[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 10, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H416]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       TOP ECONOMIC ADVISER SAYS OUTSOURCING OF JOBS A GOOD THING

  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, I would like to follow up on the remarks of 
my colleague, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), about the 
unbelievable report that this White House has produced in which the 
President's top economic adviser, not an intern who is studying for a 
master's degree or a bachelor's degree, his top economic adviser says, 
``Outsourcing of jobs is just a new way of doing international trade. 
And that's a good thing.''
  Well, coming from the State of Ohio, I would like to say to this 
President, bring 'em on. Come right over to us.
  The day after the State of the Union address, the President flew and 
landed in Toledo, Ohio, my home district, a State in which hundreds of 
thousands of people are out of work, with people where he has cut off 
their unemployment benefits and has not extended them. They cannot find 
jobs. There are people in my church who stopped looking. They do not 
know where else to go.
  We have some jobs available to work in our primary election March 2, 
and I have been telling people to at least apply at the Board of 
Elections to work for $85 a day. At least it is one day's wages. The 
job scene out there is really rough, and it is extraordinarily rough in 
the State of Ohio.
  The day after the President left, the unemployment rate in Ohio 
ticked up. Then last week, just a few days after he left, another plant 
closure was announced in Sandusky, Ohio. The little Dixie Cups, 
everybody knows Dixie Cups, 207 more people permanently out of work, 
people who have families to support, people who depend on their check, 
people who depend on their health benefits and people who depend on the 
retirement benefits that they had worked so hard for, some for as many 
as 30 years.
  What is going on in this great land?
  I turned the news on the other night. Domino Sugar in New York City, 
closing down. The yellow and white bags have been a fixture in our 
family since I was a little kid and learned how to bake from my 
grandmother. Gone.
  Just north of the line of where I live in the State of Ohio, 
Electrolux up in Greenville, Michigan, 2,700 jobs permanently gone, 
closed down.
  What is happening under this presidency? Nearly 3 million 
manufacturing jobs out the window, and the President's top adviser in a 
written report says that the movement of American factory jobs, along 
with white collar work, is a good thing.
  Where do these people live? You know what? I have a hunch most of 
them are the privileged children of privileged parents. They do not 
have any idea of what struggle is really about. And the rest of us who 
think we know something about struggle have to be polite, we have to be 
refined, we have to have upper-class and middle-class behavior, when 
you really want to take the people who took your jobs and level them.
  That is what it feels like when you lose everything, when people in 
your district lose their health benefits.
  A company in my district called Pilkington was promised that their 
health benefits would be there in their retirement years. Now they are 
being charged $170 more a month for their health benefits. I talked to 
some of these folks over the weekend, 80-years-old, 84-years-old. Their 
hands shake. Promises were not kept.

                              {time}  1945

  I would say to the President of the United States, it would have been 
a good thing had he ever had to work for a living. If he had, his chief 
economic adviser would not have prepared a report which was in the L.A. 
Times and the headline read, ``Bush Supports Shift of Jobs Overseas.'' 
The Seattle Times says, ``Bush Report Sending Jobs Overseas Helps the 
United States.'' In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a city that knows a 
whole lot about outsourcing, ``Bush Economic Report Praises 
`Outsourcing' Jobs.'' And way down in Florida, the Orlando Sentinel, 
``Bush Says Sending Jobs Abroad Can Be Beneficial.''
  I would tell my colleagues whose job I would like to send abroad, and 
we have about 7 or 8 more months to do it. I would really like to see 
any President who says this to the people of Ohio carry a single vote 
in our State.
  Mr. Speaker, I really am very proud to be a Member of this Congress, 
and I try to be a voice for the people who have been so adversely 
affected. I urge every American who is out of work and everyone who is 
worried about their jobs being outsourced to register to vote, vote in 
your primaries, vote in the general election on November 2. Let us 
change the direction of this Nation once and for all.

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