[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 33 (Monday, March 3, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3004-S3005]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        America's Trade Deficit

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank our colleague from North Dakota 
because his words are music to my ears. He is a student of competition. 
He knows there is no such thing as free trade. It is only competitive 
trade. Every nation necessarily tries to build up its manufacturing, 
its production, its economic strength not only in finished products, 
but in agriculture.
  The significance of the words of our distinguished colleague, Senator 
Dorgan, is that he is an agricultural Senator. For years, I have been 
trying, with the textile industry in my home State, to get some 
awareness of the fair competition in our textile industry, which is the 
most productive in the entire world. But since NAFTA, we have lost 
58,100 jobs. As we have passed textile bills through the Senate over 
the past almost 37 years that I have been here, it has been the 
airline/aircraft industry that has been so strong. Well, Boeing is 
finally joining me. They have 7\1/2\-percent unemployment up in 
Seattle, WA, and Boeing is manufacturing in China. And our $435 billion 
trade deficit also includes a deficit in agriculture. No one has been a 
better protector of the interests of agriculture than the distinguished 
Presiding Officer.
  It is only the second time in our history that we have a deficit in 
the balance of trade in farm products. That is not news to this Senator 
from South Carolina. I remembered when we finally, just in the last few 
years, got a deficit in the balance of trade in cotton with China. So I 
understand it is going to all agricultural products.
  We have the facts and figures. I am ready to join in the debate for 
us to start treating foreign trade as foreign aid. It was good that the 
Marshall plan worked, but now we have to rebuild our economy, and that 
is a very important problem.
  But there is one more important thing, and that is this war in Iraq. 
What we are saying--and I talk advisedly--to that GI is this: Look, we 
want you to go into Iraq and we hope you come back home safely. The 
reason we want him or her to come back safely is not for their welfare, 
but for our welfare. We want them to come back because we are going to 
give them the bill. My generation is not going to pay for it. The 
fellow fighting the war is going to have to pay for the war.
  For the first time in the history of wars in the United States of 
America, we said the Army is going to war, but the country is not. The 
President is not going. The Congress is not going. Oh, we are going to 
wear that flag on our lapels. Yes, we are patriotic and we will give 
you patriotic talk anytime you want it.
  But as far as actual support, let's find out what the record shows 
because I had to listen to Bob Novak, the distinguished columnist on 
TV, the other night when he said: How are we going to pay for it? Just 
like we did in Vietnam. We borrowed the money.
  No, sir, we paid for Vietnam. I was in the room with George Mahone, 
chairman of the Appropriations Committee. We called over to Marvin 
Watson and said: Ask the President if we can cut another $5 billion. He 
said cut it. Why? Because the President of the United States was very 
sensitive about guns and butter. He wanted to pay for both, and 
President Lyndon Baines Johnson paid for both. That is the last time we 
had a balanced budget in the history of this particular Senator being 
up here--back in 1968. Yes, we paid for guns and butter in Vietnam 
under President Johnson.
  Let's go back to the Civil War.
  I was amazed that President Abraham Lincoln instituted not only the 
income tax to pay for the Civil War, he instituted a tax on dividends. 
They have the unmitigated gall to say what we need now is a cut of all 
taxes on dividends when they were giving Trent Lott the bum's rush. The 
party of Lincoln, the party of Lincoln; that is all I heard on my TV at 
home. Where is Abraham Lincoln when we need him? He taxed dividends and 
instituted the income tax in 1861. They had to repeal it--they said it 
was unconstitutional--by 1870, but they paid for that war. They 
sacrificed.
  When you have a mutual sacrifice, then we are all committed. I 
believe the country is going to war in Iraq, not just the army. I want 
to pay for it. I put in a 1-percent value-added tax to pay for that 
war, and I can't get a hearing before the Finance Committee.
  I had a hearing before the Finance Committee when Lloyd Bentsen was 
the chairman. I brought in Dr. Cnossen, the expert who not only 
instituted that plan in Japan, the United Kingdom, and Canada, but knew 
all the ins and outs. He was my expert. He testified. As we were 
leaving the Dirksen Building that day, former Senator John Chafee 
turned to Chairman Bentsen and said: If we had a secret ballot, we 
would vote that matter out of the Finance Committee unanimously because 
we were beginning to run into these astronomical deficits as a result 
of voodoo 1 under President Ronald Reagan.
  In World War I, we raised taxes to pay for the war. During World War 
II,

[[Page S3005]]

we had a marginal tax rate of 94 percent to pay for it. In the Korean 
war, we had a marginal rate of 91 percent. In Vietnam, we had a 77 
percent rate. So we paid for wars. But not this Congress; no, no, we 
are not going to go. That is their war. I do not know whether it is for 
oil, for democracy, whatever the arguments--get rid of Saddam--but one 
thing is positive, I say to the Senator from Alabama, this Congress is 
not going to go. We are going to give the bills to the poor GI who 
fights the war. I think it is a dirty shame. It is an embarrassment to 
me that I cannot even get a hearing and nobody to even talk about 
paying for the war.
  This is a time of national sacrifice because it is a time of national 
commitment, but not a national commitment on the part of this 
particular war, I can tell you that now. I have a 1-percent tax 
proposed.