[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 29, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H5928-H5929]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              IN SUPPORT OF ROYCE-ANDREWS-KASICH AMENDMENT

  (Mr. JACKSON of Illinois asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of 
the Royce-Andrews-Kasich amendment, which is a bipartisan amendment 
that

[[Page H5929]]

reduces the administrative appropriation for the Overseas Private 
Investment Corporation, OPIC, from $32 million to $20.8 million. OPIC 
uses taxpayer money to provide direct loans and risk insurance to 
Fortune 500 companies, who in turn are firing American workers.
  One year ago, Congress and the President put an end to the six-decade 
floor beneath the aid to families with dependent children, or AFDC, a 
minimus program justified on the basis of simple humanity and basic 
morality, yet the corporations want to continue their AFDC program, Aid 
For Dependent Corporations. With their record profits and management 
salary and benefits, they have no such humanitarian or moral claim. The 
cost to American taxpayers and workers cannot be justified.
  With the destabilizing effects of corporate downsizing on American 
workers and their families, we should not be providing incentives for 
America's corporate giants to invest abroad, taking advantage of low 
wage cost, lower standards, and often exploitative working conditions 
of Third World countries rather than reinvesting and creating jobs at 
home. We need to raise the developing country standards, not lower our 
own in an ever-increasing global economy.

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