[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 71 (Tuesday, May 13, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H3998]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S ECONOMIC POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the latest economic news is out, and it is 
not good. The trade deficit for March was announced today. It hit the 
second highest level in history, $43.5 billion more imports coming into 
our country than exports going out. What we are exporting are more U.S. 
jobs.
  Why do we have such a high trade deficit? Rising oil prices and 
continued deterioration in our trade accounts because of NAFTA, 
especially Mexico as well as Canada. The March trade deficit with 
Mexico alone was a record $3.9 billion. The deficit with Canada was the 
highest since 2 years ago, January 2001.
  NAFTA is not working for the United States. NAFTA is the great 
sucking sound. We are exporting our jobs, not our goods, and we are 
importing more goods from Mexico than ever in our history.
  Unemployment in America has hit a 6 percent high with almost 9 
million people out of work now. Just today the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics put out detailed information on joblessness in America. 
Where is Ground Zero in the Bush recession? It is the Visalia-Tulare-
Porterville area in California with 18.1 percent unemployment. Of 
metropolitan areas with populations over a million people, the highest 
unemployment was found in Portland, Oregon, and San Jose, California, 
8.4 percent each. I just returned from the San Jose area.
  Indeed, of the 272 metropolitan areas for which year-to-year 
comparisons can be made, the largest declines in employment were found 
in San Diego, followed by Tulsa, Oklahoma; Flint, Michigan; and my home 
community of Toledo, Ohio. Ohio is first in our Nation in lost jobs as 
a percentage of our workforce since George Bush came into office in 
2001. No State has suffered more than Ohio from the Bush 
administration's failed economic policies.
  The dollar is hitting new lows in part due to impolitic comments made 
by our Treasury Secretary John Snow on Sunday talk shows. Is the Bush 
administration committed to a strong dollar? They say they are, but 
many experts are questioning the commitment in light of Secretary 
Snow's comment on Sunday that a falling dollar should help exporters. 
In fact, it is hard to make any sense of the Bush administration's 
economic policy. The administration seems bound and determined to start 
and hold a losing hand. All they can talk about are tax breaks for the 
wealthy.
  But it is the consumer that is keeping our economy out of a 
depression. It is the middle-class consumer that made America great. It 
is the great middle class that fights our wars, makes our goods, 
delivers our services, and keeps our country strong. But the Bush 
administration wants to cut taxes for the super-rich, even though we 
know that that policy will lead to recession and more job losses.
  In fact, look at what happened in our country after the first Bush 
set of tax breaks to the wealthy back in 2001: More and more job 
losses, over 2 million of them. They talked to us about jobless 
recovery. What is a jobless recovery? That is all we seem to have are 
jobless recoveries. Every time this group gets in office, they give us 
more unemployment. And, indeed, if the Members look back to 1981 when, 
under the Reagan administration, our Vice President, Dick Cheney, was 
the head of the Republican Policy Committee here in the House, they did 
the same thing. They called it the Economic Tax Recovery Act of July 
29, 1981, and do the Members know what happened back then? The minute 
the same kind of tax program was enacted, guess what happened? More and 
more and more job losses.
  I came here in January 1983 to try to help dig America out of a hole, 
a job-loss hole as well as a deficit hole. It took us almost 15 years, 
and now we are back to the same mess we had back then. I say if it is 
strike one, strike two, and now strike three, they ought to be out.
  The Republicans in this kind of trickle-down tax program are really 
going to gouge the middle class again. So I would say, Mr. Speaker, 
just take a look at the record. It is the same old story. And what do 
we get? More job losses, an administration that does not want to extend 
unemployment benefits to those who have been out of work. They say go 
find a job somewhere, except for one thing: More and more jobs are 
being lost every day. And the Buckeye State rings in number one in 
terms of job losses.
  Mr. Speaker, America should do better, and America will do better a 
year from now when we elect a new President.

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