[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 25, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H599]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                BUSH ECONOMIC POLICY NEEDS TO BE CHANGED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). Under a previous order 
of the House, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, all of us now are familiar with the 
economic report of the President of the United States. It is the report 
put out by the chief economic adviser for the President. It is signed 
by George Bush on page 4, signed by the chairman of the President's top 
economists in the country, the Chairman of the Council of Economic 
Advisors, Greg Mankiw. We have heard lots of media coverage that in 
this report the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors says 
outsourcing is a good thing; that an economic concept that they learned 
in graduate school called comparative advantage means if you can make 
something cheaper overseas, you ought to close down the American plant 
and make it overseas. They said outsourcing is a good thing, while a 
State like mine in Ohio has lost one out of six manufacturing jobs.
  They go on to predict we will create in this country under the Bush 
economic plan 2.6 million jobs this year. They also promised 3 million 
jobs a couple of years ago. We have actually lost manufacturing jobs in 
this country because of the Bush economic plan.
  The response to every economic problem is more trickle-down 
economics, cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans hoping it trickles 
down and creates jobs. That has not worked. Their other answer is more 
trade agreements, expanding NAFTA to Central America, the so-called 
Central American Free Trade Agreement, expand NAFTA to the rest of 
Latin America called the Free Trade Area of the Americas. None of that 
is working.
  We are seeing loss of jobs. In the district of the gentlewoman from 
Indiana (Ms. Carson) or the district of the gentleman from Washington 
(Mr. McDermott), we are seeing continued shipping of jobs overseas, 
continued outsourcing, as the President applauds in his Council's 
report, continuing hemorrhaging of jobs all over the world.
  But something that was also in this report which is even more 
amazing, the President has not been able to figure out how to stem the 
tide of economic job loss. We created in the Clinton years 25 million 
jobs. We have lost in the Bush years 3 million jobs, a huge portion of 
them manufacturing jobs. No President since Herbert Hoover has actually 
lost jobs during his administration, a record that George Bush is now 
competing with.
  The President, because he cannot seem to figure out how to create 
manufacturing jobs, the President in his report is saying regarding 
manufacturing jobs, maybe we ought to consider changing the definition 
of manufacturing jobs. They said the definition, and this is in the 
President's report signed by the President on page 4, the definition of 
a manufactured product is not straightforward. When a fast-food 
restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a service 
job, which is what we always thought, or, according to the President, 
is it combining inputs to manufacture a product? So these fast-food 
workers at $6 and $7 an hour, maybe we are going to call them 
manufacturing jobs. I am not making this up; this is in the President's 
report. They said manufacturing if someone is engaged in the 
mechanical, physical or chemical transformation of materials, 
substances or components into new products.
  So we have the $6-an-hour high school student in McDonald's standing 
there. First he unwraps the bread, which is like something you would do 
in a factory building cars. He unwraps the bread, puts the bun down, 
and takes the hamburger. He has to change chemically the hamburger. We 
would call that cooking it, but under the new-speak of the President's 
report, he is going to chemically change the hamburger so instead of 
being raw, it is now chemically altered or cooked. Then there is the 
cheese. If it is a cheeseburger, it is an even more complicated 
manufacturing process. The worker needs to chemically change the 
cheese. We would call it melting, but in the new-speak, we call it 
chemical change of the cheese. That cheese is then put on the burger. 
Next he has to unwrap the lettuce head and put lettuce on the 
hamburger. Next he slices the tomato. All of these manufacturing 
components are going into this new hamburger.
  Mr. Speaker, my point is the President's answer to what are we doing 
about loss of manufacturing jobs in this country is to reclassify 
manufacturing and say that these service jobs that pay $7 an hour, 
instead of the $20 an hour that workers in my district make, or workers 
at Goodyear in Akron building tires were making, instead of $20 an hour 
with pensions, with good health care benefits, we are now going to say 
we lost those manufacturing jobs, but we have other manufacturing jobs 
at McDonald's. And I do not mean to leave out Burger King, Arby's or 
some of the other fast-food restaurants that are actually manufacturing 
their hamburgers.
  Mr. Speaker, I think we see the ludicrousness of this. This country 
has to change its economic policy and change its direction. We need to 
say no to this trickle-down economics which give the tax breaks to the 
wealthiest people in the hope that they will create some jobs. That is 
not working. We have to say no to trade agreements that are shipping 
jobs overseas.

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