[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 44 (Thursday, April 1, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H2037-H2038]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       OHIO COMPANIES CLOSE DOORS

  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, Secretary John Snow, the President's 
second top economic adviser, was in Ohio this week trying to defend the 
administration's economic and budget policies. Secretary Snow said 
outsourcing is a good thing. Outsourcing creates more efficiencies in 
the economy.
  I wish that Secretary Snow, when trying to justify the President's 
economic policies, had been with me in Akron, Ohio, a couple of weeks 
ago. I spoke to a group of business owners, small manufacturers, the 
Akron machine shop, group of machine shop owners and operators. They 
are concerned that Ohio has lost one out of six manufacturing jobs, 
probably permanently. They are concerned that Ohio has lost 236,000 
jobs overall. That is about 1,500 jobs a week since President Bush took 
office. That is about 205 jobs every day since President Bush took the 
oath of office on January 20, 2001.
  When I was talking to these machine shop operators, one gentleman 
presented me with a pile of brochures about twice this size. Actually, 
I do not have all of them with me. These are going-out-of-business sale 
notices, auction notices from companies all over the country, small 
manufacturing companies. He receives a stack of about that many every 
month, he said, at his place of business, companies going out of 
business, selling their equipment.
  Let me just share some of these. A company in Cleveland, Ohio, 
selling all its assets; a company in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, absolute 
auction; company in Waterville, Ohio, near Toledo, live one site, 
selling everything; company in Springfield, Ohio, going out of 
business; company in Mansfield, Ohio, where I grew up, that is going 
out of business, selling its real estate and all its production 
capacity; a company in Sydney, Ohio, major equipment manufacturer, 
public auction; company in Dayton, Ohio, facility closing; company in 
Cleveland, Ohio, assets no longer required in the continuing operations 
of this tube mill facility; a company in Akron, Ohio, in my district 
going out of business; another company in Cincinnati, Ohio, I believe, 
public auction, going out, precision machining facility; a company in 
Toledo, Ohio, going out of business, don't miss this sale, everything 
sold; a company in Youngstown, Ohio, going out of business; a company 
in Painesville, Ohio, going out of business; a company in Medina, Ohio, 
facility closed, all must go; Marion, Ohio, complete shop closeout 
auction; Tipp City, Ohio, machine tool auction, selling everything; 
Cleveland, Ohio.
  That is just the Ohio companies here that are going out of business.
  I bring this up partly because the administration does not get it. 
They keep talking about the economy is coming back. We are not seeing 
jobs created, and we are not seeing jobs created because the 
administration's answer to this kind of bad news is more tax cuts for 
the most privileged people in our country with the hope that some of 
those tax cuts will trickle down and maybe provide some jobs and more 
trade agreements that hemorrhage jobs, that ship jobs overseas.
  This administration needs to do two or three things immediately. We 
need to extend unemployment benefits. Fifty thousand Ohioans in the 
next couple of months will have had their unemployment benefits expire. 
These

[[Page H2038]]

are people that want to have jobs, that are looking for work. It is 
50,000 workers. It is 50,000 families that lose their benefits in 
communities all over my State, all over this country.
  The second thing the administration needs to do is allow for trade 
adjustment assistance. They have opposed that, even though all those 
jobs that have gone to Mexico and China and all over the world, those 
workers need help.
  And, third, the administration needs to pass the Crane-Rangel bill, 
bipartisan legislation that will give tax breaks to those corporations 
that hire people in the United States.
  The President, on the other hand, wants to give more tax cuts to the 
wealthiest individuals and more tax cuts to the largest corporations 
and rewarding those companies that are outsourcing, that are sending 
their jobs overseas. We need to reward those companies and give 
incentives to those companies that are hiring American workers and 
build back our manufacturing base. My State has lost one out of six 
manufacturing jobs in the last 3 years. My State has lost 205 jobs 
every single day of the Bush administration. These pleas continue to 
fall on deaf ears. The President tries the same tired solutions. They 
have not worked for 3 years. It is time we changed course.

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