[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 68 (Wednesday, May 15, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H5143-H5149]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
55TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF CRETE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May
12, 1995, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Klink] is recognized for
60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
general leave
Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on this special order observing the
55th anniversary of the Battle of Crete.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Pennsylvania?
There was no objection.
Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, it is late, and many Members have not been
able to join us tonight who had planned to make statements. They will
put their statements in the Record. I am sure that will not be of
distress to the Speaker, that we will not go as long as had been
intended.
Mr. Speaker, I do rise today to mark the 55th anniversary of the
Battle of Crete. This is really an historic event. It is of great
significance. It took place on the Island of Crete during World War II.
This was between Nazi forces and the people of Crete who were assisted
by the allied armies.
I would like to rise today also to recognize the heroic efforts of
the people of Crete that were exhibited not only during the battle
itself, but during the subsequent 4-year occupation of Crete by Nazi
forces.
At the outset of the war, Adolf Hitler had not intended to invade the
Island of Crete. It was when Italian forces were unable to overtake the
Greek forces on the Greek mainland that Hitler decided he would assist.
Soon after Greece fell to German forces, Hitler was convinced by others
to make Crete his next target.
Let me just talk a moment about the significance of the Island of
Crete. It is the largest of the Greek islands, about 160 miles long. It
varies in its width from about 7.5 miles to 35 miles. At the outbreak
of World War II, Crete lay at a very strategic position for both the
Allies and the Axis powers. For the British, who controlled the island
at the time, Crete was a very strong point on the lifeline to India. It
protected both Palestine and Egypt, and they had assigned elements of
the Royal Navy to be sheltered in the great natural harbor of Suda Bay.
But despite its importance, the British maintained only a small
garrison there. At the time of the outbreak of this war, it consisted
of only three infantry battalions, armed with several heavy and light
antiaircraft guns. They had coast defense artillery and searchlights.
But sensing a coming Axis attack, they began to reinforce Crete with
men and supplies.
{time} 2100
But it was, in fact, too late. Because of the persistent attacks by
the German Luftwaffe, they could send only a few thousand tons of
supply to the island. And so it was on May 1941 that Adolf Hitler
turned his attention to the Island of Crete.
Hitler's elite 7th parachute division began operation Mercury. At the
time this was the largest airborne invasion to that point in our entire
history, that is the entire history of this world. With the aid of some
500 transport aircraft and 500 bombers and fighters, the initial wave
of paratroopers, which numbered about 3,500, suffered great casualties
at the hands of Crete's ground forces. These ground forces, of course,
included heroic Cretan civilians who used knives and pitchforks and
sickles in their hands, and sticks and rocks, as some of their only
weapons.
The valiant Allied forces were eventually forced to retreat, but the
battle lasted 11 days before the Germans could declare a victory, and
it resulted in over 6,000 German troops listed as killed, wounded or
missing in action.
The losses to the elite 7th parachute division were felt so hard by
the German military and were of such significance that no large-scale
airborne operation was ever attempted by Nazi Germany again for the
remainder of the war.
After the Allied retreat, the people of Crete were left to fend for
themselves. The Cretan resistance movement organized in an effort to
thwart the German Nazi forces. For 4 years the resistance movement on
Crete inflicted very heavy casualties on the Nazi army. At one point
the Cretan forces even kidnapped a heavily guarded German general.
The struggle undertaken by the Cretan civilians became an example for
all Europe to follow in defying German occupation and aggression. The
price paid for the Cretans' valiant resistance to Nazi forces became
that of thousands of lives of civilians who died from random
executions, some who died from starvation, others by imprisonment.
Entire communities were burned and were destroyed by the Germans as a
reprisal for the Cretan resistance movement. Yet the battle of Crete,
in part, was to change the final outcome of World War II.
A direct result of this battle was a delay in Hitler's plans to
invade Russia. Originally Hitler had planned to move on Russia in April
of 1941. But Hitler was not able to move his forces on Russia until
June because of the time that was lost as the valiant people of Crete
had fought off the Third Reich. The consequences of this 2-month delay
was Hitler's forces facing the harsh Russian winter. And while Nazi
forces were able to penetrate into Russian territory, the snow storms
and the sub zero temperatures eventually stalled them before they could
overtake Moscow or Leningrad. This marked the beginning of the end of
the Hitler war machine.
As is so often the case in history, the battle of Crete was not the
first time a small force of Greeks fought against overwhelming odds.
Dr. George C. Kiriakopoulos, a noted author and professor at Columbia
University, has compared the battle of Crete to the ancient battle of
Thermopylae. Thermopylae, which is a very narrow passageway located in
east central Greece, was the site where King Leonidas and his 300
Spartans made their
[[Page H5144]]
final stand against King Xerxes and his Persian army of 200,000 men.
Although King Leonidas' forces were defeated by the Persians, they
defended the pass long enough for the bulk of the Greek army to escape.
King Xerxes, of the Persian army, was finally, when they
finally overtook Attica and Athens, was finally forced to flee Greece
after his navy of 1,000 vessels was destroyed by fewer than 400 Greek
ships during the battle of Salamis.
So just like King Xerxes, Adolf Hitler won his battle of Thermoplyae
in Crete, but that delay of 2 months cost him the war with Russia and
cost him also the opportunity to eventually try to invade Great
Britain.
Just last week, during his arrival ceremony for Greek President
Constantinos Stephanopoulos, President Stephanopoulos stated that
Greece, like the United States of America, continuously proves its
commitment to the ideals of freedom of democracy and international law
and order. It was because of the people of Crete and because they
believed in these ideals and fought and died for these ideals that we
as Americans should recognize and appreciate the historic significance
of the battle of Crete.
The people of Crete themselves will always be remembered and will
always remember the devastation that was brought to their island during
World War II, however, I ask that all Americans observe the memory of
the fallen heroes of the battle of Crete and honor the men and women of
Crete, who, during World War II, fought an oppressive invader to
preserve the ideals of freedom and democracy.
I would like to just mention a couple of other things about this
battle for Crete, because it has been looked back upon with great
amazement by many people who have analyzed it. It was the poet
Calomenopoulos who said of the battle of Crete in one of his poems,
``This castle you want to pillage, German, is founded on bones that are
centuries old, and its foundations have drunk blood for thousands of
years. It feeds on tears and sorrows make it strong. It's impregnable
and it's indestructible and always stands erect. Unbendable and
immovable, a bulwark of freedom. And it fights always standing and it
wields the sword.''
I wanted to take a look back at some of the amazing things that
happened during the battle of Crete and put this great battle in
significance.
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would yield for a second.
Mr. KLINK. I would glad to yield to my friend from California.
Mr. DORNAN. I enjoyed getting the gentleman from Pennsylvania's Dear
Colleague. I am sorry more Members could not join us. I know on our
side George Gekas, a loyal son of Greek heritage, would dearly loved to
have been here. He has done special orders just like yours.
I walked the battlefields of Crete with my oldest son, Bob Junior, on
the 40th anniversary, 15 years ago, or that anniversary week, and I had
not realized that at two of the major air fields that German airborne
were totally repulsed and at the third field, which we visited, it was
what the Iron Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, said after the
battle of Waterloo: It was a close-run thing.
The New Zealand troops, with great loss of lives and wounded men,
almost shut down the third major area of German paratroopers, and that
is the area that the prize fighter, Max Schmeling, went into as a
sergeant and a leader. Platoon sergeant. Of course, he had lucked out
and beaten Joe Louis in their first encounter, and Louis, the Brown
Bomber, kept his prediction that he would take him in one round. He did
it in seconds of one round.
Maximum Schmeling was a good man, as I understand, not a Nazi. He did
not understand Hitler's evil in the beginning and went down there, and
then never again was part of any major German movement. I forget what
happened to him. I am going to look it up after the order tonight.
But I appreciate the gentleman's taking this special order. I agree
with your assessment that it was a key battle that probably affected
everything after that. It was on the eve of Operation Barbarossa, which
we are coming up on that on the 22nd of next month.
I want to make an observation and then back out of this. More Members
should do what you are doing, Mr. Klink, and try to recapture for our
young people, as Ronald Reagan warned us. Just recent history with one
of our mutual friends on your side, Tom Lantos. I was down in the small
rotunda on the House side, in what we are now calling the Lantos
rotunda, or the Hungarian rotunda, there is Lajos Kossuth, the national
hero of Hungary in the last century; died, I think in Paris in the
1890s; exiled for 47 years. And thanks to Mr. Lantos of California we
have a bust of one of the great heroes of modern times, Raoul
Wallenberg.
We must study World War II. It is the watershed not only of this
century, but it is an epic. It is a watershed of centuries. And when we
focus in on certain battles, like the struggle for Crete, the first
really massive use of paratroopers, never to be done again by Germans,
as you pointed out in your Dear Colleague, I think it is a worthy
subject for young Americans to study in high school.
So I will go back to my office as fast as I can and watch the rest of
your special order with great interest, and then dig into my Crete
books at home and relive some of my footsteps walking this heroic
battlefield for the Greek people and the subcategory of the citizens of
Crete who are Greek citizens. Thank you for doing this.
Mr. KLINK. I thank the gentleman from California, and indeed he is
correct. I am reminded of former heavyweight champ Max Schmeling, who
was one of those 7,000 elite troops.
When the 7th Parachute Division--and you have to remember, again,
this was the largest airborne invasion in the history of the world at
that time. The casualties that were suffered by these forces were
heavier than the total number of Germans that had been killed in the
war to that date.
This precious live airborne weapon had been altogether decimated
moving into Crete, and not just by Allied forces or trained military,
but many of them by women with pitchforks and sickles and people with
sticks and rocks. The Cretan people just fought ferociously, not just
during the battle of Crete but for the next 4 years.
There is a lesson here for all humankind. The people of Crete,
together with the remnants of Allied forces from Britain, Australia and
New Zealand, as the gentleman from California mentioned, showed the
greatest valor of any of the conquered nations in Europe. The
commanding general, Kurt Student, this is the German commanding
general, called it ``the fiercest struggle that any German formation
had ever had to face.''
In fact, it was Adolf Hitler who sent a message to his German
general, Kurt Student, and said, ``France fell in 8 days. Why is Crete
still free?'' It took 11 days to capture the island of Crete and only 8
days to capture the entire nation of France. That gives you an idea of
the ferocity of these Greek citizens.
Moreover, the costly Cretan campaign, in the opinion of many
historians, prevented Adolf Hitler from invading the British Isles.
Many of his closest associates, including Marshal Goering, had
suggested that they use this 7th Airborne Division to make their
invasion of Britain. In fact, let me just read to you in ending some of
the newspaper headlines from this period.
On the 28th of July 1941, the Times of London carried the story that
500 Cretan women were deported to Germany because they took part in the
defense of their native island.
It was the Evening Standard in London on May the 24th of 1941 that
said, ``If Hitler takes Crete, one thing alone is certain. The next
island to be assaulted is our own.''
The Times in London on the 31st of May 1941 said:
A British naval officer has now reached the hospital. He
set out to cross the open sea to safety, with a Cretan girl
in a rowing boat. The boat was partly stove in and flooded by
machine gun attack from the air. Part of the officer's side
was blown away. To stop the bleeding and the gangrene the
girl forced him to lie with his wounded side in the
bilgewater in the bottom of the boat and herself rowed him
more than 50 miles to an allied island.
There was a German epitaph that was put on the entrance to the
village of Kandanos. It says,
On the 3rd of June 1941 the village of Kandanos was raised
to the ground, never to be built again. This was an act of
reprisal for the brutal murders of German parachutists,
[[Page H5145]]
mountain forces and engineer corps, by men, women and priests
who dared stand in the way of the Great Reich.
The victory at Crete cost the Germans 22,000 troops. About 400
aircraft were lost. The delaying effect of their attacks upon Greece
and upon Crete not only interfered with Hitler's designs upon Syria and
upon Iran, but eventually it proved disastrous in their attack upon
Russia, as I mentioned earlier.
The German army reached the outskirts of Moscow in October of 1941. I
think we know a little bit about the Russian winters from history. The
early frost had begun to interfere with the movements of the Third
Reich. Its arrival in front of Moscow 5 weeks earlier would have
certainly led to capture of that city, and perhaps on to Leningrad, and
history would not allow us to overexaggerate the impact that that would
have had.
An eyewitness from 1941 said,
You should have seen the womenfolk carrying the cartridge
belts folded round their waists. The women emerged in
Chersonissos carrying sickles, sticks and virtually anything
they could lay their hands on. The Germans suffered extensive
losses at the hands of these women.
Again I would appreciate all of the Members who intended to be here
with me, and I understand that they thought that it was late and did
not want to make it. So that would end my comments.
{time} 2115
Again, I would welcome Members putting their words in the Record and
would also welcome Members to join me in cosponsoring a resolution,
which I will plan to introduce next week, which would commemorate the
people of Crete and their valiant efforts 55 years ago in fighting the
oppression of the Third Reich.
Mr. COYNE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join in this special order
commemorating the 55th anniversary of the battle of Crete. I am pleased
to be able to celebrate the heroism and sacrifice of the Cretan people,
who bravely opposed the Nazi invasion in 1941, and who suffered under
Nazi occupation for the next 4 years.
In 1940 and 1941, the armies of Nazi Germany and Italy swept through
much of Europe. France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Albania,
Yugoslavia, and finally Greece were overrun by the Fascists.
Commonwealth troops and thousands of patriotic soldiers from the fallen
countries--Poland, France, and Greece, in particular--continued to
fight the Fascist onslaught, and when they were hopelessly outnumbered
they undertook daring seaborne withdrawals from continental Europe in
order to regroup, rearm, and build up their forces to fight another
day.
After securing Greece, the Fascists turned their attention to Crete.
Crete's location in the Mediterranean Sea made it an important
strategic objective for both the Allied and Axis forces. Crete sat
astride the important British communications route between England and
India that passed through Egypt via the Suez Canal. Possession of Crete
made the defense of this route easier for the British. The capture of
Crete was central to Hitler's plans to conquer the Middle East and
sever this important British supply line.
Because the British Royal Navy still maintained a strong presence in
the Mediterranean, the German assault on Crete would come primarily
from the air. Elite German paratroopers and glider troops spearheaded
the assault on Crete. These were the same battle-hardened troops that
had made the German sweep through the lowlands on Holland and Belgium
in 1940 so dramatically successful. On the morning of May 20, 1941,
thousands of German paratroopers and glider troops began landing on
Crete. They were supported by hundreds of bombers and fighters from the
German Luftwaffe.
The Allied forces on Crete were no match for the Axis invasion
forces, but they were able to exact a heavy toll on the invaders. The
British garrison on Crete was initially quite small--only three
battalions--but many of the Allied troops evacuated from Greece had
been sent to reinforce the garrison on Crete. These soliders--British,
Australians, New Zealanders, and Greeks--aided by the civilians who
lived on Crete--men, women, and even children--exacted a heavy toll on
the first waves of airborne troops. Men and women armed only with
knives, sickles and pitchforks attacked German paratroopers landing in
their fields and on the beaches.
The outcome of the battle, however, hinged on control of the island's
airstrips. If the Germans could capture one or more of these
facilities, they could bring in planeloads of troops. Commonwealth and
Greek troops, aided by patriotic Cretans, held onto the airfield
throughout the first and second days' onslaught, but on the third day,
the Germans secured the airfield at Maleme and promptly began landing
planes full of reinforcements and supplies at a furious rate. After
that, German airpower and additional reinforcements turned the tide,
and several days later the Royal Navy began evacuating the Commonwealth
and Greek troops.
By early June, 18,000 troops had been evacuated and another 10,000
soldiers had been captured. The Germans began their occupation of the
island, and the Cretan people began organizing an underground
resistance movement. For the next 4 years, the Fascist occupation was
characterized by guerrilla attacks and brutal reprisals. Villages were
razed and thousands of civilians were imprisoned or executed. Yet the
spirit of the people of Crete never faltered. Despite the horrible
price, they continued to resist the Nazis until Crete was liberated in
1945.
Mr. Speaker, we have undertaken this special order today in order to
pay tribute to the courageous men and women of Crete who, despite
overwhelming odds, resisted the invasion of their homeland by the
forces of prejudice and tyranny. Their struggle is a proud monument to
the nobility of the human spirit and the importance that mankind places
on freedom. It is only appropriate that on the 55th anniversary of the
Battle of Crete, we celebrate the heroic deeds of the Cretan people.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague,
Congressman Ron Klink of Pennsylvania, for holding this special order.
I rise to today to join my colleagues in commemorating a valiant
stand made more than a half-century ago on what was then the frontier
of freedom. It was a stand made by a battered but brave group of
individuals thrown together to halt the domination of a smaller, weaker
nation by a larger, more powerful aggressor.
Greece was engulfed in conflict--along with the rest of the globe--
during some of the darkest days of World War II. Indeed, in the spring
of 1941, Nazi domination of the European continent was nearly complete.
Following a valiant struggle against overwhelmingly superior German
forces in and among the mountains to the north, Greek forces had been
pushed entirely off the continent and were taking refuge on the island
of Crete.
The German Army looked covetously across the sea to Crete. If
captured, it would provide air and sea bases from which the Nazis could
dominate the eastern Mediterranean and launch air attacks against
Allied forces in northern Africa.
In fact, the Nazi high command envisioned the capture of Crete to be
the first of a series of assaults leading to the Suez Canal.
On May 20, 1941, the largest German airborne attack of the war
commenced against Greek, Cretan, and British forces, battle-weary and
crippled after the withdrawal from the mainland. Waves of bombers
pounded the Allied positions followed by a full-scale airborne assault.
Elite paratroopers and glider-borne infantry units fell upon the rag-
tag Allied soldiers, who valiantly stood firm in the face of certain
defeat.
Watching death descend upon them from above, the brave defenders of
Crete--having endured hours of vicious bombing, decimated the crack
Nazi troops at two key airfields. However, the Germans managed to gain
a foothold at a third airfield and soon were being resupplied and
reinforced by air.
Seven days later, the defenders of Crete--though clinging to their
rocky defensive positions--knew that they would soon be overrun. The
evacuation order was given, and nearly 18,000 men were rescued. These
valiant survivors had bought the Allies a week's precious time free of
Nazi air and sea attacks based from Crete. More importantly, they
inflicted severe losses on the German airborne forces, the showpieces
of the Nazi Army.
Nearly, 2,000 German soldiers were killed and more than 4,000 were
wounded or missing. So injured were the German units, in fact, that
they never again attempted an airborne assault of the magnitude of that
launched at Crete.
This month marks the 55th anniversary of the Battle of Crete, a proud
day in the defense of liberty and self-rule; when the sons of Greece
and Crete along with their British allies firmly answered the Nazi
challenge to freedom.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, may we take inspiration from the shining
example of the defenders of Crete in ensuring that this is indeed the
case. We must not forget those who have sacrificed their lives to
secure our freedom.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congressman Klink for
organizing a special order to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the
Battle of Crete. Throughout history, the Greek people have been
champions of freedom and self determination and their actions in the
Battle of Crete were instrumental in defeating fascism in the 20th
century.
In October 1940, Mussolini's Italy invaded Greece, entering that
country by coming through Albania. Responding to this crisis, the
British rushed to Greece's aid and quickly sent
[[Page H5146]]
Army and Royal Air Force units to Crete. With Italian troops bogged
down in Greece and delaying his brutal campaign of world domination,
Hitler sent German troops into Greece and directed that the Nazi war
machine take control of Crete.
In May 1941 the Nazis began executing Hitler's directive and launched
an airborne invasion on a scale unprecedented in history. With
lightning speed, the Germans dropped some 20,000 troops on the island
by air; in addition, the Germans and Italians launched a land invasion,
sending troops by sea from the Greek mainland, which had fallen to the
Nazis a few weeks earlier.
The ensuing battle put up by the people of Crete and other Allied
forces against the superior Nazi war machine was one of the most
significant of World War II. And though the Germans won the battle and
took the island, they did so at the highest possible cost--they would
eventually lose the war. Karl Student, the Nazi general in charge of
the invasion, called the battle ``the fiercest struggle any German
formation had ever had to face * * *'' The German High Command would
never again attempt an operation of that size.
The unanticipated heroism and ferocity with which the people of Crete
fought delayed Hitler's planned invasion of Russia by 3 months. There
were heavy losses on both sides. Strengthened by the knowledge that
they were defending a concept--democracy--that had originated from
their homeland, Cretan civilians, including women, children, and the
elderly, joined the battle against the Nazis, wielding pitchforks and
fashioning homemade weapons. By the battle's end, the Cretans and the
Royal Air Force had inflicted so much damage on Hitler's elite 7th Air
Division that it was rendered useless to the Nazi effort to conquer the
Middle East.
The battle, moreover, continued long after the 11 days it took Hitler
to finally take the Greek island. The Cretans organized a resistance
movement, which for the remaining 4 years of the war zealously fought
the occupying Nazi force. They suffered horrendously for their
resistance; the Germans executed thousands of civilians and randomly
decimated entire towns, villages, and communities. They did not,
however, suffer in vain.
The resistance the people of Crete mounted against the invasion
forced the Germans to attempt to invade Russia during the oppressive
Russian winter--a task that proved to be too much for the Nazis. Their
failure in Russia has since come to be recognized as the beginning of
the end of Hitler's Third Reich.
We here in Congress should do our best to ensure our citizens never
forget the role the citizens of Crete played in defeating fascism.
Indeed, we honor ourselves by honoring them--many of those who
participated in the Cretan resistance movement emigrated to the United
States and became American citizens.
I am proud to have been able to participate in the remembrance of a
historical event as important as the Battle of Crete. As the sacrifices
the Cretans made 55 years ago demonstrate, we are indebted to Greece
not only for giving the world the system upon which our country was
founded, but for shedding the blood of their sons and daughters to
protect that system as well. I strongly encourage all Americans to join
me in honoring Greek-Americans of Cretan decent, and our friends in
Greece and Crete, for their contribution to one of the most important
battles of the 20th century.
Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would yield to my good
friend, Bernie Sanders, for the rest of my time.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, let me begin by expressing my disappointment at the vote
that took place in the House today regarding the defense budget. It
seems to me that in a time when Speaker Gingrich and his colleagues are
talking about the need to move this country toward a balanced budget
and are talking about the crisis of our deficit situation, that it
makes no sense for the Republican leadership to be proposing a defense
budget which is $13 billion more than President Clinton has request.
I find it especially hypocritical that at a time when the Republican
leadership is saying that we have got to balance the budget and to do
so we must make major cuts in Medicare, major cuts in Medicaid, major
cuts in education and veterans' programs and environmental protection,
in the fuel assistance program, and so many programs that the middle
class and the working class of this country depend upon, low-income
people depend upon that at the same time Mr. Gingrich says, well, it is
OK that we spend billions more for B-2 bombers that the Pentagon does
not want, that we start spending billions of dollars more for the star
wars program.
The budget of the U.S. Government is what this country is all about,
and I think it is a sad day that we are saying that it is appropriate
to spend billions more on the military, despite the end of the cold
war, that we are prepared to put approximately $100 billion into
defending Europe and Asia, although we do not even know who the enemy
is now, but we do not have enough money to take care of our senior
citizens who are in need, we do not have enough money to take care of
our children.
This country has by far the highest rate of childhood poverty in the
industrialized world, 22 percent of our kids in poverty. We do not have
enough money to help them. We do have enough money to build B-2 bombers
and star wars and things that the Pentagon does not even want. I think
that is a very sad state of priorities that Mr. Gingrich and the
Republican leadership are expressing.
Mr. Speaker, what I want to concentrate on today is what I think is
the most important issue facing this country, and that is the state of
our economy and my very great fears that this country, in many ways, is
moving toward an oligarchy, which is a nation controlled by relatively
small numbers of very, very wealthy people.
What is going on in this country today is that since 1973, 80 percent
of all American families have seen their incomes either decline or at
best remain stagnant. What is going on in my State of Vermont and what
is going on all over this country today is that we are seeing working
people work longer hours for lower wages. These families look to the
future. They are extremely worried about what is going to happen to
their kids because it appears very likely that for the first time in
the modern history of the United States, our children will have a lower
standard of living than we will have.
Mr. Speaker, this, in my view, is the most important issue facing
this country. I get very disappointed as an Independent, as the only
Independent in the Congress, that we do not see enough discussion here
on that issue, certainly from the Republican leadership. We must have
more of that discussion. What is also going on in this country is, not
only is the middle class shrinking, but we are seeing another
phenomenon that should be of concern to all people. That is that the
wealthiest people in this country are becoming much wealthier at the
same time as the middle class is shrinking.
We are looking at a schizophrenic economy. How bad is the situation
today facing the working men and women of this country? Let me just
make a few points. Again, these are points I think that should be made
over and over again. Twenty years ago, the workers of the United States
were the best compensated in the entire world. We were No. 1. Today,
depending upon the study that you might look at, American workers rank
13 among industrialized nations in terms of compensation and benefits.
In fact, one of the great ironies of the current economic period is
that we are seeing companies from Europe and elsewhere come to the
United States in search of, quote unquote, cheap labor. In my State of
Vermont and throughout this country, you can get hard-working
individuals who must work for $6 or $7 an hour. Those are wages that
large companies cannot get workers to work for in Europe. So we are
seeing for certain European companies the United States becoming what
Mexico is for American companies. That is a very sad state of affairs.
Mr. Speaker, adjusted for inflation, the average pay for four-fifths
of American workers plummeted by 16 percent in the 20 years between
1973 and 1993. In other words, whenever you turn on the television or
whenever you read the newspapers, they talk about the booming economy.
The economy is booming for someone, but it certainly is not booming for
the middle class or the working people of this country.
Between 1973 and 1993, the average pay for four-fifths of American
workers plummeted by 16 percent. People are working for significantly
lower wages. In 1973, the average American worker earned $445 a week.
Twenty years later, that worker was making $373 a week. That is the
issue that should be debated here on the floor of the House, should be
debated in the Senate every single day, should be debated all over this
country.
[[Page H5147]]
How did we go from 1st to 13th in the world in terms of the wages and
benefits our workers received? How did it happen that the middle class
is shrinking? How did it happen that real wages are declining? That is
the $64 issue that should be addressed by the President, by the
leadership of the Republican and Democratic parties.
Mr. Speaker, as bad as the situation is for the middle class and
middle-age, middle-class workers, the situation is far worse for young
American workers. In the last 15 years, the wages for entry-level jobs
for young men who are high school graduates has declined by 30 percent.
Young families headed by persons younger than 30 saw their inflation-
adjusted median income collapse by 32 percent from 1973 to 1990. Young
families headed by someone between 25 and 24, these are young American
families, had incomes $4,000 lower in 1991 than they did in 1979. Their
entry-level wages were 10-percent lower in 1991 than in 1979.
What all those statistics mean is that for young people graduating
high school going out into the job market, the wages that they are
earning are significantly lower than was the case just 20 years ago.
So, as bad as the situation is for middle-age people, it is a lot worse
for younger people. That is an issue that we must address and analyze
and correct. Americans at the lower end of the wage scale are now the
lowest paid workers in the entire industrialized world. One percent of
American workers with full-time jobs are paid so little that their
wages do not enable them to live above the poverty level.
Mr. Speaker, we hear a whole lot, we heard it from President Reagan,
we heard it from President Bush, we are hearing it from President
Clinton about all of the new jobs that are being created. The sad
truth, however, is that the vast majority if the jobs being created are
low-wage jobs. These are the jobs that pay workers $6 an hour, they pay
workers $7 an hour. They often bring no health care benefits, no
retirement benefits, and no time off for vacations or sick leave.
Also, one of the frightening aspects of the new economy is that more
and more of the new jobs being created are part-time jobs or temporary
jobs. What we are seeing is that many employers would rather hire two
people for 20 hours a week or for 30 hours a week rather than one
worker for 40 hours a week because the employer does not have to pay
any benefits.
In fact, in 1993, one-third of the United States work force was
composed of, quote unquote, contingent labor, and that is temporary
labor. That means that you get a job for 4 months, for 6 months and
then you have to go out looking for another job again. There was a time
not so long ago in our history when a real job meant 40 hours a week
with benefits, decent health care, perhaps retirement, that you moved
up the ladder if you did your job well. You made more money. You had a
certain sense of job security.
It seems that those days are ancient history, as many of the new jobs
that are being created are part-time jobs or temporary jobs. In the
past 10 years, the United States has lost 3 million white collar jobs
and 1.8 million jobs in manufacturing, just in the past 5 years. Five
companies, Ford, AT&T, General Electric, ITT and Union Carbide alone
have laid off well over 800,000 American workers in the last 15 years.
Meanwhile, while the decent-paying jobs continue to disappear, the
number of involuntary part-time workers tripled between 1970 and 1993.
People might be surprised to know that the largest private sector
employer in the United States today is not General Motors. It is not
General Electric. It is not IBM. It is Manpower Incorporated. They are
the leading supplier of temporary employees.
Now, one of the tragic results of declining wages in America is that
the average American worker is now working significantly more hours
than used to be the case. The number of Americans working at more than
one job has almost doubled over the last 15 years. So if the average
American thinks, my God, I am the only person who has to work two jobs
or three jobs, wake up. It is your neighbor doing that. It is people
all over this country, because as real wages decline, people are just
scrambling as hard as they can. Certainly in the State of Vermont, it
is not unusual to see people working two jobs, three jobs, just to pay
the bills.
Furthermore, when we talk about things like family values, I think
what many of us mean is the ability of a husband and a wife to spend
some quality time with their kids. I remember seeing a constituent of
mine in Burlington, VT, who told me--she was shopping at a grocery
store, that she was working three part-time jobs. Her husband was
working four part-time jobs. They hardly ever had a chance to be
together or, let alone, to spend time with their child.
That is what is happening all over this country. Not only are people
working longer hours, in fact the average American is now working
approximately 160 hours a year more than was the case just 20 years
ago. But what we are also seeing is that more and more Americans are
lacking adequate medical insurance.
We had a major debate here on the floor of the House several years
ago about the need for a national health care policy. Those of us who
advocated the right of all Americans to have health care as exists in
virtually every other industrialized nation on earth, we lost that
debate. The result is that 3 years later, we are seeing more and more
Americans not only without any health insurance, but we are seeing more
Americans who have inadequate health insurance. By that, I mean very
high premiums, large deductibles, large copayments. The situation is
such that many people, even when they are sick, hesitate to go to the
doctor because they just cannot afford the bill.
In terms of home ownership, which is a key part of the American
dream, that home ownership is also in rapid decline for the average
American worker. As a result of lower and lower incomes, an increasing
number of young Americans can no longer afford to purchase their own
homes. In 1980, 21 percent of Americans under 25 owned their own homes.
In 1987, only 16 percent did. The answer is obvious: If you are not
making decent wages, there is no way you are going to be able to put a
down payment or pay the mortgage on a home.
Mr. Speaker, while the middle class is in decline or the real wages
of American workers are going down, or while many of the new jobs are
being created to pay people $4.50, $5 and $6 an hour, there is another
aspect of our economy that must be addressed. That is, clearly not
everybody is hurting. Some people are doing very, very well.
This is an issue we just do not talk about enough. I think on this
floor of the House, and certainly the media does not talk about it
enough, today, the United States has the dubious distinction of having
the most unfair distribution of wealth and income in the entire
industrialized world. I think many of us used to think that in
countries like England, where you have queens and dukes the lords and
barons, that those were really class countries that you had a ruling
class and an upper class and you had a lower class. But the truth of
the matter is that the United States of America today has a much more
unfair and unequal distribution of wealth than England. We have a much
more unequal distribution than any other country on earth. Hardly ever
talked about, this issue, but we should.
What is going on now is that the wealthiest 1 percent of the
population own 40 percent of the wealth in this Nation. That is more
wealth than the bottom 90 percent.
{time} 2130
The richest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, and
that gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider.
But it is not only wealth. We also have the most unfair distribution
of income in the entire industrialized world. The highest-earning 4
percent of our population make more money than do the bottom 51
percent.
Mr. Speaker, from 1979 to 1995, household incomes in the United
States grew by $800 billion in real terms. But 50 percent of that sum
went to the wealthiest 5 percent of households, and 97 percent of it
went to the wealthiest 20 percent. The remaining 80 percent of families
scrambled for the crumbs, divvying up just 3 percent of all income
growth between them.
So, in other words, when we talk about the growth of the economy,
what we should ask ourselves is who is gaining that income. And what is
clearly
[[Page H5148]]
going on is the lion's share, the overwhelming amount of the growth in
income, is going to the very, very wealthiest people while the vast
majority of the people are seeing a decline in their real incomes.
Mr. Speaker, there are a number of reasons why the United States is
seeing a decline in its standard of living for its middle class and for
its working people, and I think one of them certainly has to do with
the decline in our industrial base, a decline of manufacturing in the
United States of America. I would urge Members of Congress just to go
to their local department stores in virtually any part of America and
check the labels on the products that they are observing, and more and
more what we are finding is that products are not manufactured in the
United States, but they are manufactured in the Far East, they are
manufactured in Malaysia. More and more they are manufactured in China.
And we are not just talking about cheap products, but we are talking
about top-of-the-line products as well.
And the reason that more and more products are being manufactured in
China is that American companies are beginning, have invested tens and
tens of billions of dollars in China, in Malaysia, in Latin America, in
many other very poor Third World countries.
So the good news is that corporate America is creating millions of
new jobs every single year. The bad news is that they are not creating
those jobs in the State of Vermont or the United States of
America. They are creating those jobs in China, and in Malaysia, and in
Latin America.
Now, why are these companies running to these countries? Well, it
does not take a Ph.D. in economics to figure it out. They are going to
China because workers in China receive 20 cents an hour. There are
workers in China who are 12 or 13 years of age making products that we
in the United States are purchasing, and, Mr. Speaker, I might mention
that I have introduced legislation which would prohibit the importation
of products made in any country that is made by child labor. There are
children in China, children in India, children in Pakistan, who are 10,
11, 12 years old who are working for minuscule wages, who are doing the
work that American workers used to do.
It is no secret that this year we will have a trade deficit of about
$160 million. That means we are importing $160 billion more in goods
and services than we export. That equates to about 3 million decent
manufacturing jobs
Mr. Speaker, in my view, we are not going to expand the middle class,
we are not going to create decent-paying jobs for our young people
unless we deal with the trade situation. I think the evidence is very
clear that NAFTA has been a disaster, as many of us had feared it would
be. I have very serious reservations about GATT.
We need a trade policy that is a fair trade policy, a trade policy
that protects American workers, that allows us to export as well as
import.
Mr. Speaker, if we are going to address the issue of raising wages in
America, not only do we have to deal with the trade situation, not only
do we have to become a country again which is building real products
here in the United States of America, which is using our technology go
create new jobs, producing real goods, but we also have to, in fact,
raise the minimum wage, and I am delighted that more and more Members
of Congress are beginning to understand that.
A number of years ago I brought forth legislation that would raise
the minimum wage to $5.50 an hour. It was my view and is my view that
if somebody in this country works for 40 hours a week, that person
should not be living in poverty. That person should not be more in debt
at the end of the week than he or she was in the beginning of the week.
And when some of us began that crusade to raise the minimum wage,
President Clinton was not on board, and many Democrats were not on
board, and virtually no Republicans were on board. I am happy to say
that right now we have a majority support for raising the minimum wage
in the House, I believe that is the case in the Senate as well, and I
certainly hope that the gentleman from Georgia, [Mr. Gingrich] will
allow a clean minimum wage bill to come up in the House so that we can
vote it in and have the President sign it.
The minimum wage today is at its lowest point in 40 years. If the
minimum wage today was at the same level as it was in 1970, it would be
over $6 an hour. So to raise the minimum wage to $5.50 an hour, as the
President would have us do in 2 years, is a conservative effort, and it
is something we should do immediately.
Mr. Speaker, if we are going to turn this country around, I think it
is important that we also address the tax situation in this country.
The fact of the matter is that as the rich become richer, as the middle
class is shrinking, and as poor people are just fighting desperately to
keep their heads above water, I think what we need to do is take a hard
look at progressive taxation, and that is to say that the largest
corporations who are today contributing significantly less to our
national coffers than they did 30 or 40 years ago, to the richest
people in this country who have enjoyed significant declines in their
real tax rates, that it is appropriate to ask those people whose
incomes are soaring to start paying their fair share of taxes so we can
provide some real tax breaks for the middle class and the working
people of this country.
Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons that wages in America have declined
is that the trade union movement in America has also declined. I think
it will not be a surprise to most American workers to understand that
employers often do not, out of the generosity of their heart, pay
decent wages. They pay decent wages because there are people who are
negotiating with them to get them to pay decent wages.
One of the concerns that I have right now in this country is that it
is harder and harder for workers to be able to form trade unions. Very
often, employers will harass those workers who are trying to develop a
union, they will fire those workers under all kinds of pretenses, they
will bring in high-falutin consultants to try to frighten workers, they
will threaten workers that they will go to Mexico and Asia.
I think we need a new set of labor law which says that any worker in
this country who wants to join a union should have the freedom, without
fear, to participate in that process, and I believe that as we
strengthen the labor movement in this country, that is, more and more
workers join unions, they will be stronger and be able to negotiate
good contracts which will not only benefit them, but it will benefit
the whole country. Nonunion workers benefit substantially when we have
strong unions because unions drive wages up, and employers therefore
must pay nonunion workers a decent wage as well.
Mr. Speaker, I will soon be introducing a piece of legislation which
I think is quite important. One of the concerns that I have
increasingly in this country is the degree to which the taxpayers of
our Nation are subsidizing large corporations through corporate
welfare. Very conservative groups as well as progressive groups
estimate that we spend about $125 billion every year on corporate
welfare, which is tax breaks and subsidies that go to some of the
largest corporations in America, and let me give you just one example
of something that I and some of my colleagues are working on right now.
It seems to me to be very wrong that when the United States Pentagon,
when our Pentagon, negotiates with various defense contractors, that
some of the CEO's of those defense companies end up making huge
salaries, basically at taxpayer expense, at the same time as they are
laying off tens and tens of thousands of American workers. We pay the
President of the United States $250,000 a year, and it seems to me to
be very wrong that the taxpayers of this country should be paying the
CEO's of the major defense companies substantially more.
I think the taxpayers of America should be concerned, for example
that in 1994 James Miller, who is the CEO of General Dynamics, earned
$11.3 million in compensation. Now, what is interesting is that General
Dynamics, as a percentage of their business, does 100 percent of their
business with the U.S. Government, which means that the U.S. Government
is paying Mr. Miller $11.3 million in income, and I think that is wrong
for at least two reasons:
First, in terms of our deficit, I do not know why we are paying CEO's
who are 100 percent dependent on taxpayer
[[Page H5149]]
money over $11 million a year in compensation. That is wrong.
But, second of all, it is wrong as an example, as a model of what
this Congress should be doing. One of the more shameful aspects of the
American economy at this point is that CEO's of major corporations
today are earning about 200 times what their workers are making; 200
times. That is unheard of in the industrialized world. It seems to me
that the U.S. Congress should not be encouraging and supporting that
type of economic activity.
So we have legislation, and I have introduced legislation along with
several other Members, that would say to the CEO's of the major defense
companies that they cannot earn from the taxpayers of this country more
than $200,000 a year in compensation.
I should point out once more that the head of General Dynamics
receives $11.3 million, and as best we could understand, every single
penny of that money comes from the taxpayers of this country. That does
not make any sense. We are cutting back on so many programs that
working people need and to say, yeah, we got $11 million to pay the
head of General Dynamics makes no sense. And I should point out that
this very same company has laid off over 35,000 workers between 1990
and 1995.
So these guys are making more and more money from the taxpayers at
exactly the same time as they are laying off tens of thousands of
American workers. That does not make any sense to me at all.
Mr. Speaker, I think you know sometimes Members of the Congress
become a little bit obsessed with ourselves and we think that the end
of the world is the Beltway around here. But we should pay attention to
the fact that tens of millions of people are giving up on the political
process, they are giving up on the two-party system. Again, it is an
issue that we do not talk about too much, but maybe as the only
Independent in the Congress I can raise the issue, and that is there is
something fundamentally wrong with the politics of this country when in
the last election, in 1994, only 38 percent of the people came out to
vote. 62 percent of the people did not vote.
Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of reasons for that. But I think the
major reason has to do with the fact that large numbers of people who
are hurting very, very badly no longer believe that the U.S. Congress
represents their interests or is capable of responding to their needs
and their pain, and they are saying, hey, politics, it does not matter,
we do not care what is going on in Washington, we do not pay attention
to what is going on in Washington because all these people are living
in another world.
I think, given the fact that so many men and women have put their
lives on the line, have fought and died to defend freedom and democracy
in this country, it is a very sad state of affairs that the United
States has today by far the lowest voter turn out of any industrialized
nation on earth.
Now how do we turn that around? How do we create a vibrant democracy
where we have 70 to 80 percent of the people voting rather than 40
percent of the people or 50 percent?
{time} 2145
I think, frankly, the answer is that this Congress has got to show
the American people that we do feel their pain, that we do understand
what is going on in their lives, and we are willing to respond to their
problems. If we do not respond to their problems, people are going to
say, ``It does not make any difference. Why do I have to get
involved?''
It is a catch-22. Unless ordinary people begin to stand up and say,
wait a second, the U.S. Congress, representing all of the people in
this country and not just the very rich, in the United States of
America we should be able to provide health insurance for every man,
woman, and child, as most of the industrialized nations do; in the
United States of America we should be able to make sure that every
young person who has the ability is able to get a college education, as
many of our industrialized neighbors do; that in the United States of
America we should be able to create decent paying jobs; that unless the
people make those demands on the Congress and start electing people to
the Congress who are going to fight for the middle class, fight for the
working people, the Congress is going to be unresponsive.
That takes us to another issue in terms of how and why the Congress
is unresponsive. That takes us to campaign finance reform. Clearly
there is something very much amiss when increasingly we are seeing in
Congress, in State houses all over America, very wealthy people taking
out their checkbooks and writing themselves large checks and saying,
``Gee, I think I would like to run for President. It is kind of boring
in business now, I have a midlife crisis, I would like to do something
else. I will make out a check and then run for the Presidency. I will
run for Governor, I will run for the Senate,'' so forth and so on. That
is not what democracy is supposed to be about.
A democracy is not supposed to be about the Democratic and Republican
Parties holding fund-raisers here in Washington, D.C. I think last
month, or a couple of months ago, the Republicans raised $16 million in
one night, and recently the Democrats raised $12 million in one night,
money which is coming from some of the wealthiest people in the United
States of America, some of the largest corporations in the United
States of America. Some of these guys contribute to both political
parties. Is that what democracy is supposed to be about? I think not.
I think we must move toward campaign finance reform, and the most
important aspects of that is we have to limit the amount of money that
people can spend in a campaign. If you limit the amount of money, you
take away the advantage of the big money interests. They cannot
outspend you 10 to 1.
I think we have to move toward public funding of elections, combined
with incentives coming from small donations, matching small donations.
In that way we will have people who are serving in Congress who come
from the ranks of ordinary people and simply are not hobnobbing with
the wealthy and the powerful.
Most importantly, what concerns me is that tens and tens of millions
of Americans believe the political process does not matter to them.
They have given up on the political process. That is very, very sad. I
would suggest to people, and I say this as somebody who was the mayor
of a city for 8 years and am now in my third term in the U.S. Congress,
that the only solution, basically, to that situation is for ordinary
people to begin to stand up and fight back and reclaim this country for
the ordinary people, for the middle class, for the working people of
this country, and inform the U.S. Congress that all of us have a right
to a decent standard of living and a good life. All of our children
have the right to a good future. That right should not just exist to
the very wealthy and the very powerful, but that is not going to change
unless people get involved in the political process, unless people
understand what is going on at all levels of government.
Mr. Speaker, let me just simply conclude by stating that in this
great country, if democracy is to survive, if all of our people are to
enjoy a decent standard of living, that is not a Utopian vision, that
can happen, but people have got to be involved in the political process
and have got to stand up and fight for their rights.
____________________