[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 26 (Thursday, February 29, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H1625-H1631]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE AGRICULTURAL REAUTHORIZATION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized for 60 
minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we have just passed the Agriculture 
Reauthorization Act that reauthorizes farm programs, and I think it is 
very important to take note of an unprecedented development. We had a 
bipartisan breakthrough of the truth in respect to agricultural 
subsidies and the agribusiness welfare program in America, and this 
deserves to be noted. Been a lot of frustration for a long time 
experienced by those of us who recognize the fact that the agribusiness 
among all the recipients of Federal subsidies was the one that was most 
hypocritical. It received great amounts of money for a small number of 
people, and they made lengthy speeches about getting government off 
their back and not being a part of a welfare program. So we finally 
made a breakthrough, I think, in that not any great changes were 
wrought.
  The bill that passed has a lot to be desired; the bill that passed is 
loaded with agribusiness welfare. The bill that passed is not a great 
reform measure, as it is touted to be. The bill that passed will 
probably be vetoed by the President. It pleases only segments of the 
population. Large numbers of the people are displeased with it.
  But the phenomena that took place on the floor of the House yesterday 
is what I am rejoicing about. I rejoice that truth broke through and 
there was a real honest discussion of the nature of the welfare 
subsidies that have fueled the agribusiness for the last three decades. 
The truth broke through, and there were very close votes. We almost got 
rid of several subsidies that were terrible and have been going on for 
some time, and, most important of all, it was not partisan. You know, 
you could find no pattern of partisan voting. Both sides supported a 
breakthrough of the truth.
  The debate was a real debate in that it was not locked into some kind 
of ideological dogma, it was not a ceremony where, no matter what you 
said, one side or the other side was not listening. I think for the 
first time, for one of the few times on the floor the House, the minds 
of some Members were actually changed by the course of the debate.
  So we rejoice that the agribusiness is now being honestly examined, 
and the agribusiness and the tremendous amount of corporate welfare 
that the agribusiness has enjoyed is now up for scrutiny. The common 
sense of the American people can be allowed to examine it, and I expect 
that you will have an escalating amount of concern from ordinary people 
that common sense is now going to take hold of the situation, and we 
are going to have a real look at the kind of money that has been poured 
into the agribusiness empires over the last three decades.

  Of course, you know most people do not realize that this bill, which 
was mainly focusing on cash subsidies and the details of crops and 
particular commodities, this bill does not even touch the surface of 
some of the most generous corporate welfare that has been heaped upon 
the agribusiness. We were not talking about the Farmers Home Loan 
Mortgages. We were not talking about a whole set of loan programs that 
feed into the farm economy.
  And they say farmers. I think it is a misnomer to call anything 
related to agriculture now on a large scale farmers. They are not 
farmers. It is agribusiness. The farmers long ago were moved from the 
land.
  You know when Franklin Roosevelt, the greatest Democrat probably in 
history, when Franklin Roosevelt conceived of the crop support programs 
and provided support for poor farmers across the Nation, if was very 
much needed and very much in order, and for a long time it did serve 
the purpose of keeping the family farm alive, allowing poor farmers to 
survive. It was very important.
  But long ago the agricultural subsidies ceased to keep family farms 
alive and provide help for those that needed it most. That ended a long 
time ago. That is not the case any more. It is a great business, a 
great corporate welfare program, and some of us have complained about 
it for years. It has a dual evil. The taxpayers are forced to pay for 
the agrabusiness program subsidies, the corporate welfare, on the one 
hand. On the other hand, the fact that they pay for them to keep the 
prices up means that the people in other parts of the country that are 
not farmers pay higher prices for foods and commodities than they would 
if they were not propped up with special programs.
  We had a command and control structure for agriculture second to 
none. I think the Soviet Union bureaucrats would probably envy the 
command and control structure of the Department of Agriculture and how 
agriculture over the years has evolved into this kind of protective 
command structure with farmers home loan mortgages and all kinds of 
goodies being fed to farmers and agribusinesses and establishing their 
own standards. We had situations were $11 billion over a 5-year period, 
$11 billion in loans, were forgiven under the farmers home loan 
mortgages program.

                              {time}  1715

  When you try as a citizen or as a Congressman to find out exactly 
what 

[[Page H1626]]
criteria was used and who authorized the giveaway of $11 billion of 
American money, you know, they forgave the loans over a 5-year period 
to the tune of $11 billion, and the process of forgiving, writing down, 
adjusting is still going on. We have delinquent loans outstanding right 
now related to agriculture which reached the proportion of $11 billion 
or $12 billion, more than $10 billion, right now outstanding in 
delinquent loans for agriculture.
  The giveaway took place more than 5 years ago, so that brought down 
the outstanding delinquencies greatly, but it was as high as $23 
billion at one time. I have some statistics here. They are not always 
easy to read, because the way they give it to you, they do not clearly 
explain themselves. You have to read between the lines.
  The various farm loan programs, they call farm programs direct loan 
fund activities. This is a report that took me some time to get. It is 
still very incomplete. At one point the outstanding delinquencies were 
up to $27 billion, as high as $27 billion, the outstanding delinquent 
loans. They forgave a lot of these loans, forgave them. If you forgave 
$11 billion worth of loans in New York City to homeowners and the 
owners of property and buildings, that would be a great boost to the 
economy of the neighborhoods. I find it hard to conceive of the 
Government giving away $11 billion to any group, but this was done and 
it has never been discussed.
  Congress, I thought, would at least have hearings on it, when we 
first brought it up as a result of an article which appeared on the 
first page of the Washington Post, which talked about the $11 billion 
which had been forgiven in loans. They talked about four or five of the 
recipients of the loans that had been forgiven. They talked about the 
fact that they were millionaires. Several were multimillionaires that 
have been the recipients of this generosity of the American taxpayers. 
I thought we would have hearings. I thought--you know, Whitewater is 
dealing with $60 million. We are talking about $11 billion.
  I thought we would be inundated with hearings, the Committee on 
Agriculture, the Committee on Ways and Means, the Committee on 
Appropriations. I thought all the committees would want to know how was 
$11 billion of the taxpayers' money forgiven, and why were millionaires 
involved in receiving these loan forgivenesses, the generosity of the 
loans, and what was the criteria. You still find it sort of like the 
savings and loan swindle. It is one of those things that got swept 
quickly under the rug. All our numerous media outlets and commentators 
and analysts, all of a sudden they just lost interest and it never 
surfaced. To this day it has not surfaced.
  So anything related to agriculture has been sort of mysterious, and 
it has sort of been out of the reach of ordinary people. For that 
reason I was quite pleased that we made the breakthrough, and yesterday 
for the first time the Congress came to grips with the corporate 
welfare program that feeds agribusiness. We ought to be applauded. It 
was a bipartisan activity. I hope that it certainly continues.
  My frustration began some time ago, and I thought I would go back and 
take a look at some of the things that I had said over the past. One of 
the items that I have placed in the Congressional Record to lament my 
pain and suffering as a result of watching the agricultural lobby and 
the agricultural complex ride herd over us, I went back and pulled it 
out of the Congressional Record.
  On July 20, 1990, I think it was the day after, I was very frustrated 
when I saw on the floor a bill which was a very reasonable bill which 
called for farmers, agribusiness earning more than $100,000 a year to 
be dropped from the subsidy program. I thought that my colleagues who 
were interested in saving money and streamlining Government and 
guaranteeing that the waste would be removed and that every dollar 
taxpayers pay would be spent wisely and efficiently and effectively, I 
thought my colleagues would rally to that; but, you know, when the 
gentleman from New York, Chuck Schumer and I proposed the bill, we were 
shocked with the number of votes that we received. As a result of that, 
I wrote my lament.
  I am just going to re-read that, because today is February 29, 1996. 
This was written July 20, 1990. I spoke at that time. I am quoting from 
my entry into the Congressional Record: ``Mr. Speaker, during the 
deliberations on the Schumer-Armey amendment,'' and it is very 
interesting that at that time it was also a bipartisan attempt, and of 
all people, you had the gentleman from New York, Chuck Schumer, the New 
Yorker, on one end of the spectrum, with the gentleman from Texas, Dick 
Armey, honestly waging war against waste in the U.S. Government through 
the agriculture program.
  I said: ``Mr. Speaker, during the deliberations on the Schumer-Armey 
amendment to the Food and Agriculture Resource Act of 1990 (H.R. 3950), 
I joined with a number of other colleagues in seeking to convince the 
Congress that the time has come to use common sense and make some 
reasonable changes in the farm subsidy program. Although numerous 
changes are needed in the obsolete subsidy formulas, the amendment 
proposed only one small correction. Farmers earning more than $100,000 
in adjusted gross income would be dropped from the subsidy program and 
would no longer be eligible for a government check of up to $50,000.
  ``Despite the fact that the authors of the amendment could prove that 
no family farmers would be hurt; despite the fact that less than 3 
percent of the present acreage would be impacted by the change; despite 
the fact that it was demonstrated that the people in greatest need 
within our country--the children, the homeless, and the unemployed--are 
not eligible for $50,000 government checks; despite these and many 
other illuminating facts, the Agriculture Committee refused to accept 
the amendment. On a floor vote, the committee was overwhelmingly 
supported by the Members of Congress.
  ``* * * it is obvious that we have learned nothing from the pattern 
of massive waste in military spending and the monstrous giveaways to 
the savings and loan crooks. ``There was a clear statement to the 
electorate of America. Let the people suffer but we have to do our 
deals.'' That was the statement.
  I offered the following as a concession speech to the powerful 
Agriculture Committee, and I added a little rap comment here which I 
call Let the People Suffer.

                         Let the People Suffer

      (A concession speech to the powerful Agriculture Committee)

     Let the people suffer!
     But we got to do our deals
     When hungry babies holler
     Make them swallow bitter pills.
     We got to do our deals:
     Family farmers are really quite rare
     But lawmakers never despair
     We let millionaires profit
     From the myth that farmers are there.
     Let the people suffer!
     Subsidize fat farmers
     Guarantee corrupt banks
     Cut kids' anti-viral vaccinations
     But we must maintain our tanks.
     Let the people suffer!
     They fully understand
     Why all our foreign embassies
     Are built to look so grand.
     Let the people suffer!
     Let the children feel the pain
     Government can't do it all,
     So leave the homeless in the rain.
     Let the people suffer!
     But we have to do our deals
     Leadership lacking strong wills
     Rule against creative minds
     Then stumble into old binds
     This budget is stale stew
     Nothing is really new
     Our current game Is still insane
     The present message
     Is too much the same:
     Let the people suffer!
     But we have to do our deals.

  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, that was the result of my frustration on July 
20, 1990. I am happy to report that some movement has taken place since 
the awesome power of the Committee on Agriculture came down on that 
amendment on that day before July 20, on July 19. The agriculture lobby 
came down and squeezed the opposition to death. I think we got less 
than 60 votes for that amendment, which said simply that any farmer 
which had an adjusted gross income of $100,000 would not be eligible 
for the subsidy program.
  Then again on March 7, 1995, I wrote a piece, placed a piece in the 
Congressional Record, which also reflected my continuing frustration 
over the power of the agribusiness lobby and the agribusiness empire, 
the agribusiness 

[[Page H1627]]
industrial complex. On that day, Tuesday, March 7, 1995, I said: ``Mr. 
Speaker, American agribusiness is one of the most successful industries 
on the face of the earth. Due to the vision and foresight of the 
Congress which enacted the legislation which created the land grant 
colleges, the agricultural experiment stations, and the county agents, 
government research and development made it possible for our farmers to 
leap way ahead of the rest of the world. No other Nation's agricultural 
industry is even close to the U.S. when it comes to farm output and 
efficiency. Let us applaud the Department of Agriculture and all of the 
nameless workers who over the years have done such a magnificent job in 
supporting our farmers.
  ``But now, Mr. Speaker, most of that work has been done. The mission 
has been accomplished. We have a monumental success and we can relieve 
the taxpayers of the burden of helping the agriculture industry, 
especially the rich corporate farmers. Let's have a means test and from 
now on let's support only the few remaining poor farm families. Let's 
stop the indiscriminate subsidies. Let's end the crop insurance. Let's 
stop the special mortgages. Let's leave the marketplace alone and end 
the crop subsidies and price supports. Let's get the fat farmers off 
the dole. The time has come to drastically downsize the Department of 
Agriculture. We must end farm welfare as we know it. We owe it to the 
American taxpayers. In this Congress let us work hard to get fat 
farmers off the dole.''
  The following poem summarizes and conveys the seriousness of the 
situation. I call it ``Farmers on the Dole.''

                          Farmers on the Dole

     Republican patriots
     Come play your role
     Keep fat farmers
     On the dole
     Helping cuddly honey bees
     Coddling cattle grazing fees
     Meat a city orphan
     Never eats
     Dole for welfare
     Dole for cheats
     Congress sink your fork
     Deep into Republican pork
     Hypocrisy over all
     Drives you up the wall
     O beautiful spacious skies
     Small town editorials
     Festering full of lies
     Farmers on the dole
     Farmers on the dole
     Hi-ho the dairytake
     Rich farmers on the dole
     Decades over
     And over it repeats
     Dole for welfare
     Dole for cheats
     The story's never told
     About farmers on the dole
     Seeds not sown
     Wheat not grown
     Plow the dollars
     Deep in the dirt
     Hide the shame
     Cover hypocrisy's hurt
     Farmers on the dole
     Farmers on the dole
     Confess to free money's role
     Rich farmers on the dole
     Mortgage the barn
     Until it drops
     Timid taxpayers
     Insure the crops
     Rural swindlers
     High on the hog
     Food for the homeless
     Thrown to the dog
     The story's never told
     About farmers on the dole
     Republican patriots
     Come play your role
     Keep fat farmers
     On the dole.

  Mr. OWENS. At that time, Mr. Speaker, there was a partisan defense of 
farm subsidies. I am happy to report that yesterday on the floor that 
partisan defense crumbled, and we had legislation, amendments being 
offered by both sides of the aisle which sought to break through the 
hypocrisy of corporate welfare for agribusiness.
  Common sense is on the rise, you know. We should be pleased. In this 
great democratic process, common sense raises its head from time to 
time, and common sense is our greatest hope. If this great democracy of 
ours is to endure, and I think it will endure, because of the fact that 
built into the structure are opportunities for common sense to come 
forward.
  I think the fact that our legislators and Members of Congress have 
gone home and spent several weeks at home had something to do with the 
fact that there was a breakthrough and a recognition that agriculture, 
the agribusiness, is corporate welfare, and that we should get off the 
dole. Billions of dollars down the drain, billions of dollars down the 
drain, in contradiction of marketplace, the marketplace economy; a 
command structure similar to the Soviet Union's command structure. The 
problem is the Soviet bureaucrats would end it.
  But there is still much work to be done. Until we are able to deal 
with farmers' home loan mortgages and other farm loans out there to the 
tune of $10 billion or $11 billion that are going to be forgiven, we 
have only begun to scratch the surface. I think we ought to cancel the 
Whitewater hearings, cancel the hearings on the travel office at the 
White House, cancel the hearings on the travel problem at the 
Department of Energy.
  I do not say there is not a problem there. I am not going to get 
involved in trying to deal with the complexities of the White House 
travel office and the fact that the spoils system, which has been 
practiced for the entire time this Nation has existed, went into motion 
in a very crude kind of way, and has become a big, big, problem. 
Taxpayers' money should no longer be spent to probe the travel office 
at the White House, when we have $10 billion or $11 billion outstanding 
in the farm loan programs.

                              {time}  1730

  We ought to focus. The same committee responsible for investigating 
and probing in great detail the travel office problems, scandal, 
whatever they want to call it, that same committee is responsible for 
oversight for the Department of Agriculture loan programs. In fact, I 
first learned of the great outstanding number of delinquent loans in 
the farmers' home loan mortgage program and other programs as a member 
of that committee sitting there and hearing them talk about it. I was 
almost certain that we would have a return of the people who were there 
from the Department of Agriculture to tell us more about all of those 
billions of dollars, all those billions of dollars of outstanding 
loans.
  It seems that there are certain places in our United States 
Government and our executive branch and here in Washington where 
billions of dollars misused, abused do not matter. You have $60 million 
at stake in Whitewater. The taxpayers have to shell out $60 million as 
a result of the collapse of the Whitewater bank, a savings and loan 
venture which, in the constellation of savings and loan operations, was 
tiny, you know. We had one that collapsed that owed the taxpayers $2 
billion. The taxpayers had to bail it out for $2 billion. One in 
Denver, CO, almost $2 billion.
  Quite a few collapsed for almost $1 billion, another $900 million. We 
have a whole lot of savings and loan collapses that we have not even 
discussed that we ought to be really examining. But the committee chose 
to deal only with Whitewater for some reason.
  I said before I had a report, one of several reports that has been 
done on the savings and loan scandal, and one is the Department of 
Justice Financial Institution Fraud Special Report put out by the 
special counsel for financial institution fraud. And they give actual 
case histories in here, case highlights of things that happened during 
the saving and loan investigations and the kind of results that they 
got.
  There is a piece in here, a case history, on Charles Keating. It is 
called ``The High-Flying Financier.'' Charles Keating, sentenced to 
over 12 years in order to pay $122.4 million for costing the taxpayers 
$2 billion. Keating was sentenced to 12 years and ordered to pay $122.4 
billion. And it goes on to tell in summary what happened to Keating. 
Then there are other examples of great amounts of money lost, and 
finally what happened in most cases, we lost the money as taxpayers and 
it was not recovered.
  Keating will stay in jail for less than 12 years, and when he gets 
out, he will find a way to pay some of his $122.4 million. I am sure he 
has money salted away in various places, and he will live happily ever 
after. But he is one of the few that was even prosecuted. He is 
certainly one of the very few in the billionaire category that received 
a jail sentence. So there is a lot of unfinished business that we 
should be addressing in Congress in order to deal with the fair 
dispensation of the taxpayers' money. 

[[Page H1628]]

  I do not want to dwell on that too long. I just want to make the 
connection between the excesses in the agribusiness and the corporate 
welfare subsidies for agribusiness and the other excesses that our 
Government, we have permitted, and now common sense is moving to 
address. I mentioned common sense before, I think, in connection with 
the phenomenon that has happened in the Republican primaries.
  Normally I do not comment on the other party's primaries and I will 
minimize my comments. But the phenomenon of Pat Buchanan is everybody's 
business because Mr. Buchanan offers a very unusual development. A new 
dynamic has taken place within the Republican primary, and part of that 
dynamic relates to the fact that only Mr. Buchanan among the candidates 
has bothered to talk about what has been happening to workers in 
America, what is happening with respect to the average middle-class 
family. The Republican majority speaks incessantly about its concern 
for families. ``Families'' is a code word used over and over again in a 
thousand different ways. But when it comes to the economic security of 
families, the economic opportunity for families, what Mr. Buchanan has 
demonstrated is that there is a great vacuum. There is no discussion 
out there of the insecurity that families feel, that middle-class 
families now feel.
  I have a great proportion of my district of people who are poor, 
working-class people who were actually quite poor and they felt 
insecurity all their lives. In certain communities in this country, the 
Depression never went away. It has been there since 1930, and the pain 
and the struggle is there on an ongoing basis. But there are large 
numbers of middle-class families, both black and white and various 
ethnic groups, middle-class families who have been enjoying a measure 
of security. They worked at a plant 15 years. 20 years, they could look 
forward to staying there and retiring and being able to spend their old 
age comfortably. They could look forward to having their children come 
behind them and get similar jobs, and it went on for a couple of 
generations. But now the person has worked there for 15, 20 years, 
finds that there is a threat to their pension funds. They cannot even 
look forward to retiring without problems, or they are suddenly 
dismissed at just the point where they qualify for the pension funds. 
All kinds of tricks are played and that dream is shattered. Then many 
others find that they will not get close to the retirement age because 
the streamlining and downsizing has begun to take place in large 
corporate organizations.

  Streamlining, downsizing, is said to be necessary in order to make 
corporations more efficient, more effective. Streamlining and 
downsizing are necessary in order to maximize profits so that on Wall 
Street the stock offerings will be more attractive. Streamlining and 
downsizing accomplish all of those things, of course. Streamlining and 
downsizing is really seldom for the purpose of ending a structure, 
eliminating positions. Actually, they are going to hire new workers in 
most places. They are going to hire workers at much lower wages. They 
are going to hire workers that do not have seniority and have not 
accumulated certain benefits. Many of the downsizing and streamlining 
organizations are going to hire, rehire workers, but they are going to 
rehire them at much lower wage levels. Others are not going to rehire 
workers in the United States. They are going to hire workers in foreign 
countries. They are going to hire workers in Mexico. They are going to 
hire workers in Bangladesh. They are going to contract out to China 
certain parts of their processes. Whatever the reason, there is a great 
dislocation in the economy created as a result of the behavior of these 
corporations. The Democrats know it, Republicans know it. Members of 
Congress certainly know it. And yet we have not placed it high on the 
agenda. Oh, yes, there are some Members of Congress who have placed it 
high on the agenda. It is the leadership, it is the majority who have 
not. But the Progressive Caucus for some time has been talking about 
the need for a jobs program, a job creation program, a job training 
program. We have been talking for some time about that. We put 
legislation in.
  One of the first questions I was asked by my constituents was where 
is the Democratic program? Why doesn't somebody match Pat Buchanan's 
interests and his concern? Why doesn't somebody indicate that they 
understand that there is a wage gap, there is an income gap that keeps 
growing; that while 10 or 20 percent of Americans are making more than 
they made for great amounts, their incomes are escalating, they are 
getting more wealthy all the time. The rest of the 80 percent are in a 
stagnant position, they cannot gain on the cost of living. Cost of 
living is way ahead of them. Insecurity is there for a good reason. 
Those who have jobs are actually not able to maintain the standard of 
living they had before. Those who have jobs are very anxious about 
their ability to keep those jobs.
  We have been aware of this, and there are many voices raised that are 
concerned. Certainly David Bonior here in this House among the 
Democrats led the attack on NAFTA and the consequences that NAFTA would 
bring, and there were nearly 175 Democrats who consistently voted 
against all provisions related to NAFTA, and then they followed the 
same pattern with GATT. We understood that NAFTA and GATT were being 
stampeded through in order to guarantee that there was a minimum 
discussion of consequences. NAFTA and GATT, we knew, would bring 
problems. Not all of us. I think most of us were not trying to turn 
back the clock and back away from the globalization of the world's 
economy. Most of us were not trying to turn back the clock, as Pat 
Buchanan wants to do, and throw a ring around the United States, build 
walls, tariff walls, and resort to measures that are kind of crude and 
would maybe do more harm to the economy of this country as well as the 
world than they would do good. Not all of us, not most of us were 
concerned about those kinds of measures. We were concerned about the 
fact that the steamrolling of NAFTA and GATT would result in a 
dislocation for large numbers of American workers. We were concerned 
about the fact that nobody was willing to discuss building into the 
provisions for NAFTA and GATT some safety nets for workers in terms of 
education, in terms of opportunity. We were concerned about the fact 
that the technological revolution which rolls on, technological 
revolution which is fueled by the taxpayers' research and development 
efforts 20, 30 years ago, that that technological revolution would be 
to the benefit of a handful of people and that no provision would be 
made for the other people, the other Americans who certainly 
participated and were a critical part of the process of creating the 
technology which is so beneficial to the telecommunications industry 
and the computer industry and the information industry. We were 
concerned about the fact that human beings and human resources were the 
lowest thing on the list of the people that were pushing for the 
approval of NAFTA and the approval of GATT.

  We were right. The problems have only been compounded. And now as the 
problems are compounded and workers found an opportunity, middle-class 
people who are concerned found an opportunity to express it, even one 
election in New Hampshire, immediately we have some visibility for the 
issue. Immediately there is a discussion on ``Nightline,'' there is a 
discussion on all the Sunday talk shows, everybody suddenly has 
discovered there is a problem in America. There is a problem of 
anxiety. There is a problem of insecurity. There is a problem of seeing 
no effort to deal with the losers. There is a problem with the concept 
of inevitable losers. The people who negotiated GATT and the people who 
negotiated NAFTA will tell you, well, we knew there would be losers. 
There will be some workers who are going to lose their jobs, some 
entrepreneurs put out of business. There are going to be losers.
  What is happening now is that the losers are revolting and saying we 
did not volunteer to lose. We have not accepted the status of losers 
quietly. We are Americans. We helped to build this country. We helped 
to build this economy and we do not want to be thrown overboard 
casually by people who say there have to be some losers.
  Now, there are nations and there are economies, there are societies 
that do not accept the theory that there have to be losers. They do not 
accept that 

[[Page H1629]]
theory in Japan. You want to know the difference between the Japanese 
negotiators at the table dealing with GATT or dealing with bilateral 
trade agreements between the United States and Japan? The great 
difference is that every one of the negotiators from Japan knows that 
they are at the table to protect every strata of their society. They do 
not want to have losers. When they negotiate agreements, they are 
protecting small merchants, they are protecting categories of workers. 
The pattern of Japan has been quite pronounced. It is not a subtle 
thing anymore. Everybody knows that Japan negotiates to protect its own 
interest and it considers its human beings, the workers, the merchants, 
the small business people, the corporations, you know, but mainly the 
folks who need the most protection are the small business people.

                              {time}  1745

  Consumer prices are very high in Japan. The price of a pear or an 
apple or a piece of fruit is very high. The price of rice is very high. 
You know, it is a commodity that everybody needs and uses. They keep 
certain prices high, and they keep certain things in place in order to 
guarantee that certain classes of people are not ever in need of a 
safety net. They erect barriers in terms of inspection of our products, 
in terms of licensing, in terms of requirements of safety. They do all 
kinds of things to keep our products from flowing in rapidly into their 
market, because they are protecting their people. They do not want 
losers.
  Japan probably does it better and has done it better than any other 
economy. But they certainly do it in France, they do it in Germany. The 
negotiators at the table who are negotiating GATT for all the other 
countries, or NAFTA for all the other countries, they made certain 
their people were protected. So we do not want to accept the premise 
that there have to be losers. The losers happen to live in my district. 
I do not want to be the district where the losers are. They have been 
losers for too long in the 11th Congressional District in New York. 
They have been losers for too long in Brownsville. They have been 
losers for too long in Bedford-Stuyvesant. They have been losers for 
too long.
  I would like to have a government dedicated to the proposition that 
we want to protect them as much as we want to protect corporate 
interests.
  So what I am saying is nothing new. We were aware of the problem, and 
we have introduced legislation. I myself introduced several pieces of 
legislation, and one of them I introduced at the request of the 
progressive caucus. The progressive caucus has worked on the problem of 
insecurity among workers, of dislocation of workers, lack of jobs, for 
some time, and we developed a whole set of legislation.
  One of the pieces that I was asked to introduce was the Job Creation 
and Invest in America Act of 1995, the first year of the 104th session 
of Congress. I introduced the Job Creation and Invest in America Act of 
1995. That is there with a proposal for creating jobs in every area, 
for dealing with the needs that exist in our economy, for 
infrastructure changes, infrastructure improvement, surface 
transportation improvement, aviation improvements, railroads. We go 
into the nonphysical sector and deal with the need for postsecondary 
education training lifelong learning and the need to fund that and 
provide jobs in that area while you are providing more services, the 
need for early childhood, youth and families to be taken care of, the 
need to improve the health and environment. It was a comprehensive 
bill, came out to a lot of money.
  But at the same time we were preparing this bill, we read Japan had 
proposed a bill similar. It is a stimulus. It is a stimulus bill, a job 
creation, a job training bill, an education bill all wrapped in one. 
But overall it is a stimulus package. Japan introduced a stimulus 
package at the same time, and their economy is much smaller than ours, 
for $90 billion. They have introduced a $90 billion stimulus package, 
which was going to do similar things, focus on improving their 
infrastructure, because when they improve railroads and highways and 
airports, they know that it is going to redound to the benefit of the 
economy eventually anyhow. So it is not a waste.
  So Japan was doing something similar. But we were not without ideas 
here in Congress. The progressive caucus and myself have repeatedly 
discussed after the introduction of this bill ways in which some 
portion of this stimulus package might be introduced.
  There is a Federal Housing Trust Fund Act that I introduced which 
called for some new ways to get affordable housing by changing the way 
we finance housing, low-income housing, and it would create jobs as 
well as create housing.
  There is a Creative Revenues Act that I introduced, Economic and 
Educational Opportunities Act, several acts that I have introduced and 
other people have introduced which deal with education and deal with 
job training. And, of course, the Congressional Black Caucus 
alternative budget focused primarily on opportunity, job opportunity, 
job training, and education.
  We had a 25-percent increase in the education budget bill into our 
Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget. We were pleased when the 
President announced that he, too, would make education a priority, and 
there is a great increase, I think, in the President's first 7-year 
budget. He had $47 billion in increases for job training and education 
over a 7-year period. I was quite pleased.
  I was shocked, then, when I found out, of course, just before we went 
on recess, that an agreement had been made for an extension, continuing 
resolution, which actually agreed to the cuts that the Republicans had 
proposed for certain critical education programs. They cut title I by 
$1.1 billion by saying that it had to come in at 75 percent; it could 
operate only at 75 percent of previous funding. That was a 25-percent 
cut.

  They cut Head Start. They cut other programs. The Summer Youth 
Employment Program is still a shadowy kind of commitment. We do not 
know exactly how much money is there for it, and I mention these 
programs over and over again because they are critical. They are very 
important.
  If we do not have job training programs, as meager as the Summer 
Youth Employment Program, job training and provision of income for the 
lowest-income families in the country, if we do not have that, then we 
are not moving at all to fill up the vacuum that Pat Buchanan has 
exposed.
  The least we could do is keep programs alive which exist already. The 
least we could do is to energize our job training programs that are 
already in existence while we try to convince the Congress and 
everybody related that we need a massive education program, we need a 
massive job training program, we need a massive undertaking to deal 
with the fact that we are in a transition.
  We need a program which deals with something as basic as minimum 
wage. You know, that is a tiny step. If we cannot get a massive 
response to the kind of dislocation and anxiety that exists, then 
certainly we ought to take a small step. The meager step of an increase 
in the minimum wage, common sense says that we ought to do that.
  All of the polls taken in this country have shown repeatedly that 
Americans favor an increase in the minimum wage. They want to move the 
minimum wage from $4.25 an hour up in various parts of the country; it 
varies as to how they want to move it.
  But the meager proposal, the basic rock-bottom, proposal made by 
Congressman Gephardt, our minority leader, that has also been endorsed 
by the White House, has been an increase of 45 cents an hour per year 
for 2 years, 90 cents an hour over a 2-year period.
  Now, the least we could do for our workers is to indicate that we 
recognize that $4.25 an hour is no way to try to earn a living in this 
present economy. That comes out to about $8,400, I think, a year for a 
person who is working 40 hours a week. And you bring home $8,400 gross 
pay, you cannot support a family on that.
  But common sense says we ought to change it. Why does the Congress 
not listen to common sense? When are we going to have a breakthrough.
  I am optimistic now. We had a breakthrough yesterday. Suddenly, we 
could see that corporate subsidy for agribusiness is bad, suddenly we 
do not want to face the American people again and try to convince them 
we should pay farmers who earn $100,000 or more, 

[[Page H1630]]
$50,000, for doing nothing. Suddenly, we made that break. I am 
optimistic.
  I think in the next 30 to 60 days we may have some real movement on a 
minimum wage increase. The power of common sense is pushing from the 
bottom. The power of common sense says that no legislator can stand 
before his constituents and make an argument with a straight face that 
the minimum wage should not be raised.
  I know there are some legislators, some Members of Congress who have 
said that the minimum wage will be raised ``over my dead body.'' There 
are others who said we cannot afford to raise the minimum wage because 
you are competing with the workers in Mexico, we are competing with 
workers in Bangladesh and China. Common sense says in this economy, if 
you are going to have some kind of semblance of order and law and 
justice, you ought to pay people a little bit more than $4.25 an hour.
  Common sense has broken through at the local level. There is an 
article here that states, and this is from the Wall Street Journal of 
Friday, February 23, ``Minimum wage issue heads to the ballot box. 
Supporters of an increase skirt the unfriendly Congress.''
  What they are saying in this article in the Wall Street Journal on 
February 23, 1996, is that in towns and cities and States people are 
taking steps to increase the minimum wage. They are disgusted with the 
lack of concern and the failure to act on the part of Congress. So you 
have, in a place like California, a coalition of unions and community 
groups gathering signatures to place a measure on the November ballot 
that would raise the minimum wage, which is now $4.25, to $5 in March 
1997 and $5.75 a year later. That is an issue being brought, an 
initiative being brought in California.
  In Idaho, the State AFL-CIO has filed an initiative to raise the 
minimum wage, now $4.25 an hour, by 50 cents for each of the 4 years 
beginning July 1, 1997. A separate bill to raise the minimum wage has 
been introduced in the State legislature. The AFL-CIO has filed the 
initiative. They are going to try to get the voters to do it. The State 
legislature has gone ahead in Idaho to file a bill to raise the minimum 
wage.

  In Minnesota, the State legislature is considering a measure to raise 
the minimum wage, now $4.25, to $5.35.
  In Missouri, the community group ACORN is gathering signatures for a 
State initiative in November that would raise the minimum wage, now 
$4.25, to $6.25 an hour in January 1997 and by at least 15 cents 
annually thereafter.
  In Montana, a coalition of labor and community groups is collecting 
signatures to place a proposal on the November ballot to raise the 
minimum wage, now $4.25, for all workers to $6.25 an hour by the year 
2000.
  In Texas, a rare State in which cities hold authority over the 
minimum wage, Texas, the cities actually govern the minimum wage, 
signatures are being gathered in Texas for a November ballot initiative 
in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso to raise the base pay for 
all workers in those cities from $4.25 to as much as $6.25.
  In Washington, the State of Washington, Gov. Mike Lowry backed 
legislation raising the minimum wage from the current $4.90 to $5.30 an 
hour. But this month business interests killed the measure. Supporters 
are likely to counter the business killing of the measure with a ballot 
initiative for November.
  Common sense is breaking through. The people are forging forward to 
make this democracy work for all of the people. Common sense.
  There is every reason to be optimistic that common sense will 
prevail. It moves slowly, and there is a lot of suffering that takes 
place because we have people in power who have been elected by the 
people who do not have common sense. But common sense eventually breaks 
through. Common sense has broken through, and common sense prevails in 
a number of areas, like Medicare and Medicaid.
  The people who want to cut Medicare and Medicaid will do so at their 
own risk. The level of common sense is so great until they are likely 
to punish those who disobey the loss of common sense and persist in 
those cuts.
  We should not have to have a demagog like Pat Buchanan to raise the 
level of visibility for issues of this kind. We should not have to have 
a demagog like Pat Buchanan to bring to our attention the fact that 
here in Washington we are ignoring common sense. The Washington wisdom 
is stuck in the rut. The Washington wisdom is obsolete.
  Conventional wisdom here just does not seem to understand. The danger 
of having a Pat Buchanan as the general on the white horse riding out 
there to defend the interests of the middle class and the workers is 
great, because this is a general who is a deceptive general. He does 
not really care enough about the workers to provide the solutions to 
the problems that he highlights. Pat Buchanan has raised the issue of 
the income gap, but he does not want to deal with the problem of the 
minimum wage. He is not proposing a raise in the minimum wage.

                              {time}  1800

  Unless he has done so within the last 24 hours, Pat Buchanan has not 
addressed the issue that we want a simple two-step increase in the 
minimum wage. He is not dealing with that. Pat Buchanan is not dealing 
with the fact that corporations are paying a very small percentage of 
the total tax burden, the income tax burden. Corporations now pay about 
11.4 percent versus the tax burden borne by individuals, which is at 44 
percent.
  He talks about corporations taking jobs overseas, which we applaud. 
We applaud him for his ability to command the media and make the media 
pay attention to the injustices and the foolishness, the wrecking of 
the economy that takes place as a result of taking jobs overseas while 
you do not deal with compensating workers, while you do not deal with 
the adjustments necessary and the kind of transition program that you 
need.
  Pat Buchanan does not really deal with the workers in this country in 
terms of the environmental laws that are necessary, in terms of the 
attack by his party on the Occupational Safety and Health Act. He does 
not deal with the need to guarantee that workers are safe. He does not 
deal with the Striker Replacement Act, the fact that the right to 
strike has been abrogated, almost wiped out, by the striker replacement 
phenomena taking place across the country where management replaces 
strikers. Although they have the right to strike, collective bargaining 
is a right under law, if the strikers can be replaced, how can we argue 
that they have a right to strike?
  So Pat Buchanan is not the answer. So I close by indicating that the 
hypocrisy of Mr. Buchanan when it comes to concern for individuals and 
concern for workers is revealed in his own statements. He has not 
denounced himself, he has not walked away from his own statements that 
have been repeatedly made.
  The people on the bottom are of no concern to Pat Buchanan. I have a 
number of quotes. I do not have time for all of them. In the days ahead 
we should pay attention to what Pat Buchanan has said about justice, we 
should pay attention about what Pat Buchanan has said about immigrants, 
about African-Americans, and understand that this general on a white 
horse will lead the troops into great danger. This general on a white 
horse does not care about the majority of American people. This general 
on a white horse waves a flag that is a hypocritical flag.
  Certainly when it comes to African-Americans, Pat Buchanan, according 
to the Daily News of October 1, 1990, made it quite clear where he 
stood. He was a White House advisor to President Nixon at that time, 
and in a memo to President Nixon about the visit to Coretta King, who 
was the widow, of course, of Martin Luther King, on the anniversary of 
the assassination, Pat Buchanan advised Nixon not to visit Mrs. King. 
He said a visit to Mrs. King would ``outrage many, many people who 
believe Dr. King was a fraud and a demagog and perhaps worse. Others 
consider him the Devil incarnate. Dr. King is one of the most divisive 
men in contemporary history.''
  That quote appears in the New York Daily News on October 1, 1990. 
Buchanan has repeatedly insisted that Ronald Reagan did so much for 
affirmative action that civil rights groups no longer need to exist.
  Pat Buchanan said, ``George Bush should have told the NAACP 
Convention that black America has grown up, 

[[Page H1631]]
that the NAACP should close up shop, that its members should go home 
and reflect on John F. Kennedy's aspiration, `Ask not what your country 
can do for you, but rather ask what you can do for your country.' '' 
That quote is in his syndicated column of July 26, 1988.
  There are many, many quotes that show that Pat Buchanan is not the 
person to lead the people who are suffering in America, those who are 
insecure and uncertain. You cannot be led by a demagog who makes these 
kinds of statements and called Capitol Hill ``Israeli-occupied 
territory'' in the St. Louis Dispatch in October, 1990. He referred to 
Capitol Hill as ``Israeli-occupied territory.''
  In a 1977 column, Buchanan said despite Hitler's antisemitism and 
genocidal tendencies, he was an ``individual of great courage. Hitler's 
success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was 
an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness 
masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who 
stood in his path.'' The Guardian of January 14, 1992, is the source of 
that quote.
  I cite all of these because we are at least making the breakthrough 
on the issues. But the issues would be thoroughly confused, the issues 
that relate to working people, the issues of concerns to those people 
who are experiencing anxiety and who are the victims of the 
dislocation, the people suffering because our Government is guilty of 
great waste.
  Our Government is guilty of continuing corporate welfare for 
agribusiness, guilty of continuing to overfund the defense industry. 
Our Government is guilty of continuing to fund an overbloated CIA that 
loses $2 billion in its petty cash fund. Our Government is continuing 
to not pay attention to the kind of priorities that common sense has 
set forth.
  Common sense says we should put more money into education, we should 
not be cutting title I by $1.1 billion. We should not be cutting Head 
Start, we should not be dillydallying around with the Summer Youth 
Employment Program. Common sense says we ought to maximize our programs 
for educational opportunity. Common sense says we ought to maximize our 
job training programs. Common sense says we ought to pay attention to 
the fact that a technological revolution is going to cause a lot of 
suffering, and no one has a right to make a judgment that some people 
are expendable, that some people should be thrown overboard, that in 
the process of streamlining and downsizing, either the Government or in 
the private sector, human beings do not matter. Common sense says no.
  I am happy that common sense is on the rise. That common sense in the 
final analysis will save this democracy. This Nation will probably 
endure for 1,000 years because of the fact that there is a process 
built in which allows common sense to percolate and allows common sense 
to rise to the top. Ever so slowly the process takes place, but it is 
underway, and I think that it will have an impact; a revolution that is 
underway, pushed by the Republican majority, will hear from the people 
out there who will fall back on the wisdom of common sense. That common 
sense will prevail.

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