[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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