[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 71 (Tuesday, May 13, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H3978-H3979]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




REPUBLICANS DENY WORKERS EXTENDED UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS DURING ECONOMIC 
                                DOWNTURN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), 
the Republican leader of the House, began his talk by saying, a victory 
for working Americans last week. It is hard to think it was a victory 
for working Americans when we have over 1 million people who are 
unemployed, who are receiving unemployment compensation, and 36,000 of 
those in Ohio, their benefits expire on May 31; and this Republican 
Congress and this President refused to extend their unemployment 
benefits.
  Last November many of us in this House, many of us on the Democratic 
side, called for an extension of unemployment benefits for the 23,000 
workers in Ohio and 1.1 million-or-so workers nationwide whose benefits 
were set to expire at the end of the year. After bowing to public 
outrage, the White House begrudgingly gave congressional Republicans 
the green light to help the unemployed. They were reluctant; but 
because of the pressure they received from people in my State of Ohio 
and across the country from unemployed workers and people who care 
about unemployed workers, Republicans could not ignore the expiring of 
unemployment benefits any longer.
  It is 5 months later, and we are going down that same road again. 
Several days ago, House Republicans passed President Bush's tax cut 
that gives millionaires an average tax cut of $93,000. If you make $1 
million a year, you get a tax cut of $93,000. Fewer than half the 
people in my State, or about half the people in my State of Ohio, will 
get less than $200 from that same tax cut bill; but the 1 percent 
wealthiest people whose income averages $968,000 a year will get a 
$93,000 tax break. That is twice as much as the median total income of 
people in this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I supported a Democratic alternative that extends 
unemployment benefits to help families struggling through the Bush 
recession and to provide real economic stimulus by putting the money in 
the pockets of those who will spend it, those who are unemployed, those 
who need it most, those who are most likely to put that money into the 
economy to create economic activity to create jobs. Our plan provides 
tax stimulus for small businesses and manufacturing that is the core of 
Ohio's economy and offers immediate relief to States like Ohio, almost 
all the 50 States, which are drowning in red ink, help to maintain 
Medicaid, avoid further job losses and cuts in critical programs, and 
prevent tax increases, so that States do not feel forced to raise taxes 
as most of them, Republican and Democratic Governors alike, are doing.
  Did the House Republican leadership embrace this commonsense plan? 
No. Did the Republicans vote to extend unemployment benefits for 1 
million Americans whose benefits are running out and who cannot find a 
job as hard as they are willing to work, one of the best ways to spur 
economic growth? No. Did the Republicans extend unemployment benefits? 
No. Did the Republicans give assistance to cash-strapped States all 
over the country that are raising taxes, cutting health care, and 
raising tuition rates on middle-class families? No. And why is the 
Republican answer to all of our economic problems always, always tax 
cuts for the rich?
  The President's tax cut plan echoes the 2001 President's tax cut plan 
in other ways. The 2001 tax cut delivered 40 percent of its benefits to 
the richest 1 percent of the people in this country. They marketed it 
as a tax break for ordinary folks, and now they are saying it again. 
Keep in mind, half of the tax cut goes to people whose average income 
is $968,000 a year. The typical family, though, gets a tax break of 
about $200 next year; but families with incomes of $1 million get 
$93,000.
  Two years ago, the President got his tax cut through Congress, which 
he claimed would create jobs. Two years later, today, we have lost 
since then 1.7 million jobs, and now they are saying we should do it 
again.
  The latest unemployment statistics show 360,000 Ohioans are out of 
work, 33,000 more than were reported in January.

                              {time}  1245

  Ohio has lost a quarter of a million jobs since President Bush took 
office. President Bush has the worst job creation record, averaging a 
loss of 68,000 jobs a month, of any President in the last 58 years. 
Every month that President Bush has been in office, we have seen a 
decrease in the number of jobs

[[Page H3979]]

in this country. We have lost 563 jobs for every working hour of every 
working day since President Bush took office.
  During that time period in President Clinton's first term, nearly 11 
million jobs were created, including nearly a half million 
manufacturing jobs. Yet we have seen over 1 million manufacturing jobs 
vanish since President Bush moved into the White House.
  Over the next decade, 27 percent of the tax cut, about the share that 
goes to the bottom 90 percent of the population, would go to these very 
high-income families. Despite these economic statistics, President Bush 
will not ask Congress to do what his father asked Congress a dozen 
years ago. In the wake of the recession of the early 1900s, they 
extended unemployment benefits; the same thing that President Bush and 
House Republicans should do.

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