[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 138 (Wednesday, October 13, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H9959-H9960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   OUR TRADE DEFICIT IS STILL GROWING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, earlier today my good friend, the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Traficant), spoke on this floor about our trade deficit. 
He pointed out that our trade deficit in the last quarter hit an all-
time record of $87 billion. If that keeps up, it would be an astounding 
$350 billion for the full year, meaning that we are buying that much 
more from other countries than they are buying from us.
  Most economists agree that we lose, conservatively, 20,000 jobs per 
billion, meaning we would lose 7 million jobs to other countries in one 
year if our trade deficit stays at the rate of this last quarter. Many 
people believe we are losing these jobs, that we have this unbelievable 
trade deficit in large part because of bad trade deals, trade deals 
good for big multinational companies but very harmful to small American 
businesses and American workers.
  The Christian Science Monitor, one of the leading national 
newspapers, had this on its front page recently, quote, ``America's 
widening trade deficit, now more than $25 billion a month, is starting 
to cause concern in the topic echelons of the United States.

                              {time}  1745

  ``While the trade gap has been growing for years, it is becoming 
large enough that experts are becoming increasely worried it will slow 
the `miracle' economy of the 1990s.''
  Just 1 week later, the Washington Post reported that the ``suddenly 
slumping'' U.S. dollar ``is stirring unease about the potential for a 
stampede by foreign investors from American stocks and bonds, which 
could terminate the U.S. expansion and destabilize the world economy.''
  According to the Post, ``The problem starts with the U.S. trade 
deficit . . . as the booming U.S. economy sucks in massive amounts of 
imports, and slumping overseas markets absorb fewer exports from 
American firms.''
  We simply cannot, Mr. Speaker, continue to run trade deficits of 300 
or more billions of dollars each year without causing very serious 
problems for our own people.
  Today, our unemployment is very low, but our under-employment is 
terrible.
  We have many college graduates who work very hard and spend a lot of 
money to get a degree in a field in which there are very few good jobs 
available. There are so many people getting law degrees these days that 
even they are becoming of very little assistance to many in getting 
good jobs or positions.
  Most colleges and universities cannot discourage students from 
majoring in certain subjects without causing a faculty rebellion.
  So parents and students really need to start asking the hard 
question: Is it likely that I can get a decent job if I major in this 
subject?
  If we keep running trade deficits like we are now, we will have more 
and more college graduates working as waiters and waitresses. Also, 
young people had better wake up and tell these environmental extremists 
that we cannot base our entire economy on tourism unless we want to 
have almost everybody working at minimum wage jobs.
  This large trade deficit, which is causing us to lose so many high-
paying jobs, is also causing the gap between the rich and the poor to 
grow much wider.
  This is, I suppose, why it is hard for so many wealthy people to 
realize the extent of this under-employment problem and why so many 
upper income people support extreme environmental measures that really 
hurt lower income people by driving up prices and destroying jobs.
  I started thinking about all this after reading a column by William 
Safire in today's Knoxville News-Sentinel, which I assume ran in 
yesterday's New York Times. Mr. Safire, after being ripped off due to a 
big cable merger, wrote in a column entitled, ``Giant Corporations May 
Not Serve Us Well,'' these lines: ``The merger-manic mantra: In 
conglomeration there is strength.
  ``Ah, but now, say the biggest-is-best philosophers, we're merging 
within the field we know best. And if we don't combine quickly, the 
Europeans and Asians will, stealing world business domination from us.
  ``The urgency of globalization, say today's merger maniacs, destroys 
all notions of diverse competition, and only the huge, heavily 
capitalized multinational can survive.''

[[Page H9960]]

  Mr. Safire concluded, ``Only John McCain dares to say: `Anybody who 
glances at increases in cable rates, phone rates, mergers and lack of 
competition clearly knows that the special interests are protected in 
Washington, and the public interest is submerged.' ''
  Are we, Mr. Speaker, ``Wal-Marting'' the entire world? In a few short 
years, are just one or two big giants going to control every field and 
every industry? I sure hope not.
  A few years ago, I spoke on the floor of this House, pointing out 
that U.S.A. Today said competition existed in only 55 out of 11,000 
cable markets.
  The situation is worse today. The Wall Street Journal said then, 
``Competition is the last thing big cable operators want. They have 
vigorously lobbied local and State governments to keep their turf 
exclusive.''
  I said in my speech in Congress at that time, ``What we really need 
is more competition. Every place there is competition, cable prices 
have gone down and service has gone up.'' This is true in every field.
  Here in Washington, the two daily Washington newspapers sell for 25 
cents each. Most places where there is no competition, much smaller 
newspapers sell for 50 cents or more.
  I voted against the big telecommunications bill a few years ago 
because of my fear that it would only lead to a massive consolidation 
within the industry and the big getting much bigger. That is certainly 
coming true even faster than I thought.
  If the government, Mr. Speaker, keeps approving more and more 
mergers, if our anti-trust, anti-monopoly laws become a joke, if we 
keep giving every break to multinational companies and keep running 
huge trade deficits, our under-employment will grow worse, our middle 
class will be slowly wiped out, and the United States will be a very 
different place than it has been up until now.

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