[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 126 (Tuesday, October 1, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H6786-H6787]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE NATIONAL ECONOMY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of
January 23, 2002, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) is
recognized during morning hour debates for 15 minutes.
Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge the House Republican
leadership to address people's serious economic concerns. Today we
awoke to reports on the radio which said that the front pages of major
newspapers were dominated by the failed performance of our stock
market.
Mr. Speaker, our Nation needs an economic plan that will address some
of the challenges we face today, like restoring economic growth and
opportunity. While the economy is crashing around us, the House
Republican leadership continues to answer by passing more tax breaks
for the wealthiest Americans and legislation that blames their failure
to act on the other body. At a time of mounting economic pain,
Republicans have ignored the people's priorities, from investor rights
to Social Security, prescription drugs to education, to economic
growth.
The Census Bureau reported this week that in the last year, the
number of people without health insurance rose by 1.4 million due to a
faltering economy and the rise in unemployment. Republicans will pass
this week another non-sense of the House resolution calling for tax
cuts 9 years from now, in 2011. CNN reported this week that U.S.
stocks, and I quote, looked to wrap up what might be the worst
September since the Great Depression and had their worst third quarter
since 1987.
In a few days Americans will start receiving 401(k) statements
showing another drop, a sharp drop, in their retirement savings. Senate
Democrats will attempt to extend unemployment benefits today to 1.1
million people whose benefits have been exhausted, which is the right
and responsible thing to do.
Today is the first day of the new fiscal year, yet as a result of
their failed economic program, the Republicans have been unable to
carry out their most fundamental responsibility by passing necessary
budget bills. So they will have to bring to the floor this week a
second continuing resolution in as many weeks to keep the government
simply operating. Their failed economic plan now threatens to cut back
resources for the Securities and Exchange Commission, cut back on
medical expenses for the Veterans Affairs Department, cut back
education, and cut back on front-line resources for homeland defense.
Last week I discussed on this floor this bankrupt economic agenda
embraced by the House Republican leadership. Today let me discuss some
basic facts about our Nation's economic future. In order to make
progress for all Americans, we need to understand the results that the
Democratic budget produced in 1993 versus the Republican economic plan
that was passed in 2001. In 1993, the House of Representatives had an
impassioned debate about America's economic future. Republicans
predicted then that the Democratic economic plan to cut deficits and
grow the economy would drive our economy into a ditch.
If you look at this chart, Mr. Armey on August 5, 1993, said that
``this Democratic plan is not a recipe for new jobs. It is a recipe for
disaster.'' On another chart, Mr. DeLay said that ``this plan has got
to be the biggest rip-off in modern history.'' Finally, on another
chart, Mr. Hastert predicted that ``the Democratic plan would add more
than $2 trillion to the national debt.''
The House Republican leadership could not have been more wrong about
that Democratic economic agenda to secure the future for all Americans.
In the 2 years after Democrats enacted this plan, the unemployment rate
dropped by almost 2 percent. Real incomes after inflation for average
families increased by more than 10 percent. We created more than 8
million jobs. The poverty rate came down. The stock market shot up. The
Federal budget deficit was reduced by $126 billion in just 2 years'
time and became a surplus within 5 years. Our economic plan defeated
the 1991 recession, and the lives of almost every American citizen were
improved due in large part to this responsible economic agenda
promoting opportunity in people's lives.
{time} 1045
Deficits came down; interest rates came down. The American people
created a high-tech revolution that raised living standards and
inspired hope in communities nationwide.
Under the Democratic plan, the facts speak for themselves. People
created opportunity for themselves, their families, and they created
opportunity for their fellow Americans. For almost 8 years we had
record economic prosperity due to responsible economic policies that
Democrats enacted.
Then, in the spring of 2001, the Republican economic plan passed the
Republican House, the then-Republican Senate; and the Republican
President signed it into law. But I would like to point to some other
statements that were made at the time.
The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), on this chart, on March 28,
2001, said that the President's budget will spur job creation. Again on
the chart, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) boasted that their
budget not only provides tax relief, but secures jobs and grows the
economy. But he said, we also fund our Nation's priorities and pay down
the debt. Finally, the majority leader, the gentleman
[[Page H6787]]
from Texas (Mr. Armey), said that the plan will promote economic
growth, a strong economy, and new and better jobs for our workers.
So the question now is, Where are we today? Did the predictions come
true? Well, today, 18 months after these big and bold predictions, the
Nation's economy and all of the economic indicators have headed south.
The stock market has lost $4.5 trillion since President Bush took
office.
If we look at this chart, over 2 million people have lost their jobs
since President Bush took office and the economic plan was passed.
Income for American families in middle-income brackets has declined 2.2
percent since the Republicans took office and, last week, for the first
time in 8 years, the poverty rate in our country went up again.
Consumer confidence has dropped in each of the last 4 months and is at
the lowest level since November 2001. The Federal budget, in just over
a year, went from a $236 billion surplus to a $165 billion deficit.
That is over a $300 billion swing, almost $400 billion. And if we look
at this chart, turned record surpluses into deficits for the decade
ahead. An amazing, unbelievable, incomprehensible change in our
economic budget health.
A wave of corporate scandals has eroded people's faith and trust in
our Nation's free markets. As Ronald Brownstein wrote yesterday in the
Los Angeles Times, he said, ``Almost all of the key measures of
economic well-being for average families improved during Bill Clinton's
8 years in the White House and now, under the second President Bush,
the trend lines are pointing down again.''
This is a Republican group that has been wrong, and I mean dead
wrong, twice. They were wrong about the Democratic plan in 1993, and
they were again wrong when they talked about their own plan more than a
year ago.
Today, they have an opportunity to sit down with Democrats and write
a new economic plan in a bipartisan way that would create long-term
economic growth and opportunity for all Americans. But to date, they
refuse to reconsider any aspect of a plan that was passed long before
September 11, 2001. In fact, what they are doing today is simply
keeping on passing bills to make their failed economic plan permanent.
I guess the byline here is if it is bad and not working, let us make it
permanent. Let us rigidly, tenaciously hold on to what is not working,
so that it can continue to not work.
The sole passion of House Republicans has been to reward their
wealthy political clientele for the next decade and beyond at the
expense of every need of the American people. They are content wasting
the people's time with ridiculous, nonbinding House resolutions when
they have at least 20 major economic issues to address that might and
would affect people's lives in a positive way.
Where is the debate on the future of Social Security? Where is the
minimum wage increase legislation? Where is education funding so that
we really leave no child behind? Where is the real pension legislation
so that we protect people's pensions against corporate misbehavior?
Where is the real prescription drug legislation that will actually at
least get the price down for people's prescriptions? Where is the
health care and Medicare-buttressing legislation?
Well, I will tell my colleagues where it all is. It is nowhere. They
have nothing better to do. They cannot finish the budget. They have put
nothing substantial on the floor since the August recess. We have been
here 3 days a week doing nothing but renaming post offices. We are
fiddling while America's economy implodes around the American people's
ears.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is time to wake up and address the most
important problems that we face. Let us come together on a new budget
for America, a new economic plan for America, and let us stop talking
about meaningless nonsense resolutions about something that might or
might not happen 10 years from now. The American people are living in
today and tomorrow. They are not waiting for what might or might not
happen 10 years from now. Let us stop the meaningless nonsense
resolutions when we ought to be dealing with the American people's
important problems today.
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