1980's, major corporations earning billions in profit paid 
zero in Federal taxes, less than the working stiff who makes $20,000 a 
year, and because the Congress, which had passed that legislation, was 
a little bit embarrassed going back to their districts, they passed a 
minimum corporate tax law which said to these corporations that, 
``After all your lawyers and all of your fancy accountants get through 
going through the tax loopholes, you still are going to have to pay at 
least something in taxes.''
  And what the gentleman has just described is that several weeks ago 
right here on the floor of the House the Republican leadership voted to 
repeal that minimum corporate tax, so we are going to go back to those 
good old days when major corporations paid zero in taxes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I would like to introduce another element. What I think 
angered people, when I went around to 
[[Page H4531]] my 13 town hall meetings during the break, was when I 
pointed out, when they heard the idea of tax reform and tax relief, a 
lot of middle-income families had a little bit of hope. When I pointed 
out where the benefits are going to go, to the largest, most profitable 
corporations, we were in fact opening new loopholes for them, we were 
not going to close loopholes on multinational corporations which could 
bring in $60 billion a year to U.S. taxpayers, that we were going to 
provide the most benefits, 75 percent of the benefits in the individual 
tax breaks for capital gains to people who earn over $200,000 a year, 
there was not anybody who earned over $200,000 a year in my audiences 
in any of my town halls.
  They were a little bit distraught, but what we did not know then and 
what we know now is that not only is this an outrageous return to 
trickle-down economics, which nearly bankrupted the country and began 
to bankrupt the country in the 1980's, did not provide more jobs, 
provided a flurry of leveraged buyouts which actually were job-
destroying, but now the Republicans are planning to pay for these tax 
breaks by cutting Medicare. Now, is that not extraordinary?
  They are trying to back pedal as quickly as they can. But the numbers 
just happen to add up.
  When you look at their proposed reductions in Medicare in their 
budget, which they will unveil today at their special retreat at IBM's 
or Xerox's posh retreat center, and I wonder what kind of benefit that 
is being provided to the Republican Party and how that relates to the 
tax loophole, but in any case, when they go out to this corporate 
retreat center today and unveil their budget there, they are going to 
show they are going to pay for their tax break by reducing Medicare for 
average Americans and retired Americans.
  It is an absolutely outrageous attempt to pilfer the pockets of those 
least able to pay, senior citizens and people in the lower economic 
bracket, to give tax breaks to people at the top.
  But the sham is, well, we will all benefit because they will invest 
this money wisely. We already went through that once before. We found 
that trickle-down did not benefit the majority of the American people, 
but created the extraordinary disparities the gentleman is talking 
about.
  We also, I think, are going to have to, a little bit later, get into 
trade here, because trade plays
 into this is a very large part.

  Mr. SANDERS. I am delighted that we are being joined by one of the 
outstanding Congressmen, fighters for working people; I yield to the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens].
  Mr. OWENS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I would like to congratulate him on the special order and the focus 
you started with, emphasizing what we have been trying to emphasize all 
year long, is that the American people are angry. Large numbers of 
people are angry. Large numbers of voters are angry. Certainly, 
working-class people are angry, certainly for good reason.
  We have to focus on what it is they should be angry about. They focus 
their anger sometimes in the wrong direction, not understanding the 
forces at work which make their lives miserable or make them see 
themselves as sinking in quicksand in terms of their lives are getting 
no better as they go on working harder, but their wages are less, their 
wages have not kept pace with inflation, benefits like health care 
which all the other industrialized nations enjoy and help to stretch 
your wages because you do not have to pay large amounts of money for 
health care, are denied to the American workers. They get less fringe 
benefits, vacation time, family leave.
  As you pointed out, countries that we went to war with, and we are 
glad the war is over and it is all peaceful, but Germany now has a 
higher standard of living than any nation in the world. I am not 
criticizing them for creating a higher standard of living for their 
workers. But workers here have to understand, workers in the 
industrialized world of 1995, it is possible to have decent salaries 
and also have 6 weeks' vacation, also have family and medical leave 
where you get paid, where you take time off. It is possible in an 
industrialized society to have this and still come out ahead of this 
Nation in terms of balance of payments.
  Because we are in relationship with Germany, we owe them more money 
than they owe us. The balance of payments is negative on our side, just 
as in the case of Japan, you also have a standard of living and much 
more security.
  This fact, or that, has just been highlighted by a study, and thanks 
to the New York Times, certainly emphasized in the mass media of the 
gap between the rich and the poor in this country which you mentioned 
before, just has to be looked at more closely.
  I have the editorial from the New York Times on the same day that the 
major article appeared on April 17, 1995. That editorial, you know, 
says quite a bit. We cannot say it anymore clear than stated here. 
``The Rich Get Richer Faster,'' is the title of the editorial, and I 
want to read a few excerpts from the editorial:

       The gap between rich and poor is vast in the United States, 
     and recent studies show it growing faster than anywhere else 
     in the West. The trend is largely the result of technological 
     forces at work around the world, but the United States 
     Government has done little to ameliorate the problem. Indeed, 
     if the Republicans get their way on the budget, the 
     Government will make a troubling trend measurably worse.

  Now, this is the New York Times editorial page talking, not partisan 
Democrats.

       Some inequality is necessary if society wants to reward 
     investors for taking risks and individuals for working hard 
     and well, but excessive inequality can break the spirit of 
     those trapped in society's cellar and exacerbate social 
     tensions. Extensive inequality can break the spirit of those 
     trapped in society's cellar and can exacerbate social 
     tensions.

  I am not going to excuse anybody for the Oklahoma bombing, and I am 
not going to say that any set of conditions in society justified that 
kind of murderous act, but I am going to say that when you have a 
mixture in this country of the culture of the gun where we permit, and 
another way in which we are different from all other western nations 
is, the other industrialized nations, is we permit the proliferation of 
the guns in this society. We encourage a culture of the gun, which 
leads to a fascination with other, more complicated weapons. When you 
have an atmosphere like that and you also have the exacerbated 
tensions, the likelihood that individuals or small groups will go off 
half-cocked and do outrageous things is greatly increased.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. SANDERS. Let me just go back to another point. We are trying to 
understand why in America tens of millions of middle-income and working 
people are living under such stress, and we are trying to understand 
how it is that every day on the talk shows and here in Congress we hear 
people attacking minorities, attacking poor people, men attacking women 
as the cause of the problem, people attacking gay people, attacking 
immigrants, and yet it is amazing to me how little discussion there is 
on the issue that the gentleman from New York and the gentleman from 
Oregon and I are talking about, and that is the fact that the 
wealthiest 1 percent are seeing enormous increases in their holdings in 
America, that the wealthiest earners, 20 percent earners, now earn more 
earned income than do the bottom 80 percent, that major corporation 
after major corporation are throwing American workers out on the 
street, going to Mexico where they are hiring people at 75 cents an 
hour, going to China where they are hiring desperate people there for 
20 cents an hour. How come we are not allowed to focus our anger on 
those people, just on the poor, but not on the rich?
  I did not read in the Constitution, I did not read in the schoolbooks 
that we are not allowed to talk about the wealthy and the power that 
they have over the lives of Americans. But somehow or another there 
seems to be a fear in this institution, and certainly on talk radio, 
that, gee whiz, we are not allowed to talk about the wealthy and the 
power that they have.
  How come there is not discussion that the chief executive officers in 
America today of the Forbes 500
 corporations are now earning 150 times what their workers are making? 
Is that justice? Is that fair? Is that what the American system is 
supposed to be about? Why are we not discussing and 
[[Page H4532]] moving rapidly in raising the minimum wage? How is a 
worker supposed to bring up a family on $4.25 an hour minimum wage or 
even $5 an hour?
  Mr. DeFAZIO. If the gentleman will yield on that one, that is 
excellent.
  The issue again, the response of the Republican majority in this 
Chamber is that they will not even allow hearings or legislative 
consideration; far be it from a Democratic vote on this floor, on the 
issue of an increase in the minimum wage. They are so afraid of that 
issue; they know that a large majority of the American people do not 
believe it is fair that a person who works hard, 40 hours a week 
faithfully, 50 weeks a year or 52 weeks a year, is below the poverty 
level. And if that person has children, it is far below the poverty 
level in this country and not able to have any kind of a decent 
standard of living.
  Why cannot we have that discussion? It seems like everything is 
slanted the other way.
  The tax policy, again, we have just passed huge tax breaks which will 
accrue to a very small percentage of the people, and they are going to 
be paid for by cutting Medicare and cutting welfare and other programs.
  They will not allow us to have a debate and a vote on the issue of 
increasing the minimum wage and trade policy. They want to pin the 
failures of the trade policy on the Clinton administration, who 
certainly pushed through the NAFTA Agreement and the GATT Agreement, 
but they pushed them through with a majority of Republican votes and a 
minority of votes on the Democratic side of the aisle, because many of 
us knew they were wrong.
  And one other point, lest people think that somehow through NAFTA and 
through shipping our jobs to Mexico, we have somehow at least improved 
the lot of the Mexican people, the standard of living has dropped 50 
percent for average workers in Mexico in the last 6 months. They are 
threatened with 50 percent inflation, and their wage increases by law 
will be limited to 10 percent this year.
  Interest rates are 80 to 90 percent in Mexico for people who can get 
credit cards. That is not very many. Bank failures, business failures 
are up. On May Day they had the largest demonstration in the history of 
the country.
  We have pushed Mexico to the brink with exploitative trade policies, 
and we are losing American jobs.
  Where is this all headed? When will we wake up? When will we come up 
with a trade policy that is set up to increase the standard of living 
in this country and in the countries of our trading partners? When will 
we have a tax policy that is set up for fairness, that helps to bring 
the disparities down? And when will we increase the minimum wage?
  With this majority, never.
  Mr. SANDERS. The gentleman is suggesting a very radical idea. He is 
suggesting the trade policy in America, and I think this year we have 
had $160 billion trade deficit.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. $163 billion?
  Mr. SANDERS. Thank you. We do not hear much about that figure. He is 
suggesting a terribly radical idea hardly heard on the floor of the 
House, and that is that maybe trade policy should work for the benefit 
of the average American worker rather than the head of the large 
corporations who are trying to take our jobs to Mexico and China.
  We are delighted now to welcome a Congressman from upstate New York, 
the gentleman from New York [Mr. Hinchey].
  Mr. HINCHEY. I have enjoyed the discussion, and thank you very much, 
particularly the last part.
  I think it is very important for us to recognize that although most 
of the attention has been focused on the budget deficit, and that is a 
serious problem, it is one we have to deal with, but there are least 
two other major deficits we have to address.
  And those two other deficits are more directly linked to the economic 
prosperity of the American people, particularly the average wageearner, 
the average worker, the average family, and those other two deficits 
are the ones being discussed about a moment ago by our colleague, the 
gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio], the trade deficit principally 
because that trade deficit is responsible for loss of a substantial 
number of manufacturing jobs. We have lost 1.4 million manufacturing 
jobs in this country over the course of the last decade and much of 
that can be attributed to our lack of a trade policy that focuses on 
the needs of the people in this country rather than other interests 
that may be within this country or abroad.
                              {time}  1300

  And the other deficit is the investment deficit. We are failing to 
invest in our own future, and the infrastructure of this country, and 
simple things like roads and bridges. Half of the bridges in the United 
States are now below standard. Our surface transportation systems are 
in bad need of repair, in many cases falling apart. We have not had a 
major investment since the 1950's with the Interstate Highway System. 
Major deficits in mass transit, major deficit in educational 
investment, major deficit in training, major deficit in research and 
development, for the creation of new jobs and new industries, and 
connected with these two is the exportation of important American 
technologies, technology that is developed in this country which could 
be producing the jobs of the future, and we are exporting those 
technologies. We have exported the jobs, and now we are exporting 
technologies to other countries.
  Mr. SANDERS. I know that when we talk about the issue of jobs and the 
declining standard of living for the average American worker, what we 
are extremely mindful of is that for the young workers, especially for 
those who do not have a college education, their future indeed is very 
bleak. And one of the points that has to be made when we try to 
understand anger in America is that for tens of millions of Americans 
the American dream is fading fast, the dream that, if I work very hard, 
my kids are going to have a higher standard of living than I do.
  Now I know that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] has worked 
hard on a jobs bill which attempts to address some of the issue that 
the gentleman from New York [Mr. Hinchey] was talking about. Mr. Owens, 
what about a jobs bill?
  Mr. OWENS. Well, we introduced a jobs bill as a progressive caucus 
jobs will as a result of our understanding clearly what the message was 
on the November 8 election. At the exit polls they clearly pointed out 
that the No. 1 priority was jobs security. Those who were working are 
worried about the fact they are making less than they were making 
before, they cannot keep up with inflation. Many who were working were 
worried about losing the jobs they have already because of economic 
downsizing and streamlining, and of course many others are unemployed 
and work because they have no hope of getting a job. We keep sending 
manufacturing jobs overseas, chasing the cheapest labor in Bangladesh, 
out of prisons of China of whatever.
  So why not address this as Democrats, even if the Republicans refuse 
to? They had in the Contract With America something about the Job 
Creation, Wage Enhancement Act which had not a single thing in it about 
job creation. It was all about removing regulations, and it was a back 
door way to make an assault on the kinds of regulations of the 
environment that are very necessary to protect the health and welfare 
of Americans.
  Our jobs bill talks about creating jobs. In fact, one of the major 
functions of a modern government has to be the creation of jobs. The 
economy, stupid, has to be translated into jobs, stupid. You can have a 
bustling economy. We have a very prosperous economy. The stock market 
is doing very well. But jobs are not being created.
  You know, in addition to economics, we need a new science called 
``jobenomics.'' How do you create jobs? We propose an old-fashioned way 
to create jobs. First of all you recognize the fact that there is 
plenty of work to be done, it just needs to have some way to pay people 
to do necessary work. We need
 public infrastructure to be sort of rehabilitated. Physical 
infrastructure in terms of bridges, and roads, and schools across the 
country which need to be repaired or rebuilt, all those things need to 
be done, and we should 
[[Page H4533]] channel the public dollars in that direction instead of 
wasting our public dollars on obsolete weapons systems and other kinds 
of things. We should be moving it toward job creation in every way 
possible.
  Mr. SANDERS. In other words what the gentleman is saying is what 
everybody knows to be true in virtually every city, every town in 
America. There is an enormous amount of work that needs to be done. We 
need new environmentally sound sewer systems. We need better landfills. 
We need to clean up the pollution that exists all around us. We need to 
rebuild our mass transportation system. What an absurdity that when in 
terms of mass rail, our railroads, we are already behind Europe and 
Japan. Amtrak has laid off 5,000 workers rather than adding more 
workers to give us the best rail system in the entire world.
  So, as Progressives, let us summarize some of what we are talking 
about. For a start, No. 1, the American people are angry and have a 
right to be angry, but for many reasons that anger has been deflected 
all over the place. Working people are becoming poorer in America. The 
gap between the rich and the poor is becoming wider. Twenty years ago 
the United States led the world in the wages and benefits we provide in 
our workers. Today we are in 10th place, behind many of the European 
countries. The hours that those workers in Germany, in France work are 
going down. They have more leisure time. In America the hours that our 
people are working are going up an extra month a year.
  I say, ``Why shouldn't we be angry? You can't be with your family, 
you can't be with your kids. You're working an extra month a year in 
order to make up for the decline in your wages. You're working 
overtime. You're working two jobs.''
  So we believe it is appropriate to raise the minimum wage. Workers 
should not be working 40 hours a week and falling further and further 
into poverty. Forty percent of the people in poverty are working full 
time. So we are concerned about that.
  The gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio] has talked about trade 
policy. We talk about the Federal deficit. It is important. What about 
our trade policy? And Mr. DeFazio a number of months ago introduced, I 
think an extremely important piece of legislation. He introduced 
legislation to repeal the United States connection with NAFTA, to 
withdraw from NAFTA. I ask, ``Mr. DeFazio, why did you introduce that 
legislation?''
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Well, this was, of course, before the massive collapse and massive 
bailout by the U.S. Government adding insult to industry. Not only had 
our predictions come true; that is, that we began to enter into trade 
deficits with Mexico, therefore exporting U.S. jobs and capital to that 
country, that the Mexican peso has been devalued, that in fact the 
government had stolen another election and was continuing to oppress 
its own people, but we added insult to injury shortly after I 
introduced the bill, and we are now paying $20 billion for that 
privilege.
  Why? Because a few United States corporations want to go down there 
to take advantage of that cheap labor, a fact, you know the average 
Mexican wage has dropped 50 percent in the last 6 months. This looks 
great to a number of large multinational corporations, foreign 
corporations flooding into Mexico to use it as an
 export platform, but with the $863 million dollars trade deficit that 
we ran with Mexico in one month in February, that means that we 
exported, according to our own Commerce Department, 20,000 jobs in 1 
month, 20,000 United States manufacturing wage jobs exported to Mexico 
in 1 month, and now we are paying $20 billion of taxpayers' money to 
bail out their government in order to keep this sinking agreement 
afloat. It is a failure, and I would like the authors of that to admit 
that it is a failure, the Republican majority in this House, and the 
Democratic administration downtown, and the people on Wall Street who 
shoved it through. Admit, just admit, it is a failure, or admit that it 
is working the way you want it, which I think is the real truth, which 
is it is helping a few corporations, but it is hurting American 
workers, it is hurting Mexican workers, it is lowering standards of 
living on both sides of the border. That, perhaps, was the real intent. 
Then I would at least say they are honest, they got what they wanted.

  One other quick point on trade. I cannot let what is going on with 
Japan go by. Here we are locked once again in negotiations with Japan 
to get them to allow our auto parts, which now a comparable quality 
American auto part costs about half of a Japanese replacement part. We 
are trying to break into their market, and the Japanese are saying, as 
usual, no, and in fact they are telling us that, if we use our 
sovereignty, if we, in fact, retaliate against them because they are 
unfairly keeping out comparable quality parts at half the price from 
their market, that they will go to the World Trade Organization and get 
sanctions against us, and guess what? All the analysts say they will 
win because that is the way GATT and the World Trade Organizations were 
set up. There is nothing in there to go at the unfair trade practices 
of Japan or other countries that hide them in secret, but only 
countries like the United States, which have public laws, will be 
penalized.
  So, you know, we are going in the wrong direction, and we are driving 
down standards of living in this country to benefit a few corporations 
and our unfair trading partners abroad.
  Mr. SANDERS. I find it interesting, the contract of America, the 
Republican proposal, talks about a whole lot of things, but it is 
amazing how it manages to miss the most important policy issues that 
affect the needs of working people. I say, ``I know, Mr. Hinchey, you 
have been working hard here fighting for the right of working people. 
What are some of the initiatives you would like to see taking place?''
  Mr. HINCHEY. I would like to follow up with what the gentleman from 
Oregon [Mr. DeFazio] said about our trade policies and just observe 
that we are following a trade policy which essentially is described as 
free trade, open markets, the global marketplace, et cetera, et cetera, 
on and on, but when you look closely at what is happening, you find 
that while we, this country, is practicing those principles to a large 
extent, we are not finding reciprocal practices in many other 
countries. The gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio] points very 
correctly to the situation with Japan where they are very clever in the 
way that they hide the--their techniques of freezing out American goods 
and American products while we import as much as they can manufacture 
into this country, and we have been doing it for decades at the cost of 
American jobs and at the cost of the American standard of living.
  What we want to do, what we are all about here, four of us and many 
other people who share our particular opinions, is simply this. We want
 attention paid to the American economy. We want jobs created here in 
the United States, but not low wage jobs. We want jobs created here in 
the United States that are going to be paying good living wages, and 
that is why we are for an increase in the minimum wage, and we ought to 
make it clear that by enacting a minimum wage--and by the way, if the 
minimum wage, which is now at $4.25 an hour had kept pace with its 
historical level, it would at this moment be more than $6 an hour, so 
we are far behind where we ought to be. Not only does the minimum wage, 
and this is, I think, a very important point, affect those people who 
are working at the minimum wage, but when you push up the minimum wage, 
you push up the next lowest, and then the second lowest, and the third 
and the fourth, et cetera. It has a ripple effect throughout the entire 
economy, increasing wages and increasing incomes for all Americans.

  The Speaker of this House said just recently that the price of labor 
in the world is set in south China. If we ever buy into that idea, if 
this House, if this country, ever buys into the idea that the price of 
labor in the United States of America is set in south China, then we 
are on the road to destruction. The price of labor in the United States 
is no more set in south China than the principles and policies of this 
democratic republic are set in south China or everything else that we 
believe in is set in south China. It is high time that we divorced 
ourselves from these crazy notions that the American labor force has 
[[Page H4534]] to compete with the least common denominator in slave 
labor countries around the world and get back to the idea that we can 
pay our people a good decent living wage so they could provide for 
their families, send their kids to school and improve their standard of 
living.
  Mr. SANDERS. The gentleman makes an extremely important point. When 
you hear somebody get up, and give a speech, and say that we have got 
to be competitive in the global economy, hang on to your wallets and 
start worrying very much because what the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Hinchey] is saying is that in south China the wages are approximately 
20 cents an hour. Well, American workers, are you ready to compete? Do 
you think maybe we can get down to 18 cents an hour? We can get those 
jobs back. What about 15 cents an hour? To a large degree much of the 
discussion of the global economy is just that.
                              {time}  1315

  It is asking American workers to lower their wages, give up their 
benefits, sacrifice our environmental standards in order to compete 
with desperate Third World countries where people are working for 
starvation wages. I think, as Mr. Hinchey indicates, that should not be 
the paradigm under which we operate. Rather, we should be asking the 
question, why, in this great country, do we not develop policies which 
create decent paying jobs for all of our workers, a national health 
care system guaranteeing health care to all of our people, a fair tax 
system which takes the burden of taxes off the middle class and asks 
the wealthy to start paying their fair share of taxes, educational 
opportunity for all. Is that Utopia? I do not think so.
  I want to ask Mr. Owens a question: Recently, all over America, in my 
district, you have middle class people, husbands and wives, working 40, 
50, 60 hours a week to afford to send their kids to college, because 
they understand that without a college education the kids are not going 
to make it to the middle class. That is simply the truth. Without a 
college education you cannot make it to the middle class.
  Mr. Owens, the Republicans recently have brought forth a proposal 
which would cut back on college loans, college financial grants. What 
impact does that have on the aspirations and dreams of the people in 
your district?
  Mr. OWENS. What the Republicans are trying to do in their attempt to 
fulfill their contract against America, we call it against America, 
they say with America, in an attempt to do the undoable and bring the 
budget down to a level of balance by the year 2002, they are going to 
try to take $12 billion out of the student loan program.
  Already we have year after year reduced the number of grants 
available. The poorest young people going to college, we used to 
provide more grants. But we have steadily reduced the number of grants, 
so it is very hard to qualify for a grant. You have to be very poor, 
because the amount of Pell grants available, the amount of money 
available for Pell grants is very low. We have deliberately emphasized 
student loan programs. Because after all, you have time to pay for it 
after you get out of college and get a decent job. Most of our aid now 
is in the form of student loans.
  Now the Republicans are saying the student loan program should not be 
subsidized at all. What we do now is while a young person is in 
college, the interest on the loan is paid for by the Government. That 
is our contribution as taxpayers towards the student loan program. The 
students get out, pick up the loan, and they start paying the interest 
and principal until it is paid off. But the interest during the time 
they are in college is paid for by the Government, and if you take that 
away, that raises the amount the students owe. They are expecting to 
save $12 billion out of the hides of the students when we want to 
encourage more people to go to college. That is the one answer to our 
economy, to become more and more sophisticated and educated.
  Mr. SANDERS. If we could perhaps wrap it up, I think, in conclusion, 
the point that we are trying to make, we as three or four members of 
the Progressive caucus, and there are 36 other members, is that we 
think to a large degree the Congress of the United States is out of 
touch with the needs of working people, middle income people, and is 
here to a large degree to represent the interests of the wealthy and 
the powerful. We think that much of what is in the Contract With 
America benefits the people who go to the $1,000 a plate fund-raising 
dinners. We think there are sensible public policies we can develop--we 
brought forth some of them this afternoon--that in fact we can raise 
the standard of living for American people, give people hope for the 
future, where today there is no hope.
  I want to thank both the gentleman from New York, Mr. Owens and Mr. 
Hinchey, for joining me. We will do this again.

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