[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 73 (Thursday, May 15, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H4188-H4195]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONCERNS IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Chocola). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, there was a historic leadership summit held
yesterday. Today is May 15. Yesterday, on May 14, there was a historic
African American leadership conference held here in Washington. I want
to salute the sponsors. It turns out that most of the sponsors,
practically all the sponsors, are Republican. Every year the
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation sponsors a legislative weekend
where people in the African American community, certainly leaders from
all over the Nation, assemble here in Washington; but they are
nonpartisan. Republicans come, corporate heads, the labor people. It is
wide open as a nonpartisan event. Everybody discusses common problems.
It is very interesting that this African American leadership
conference, which is very new, I suppose I want to say at the outset,
is certainly welcome. The attention African Americans are getting from
Republicans is welcome. We have no problem with that. The myths that
arise as a result of past Republican Party behavior, we would like to
see put to rest. There is a myth that Republicans do not care at all
for the concerns of the African American community, and, therefore,
they are left to the Democrats who take them for granted because they
are sensing or knowing that the Republicans do not care to be bored
with the concerns of the African American community; the Democrats take
us for granted, and they do not exercise themselves too much either
over our concerns.
Those myths, neither one probably is true. Republicans are showing
that they do care. They recognize simple arithmetic, that even if they
got 15 percent of the African American vote, which would be unusual, it
would be 15 percent taken away from the Democrats certainly in a
national election, and it would go a long way toward guaranteeing
victory. If they got 25 percent, of course, they would be unstoppable.
So the arithmetic is understood by the Republicans as well as
Democrats. If they did not understand it before, they understand it
now. Democrats have never ignored taking African Americans for granted.
The history of legislation, of positions and actions in the Democratic
Party, when you look at them quickly, make it quite clear that they are
very much concerned about African American concerns.
Democrats are concerned with things that benefit most Americans. What
is good for most Americans is good for African Americans and vice
versa. What is good for African Americans is good for all Americans.
Attention paid by the Republican majority to African Americans will not
only redound to the benefit of African Americans, but I expect it will
help a lot of other Americans out there at the same time, because
African Americans are on the cutting edge when it comes to suffering,
when it comes to being at the bottom of the pile and receiving
resources, when it comes to being at the top of the pile when it is
time to lay off people and fire people. They are barometers.
We know what is coming with the larger community when we look at what
takes place in the African American community. This is something that
we have said for a long time. We had problems with diseases. The drug
problem when it first arose was primarily in the African American slum
communities where it could breed because people had all kinds of
problems and the rackets could flourish; but it
[[Page H4189]]
got so powerful, the rackets flourishing in those communities, that
they were able to branch out and swept all over America like an octopus
that leaves no community untouched, the drug trade and all of the kinds
of addictions and diseases that are spawned by the drug trade.
And so it is with any other problem. The health care problem is
deepest and most egregious in the African American community. New
figures have shown that instead of 40 million Americans not being
covered by insurance, we are now at a point where it is more like 60
million Americans are not covered by any insurance. Among those not
covered percentage-wise, within the whole African American community, a
greater percentage of African Americans are uncovered, and they have
been that way for a long time in terms of health insurance. So our cry
for universal health care, health insurance for all is certainly good
for the African American community, but it is good for all of America.
Therefore, I welcome the African American leadership summit.
I am taking the time now to just tell my colleagues here who did not
know about it that it did take place. It started Tuesday with a welcome
reception in the Russell Caucus Room. Senator Rick Santorum and Senator
Kay Bailey Hutchison gave welcoming remarks at that session. And none
other than Senate majority leader Bill Frist opened it up as a guest
speaker, the keynote speaker. You cannot beat that in terms of the
importance, the elevation of it in the priority scale of the Senate.
You had the top leadership there.
Then they had a continental breakfast on Wednesday. You had Senators
Hutchison and Santorum again, I guess they are the primary sponsors
here, opening up. The African American leadership summit was addressed
by U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige. That is quite a coup, because
as the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus education brain
trust, I have been trying for 2 years to get Secretary Paige to come to
our annual fall legislative conference, and both times I have gotten no
response. He is the Secretary of Education. We wanted to hear from him
and invited him just as we invited all previous secretaries of
education, and he has never responded.
So this leadership summit for the African Americans yesterday pulled
a coup. Secretary Paige was there. Of course he was part of a process
which involved a panel of distinguished people: Ed Dorn, the dean of
the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas; Dr. Ernest
Holloway, the president of Langston University; and the great Robert
Woodson, Sr., founder and president of the National Center for
Neighborhood Enterprise, which usually focuses on problems related to
African American housing. Then they had a health care forum after that
and a luncheon with a keynote address delivered by none other than the
chief of staff of the President, Mr. Andrew Card. Then they had an
economic empowerment panel after lunch with the Honorable Johnny Ford,
Alabama State House of Representatives; Kay Coles James, the director
of U.S. Office of Personnel Management; Karen Johnson Street, Office of
Entrepreneurial Development; and the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Don
Evans. Then later on they had an affirmative action discussion,
``Expanding Opportunity and Diversity,'' it was called, with HUD deputy
Secretary Alphonso Jackson; Veterans Affairs deputy Secretary Leo
Mackay; and Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele.
I have taken time to run through this schedule quickly because so
many of my colleagues knew nothing about it. Many of them would have
welcomed the opportunity to participate in a nonpartisan way, but let
us salute the Republican majority for taking this initiative. There
were a few other ceremonies, I understand, in addition to that, with
the Speaker involved at the Frederick Douglass House. There was a
ceremony at the White House, also. It is just important to note.
I would like to take that as my starting point by saying what is good
for the African American community is good for America as a whole. If
it is good for Americans as a whole, it is good for the African
American community. Let us go back to the fact that Secretary Paige was
there and they were addressing matters relating to education. Because I
am alarmed, I am upset, I am angry about what is happening to education
all across America. We have done a 180-degree turn in terms of the
progress that was being made. After all the hype and the high pitch of
success that we decreed after passing the No Child Left Behind
legislation, we are now in worse shape than ever before, not only with
respect to the Federal Government's support for education but also, in
general, local and State support.
In this year, 2003, we have numerous States and local governments,
local education agencies facing the situation where they are not sure
they have the money to get through the school year. They are not sure
they can pay their teachers and administrators and all the other costs.
At a time when we expect education reform, education improvement to be
going forward at a more rapid rate to meet needs that are definitely
there in our society, we are going backwards. The Federal Government's
refusal to live up to its promises, this administration's refusal to
live up to its promises is complicating things.
We are not just not improving the situation; we are making it worse.
We have mandates out there, requirements out there that require
resources, dollars, to fulfill. In the absence of those dollars and
those resources, we are putting an extra burden on the school systems.
We have increased the bitterness and the cynicism. It comes down in
very concrete terms in a system like New York City's large school
system, where they are projecting the layoff of 1,000 or more teachers,
at a time when we have worked hard to get more teachers and smaller
classes, at a time when No Child Left Behind says that we require that
every teacher be certified, that they meet certain standards.
It is imperative that the teachers really know what they are doing,
especially those in the early grades who have generally been neglected
when it came to certification and standards. We are in the situation
now where we are laying off teachers. In the process, we increase the
class sizes. In the process we make the job of teaching more difficult
and we lose many talented people, who were interested in teaching,
under this set of conditions.
There is no relief being offered in any way for the problems that
plague schools in terms of facilities. No teacher relishes the idea of
getting a bachelor's degree or a master's degree and going to work in a
building which has safety and health conditions worse than the average
factory. So many of our schools are more hazardous than the average
factory. In fact, we would fine some factories if they had the kind of
conditions that have existed in some of our schools. The buildings get
older every year. In big cities, especially like New York where many
buildings are more than 100 years old and many more than that over 75
years old, there is almost no turning back renovations, and various
attempts to maintain these buildings is a losing proposition. But there
are no new buildings on the horizon for most of these communities. Many
of those that were on the horizon, in a building program, now are
forced to step back because the funds are not there.
What does all this have to do with the Federal Government and the
budget-making process here? What does it have to do with the African
American leadership summit? The African American leadership summit, the
people there ought to know that of all the communities that are
suffering most from the dearth in resources in respect to education,
the minority communities are suffering the worst situation. As we
strive to improve the Federal performance in the area of helping
African American schools, schools where most of the students are
predominantly African American in the inner cities, some rural areas,
we will also raise the level of assistance for other schools.
Title I was primarily designed to help youth, children who are poor.
The proportion of children in the African American community who are
poor is greater than the proportion in the population as a whole.
African American children and Hispanic children make up the bulk of the
children who are eligible for title I funds. Title I funds were
supposed to be increased, doubled,
[[Page H4190]]
over a 5-year period. That is what the administration promised. They
backed away. In the first year, instead of getting $6 billion of an
increase, we are getting $3 billion of an increase.
{time} 1715
There are definite concrete dollars-and-cents reasons why the
suffering that is setting in out there taking place, definite reasons
why principals and teachers and education officials are feeling bitter,
are feeling more overwhelmed, are feeling more cynical about the
commitment of their Nation and their government and the leaders to
education.
If we are not committed to education, what are we committed to? We
are committed, very much so, to the expansion of our military might. We
voted overwhelmingly for a $79 billion budget for the war in Iraq and
the effort related to the war in Iraq. I am not going to discuss in
great detail how much of that is going to be wasted, how it is going to
be counterproductive, but the point I want to make is that if we can go
further into deficit, and we do not have the money, it is going to be
borrowed as part of the deficit financing, if we can go $79 billion
into deficit related to the war in Iraq and related activities like
bribing our coalition partners and making certain that they support us
and numerous other activities that are not specified, if we can do
that, we certainly could use deficit financing to come to the aid of
the cities and the local education agencies and the States that now are
faced with the prospect of not being able to finance the education
system through the whole year.
Why not have a revenue-sharing bill which helps to close the gaps
that the States and the cities and the education agencies are fielding?
Why not go further? Let us take $79 billion and divide it over a 3-year
period and phone it into the States and the cities for specific
expenditures related to education, maybe half of it to go to education-
related expenditures and the other half to go to municipal and State
functions that are suffering as a result of the layoffs.
It is getting worse every day. New York State, New York City, has a
huge budget gap between revenues and expenditures. At the same time
they have a constitution, a charter, which does not allow them to go
beyond the revenue collected. They have to have a balanced budget. Most
States in the country are in the same position. They have to have a
balanced budget.
The United States Government does not have to have a balanced budget.
We are able to do deficit financing, and we have embarked on a course
of deficit financing that is unprecedented under the Bush
administration, the present administration.
There was a time when Mr. Gingrich was the head of the majority here
that the great emphasis was on balancing the budget. We heard nothing
from one end of the year to the other except the ideology of the need
to balance the budget. Suddenly nobody talks about balancing the budget
anymore, and I do not want to raise the issue. At this point balancing
the budget is not half as important as coming to the aid of our cities
and our local education agencies with Federal dollars. Where else will
the dollars come from?
So I want to say to the African American leaders who gathered at
summit that it is important for them to make a case with Secretary
Paige and with the other hosts for the summit that there is an
education emergency in the United States right now, and the worst part
of the emergency is unfolding in the African American community.
A very interesting event occurred and was written up in the New York
Times last week. The teacher of the year for 2001 was a black teacher
from South Carolina, a young lady who was selected because of her
outstanding performance in the classroom as teacher of the year, and
she was given a $25,000 prize, given a fancy car by one of the
automobile manufacturers to drive for a little while, lent to her, and
showered with all kinds of accolades, et cetera. This year she is
facing unemployment. This same teacher, the best we had in 2001, the
system cannot find a place for her in South Carolina. When she came
back from that 1-year hiatus she had, she was put to work training
teachers because the model teacher, outstanding teacher, that is the
best use for her, to train teachers, and she had a job that was very
useful. She enjoyed it. They have eliminated the position now, and they
are not sure they have a place for her, but they probably will find
some teaching position somewhere for this exceptional teacher who has
shown great leadership ability and the ability to train other people.
Is this going forward, or is it going backwards? That is going
backwards in an obvious way. But the school system in South Carolina
that she worked for is laying off quite a number of people. They have
to balance their budget.
We are giving the American people the impression that America is
almost bankrupt, that they should tighten their belts and go with it
because what else can we do? Where if my colleagues would just open
their eyes and our constituents would just open their eyes, what could
we do? We could borrow money for education and for municipal services
just the way we borrowed money for the war in Iraq or any other defense
expenditure we want to make. We have already busted the budget. We are
already into deficit financing during this period of recession, which
everybody assumes is a temporary period of recession, and it probably
will be. We do not foresee the collapse of the American capitalistic
economy. We are going to come back, but this is a period of crisis. Why
not in this period of crises come to the aid of our citizen States?
African American leaders should tell Secretary Paige that we are
dying. A generation cannot wait until the recession blows over. We need
to have the education there now. We need educated people everywhere
more than ever before.
Even in our military there is a gross problem of education. In the
first days of the war in Iraq, we were losing people to friendly fire
and human error at a faster rate than we were losing them as a result
of enemy fire, because we have a high-tech military. We have a high-
tech apparatus that requires some very outstanding minds to operate.
Even under on the ground at lower levels, there is a lot of need for a
more educated population. That is going to get worse in terms of the
need. I should say get better. There is nothing wrong with needing more
educated people, but the society must rise up to the challenge and
guarantee that educated people are there.
Most of the people in our Armed Forces, everybody concedes, more than
90 percent are people, men and women, from working class families,
working families. They are from families that need public education.
They cannot go to private schools. They are from families that need
help from government in various ways, including housing. Too many of
our military personnel are forced to utilize food stamps, and a small
percentage are forced to go on welfare in order to maintain their
families. That is a disgrace. That is not just.
One of the criteria for success in the war on Iraq and the
surrounding occupation of Iraq and the creation of a democracy in Iraq
is the degree to which we bring justice to Iraq. We will succeed or
fail. And this war has not been won. The war has just gone through
phase one. Phase two is can we occupy Iraq and really create a
democracy as a result of our efforts there, or will we be consumed by
something that gets totally out of control and we end up in a violent
malaise with the people of Iraq in urban guerrilla warfare where all of
our advantages of high-tech warfare go out the window because it is on
the ground, man to man, bayonets, rifles, block-by-block fighting. I
hope we are not consumed in that kind of quagmire.
But even if we do not go into that kind of quagmire, the question is
will we be able to really convince the people of Iraq to go forward and
establish a just and democratic society? The degree to which we succeed
there will depend on the degree to which we bring justice to Iraq. One
of the problems with our bringing justice to the people of Iraq is we
do not know much about justice at home if we do not find ourselves able
to create a healthcare system here that covers everybody. If we cannot
find the money for a public education system that educates our children
adequately, how are we going to bring justice to Iraq and provide those
kinds of benefits? Justice in Iraq right
[[Page H4191]]
away means do we care about whether they have running water? Do we care
about whether they have electricity? Simple matters like that are
evidences of whether the occupying power cares about justice.
We secured every oil field. We boasted of that. It has been repeated
over and over. Every oil installation in Iraq was immediately secured.
We got the military to guard it, no looting, no abuse, no stealing of
equipment and machinery, and we also got technicians in there right
away as a part of Halliburton's $7 billion contract, technicians and
people there on the ground to make sure that a speedy effort goes
forward to get them running. In many cases they never stopped running.
We want to maximize the output of every oil well. We care about oil
wells, and we have let the whole population of Iraq know we care about
oil wells because that is what we focussed on. We left the museums
unguarded. They got looted, trashed. We left the schools. We left the
hospitals unguarded. So the looters went in there and looted hospitals
and looted whatever was unguarded because the occupying power showed
those things were less important.
The New York Times had in the front page the day before yesterday a
front picture of an insane asylum in Baghdad, a maximum security insane
asylum which was set up to hold the most worst and the most violent
people who were insane, and the story that the director told was very
heartbreaking. The insane asylum was secure until the marines came with
battering rams and knocked down the walls, and some of them were
screaming, ``We are here to liberate you.'' I guess they did not know
where they were, and they liberated all of the insane prisoners, insane
inmates, and they are gone. They left the place unguarded, of course,
and some of the patients there, particularly women patients, were
greatly abused. They raped the women patients, and it is a nightmare,
on the front pages of the New York Times.
We sent a message about justice that is the wrong message. We do not
care about sick people. Hospital beds are still begging for security.
They want somebody to come and guard the hospitals because they have
rampant lawlessness in a nation of 24 million people that we expect to
occupy on a shoestring. We say we have 150,000 to 160,000 troops there,
but the military certainly never tells what it has. I am sure we have
more than that. But even if we have 200,000 troops there, it is a
nation of 24 million people, 24 million people. It is going to take
more than 200,000 troops to establish order, for technicians and other
kinds of people to get the electricity running again, to get the water
system running.
All these things are doable. There is no magic needed to make the
electricity flow again. We have the technicians and the people to make
it happen, but we have to assign priority to it. Justice for the
average Iraqi family is do we care enough to get their electricity back
on? Do we care enough to have decent drinking water for their kids?
Those are the first signs of justice.
Iraq sits on an oil pool that is second only to Saudi Arabia. So Iraq
eventually will pump enough oil for whatever it needs. From beneath the
soil of Iraq, with the more efficient, effective systems of modern oil
pumping and production, they will be a rich nation on paper. All they
need is there. The question is are we going to be just and make certain
that the oil revenues that come from the soil of Iraq, the first
priority is to go to people of Iraq?
They do not have to have aid from the United States. They do not have
to raid our Treasury to pay for their education system or their
healthcare system or anything else if we would just let them use the
oil revenue from their own soil.
Justice means directing the resources of Iraq to help the Iraqi
people. We are off to a bad start if we will not give them electricity,
we will not give them water. There is great fear that the oil barons of
the world would descend on Iraq with contracts and various schemes, are
going to carve up the oil resources of Iraq, and the money flowing out
of the oil wells will flow out of Iraq into the hands of others. That
is a great challenge. I hope we meet it. I hope we do not make the
error of assuming that we can use the resources of Iraq and expect the
people to believe in democracy and capitalism as being a good system
for them. We are going to have to have justice, or we are off to a bad
start because we have not cared about electricity, water, food, basics.
{time} 1730
So, I say all this to say that African Americans who went to the
leadership summit who have the ear of this administration now, great,
it is wonderful they are listening. Tell them that we need examples of
justice here at home.
There are too many hungry African American children. There are too
many situations where African American children go to schools that are
more dangerous than their homes in terms of health hazards, because of
the still existing problem of lead paint, of various erosions in the
buildings, of situations in the wintertime where kids have to sit
huddled in their coats and all winter long, are racked with colds, with
situations that have a lack of appropriate ventilation, and asthma is
exacerbated, and on and on it goes.
We need justice for the children of America. I heard a speech by the
President early in the war where he said, do not worry, we will
guarantee that every Iraqi child has a good education, that every Iraqi
child will have a textbook. Well, I hope so. But I would believe it if
we had guaranteed, first of all, that every American child, African
American and others, had the textbooks they need. So justice at home
here has to be practiced before we can really believe that it is going
to happen abroad.
We are going to fail in Iraq, we are going to have a monumental
failure, if we do not bring justice to that foreign land. With all of
its various problems, its violent history, its different religions, all
the things that are there, they cry out for the maximum effort being
made by the occupying power to convince people that we are indeed a
just society. MacArthur did it in Japan, the Marshall Plan did it in
Europe, in Germany. It is not undoable, it is not impossible, but it
has to have leadership that understands and is committed to justice.
It is very interesting, at the end of World War II, the people who
were able to succeed so marvelously in occupying Japan and Hitler's
Germany, what was left of it, were all people who favored Social
Security here; people who created Social Security, people who created
social programs here; people who led the government into an
unprecedented commitment on safety nets; people who created the first
farm subsidies. The administrations of those people were in power when
we occupied Japan and Germany. So it was not by accident that they were
able to bring a sense of justice and move on from justice to create a
democracy that the people themselves in Japan and Germany could take
over.
I say to the African Americans who have the ear of the
administration, please send this message: We have an education crisis.
We also have a health care crisis. There are individuals out there
dying who should not be dying, because we have the modern science, the
modern pharmaceutical tools, we have everything it takes to keep those
people alive. But they are dying because they are poor. It just comes
down to that.
You may have countries in the world with far less wealth than the
United States of America who are providing decent health care systems.
I hope that on economic empowerment, there was a special panel for the
African American Leadership Council there, I hope they understand
economic empowerment means, first of all, creating jobs for people on
the bottom.
Henry Ford was not a great lover of poor people necessarily. He was
not a great lover of his workers. He fought them tooth and nail in
their attempts to unionize his plants. He looked out there and said, if
I pay these guys a better wage, they can buy my cars. He had common
sense.
There is nothing sounder in economic theory than the simple Henry
Ford theory. If I pay these guys a better wage, they can afford to buy
my cars. The American consumer has become the engine of the economy
because we pay them well, because we fought to get decent wages, we
fought to have leverage implemented, executed, by our labor unions.
[[Page H4192]]
We have a situation where people are making a decent wage. They can
buy the products, and, boom, we took off. Nothing in the history of the
world has existed like the American economy. At the heart of the
economy is the consumers.
The heart of the recession is the consumers have run out of money,
and it is now snowballing because of the increasing automation, because
of high-tech production. You can produce products without human beings.
You can produce products by using foreigners.
We even have listening complaint setups in the health care systems
now, where you are an HMO in New York or New Jersey, and if someone
calls to complain, if the person calling has a problem to be resolved,
the person who answers the phone sounds like they are from Brooklyn,
New York, or New Jersey, but it is an Indian young woman. The Indians
speak English, and they study very carefully the accents in America,
and we have contracts with groups in India answering our telephones.
The cost of high-tech transmission from the U.S. to India is so low
that you can let young ladies from cities in India take over the job.
They get paid in 1 year what the same American operator on the
telephone would get paid in 1 month.
That is the kind of undercutting of the economy that is taking place.
You are wiping out the consumers. The Indians will be paid less, but
they will spend their money in India. They will not spend it in the
economy of the United States. On and on it goes with examples of that
kind.
So, African American leaders who were at the Economic Empowerment
Panel, creating jobs and wealth, will you please try to get the ear of
the Republican host and make them understand that a stimulus package
advocated by the Democrats, advocated by the Congressional Black
Caucus, advocated by the Congressional Progressive Caucus still is a
package that puts people to work by establishing public works projects,
by creating revenue-sharing.
That stimulus package would revive the economy at a far faster rate
than a tax cut of billions of people for people who already have plenty
of money. If you give them more money, they are not going to spend it
in this economy in the way the people at the bottom will, the consumers
who are forced to, who have needs and have to meet the needs.
The suffering can be brought to a halt with simple, time-honored
measures. We have had public works projects in the past. We have had
revenue-sharing in the past. Nothing proposed by the Democratic
minority or the Congressional Black Caucus or the Congressional
Progressive Caucus is radical and new. We have had it before.
So, Mr. Speaker, I submit this draft timeline of the African American
Leadership Summit for the record. It is an historic document, and it
ought to be part of the Record.
African American Leadership Summit
tuesday, may 13, 2003
3:30-5:30 p.m.: Early Bird Registration--Hyatt Regency.
5:30-7:00 p.m.: Welcome Reception--Russell Caucus Room, 325
Russell Senate Building.
5:40 p.m.: U.S. Sens. Rick Santorum and Kay Bailey
Hutchison welcome remarks.
6:15 p.m.: Guest Speaker: Senate Majority Leader Bill
Frist.
wednesday, may 14, 2003
8:00-8:20 a.m.: Continental Breakfast.
8:20-9:15 a.m.: Opening Briefing: Sens. Hutchison and
Santorum (15 mins each w/25 mins Q&A).
9:15-10:30 a.m.: Education: Raising American Achievement.
9:15-9:55 a.m.: U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige (15
mins w/25 minutes Q&A).
9:55-10:30 a.m.: Panel: (5 mins each w/20 mins Q&A). Ed
Dorn, Dean, LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of
Texas; Dr. Ernest Holloway, President, Langston University;
President's HBCU Board of Advisors; Robert Woodson, Sr.,
Founder and President, National Center for Neighborhood
Enterprise.
10:30-11:35 a.m.: Health Care: Ensuring Affordable Access
and Quality.
10:30-10:45 a.m.: Panel: 4 mins. each w/15 mins Q&A after
Dr. Carmona speaks). Harry Alford, President, National Black
Chamber of Commerce; Renee Amoore, Founder and President, The
Amoore Group; Dr. Natalie Carroll, President, National
Medical Association.
10:45-11:20 a.m.: U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona,
M.D., (15 mins w/20 mins Q&A).
11:20-11:35 a.m.: Balance of Panel Discussion (Alford,
Amoore, Dr. Carroll).
11:35-11:45 a.m.: Transition to Lunch in another room.
11:45-1:00 p.m.: Luncheon with Keynote Address.
11:45-12:15 p.m.: Lunch.
12:15-1:00 p.m.: Keynote Speaker: Chief of Staff to the
President of the United States Andrew Card.
1:00-1:15 p.m.: Transition back to General Session room.
1:15-2:30 p.m.: Economic Empowerment: Creating Jobs and
Wealth.
1:15-1:50 p.m.: Panel: (5 mins each w/20 mins Q&A). Hon.
Johnny Ford, Alabama State House of Representatives, 82nd
District; Kay Coles James, Director, U.S. Office of Personnel
Management; Kaaren Johnson Street, SBA, Office of
Entrepreneurial Development.
1:50-2:30 p.m. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Don Evans (15
mins w/25 mins Q&A).
2:30-3:45 p.m.: Affirmative Access: Expanding Opportunity
and Diversity.
2:30-3:45 p.m.: Panel (7 mins each w/45 mins Q&A). HUD
Deputy Secretary Alphonso Jackson; Veterans Affairs Deputy
Secretary Leo Mackay; Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele.
3:45-4:00 p.m.: Summit Wrap-Up/Adjournment. Sens. Hutchison
and Santorum.
Mr. Speaker, I want to just continue for a moment by saying that
there are solutions. We went from an April unemployment rate of 5.8
percent to 6 percent. It is going up. Things are not getting better as
a result of the first tax cut that we have given, and are not likely to
get better at this point when we are talking about more tax cuts. And,
even if we achieve them, it is not likely to get better.
The reality is that we are in a recession that will exist until jobs
are created. So I want everybody, my colleagues and everybody, the
African American Leadership Summit folks, to understand that the simple
matter of creating wealth through providing means to earn high income
has to be on our agenda first.
Just one final note on the African American Leadership Summit. I
wonder if they discussed the fact that a recent report of the Federal
Reserve showed that in the African American community, the median
family wealth was at $17,000 per family, versus the median family
wealth for white families being at $120,000; $120,000 versus $17,000.
There is a great gap there that I hope the African American Leadership
Summit people will suggest to their Republican hosts as rapidly as
possible.
One solution I would propose for the immediate situation is an old,
time-honored solution. I have introduced a bill which I would call on
my colleagues to think very seriously about, because it is an old-
fashioned remedy to the problem. I am introducing this bill, and
another one next week, a companion piece, called the Domestic Budget
Protection Act, H.R. 1804. I welcome all of my colleagues to join me in
getting on H.R. 1804. H.R. 1804 is legislation that will raise revenue
and reduce increasing budget deficits which are due to the cost of the
war in Iraq.
Beyond the $79 billion we have already authorized, increased defense
spending for the Iraqi war and occupation and rebuilding of the country
will grow rapidly and uncontrollably. Nobody should be fooled by the
fact that $79 billion has been appropriated. That is not going to be
the cost. It will be far greater than that. Collected revenues will
continue to be substantially less in this country than projected
Federal expenditures, placing strains on the budget appropriations
process.
Vital federally funded programs are already facing devastating
financial assistance cuts. Education, public housing, Medicaid,
Medicare, Temporary Aid to Needy Families, these are only a few of
these programs. Currently the proposed budget cuts over a 10-year
period, Medicaid will be cut by about $93 billion, Medicare has no
protection, $28.3 billion in veterans' health care benefits, $38.5
billion from education, training and Social Service programs. All these
cuts are leaving the American family behind at a time when 90 percent
of our troops in the field are from working families.
Historically a special tax placed on the profits of the Nation's
largest corporations has been used to fund the U.S. war effort. I
repeat, historically a special tax placed on the profits of the
Nation's largest corporations has been used to fund the U.S. war
effort. The Domestic Budget Protection Act follows in these historic
steps, and it offers a solution to increased assistance to domestic
programs by placing a surcharge on corporations with assets greater
than $10 million.
This special revenue will be used to fund the war and the occupation,
and
[[Page H4193]]
because it will be used to fund the war and occupation, it will free up
revenue to fund domestic programs.
In the last 25 years, corporations have borne less and less of the
overall tax burden. Their share, while dropping as low as 6 percent
within the last 20 years, is currently 8 percent of overall tax burden.
Corporations are paying only 8 percent of the overall tax burden.
On the other hand, individual income taxes as a share of the overall
burden has risen from 13.6 percent in 1940 to the present level of 46.3
percent. So individuals and families who can afford to pay income tax
the least are paying more, and corporations that are very rich, you
look at the Fortune 500 list, you know corporations are not suffering
at all, they are paying less and less income taxes.
On the back of my ``Dear Colleague,'' I have some excerpts from my
Domestic Budget Protection Act, and I quote:
``The Congress finds that there is an established precedent for the
long-term financing of a U.S. war effort. A special tax on the profits
of the Nation's largest corporations would be in accordance with
previous precedents, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
``The Congress finds that in the last 25 years corporations have
borne less and less of the overall tax burden, and, therefore, the
corporate share of tax burden has dropped, while the individual's has
gone up.
``The Congress finds it is necessary to suspend further reductions in
assistance to domestic programs, and it is also imperative that any
increases in revenue be utilized for assistance to these vital domestic
programs.''
In other words, if we take away the competition of the military
budget for Iraq and have the corporations finance that through a
surcharge on their profits, we would be able to have the vital domestic
programs funded at a higher level, minus all of the cuts that are
taking place at this point. The profits of some of our corporations are
mind-boggling.
{time} 1745
If you look at the Fortune 500 report, or the Forbes 500 report,
corporations like Wal-Mart, $8 billion in profits last year; Exxon
Mobile, $11 billion in profits; General Electric, $14 billion-plus;
Citigroup, $15 billion-plus. On and on it goes. Microsoft, $7 billion-
plus. So long before you get to those little corporations down there
who have assets of $10 million, you would be able to fulfill the need
to fund the war in Iraq.
Mr. Speaker, I am submitting for the Record at this point in its
entirety my letter to my colleagues, which is entitled, ``You Are
Invited to Cosponsor the Domestic Budget Protection Act, H.R. 1804.''
Invitation To Cosponsor the Domestic Budget Protection Act--H.R. 1804
While the Congress has allocated 79 billion dollars for the
Iraq War and occupation, unprecedented hardship devastates
state, local, and education agencies.
Thousands of teachers and government employees are
threatened with layoffs.
Since the Bush Administration offers no revenue sharing
relief, taxes are being increased in states and localities
across the nation.
During past wars a surcharge on corporate profits has
lessened the competition of the military budget with domestic
budget priorities.
Dear Colleague: I am writing to ask for your support in
cosponsoring H.R. 1804, legislation that will raise revenue
and reduce increasing budget deficits due to the cost of war
in Iraq. Beyond the 79 Billion already authorized, increased
Defense funding for the Iraqi War, occupation, and rebuilding
the country of Iraq will grow rapidly and uncontrollably.
Collected revenues will continue to be substantially less
than projected Federal expenditures placing strains on the
Budget/Appropriations process. Vital federally funded
programs are already facing devastating financial assistance
cuts. Education, Public Housing, Medicaid, Medicare and
Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) are only a few of
these programs.
Currently, the proposed budget cuts over a period of ten
years; Medicaid by $93 billion; no protection for Medicare;
$28.3 billion in Veterans' health care and benefits; $38.5
billion in education, training and social service programs.
We are leaving the American Family behind at a time when 90
percent of our troops in the field are from working families.
Historically, a special tax placed on the profits of the
nation's largest corporations has been used to fund the U.S.
War effort. (See findings on back) The Domestic Budget
Protection Act follows in these historic steps and offers a
solution to increase assistance to domestic programs by
placing a surcharge on corporations with assets greater than
10 million dollars. This special revenue will be used to fund
the war and occupation and thus free up revenue to fund
domestic programs. In the last 25 years corporations have
borne less and less of the overall tax burden. Their share,
while dropping as low as 6 percent within the last 20 years,
is currently 8 percent. On the other hand, individual income
taxes as a share of the overall burden has risen from 13.6
percent in 1940 to the present level of 46.3 percent.
Cosponsoring H.R. 1804 sends a clear message to American
Families as well as their relatives on the front lines. We
continue to support them here at home. Please join me by
supporting the Families who need vital domestic programs. To
co-sponsor H.R. 1804, ``The Domestic Budget Protection Act of
2003'' please contact Mary S. Anderson at 225-6321.
Sincerely yours,
Major R. Owens,
Member of Congress.
Excerpts From Findings of the Domestic Budget Protection Act
The Congress finds that there is an established precedent
for the long-term financing of a U.S. War effort. A special
tax on the profits of the nation's largest corporations would
be in accordance with previous precedents: World War I, World
War II, Korea and Vietnam.
The Congress finds that in the last 25 years corporations
have steadily borne less and less of the overall tax burden.
The corporate share of the tax burden has dropped from a high
of 35 percent in 1945 to a level of 8 percent in the year
2002. At the same time the individual income share of the tax
burden has grown from 13 percent in 1940 to 46 percent in
2002.
The Congress finds that it is necessary to suspend further
reductions in assistance to domestic programs. It is also
imperative that any increases in basic revenue be utilized to
increase assistance to vital domestic programs.
CORPORATE PROFIT CHAMPIONS
[In millions of dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Profits
Fortune 500 rank and name of corp. Total assets before taxes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Wal-Mart................................. 94,552 8,039
2 General Motors........................... 370,782 1,736
3 Exxon Mobil.............................. 152,644 11,460
4 Ford Motor............................... 289,357 (980.0)
5 General Electric......................... 575,244 14,118
6 Citigroup................................ 1,097,190 15,276
7 Chevron Texaco........................... 77359 1,132
8 Int'l Business Machines.................. 96,484 3,579
9 American Intl. Group..................... 561,000 5,518.9
10 Verizon Communications.................. 167,468 4,079
15 Boeing.................................. 52,342 492
19 Cardinal Health......................... 16,438 1,056.2
20 McKesson................................ 13,324 418.6
22 AT&T.................................... 55,272 (13,082.2)
31 Proctor and Gamble...................... 40,776 4,352
34 Johnson and Johnson..................... 40,556 6,597
37 Pfizer.................................. 46,356 9,126
38 Metlife................................. 277,385 1,605
44 Allstate................................ 117,426 1,134
45 Walgreen................................ 9,878.8 1,019.2
47 Microsoft............................... 67,646 7,829.0
49 United Technologies..................... 29,090 2,236
56 Lockheed Martin......................... 25,758 500
92 Coca-Cola............................... 24,501 3,050
98 Bristol-Myers Squibb.................... 24,905 1,895
99 Northrop Grumman........................ 39791 64
100 Abbott Laboratories.................... 24,259.1 2,793.7
103 Wellpoint Health Networks.............. 11,302.5 703.1
172 Eli Lilly.............................. 19,042 2,707.9
252 Occidental Petroleum................... 16,548 989
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I said before, along with this domestic budget protection act, I
am introducing a companion piece next week which is called The
Emergency Revenue Sharing Act, and it simply states that during this
period of recession, for the next 3 years, effective immediately, as
soon as possible, we should have a revenue-sharing act which sends
money back to the States and the localities from the Federal
Government. A good figure to begin with would be $79 billion. We should
have an amount equal to the amount of money we have appropriated for
the war in Iraq and related activities. Why not $79 billion over a 3-
year period going to the States, going to the cities to make up these
gaps so that we do not lay off teachers at a time when we are trying to
improve education, so that we can go forward with the modernization of
our schools, so that we can go forward with maintaining decent health
care in our hospitals?
We are not going to go backwards. Everybody should understand out
there that America is not broke. We are not near bankruptcy; we are not
paralyzed. It is only the will of the people reflected through the
decisionmakers here in Washington that has to express itself
appropriately to solve the problem. We are doing deficit financing
anyhow; we can go forward and do more deficit financing to take care of
the needs of the cities and the States.
I have numerous people who are friends of mine who have been laid off
already, paraprofessionals in the schools. They laid off 3,000 people
in city government last week. Those people came half from the school
system and half from other municipal services. Those in the school
system were paraprofessionals, people who are not
[[Page H4194]]
teachers, but who are classroom aides, lunch room aides, et cetera.
Those are people who live in the community, those are people who are
mothers and fathers and relatives of the poor children who attend our
schools, and most of our children in our schools are poor children. The
other people laid off in municipal services were sanitation workers.
Large numbers of them live in our communities. They are people on the
bottom. They are laid off.
I think along with my other colleagues from New York, we want to join
with our colleagues across the Nation to send a message that we do
care. We are not impervious to the fact that this is going on. Tip
O'Neill said, ``All politics is local.'' In the same manner, all taxes
are local. Taxes do not come from Washington, D.C.; they come from
localities, from States. They come here, so there is nothing wrong with
sending some of it back and revenue-sharing. Revenue-sharing is a
simple answer. We send it back, we might earmark it, we spend half of
it for education and the other half we can spend on any other municipal
State services. But that is a simple process of helping to close a
budget gap. The budget gap in New York is not the largest. I think
California is ahead of us there. There are some other States that do
not talk much about it, and they are in such serious trouble that
symbolically and proportionately they are in as bad trouble as we are.
An article in The New York Times on March 25 I think expressed it
very well. It is entitled, ``Budgetary Shock and Awe.''
``The American public transfixed by the unfolding invasion of Iraq
may some day look up and discover too late what the Republican Congress
did while the world's attention was elsewhere. Led by the Bush
administration, the House and Senate are about to march under the
public's radar screen and lead the Nation into a decade of budget
disaster.
``The country is facing plenty of financial problems: the economy,
the cost of the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq. Stunningly,
Congress is preparing to make these far, far worse with more than $500
billion in tax cuts for the upper 1 percent of taxpayers. To finance
these spoils for the wealthiest Americans, House leaders, who have
taken the lead in hammering a budget together, plan deep cuts in vital
programs for the bottom 99 percent. These direct hits will raise from
Medicaid to child care, education to food stamps, environmental
protection to emergency doles for the poor.
``This plan, in the form of a budget resolution tied a firm tax cut
mandate, is moving forward,'' et cetera. I will enter this editorial
piece from The New York Times on March 25 entitled ``Budgetary Shock
and Awe'' into the Record at this time.
Budgetary Shock and Awe
The American public transfixed by the unfolding invasion of
Iraq may someday look up and discover too late what the
Republican Congress did while the world's attention was
elsewhere. Led by the Bush administration, the House and
Senate are about to march under the public's radar screen and
lead the country into a decade of budgetary disaster.
The country is facing plenty of financial problems: the
economy, the cost of the war on terrorism and the war in
Iraq. Stunningly, Congress is preparing to make things far,
far worse with more than $500 billion in tax cuts for the
upper 1 percent of taxpayers. To finance these spoils for the
wealthiest Americans, House leaders--who have taken the lead
in hammering a budget together--plan deep cuts of $475
billion in vital programs for the bottom 99 percent. These
direct hits will range from Medicaid to child care, education
to food stamps, environmental protection to emergency doles
for the poor.
This plan, in the form of a budget resolution tied to a
firm tax-cut mandate, is moving forward on Capitol Hill even
as lawmakers' boilerplate speeches resound with calls for
shared wartime sacrifice by all Americans. How an average
$90,000 tax cut for each millionaire counts as sacrifice is
only one of many unexplained mysteries as Republican leaders
fiercely protect President Bush's second wave of tax cuts.
The gallant troops in Iraq who are being invoked daily in
speeches by members of Congress might be interested to know
that the array of cuts includes an estimated $14 billion
reduction in military veterans' programs.
Last week, Senate moderates failed to pass what amounted to
an embarrassment-reduction plan to halve President Bush's
$726 billion tax cut. Now they talk of a last-ditch attempt
to revive that half-loaf approach this week, before the tax
cuts are written in parliamentary stone. But a few key
liberals are so far refusing, furious at approving any new
tax cuts that will increase the deficits of postwar America.
We sadly urge reviving the half-loaf strategy, if only as a
symbolic protest of the Republicans' shameful use of the fog
of war in their budget scheming. As for shared sacrifice,
tell it to the Marines.
Mr. Speaker, the process that they talk about there is still moving
forward. The House has passed a tax cut of $550 billion. The Senate is
debating still, maybe they have passed it today, or they will pass it
probably before the week ends, a tax cut bill. Thank God for the more
sensible, commonsense advocates in the Senate who at least want to cut
it back. At a time during the war in Iraq, there were some who said
look, we have to make some sacrifices. Instead of going for the full
$550 billion, why do we not cut it down to $300 billion, or $350
billion. That makes sense.
So probably what the Senate passes is going to have to go into
conference in the House, and we should tell our constituents out there
that here is the time for them to rise up and let it be known that they
know America is not broke, not bankrupt and they would like to see a
more reasonable, commonsense approach taken, because every dollar we
give in our tax cut will have to be borrowed. It is borrowed. It is
part of the deficit financing, which is the least productive part of
it.
If we were borrowing money to create jobs directly through a stimulus
package which built bridges and schools and renovated hospitals and
gave jobs to people, then we would be feeding a process whereby the
money returns to the economy. But what we are doing is giving the money
to the richest people under the banner that they are going to invest.
What are they going to invest in? Why are you going to invest more in
the creation of products when there are no consumers to buy your
products? Why are you going to invest more in services when there are
no consumers who can afford your services?
The simple law that Henry Ford understood, you first have to have
somebody with money before your product becomes profitable, is not
understood by the decisionmakers in the majority party here. We have to
put aside our partisan blinders. Let us not have any more conferences
with just Republicans or just Democrats. Let us put aside our partisan
blinders for the good of the African American community, for the good
of working families. After all, I cannot stress too much the fact that
working families out there are on the front line in every respect. When
it comes to homeland defense, it is going to be working families. They
were there at the World Trade Center by the thousands. They are the
ones who came in to do the rescue work. They are the ones who came in
to do the wrecking and the clearing and so forth. The workers were
there. The workers were there when we needed them on the front lines in
Iraq, Afghanistan, and, if necessary, North Korea. There will be people
from working families. We cannot abandon those families with these
myopic policies that only benefit the rich in America.
The rich in America are rich because an order is maintained. A law
and order society is maintained. And the Armed Forces protects them. If
you get rid of what the working families provide, the rich certainly
could not exist. So no rich person should assume that the money belongs
to me and, therefore, I have no stake in trying to make certain that
this economy works. I am not concerned about the emergence of America.
I am not concerned about education. I am not concerned about the need
to create more jobs. That is the most blind approach to their own self-
interests. But we are not going to sit still and wait for their own
self-interests.
The important thing is that this is a democracy, and I still have
faith that if the facts are out there, if we continue to pound away at
the commonsense, ridiculous position that the tax cut places us in, if
we continue to insist that our cities and our States deserve to get
some money back from the Federal Government in the form of revenue-
sharing to pay for the needs that are there because, after all, it is
the people's money. It came from the cities, it came from the States.
Now that they need it back immediately, let us take care of what really
is a man-made disaster.
In the past we have not hesitated to rise to the occasion if a city
was wiped out by a tornado or if there was a hurricane that caused
great damage or if
[[Page H4195]]
there was an earthquake. We always rise to the occasion in Congress and
go to the aid of places that are affected. Well, now we have a man-made
disaster in terms of the economy; and in New York, it is even worse
because of the recession on top of the recession when we had the attack
on the World Trade Center, which dislocated a major part of our
economy. The Federal Government should come to the aid of New York, not
only in the same way it comes to all parts of the country with respect
to the recession, but we still need help in building back what was
taken away as a result of an act of war against the United States.
Osama bin Laden and the terrorists did not attack New York City
because it is New York City. They attacked it because it was a target
in the United States. It was an act of war against the United States,
and we deserve to have more help from the United States Government in
the rebuilding of New York, just as we went to the aid of San Francisco
and Oakland when they had a super earthquake. Billions of dollars went
there. We have gone to the aid of islands who have had floods and
natural disasters all over the country. Now is the time to go to the
aid of our big cities suffering most from this recession in every way.
____________________