[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 128 (Tuesday, September 17, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H10498-H10499]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  FUTURE OPPORTUNITY FOR OUR CHILDREN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Mica] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Madam Speaker, I come before the House tonight to and I 
spoke earlier today about the lack of a national drug policy or 
strategy and failure of this administration to protect our young 
people. We now see skyrocketing drug use and abuse, and tonight I am 
here to talk about another thing that affects our young people, and 
that is their opportunity for the future, their opportunity to have 
jobs, their opportunity to have employment, their opportunity to have 
income in our society which has always provided such great opportunity.
  You know, we have heard from this administration about the 10 million 
new jobs that are created, and in fact we need to just take a minute 
and look at those 10 million new jobs because I have talked to people 
that have 2 and some of them 3 of those 10 million new jobs. They are 
part-time jobs, they are low paying jobs, they are service jobs, and 
what in fact has happened they are not telling us.
  The fact is that during the years from 1993 to 1995 we lost 8.4 
million good paying jobs in this Nation, people who had good paying 
jobs in technical areas that paid a good living wage, and those jobs 
were destroyed, and they have not been replaced. They have been 
replaced only by these part-time low paying jobs, and that is what I 
hear when I go back to my district; and that is not what I want for my 
children or for the children of America.

  You know I heard the most startling news. First I hear the news on 
the drugs for our teens that are offered up by this administration. Now 
I see the trade deficit. This is the headline in the Washington Times: 
``The Trade Deficit Worse in a Year, Productivity Crawls Higher.'' 
Trade deficit, startling trade deficits; they are running $10 billion a 
year.
  That means every single month we are sending more and more money 
overseas and we are losing a trade war, and at the end of this session 
it galls me to see this happen, because we had a proposal, a good 
proposal, to reorganize our trade activities, our international trade 
activities, in Washington at the Federal level. Right now we have 19 
agencies dealing with Federal trade.
  This is the flow chart. This is the most disorganized, disjointed, 
unorganized mess you have ever seen: 19 agencies, right hand not 
knowing what the left hand is doing, spending $3 billion taxpayer 
dollars, and we are getting our pants beat in the trade war. And this 
they reject, the President helped defeat it, the new Secretary of 
Commerce helped defeat it.
  Instead you know what they have done for us? They negotiated lousy 
trade deals, and then I see in my district what those lousy trade deals 
have done.
  You cannot see this very well, my colleagues, but this is an auction 
notice to sell equipment in my State near my district in Florida. It is 
because they have wiped out through negotiating a bad NAFTA agreement, 
giving up the opportunity for this Nation to produce agriculture to 
sell to its own people, and internationally we once led in agriculture. 
This is selling the equipment.
  And do you know what the farmers told me that went to this sale? They 
did not buy the equipment; they were selling equipment. That there were 
people with cellular phones speaking in Spanish, and this equipment is 
being shipped to Mexico.
  So here we see the fruits. They destroyed a good plan for 
organization to have some sense made out of our trade effort. Now we 
are selling through their bad efforts our equipment at nickels on a 
dollar overseas.

                              {time}  1930

  Madam Speaker, this is a national tragedy. What hope does this hold 
for our children: Lower-paying jobs, service jobs, part-time jobs, jobs 
without benefits? Here they are talking about $5.15 an hour. That is 
what their goal is, to pay $5.15 an hour, when in my State you get 
$8.75 an hour for not working on welfare, and you get medical benefits 
in addition.

[[Page H10499]]

  So these are the choices that have been before this Congress. This is 
what we see this administration has done.
  You have seen what we proposed. I proposed an organization to have 
our trade financing, to have our trade assistance, to have our trade 
negotiation together so we could help our businesses, rather than hurt 
our businesses and send our opportunities overseas.
  Instead of building a bridge for tomorrow, we are building bridges to 
Mexico and to other countries, with our assistance, so our goods and 
services cannot be shipped there, but their goods and services can come 
here. We are shipping those opportunities overseas, because they will 
not listen. Do Members know why they will not listen? They cannot stand 
a new idea. It drives them crazy.
  If they have done it this way, if it is disorganized this way, you 
keep it disorganized this way. If you have 33,000 people in the 
Department of Commerce and 20,000 plus are in Washington, DC, my God, 
we need every one of them here in Washington, DC.
  Madam Speaker, I have had it and I hope the American people have had 
it, too.

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