[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 119 (Friday, July 21, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10473-S10474]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           U.S. TRADE DEFICIT

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this week we received some additional news 
about our trade deficit in the United States. This news, for almost 
everyone who reads about our trade deficit, provokes one giant yawn, a 
turn of the page, and we hear nothing about it.
  In contrast, we have, since the first part of this year, been very 
worried about the Federal budget deficit. We have had hour after hour 
and day after day of debate about what to do with the budget deficit. 
That is an enormously serious problem for this country. We must deal 
with it.
  In fact, an hour or so ago, we passed a rescissions bill, cutting 
some $16 billion in Federal spending as a first step. It is not nearly 
enough, but it is a pretty good first step before we get to the 
reconciliation bill to address the Federal budget deficit.
  It is interesting that there is almost a conspiracy of silence in 
this country about the trade deficit. I wonder why? The trade deficit 
must be and will be some day repaid with a lower standard of living in 
the United States. That is a fact.
  What is causing all of these problems with respect to trade? What 
does it result in for the American family? The circumstances, it seems 
to me, are these: We have in this country now record corporate profits. 
They have never been higher. The largest corporations in this country 
are making the highest profits they have ever made in history.
  Wall Street is having a big old party--and God bless them, I think 
that is just wonderful. There are record highs on Wall Street. But 
while corporate profits reach new heights, and while the Wall Street 
crowd celebrates record highs, the question is, What about the family 
that sits down for dinner at home tonight and has to assess the 
family's economic circumstances?
  The answer for the family is not record profits, and not new highs. 
The answer for 60 percent of the American families, when they sit down 
for dinner and talk about their circumstances, is that they are working 
harder and making less money. Mr. President, 60 percent of the American 
families now have less income than they had 20 years ago, when adjusted 
for inflation.
  The other interesting thing is, in addition to the information 
produced about the trade deficit each month, there is another piece of 
information that is produced about wages. It gets almost no attention. 
Nearly every month, wages are falling. In other words, corporate 
profits are going up, stock prices are going up, investors are doing 
well. Wealth holders are celebrating, and folks out there working for a 
living are working for less wages. Why is that the case, and how does 
it relate to our trade deficit?
  They are all part of the same circle. Corporate profits are at a 
record high. I think that is fine in some respects, except that if it 
comes at the expense of workers' incomes, there is a disconnection 
about what is important in this country. We now have what is called a 
global economy. What that means is American corporations and 
international corporations, for that matter, are told that it is just 
fine to go find a place to produce where you can produce dirt cheap, 
and hire folks for $1 a day or a dime an hour, and sell that production 
back to Pittsburgh or Fargo or Denver or San Diego.
  What we have are good manufacturing jobs moving out of this country 
at a wholesale pace, and those manufacturing jobs are now in Indonesia, 
in Malaysia, in China, and yes, even on the Maquiladora border of 
Mexico, where two or three new plants every day are approved for 
manufacturing products, many of which used to be manufactured in this 
country.
  Corporations find, in some parts of the world, you can hire a 12-
year-old to work 12 hours a day for 12 cents an hour and produce a 
product that is shipped back to this country. It means we have lost 
good jobs in this country that used to produce good income. That is the 
disconnection.
  It seems to me that we ought to measure success in our economic 
system in this country by how an economy produces a better standard of 
living for all Americans--all Americans, not just corporate America, 
all Americans--especially those who work for a living.
  We have folks who sit on the front porch and smoke pipes and watch 
the grass grow. They hold bonds or stocks, they get dividends or 
interest, and God bless them. Some of them earn millions every year 
doing that. Some of them earn millions and pay almost nothing in taxes. 
But the question is, What is the fortune of the person who does not 
have stocks or bonds, but who works every day? What about someone who 
works every day, makes a wage, and then finds that every month, their 
wages are eroding because profits are up but wages are down?
  We need to change that kind of economic system. The sum total of 
everything we do in this Chamber ought to be to try to restore economic 
health to this country, sufficient so that every American family--every 
American family--finds its standard of living improving.
  Mr. President, 50 years after the Second World War, during the first 
25 years, virtually all American families found better circumstances, 
better opportunities, higher wages. The second 25 years, what have we 
seen? Trade deficits, with American corporations moving overseas, 
leaving this country, taking their jobs to other parts of the 

[[Page S10474]]
world, where they can produce cheap and sell here. What has that meant? 
It has meant a choking trade deficit for America, and lower wages for 
American workers. We ought not put up with it.
  We fought for 50 years on the question of what is a livable wage. We 
have minimum wages in this country. We have worker safety standards. We 
have laws against child labor. You cannot hire 12-year-olds and pay 12 
cents an hour and work them 12 hours a day. Those are successes in this 
country, that we have prohibited those kinds of things. Yet, all too 
often, we are choking on a trade deficit caused by producers who 
produce in circumstances where they could not produce in this country, 
and then ship their product here.
  What it is doing is drying up economic opportunities for American 
citizens, and it ought to stop. We ought to say to every one of those 
countries, China especially--we have a $30 billion trade deficit with 
China--it is unthinkable we allow that to continue. We have a $65 
billion trade deficit with Japan. We cannot get American products into 
Japan in any significant quantity, but we are a sponge for Japanese 
products. We buy all this material from China and when they want to buy 
wheat, they are off price shopping in Canada someplace.
  The fact is, this country ought to start standing up for its own 
economic interests and start doing it soon. This trade policy is 
completely out of whack. It is hurting American families.
  I am not suggesting isolationism or building walls around our 
country. But I am saying that America ought to stop getting kicked 
around with unfair trade practices. If our market is open to other 
countries' products, then their markets ought to be open to ours. If we 
will not allow the employment of 12-year-old kids at 12 cents an hour, 
we ought not to allow products from countries that do, to come to the 
American marketplace to undercut American jobs.
  It is that simple. I have been on the floor almost weekly since the 
first of this year, and yearly in my time in Congress, to talk about 
this. One day, one way, we will change these policies and start 
standing up for the economic interests of this country--not just 
corporate profits, but also wages for American families.


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