[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 22 (Thursday, February 26, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H671-H672]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 GREENSPAN WEIGHS IN ON ECONOMIC POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to succeed 
the gentleman from Virginia who has a strong commitment to human 
rights. His talk today underscored that commitment to human rights in 
our country and around the world.
  Mr. Speaker, I would just like to start with a couple of facts. Under 
the Bush tax plan, a millionaire in this country got a $93,000 tax cut, 
for someone on the average making $1 million in this country. Alan 
Greenspan, the President's guy on the Federal Reserve, yesterday said 
in order to pay for our budget deficits, we are going to have to cut 
Social Security and cut Medicare. Of course that is what he thinks, an 
investment banker, a Wall Street banker, someone who has enjoyed, and 
whose friends have enjoyed, these huge tax cuts and wants to continue 
enjoying these huge tax cuts, who does not much rely himself on 
Medicare or Social Security now or in the future.
  But, again, the fact a millionaire gets a $93,000 tax cut and because 
so many millionaires have gotten such huge tax cuts under the Bush plan 
over the last 3 years, Alan Greenspan is right, I suppose, if that is 
the way you think of this, that in order to pay for those millionaires' 
tax cuts, we are going to have to cut Social Security and Medicare. 
This Congress and this President have made a series of choices. They 
have chosen to give tax cuts to people in our society who need them the 
least, people making $1 million, $10 million, $20 million, $50 million, 
$100 million, people who are billionaires. We have made a choice. They 
have given tax cuts to that group of people, the people who need it the 
least, the most privileged in our society, the 1 percent wealthiest 
people in our country; and because they have gotten tax cuts, according 
to Alan Greenspan, Congress will need to cut Social Security, cut 
Medicare, cut spending on education, cut spending on environmental 
enforcement, cut spending on assisting local and State governments, cut 
Medicaid, all the things that happen as a result of that.
  This is all, Mr. Speaker, in the context of what this President and 
Alan Greenspan have done with our economy. We saw in the 1990s the 
creation of more than 20 million jobs, well, well, well over 100,000 
jobs a month. In fact, close to 200,000 jobs a month were created 
during the 1990s. Since President Bush took office, we have seen the 
loss of 3 million jobs. In my State of Ohio, one out of six 
manufacturing jobs has simply disappeared, likely never to return. So 
the Bush answer to this, not much different from his father's answer to 
the kind of economy that caused him to be voted out of office, the 
President's answer to this is twofold. It is more tax cuts for the 
wealthiest people in our society and so-called trickle-down economics. 
Hoping that those tax cuts will encourage them to invest and maybe they 
will provide some jobs does not seem to be working.

[[Page H672]]

  And the other part of his plan is more trade agreements like the 
Central American Free Trade Agreement; we have got one with Australia 
coming down; the Singapore, Chile, the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement coming up; the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which will 
double the size of NAFTA, quadruple the number of low-income workers, 
those trade agreements that hemorrhage jobs and ship jobs overseas.
  So when we see Alan Greenspan say we have got to keep giving tax cuts 
to millionaires but to pay for them we are going to have to cut Social 
Security and Medicare, that is the same thing that George Bush is 
saying when he continues this economic policy. Again, this economic 
policy is twofold. It is tax cuts for the most privileged people in our 
society, the people who need it the least; and trickle-down economics 
and trade agreements that hemorrhage jobs, that ship jobs overseas.
  It is simply not working. We have lost 3 million jobs. In fact, 
George Bush will likely, we do not know in the next 10 months for sure, 
but likely will be the first President since Herbert Hoover to actually 
have lost jobs during his time in office. That has not happened. The 
jobs he is losing are some of America's best jobs. They are 
manufacturing jobs. They are jobs that have sent kids to college, 
allowed people to buy a home, allowed people to have a middle-class 
life-style. If we continue this trickle-down economics and we continue 
these trade agreements that ship jobs overseas, we will continue this 
loss of jobs, and we will never see our economy come back the way it 
should and bring us the kind of country that we are used to having.
  That is why Alan Greenspan's comments really do hit home, that he 
wants to continue this tax policy, continue trickle-down economics. It 
just means the choice that he is making, the choice that President Bush 
is making, the choice that Republican leaders in Congress are making is 
that in order to pay for these tax cuts, this Congress is going to have 
to cut Social Security and Medicare. It is the wrong choice. It is the 
wrong idea for America. It is a violation of American values, our 
family values that help our families send our kids to college and build 
the kind of life-styles and the kind of lives for our children that we 
so desire.

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