[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 29 (Tuesday, March 9, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H878]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       JOB NUMBERS FOR LAST MONTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 20, 2004, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, last Friday, we got another reality check 
as to how, after 3 years in the White House, President Bush still has 
not figured out how to create jobs for Americans here in the United 
States. The February job numbers illustrate how the economic policies 
of President Bush and the Republican Congress still are not creating 
jobs.
  Last month, only 21,000 jobs were created by the American economy. 
That is 21,000 jobs. The Labor Department also revised its numbers for 
both December and January, stating that 23,000 less jobs were created 
during those 2 months than when it was first reported; and this means 
employers have added an average of 61,000 jobs per month since August, 
well below the 150,000 new jobs economists said were needed to keep 
pace with population growth.
  If the jobs recession does not end soon and the economy does not 
create 2.1 million jobs this year, then President Bush will be the 
first President since Herbert Hoover to preside over an economy in 
which he did not create one net job; and yet the President continues to 
say that the best way to create more jobs in the upcoming month is for 
Congress to make permanent all his tax cuts, the tax cuts that 
overwhelmingly benefit our Nation's wealthiest Americans.
  I would just like to know, Mr. Speaker, when is the President going 
to learn? Congressional Republicans cut taxes year after year, and the 
jobs they predicted would be created have never become a reality. Last 
year, when the President was touting another round of tax cuts 
benefiting our Nation's wealthiest elite, the White House predicted the 
cuts would create more than 2.1 million new jobs in the 7 months after 
its passage. And what actually happened during that period? Only 
296,000 jobs were created, 1.8 million short of the President's 
predictions.
  Now President Bush says he is going to create jobs, but he is about 
as good at predicting job creation as he is in advancing policies that 
create those jobs. He is not very good at it, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps that 
is why President Bush and some of his leading economic advisers are now 
backing away from their own ``Economic Report of the President,'' in 
which the administration predicted that 2.6 million jobs would be 
created this year. Just one week after release of that report, Treasury 
Secretary John W. Snow and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans refused to 
embrace President Bush's own economic projections.
  One would think the Bush administration would be concerned about the 
job losses, but last month we learned that President Bush and his 
economic advisers view the movement of American factory jobs and white 
collar work to other countries as a positive transformation that will, 
in the end, enrich our economy.
  The President's chief economist, Gregory Mankiw, made national 
headlines when he said, ``Outsourcing is just a new way of doing 
international trade. More things are tradeable than were tradeable in 
the past, and that's a good thing.'' President Bush supported this view 
in his annual economic report in which he wrote: ``When a good or 
service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import 
it than make or provide it domestically.''
  Mr. Speaker, how can we have economic success if we send jobs 
overseas, but do not create enough new jobs with comparable wages here 
in the United States?
  I think it is about time that the Bush administration realizes that 
shipping jobs overseas and cutting taxes for the wealthiest elite in 
our country will not create jobs. President Bush and congressional 
Republicans have had 3 years to turn this jobs recession around. They 
have totally failed. It is time for Congress to pass measures that will 
encourage companies to keep jobs here in the United States, and it is 
time we level the playing field and protect American jobs here rather 
than exporting them overseas.

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