[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 81 (Monday, June 14, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H3945-H3952]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Garrett of New Jersey). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Brown) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, a group of Members from Congress from 
Ohio have come to the floor regularly over the last 3 years, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. 
Jones), and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland); and we have since 
been joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), freshman from 
northeastern Ohio, to discuss what Bush economic policies have done to 
the middle class, how they have squeezed middle-class Americans with 
higher gas prices, higher health care costs, stagnant wages, and 
especially staggering job loss. Our State of Ohio has lost, since 
President Bush took office, one out of six manufacturing jobs, almost 
200 jobs every single day of the Bush administration.
  These failed economic policies are especially putting the squeeze on 
America's and Ohio's middle class. Middle-class families feel the brunt 
of this administration's economic policies. America's middle-class 
families are losing ground on jobs, losing ground on health care, 
losing ground on education. Yet the Bush administration's answer to 
every single economic problem, as we saw from listening to my friends 
paint their very rosy picture of the condition of the U.S. economy, at 
least the condition for the most affluent in the U.S. economy, the 
answer in every case for the President for every problem that we face 
is more tax cuts for the wealthiest people in our country, hoping that 
some of those benefits trickle down to the middle class and maybe 
create some jobs from time to time.
  That clearly has not worked with the loss of plus 2\1/2\ million jobs 
since President Bush took office, the first President since Herbert 
Hoover to have a net job loss. And the President's other answer to 
these economic anxieties, to these economic problems, are more trade 
agreements like NAFTA, like the North American Free Trade Agreement. 
Singapore, Chile, Morocco, Australia, and now the Central American Free 
Trade Agreement, and later the Free Trade Area of the Americas, all of 
which have hemorrhaged jobs, all of which have sent jobs overseas.
  As I said, Ohio has lost almost 200 jobs every single day of the Bush 
administration, and now leading U.S. corporations are beginning to send 
not just blue collar but white collar jobs, clerical jobs, 
administrative jobs, technical work, computer programming, even 
radiology and radiologist jobs overseas as well.
  Government figures confirm that the North American Free Trade 
Agreement, very conservatively speaking from a conservative government, 
that NAFTA has cost Americans more than a half million jobs. If that is 
not enough, the President now has signed just last week the Central 
America Free Trade Agreement, which will ship more jobs out of 
Tennessee or out of Ohio or out of any of our States to Mexico, to 
China, and all over the world. Roughly 830,000 U.S. service sector 
jobs, telemarketers, accountants, software engineers, chief technology 
officers will move abroad by the end of 2005, according to a report 
released in May by Forrester Research. Forrester Research projected 
that 600,000 jobs would move overseas by the end of next year; 3.4 
million jobs will leave the U.S. by 2015.
  So instead of fighting for trade pacts that keep jobs in the United 
States, the President's plan is to repeat the failures of NAFTA and to 
use taxpayer dollars to outsource American jobs. Get that: to use 
taxpayer dollars, literally to use taxpayer dollars, to outsource jobs, 
to send jobs overseas. This is an administration that, when begged, 
literally begged, by 200 of us in this Congress, would not extend 
unemployment benefits to those 1 million Americans, 50,000 Americans in 
the gentleman from Ohio's (Mr. Ryan) and my home State to allow the 
extension of unemployment benefits for those Americans who lost their 
jobs, but continue to try to look for jobs.
  Instead of fighting for corporate tax reform such as Crane-Rangel, 
the administration remains silent on responsible bipartisan 
legislation, the Crane-Rangel legislation that both parties support, 85 
Republican sponsors, 90 Democratic sponsors, supported by the AFL-CIO 
and the National Association of Manufacturers, a jobs bill that will 
reward companies that produce domestically. Instead, the President 
wants to continue to give tax breaks to the largest companies, which 
happen to be his largest contributors, which so often send their jobs 
overseas.
  Responsible leadership means not just being critical of the President 
in what he is doing but also offering what we should do instead of 
these failed trickle-down economic policies and failed trade agreement 
policies.
  Four things to start off: a moratorium on job exporting trade pacts, 
meaning let us look at NAFTA, let us look at China trade, let us look 
at CAFTA, let us look at all these trade agreements before we pass 
another one to decide what works, what does not work, and make the 
changes we need to. Second, tough action against China and other 
trading partners who refuse to play by the rules.

  When I came to Congress a dozen years ago, we had about a 400 
million, million with an ``m,'' trade deficit with China. Today we have 
120 billion, with a ``b,'' 3,000 times the trade deficit that we had 
with China just a dozen years ago.
  Third, enactment of the Crane-Rangel corporate tax reform plan, 
which, as I said, uses the Tax Code to reward companies that produce 
domestically the manufacturing in our country instead of the Bush way 
of giving big tax cuts to the largest corporations, most of which 
outsource their jobs every single day.
  And, fourth, an extension of unemployment insurance to help bridge 
the gap until better, good-paying jobs are created and people can once 
again support their families.
  The President's plan includes none of these provisions, in large part 
because large American corporations that have funded the President's 
campaign, who are the President's strongest allies, from which most of 
the President's Cabinet has come out of, all of those companies are 
doing very well, their stockholders and their executives are doing very 
well under the Bush tax plans and outsourcing plans, but their workers 
are not and our country is not.
  And, lastly, before yielding to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) to 
talk about education issues and what that has done to jobs in this 
country, the President's health care policies are also hitting 
America's middle class right in the pocketbook. Prescription drug costs 
increased 9 percent last year, five times the rate of inflation. Yet 
the President's drug bill, the Medicare bill, written by the drug 
industry, written by the insurance industry will increase drug company 
profits by $140 billion over the next 10 years and has protections in 
the bill for the drug industry so that they can continue to charge 
three times, four times, five times what drugs cost everywhere else 
around the world.
  Mr. Speaker, one more point. Because I was critical of the 
President's plan on prescription drugs, I want to mention what we 
should do to get costs under control. First of all, we should

[[Page H3946]]

give clear authority to our own government to negotiate on behalf of 40 
million Medicare beneficiaries lower drug prices. Every other country 
in the world does it that way. That is why Tamoxifen, a breast cancer 
drug, costs the Canadians one-eighth as much as it costs Americans, 
simply because the Canadians use their 30 million residents as a 
bargaining pool to negotiate better prices from the drug companies. The 
U.S. Government has refused to do that in large part because the drug 
industry gives so many campaign dollars to too many Members of this 
body, especially Republican leadership and especially the President's 
re-election campaign.
  The second thing we should do is allow the reimportation of 
prescription drugs from Canada so if we really do believe in NAFTA and 
fair trade and free trade, American wholesalers, American drug stores 
like Drug Mart, should be allowed to go on the international market and 
buy those drugs from Canada at one third and one fourth the price.
  Mr. Speaker, I also would mention some things about education, but we 
have an expert here. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), freshman 
congressman, will talk for some time about jobs in Ohio and education 
and some of the issues that he wants to discuss.
  I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to 
me. I think it is important that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) 
shared with us exactly why we are having all these problems. I think 
people sitting at home would be thinking to themselves why in God's 
name would our country be giving tax credits to companies who would 
outsource jobs? And the answer, as the gentleman so eloquently gave us, 
is that these people who are making the profits from outsourcing jobs 
are the same people that are donating millions of dollars to Members of 
this body, that are donating millions of dollars especially to the 
Presidential campaign, and that is probably the fundamental problem 
that we have in this country right now.
  Our government and our laws are being dictated to everyone else by 
the big-money people, and they control this institution. And I think 
the best example that we have had, at least since I have been here, is 
why would we not allow prescription drugs to come down from Canada. It 
seems it would make sense. But then we realize, as I was reading his 
op-ed here that he wrote here in the New York Times, we realize that 
political contributions from the drug industry to Republicans in this 
body is $22 million, 74 percent of the total of the money that they 
raised. The Democrats raised $7 million, only 25 percent. Still a lot 
of money. But it is clear that if they are raising $22 million, 74 
percent of their total amount of money that they are raising, that they 
would be advocating on behalf of those major corporations and they 
would be saying we do not want to free trade with Canada. And the same 
thing with not allowing them to negotiate down drug prices. Why would 
we not use the buying power of millions of people to sit down with 
Pfizer, say to Pfizer, we are going to make a deal here. They want 
access to these millions of people, they have got to sit down and talk 
to us and negotiate a fair price.
  So I think it is very important and probably the best point that we 
could make as we speak to the American people here tonight, because 
they would ask why are we doing this, and the reason is there is too 
much money in this game and the average person has a microphone and the 
people who have a lot of money have a big bull horn, and they seem to 
get everything done.
  The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) talked about outsourcing of jobs, 
free trade, competing on a global economy, our workers trying to 
compete with workers who make $5 a day or 50 cents an hour in a lot of 
these other countries. The promise to the American people always was 
this: we are going to trade, we are going to compete in an 
international economy, in a global economy; but we are always going to 
invest in our own people. We are going to invest in our own children. 
We are going to invest in our college students. We are going to make 
college accessible, affordable so that we can get the high-end jobs. 
Now we are still losing the high-end jobs; we are losing a lot of them 
to India. If we would have fulfilled the promise that this government 
made many years ago and one has a computer-programming degree or a 
high-tech degree of some sort, most of those jobs are now leaving in 
the millions in the next few years to India where they are paying 
people with bachelor's degrees in engineering not even $5 an hour, and 
we know the kind of money that they make here.
  So not only are we losing the high-end jobs; now we are no longer 
even investing in education. And I just want to share a few statistics 
with the people who are listening. Student debt is up 66 percent since 
1997. Funding for higher ed in Ohio was slashed by over $18.5 million 
in 2002, 2003. In-state tuition at places like University of 
Cincinnati, Kent State University, University of Akron, Youngstown 
State, the tuition costs have been raised by 10 to 15 percent since 
basically the late 1990s, and the burden is being placed on the 
students who are trying to get ahead. So it is up 66 percent. I think 
the most atrocious statistic that we can have is, because of these 
increases, in the fall of 2003, an estimated 250,000 students, college 
qualified, could not afford to either go to college or continue to go 
to college. They were completely shut out because of the increase in 
tuition, the lack of buying power for the Pell grants.

                              {time}  2145

  So how can we on the one hand say that we want to trade, we want to 
participate in the global economy, we have the right to lift everybody 
else up and share some of the wealth of our own country, and then at 
the same time not invest in our own people? That has clearly been the 
policy of this administration, it has clearly been the policy of this 
Congress.
  Since 1994, the Republicans have controlled this Chamber, they have 
had the presidency for the last 3\1/2\ years, and they have done 
nothing. President Bush promised in his election that he was going to 
increase investments in the Pell Grants for the first year and then 
graduate it up. It did not happen. College loans today are costing kids 
more, and the policies that this Congress wants to adopt will cost them 
even more money in the long run. So something actually needs to be 
done.
  Since 2001, which is another interesting statistic, tuition and fees 
have increased by almost 30 percent in 49 of the 50 States. When we are 
talking about Ohio and talking about trying to create jobs in Ohio, you 
cannot overlook the fact that we have not, whether it was in this 
Congress or in the General Assembly in Ohio, we have not made 
sufficient investments into the young people who are going to create 
the new economy.
  Really, as we are losing these jobs, it is also important to note 
that we do not know what the new economy is going to be. Many of us are 
advocating for alternative energy sources, investments in high speed 
rail and a variety of other issues that I think we need to advance on, 
but those are just our ideas. The private sector will ultimately create 
what the new economy is to be. But the government's role has been and 
should continue to be investment in the colleges, investment in the 
young students, and let those bright, intelligent, creative minds 
create the new economy we are going to have.
  One last statistic that I want to share, and that is the No Child 
Left Behind, because we have talked a little bit about college but have 
not talked about K through 12. No Child Left Behind was put in place to 
move the bottom 25 percent of the students, bottom in regards to test 
scores and achievement, move them across the finish line, with 
investments into after-school programs, good idea; investments in the 
summer programs, good idea; investments into one-on-one tutoring, if 
necessary.
  The philosophy was we are going to pull these kids across the finish 
line so that they can have a successful life. If they have the one-on-
one tutoring, if we make the investment after school, if we make the 
investment during the summertime and help these kids along with 
intensive training, that they will be able to succeed and become 
proficient. So that was the Federal mandate on the States, that was the 
Federal mandate on the local school districts.

[[Page H3947]]

  But, lo and behold, we prioritized and we gave tax cuts to the 
wealthiest people in the country. Half the people in my congressional 
district did not get one dollar from the tax cut. So this nonsense that 
was being spewed out on the other side earlier tonight that everyone is 
benefiting from this tax cut did not hit home in Youngstown, Ohio, in 
Warren, Ohio, and in Akron, Ohio. It did not show up. Fifty percent of 
the people in my congressional district did not get one dollar back 
from the tax cut.
  So we have all these Federal mandates underfunded. No Child Left 
Behind just in Ohio is underfunded by $1.4 billion just this year, $1.4 
billion. That is going to go to the State to have to comply, and that 
is going to go down to the local school district. If you are sitting in 
Ohio and do not think these mandates are going to cause your local 
school district to have to go and try to pass another property tax 
increase, you are missing the boat.
  So what we are trying to say here is the Federal Government has a 
responsibility to invest, whether it is No Child Left Behind, college 
access or anything else, into our young kids and students so they will 
be able to compete. We have missed the boat. We have not fulfilled our 
obligation, we have not fulfilled our responsibility, because, as the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) has said, we had to give these tax 
cuts.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the 
gentleman. We have been joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Strickland) and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones), and also the 
gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).
  I want to call on the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Jones) next, because 
she is in the middle of a hearing in the Committee on Ways and Means.
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, it is so wonderful to be on the 
floor of the House again with my colleagues as we talk about the issues 
that are impacting our State. Right now in the Committee on Ways and 
Means we are marking up FSC-ETI bill, which has to do with giving 
corporations who take jobs over to foreign countries greater tax 
benefits.
  Since I am the only Democratic Ohio member on the Committee on Ways 
and Means, I want to get back over there, because I have a piece of 
legislation where I am offering an amendment that if the tax provisions 
provide benefits for manufacturing workers who lost their jobs, we 
ought to be able to provide benefits to service workers who lost their 
jobs, because in Ohio it appears we have lost some 133,000 service 
worker jobs since this administration took over.
  I rise with my colleagues as a supporter, a voice for the middle-
class and a voice for the lower-class people in our country who make up 
the backbone of our country, those Americans who since George Bush took 
office are finding themselves overlooked, under-appreciated and kicked 
to the curb.
  I could go on with my statement, but what I am going to do is submit 
my statement for the record, because I know Ohio is in good hands with 
the three of you on the floor of the House to talk about what is going 
on in Ohio.
  I need to go back over to the Committee on Ways and Means and make 
sure the voice of Ohio workers is heard in that hearing. If we get done 
before the hour is up, I will be back to engage in a conversation with 
each and every one of you.
  You know if unemployment is high in the majority communities in Ohio, 
in the minority communities it is even higher. I just got some 
statistics saying in the City of East Cleveland, the unemployment rate 
is 12.7 percent, 12.7 percent. We need to be a loud voice on behalf of 
the workers of Ohio.
  Let me say to my colleagues here, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Brown), I have been calling him ``senior.'' He does not like to be 
called senior colleague, but my colleague with greater seniority than 
me, and my colleague the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), with 
greater seniority than me. At least I am more senior to somebody, my 
colleague with less seniority than me, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Ryan). Keep it up, brothers. I am glad to be here with you.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a voice for the middle class. Those 
Americans who make up the working class, the backbone of this country. 
Those Americans, who since President Bush took office are finding 
themselves overlooked, underappreciated and kicked to the curb.
  My home state of Ohio, has seen the worst of this economy. Since 
President Bush took office the state of Ohio has lost 214,500 jobs. Of 
those lost jobs, 167,800 of them were manufacturing jobs; 1,300 of 
those lost just recently in April.
  My colleagues across the aisle would argue that the economy is 
improving; however, the Republicans have much to do to erase the job 
deficit that they have created through their tax cuts for the wealthy.
  The growing industry that the Republicans have been talking about is 
significantly weaker than the shrinking industry. In Ohio there is a 
-29 percent wage differences between industries gaining jobs and the 
industries losing jobs. Additionally, the health insurance coverage for 
the growing industries is only 53.1 percent compared to 70.2 percent of 
the shrinking industries--a difference of 17.1 percent.
  The economic outlook is even worse for many living in my district. 
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Ohio Dept. of Job 
and Family Services, the unemployment rate in Cuyahoga County is at 6.5 
percent with over 43,500 workers unemployed. The cities of Cleveland 
and East Cleveland have been hit the hardest with Cleveland's 
unemployment rate at 12.2 percent with 25,000 unemployed workers and 
East Cleveland with a 14 percent unemployment rate and 2,346 workers 
unemployed.
  This economy has had a disproportionate affect on minorities in this 
country, particularly African Americans. According to the U.S. Courts, 
Administrative Office's Bankruptcy Statistics, 1,625,208 households 
filed for bankruptcy in 2003, a 33 percent increase from 2000. That is 
nearly 1 bankruptcy every 19 seconds.
  For minorities the statistics are even worse. According to an article 
by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, entitled the Two Income 
Trap, 2003, African Americans and Hispanics are much more likely to go 
bankrupt. Hispanic homeowners are nearly three times more likely than 
white homeowners to file for bankruptcy, and black homeowners are 
nearly six times more likely than white homeowners. African Americans 
are also twice as likely to lose their homes due to foreclosures, often 
falling victim to the unscrupulous practices of predatory lenders.

  Additionally, African Americans have higher levels of debt. The 
typical African American families had debt of 30 percent of their 
assets, while the debt of typical white families was 11 percent of 
their assets.
  Homeownership and credit are not the only place where the minorities 
of this country are feeling the economic squeeze. It is affecting their 
education where they are seeing an increase in tuition of $1,207 at 4-
year public universities. It is affecting their health care, where here 
in the United States the total family premium for health insurance has 
increased by $2,630 to $9,068. Even child care costs have increased by 
$2,050. A Census study showed that African Americans and Hispanics 
spend more on child care than whites. The average black family spends 
10.4 percent of household income on childcare, and the average Hispanic 
family spends 10.7 percent, compared with 8.1 percent for white 
families. This along with skyrocketing gas prices and the outsourcing 
of Americans jobs, our middle class citizenry is suffering.
  It is time for us to provide real legislation and initiative to 
strengthen middle class Americans. Democrats have a plan to jump-start 
our economy through tax breaks to encourage businesses to keep jobs 
here in America, invest in our small- and medium-sized businesses and 
work to secure universal access to college and expand job training.
  The American people deserve better than what they are receiving from 
this administration and we move forward to address the needs of the 
American people.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the 
gentlewoman for her leadership on these issues on one of the most 
important committees in this Congress, the Committee on Ways and Means.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from southern and eastern Ohio, 
whose district runs from Youngstown all along the river down to 
Portsmouth, who has been fighting for better health care since he has 
been a Member of Congress, for lower drug prices, for working to 
provide access to health care for veterans, health care benefits, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Brown) for yielding.
  I watched the special order which preceded this special order, some 
of our

[[Page H3948]]

colleagues. Quite frankly, I sat in my apartment watching the 
television as they spoke, and I was wondering if they are from Michael 
Jackson's Neverland, because they certainly are not in touch with the 
real world. The fact is, do these people ever go home and talk to their 
colleagues on the weekends?
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, President Bush's 
Secretary of Commerce recently said, ``This is the best economy of my 
lifetime.'' Again, I wonder, I know that President Bush and his top 
advisers have personal wealth and do not get out much, but it is pretty 
amazing.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. If I could interrupt and say, for him it may be the 
best economy of his lifetime, and I do not doubt that. But what about 
the workers there in Washington County in a little town called Marietta 
that I met with this week who are losing their jobs?
  What about the workers in Belpre, Ohio, in the same county, working 
in a factory that makes collectible dolls, the Lee Middleton Doll 
Company. There are about 35 workers, mostly women, many of them single 
mothers; one of the workers is 73 years of age, who is working in order 
to buy her medicine. They have been told on the 25th of this month 
their jobs are gone, because that doll company is taking that work to 
China.
  Now, how much do these people there in Belpre make? The average wage 
is somewhere between $7 and $11 an hour, and they are going to China 
for cheaper labor. I would like for my colleagues who preceded us to 
come to Belpre, Ohio, come to Marietta, Ohio, come to Martins Ferry, 
Ohio, come to Lisbon, Ohio, come to Salem, Ohio, where the Eljer plant 
that makes bathroom sinks and tubs, they are closing. They are 
manufacturing in China probably this very evening as we stand here on 
this floor and speak to each other.
  All of those workers are without a paycheck, they are without health 
care. They are without hope, many of them. Some of these workers are 
55, 60 years of age. They do not yet qualify for Medicare. Many of them 
have health care problems. They are wondering, what are they going to 
do?
  I wish I could tell them that we had a President that I could go to 
and share their plight and expect some positive reaction from. These 
people, I do not know, they say the economy is booming, jobs are coming 
back. They need to come to Ohio, and they need to come to Ohio and not 
go to a prearranged event, where certain people are invited and other 
people are excluded. They need to come to Ohio and just go from 
community to community. They will find out what is happening.
  People are afraid they are going to lose their jobs if they have not 
already. They are afraid they are going to lose their health care if 
they have not already. They are wondering what is going to happen to 
their kids.
  I want to tell you, I was really offended because the Columbus 
Dispatch did a series of articles on hunger and the use of food 
pantries by Ohioans, and they did a series of wonderful series just 
laying out the problem and what the experience is.
  When the Bush administration was contacted for a comment, Mr. Eric 
Bost, B-O-S-T is how you spell his name, the U.S. Under Secretary for 
Food and Nutrition Services, he had the gall to say, ``Well, there has 
been a bump up in the number of people using these pantries, but how 
much of that is due to people taking the easy way out I do not know,'' 
he said.
  Well, Mr. Bost, I wish he would come to Ohio. It is a lot of fun, Mr. 
Bost, to stand in a food line, waiting to get food for you and your 
family, for your children. It is a nice way to pass the time of day.
  What an insult, for the person in this administration who is supposed 
to be concerned about food and caring for people who need proper 
nutrition to make such an outrageous comment. It shows that he, and I 
guess many of the others in this administration, are totally out of 
touch.
  There are families whose dads and husbands are serving this Nation in 
Iraq who are showing up at these food pantries. We need to wake up. 
This is a serious, serious set of circumstances.
  It is so frustrating, it is so frustrating to know that in a country 
where we have the wealth to give huge tax breaks to the richest among 
us, the richest among us, that we have got families whose dad or whose 
husband is serving this country in Iraq showing up at a food pantry in 
order to get the food they need to feed their children. I wonder if the 
President is aware of that.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman would yield, I read that same 
series of articles. There was a quote in there by one of the gentlemen, 
and I cannot think of his name, who worked at either the food pantry or 
helped run the Second Harvest, and he said the lines were depression-
like. Those were his words, depression-like.
  So to sit here and say the economy is going just fine, just humming 
along, that these tax cuts have worked, and we have people, in the same 
article they said the increase from 2002 to 2003 was I think 17 percent 
increase in people using the food pantry, and then last year was 19 
percent on top of the 17 percent, they have the audacity to come down 
here and say things are getting better.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, 
I think it is appropriate and proper for an official of the Agriculture 
Department to really try to scrutinize what is happening, what is being 
reported by the Columbus Dispatch, to try to understand what may be 
causing this. But to have the callousness of heart to imply that this 
bump up in the use of food pantries is due to people wanting ``the easy 
way out,'' what does he mean by ``the easy way out?''
  This man, like myself and many others who serve in this Chamber, 
probably goes out and spends as much on a single meal as some families 
may have to try to feed themselves for several days, and for someone in 
that kind of position to utter a comment like that, if I was George W. 
Bush, I would fire that man the moment I became aware of the words he 
had uttered.

                              {time}  2200

  He does not deserve to serve in this administration and to hold the 
high position that he holds in the Department of Agriculture. He ought 
to work somewhere else, but he should not be working in a program that 
is designed to try to help people who are in need of food and good 
nutrition.
  I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I do not hold any ill will personally 
toward any of these leaders in our country whose values and positions 
and policies are so different from what, obviously, the four of us 
believe this country should pursue; but when you hear the Secretary of 
Commerce say, ``This is the best economy in my lifetime,'' when you 
hear our colleague from southwest Ohio only 45 minutes or so ago talk 
about how the economy is roaring back; the gentleman from Texas, one 
from West Virginia, one from Arizona, one from Indiana talk about the 
record-setting economic growth, it really does remind me of kind of 
what happened at the Timken Company.
  The Timken Company, as all of us remember, is President Bush's 
favorite Ohio company. The Timken family has given both President Bush 
and his father literally millions of dollars and raised millions of 
dollars. The President went to Timken a year ago and praised the 
workers for a literally 10 percent increase in productivity, praised 
this company for all that it has done in this community, deservedly. 
Then several months later, only about 6 weeks ago, sent out a news 
release saying that they had record sales their first quarter, then the 
company went on to say their earnings per share were 60 percent over 
last year's first quarter. Then, just 2 or 3 weeks ago, Timken 
announced that it was closing its three plants in Canton, Ohio, laying 
off 1,300 workers and moving its production to China.
  It really is a scenario where I believe the people in the 
administration just do not see what is going on out there. I mean, Mr. 
Cheney, the Vice President, gets $3,000 a week in pay still from 
Halliburton, a company which he has been connected with on and off and 
continues to do favors for. Most of the administration officials got 
hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in tax cuts. Most of 
the Members of this body who believe this economy is humming are not 
talking to workers who still have their jobs, but who see

[[Page H3949]]

the gas prices going up, who see their kids' college tuition going up; 
as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) said, in Ohio State alone, a 13 
percent tuition increase just this year alone, and schools all over the 
country are facing that; who see their local property taxes and State 
taxes going up; who see their wages stagnant and with not really much 
chance of increases, and face the anxiety of a potential job loss, 
potential plant closing, potential outsourcing of their white collar 
job.
  And of course they feel anxiety. Even when there are a few jobs being 
created, President Bush will still be the only President who has had 
that job loss during his term since Herbert Hoover. But even if the 
news gets a little better with a few new service jobs that pay not 
great, but at least pay something, the anxiety people are facing is 
simply not seen by the members of this administration.
  I think one of the reasons their policies are so off course and that 
President Bush's answer to every economic problem is more tax cuts for 
those of his social class and his contributors, and more kinds of trade 
agreements that continue to shift jobs overseas and continue to reward 
outsourcing. I think so much of it is based on the fact that he has not 
really seen and really understood that these are not, the Members of 
Congress or the administration, these are not problems that they really 
see very often in their daily lives. So they conduct these policies, 
they formulate these policies that work for some small number of people 
in this country.
  Profits are up for the Timken Company; the problem is they are laying 
off 1,300 people. So some people at Timken are doing well, the ones 
that the President knows, but the people who are not doing well in the 
community, a community which has now lost the money for their schools 
and to fix their roads and all of that.
  Let me yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) who 
has seen these issues from a slightly different perspective, another 
Great Lakes industrial State.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentleman from 
Ohio, for organizing this Special Order so that Democrats can talk 
again about a topic that the White House and President Bush would much 
rather we do not discuss in public, especially during an election year, 
and that is the middle-class squeeze. I do come from Illinois, another 
Midwestern State that has been very, very hard hit by the unemployment 
that has been exacerbated by this Bush administration.
  I want to tell my colleagues about a piece of information that came 
our way. My husband has a pilot's license to fly private planes. We 
certainly do not own one, but he gets a magazine called ``Flying'' that 
had in it this brochure that had these screaming headlines on it that 
said it was time to benefit from the new tax law by buying a private 
plane. For about $360,000, you can take advantage of this new bonus 
depreciation program, a 50 percent bonus depreciation program; and you 
would be able, if you bought this, a mere $360,000 plane, you could 
write off in the first year $260,000.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will yield, I 
represent an Appalachian district, 12 counties along the Ohio River. My 
district borders Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman think they would be 
interested in this plane?
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I do not have a lot of constituents who would want to 
go out and buy a $360,000 plane, but I do have a lot of constituents 
who would like to buy a pair of tennis shoes for their child or maybe 
some vacation time for the family. Those are the kinds of things my 
constituents want, not $360,000 planes that they can write off as a tax 
deduction.
  I am glad the gentlewoman brought this to our attention, and I would 
like to hear more about it.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, the thing that is really great about 
this deal is if you take this first year $260,000, these planes last a 
long time, maybe the useful life is 20 to 25 years, and it really does 
not depreciate in value all that much. So you could take this first-
year write-off, and then a couple of years later you could sell it and 
make a whole bunch of money.
  This is the kind of deal and this is the kind of constituent that 
this Bush administration has helped. And how many people are really in 
the position, certainly not many in Illinois, not very many people I 
know to take advantage of this great tax break.
  As I said, the thing they seem to be missing here is now Republicans 
are talking about this roaring-back economy. Okay, ``back,'' implying 
that we have fallen a long way, baby, and now that more jobs are being 
created, they are saying, is this not a miracle of the Bush 
administration. But let us remember, we are barely halfway back. We are 
talking about still this President being the first on record since the 
Great Depression to go without creating a new net private sector job. 
Mr. Speaker, 1.9 million Americans who had jobs in 2001 still do not 
have jobs today.
  So this kind of playing with the numbers like, is this not great, I 
have been trying to figure out, it is sort of like an arsonist who 
burns down the houses and then says, oh, look, they are building all of 
these new houses, or they are building these houses, we are coming 
back. No, you do not want to see the house burn down.
  Then of course, if you are lucky enough to be one of the people who 
is getting a job in this resurging economy, your pay is going to be 
less, on average; in fact, about $9,000 less is the average for the new 
jobs. Your benefits are going to be limited, and your wages are likely 
to grow at only about 2 percent a year. And then, over the last 3 
years, there has been a $2,050 increase in child care costs, a $2,630 
increase in family health care premiums, a $938 rise in the cost of gas 
per household with teenagers, and that has barely started.
  We will have to make a new calculation soon. And a $1,207 increase in 
college tuition, which my colleague talked so eloquently about and, at 
the same time, median family income has dropped nearly $1,500. So the 
real question that should be asked, the question that was asked in a 
past campaign really is, Are you better off today than you were 4 years 
ago? I want to tell my colleagues that in Illinois that the answer is 
absolutely no.
  I wanted to tell my colleagues some of the numbers in Illinois, about 
our job loss. Personal bankruptcies in Illinois. Instead of buying 
fancy airplanes, what we find is that personal bankruptcies in Illinois 
are at an all-time high: 13,739 people declared bankruptcy in 2003, a 
42 percent increase from 2000. A lot of these bankruptcies are caused 
because of health care costs. You cannot afford to be sick in America 
anymore if you are an average working family. Most of the people, in 
fact, who do not have health insurance actually are holding a job. Over 
70 percent of the uninsured live in a family with at least one full-
time worker. And then we have 44 million people, 15 percent of the U.S. 
population that lacks health insurance coverage of any kind over the 
entire year. And the number of uninsured has been steadily increasing 
at about 1 million people.
  So those folks now who used to have kind of a middle-class life, many 
are without health insurance, getting lower wages, no benefits; and 
they are often the ones who are actually standing in that line waiting 
to supplement their food at the end of the month, because ends just do 
not meet. And if it is a senior citizen who is on a fixed income, then 
they are trying to figure out how to buy their medication. They know 
that this prescription drug card is certainly not going to provide the 
answer to them.
  Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago? And for the vast 
majority of Americans, obviously not the ones that the Secretary of 
Agriculture or the Secretary of Commerce or the President of the United 
States or the Vice President of the United States hang out with, or 
obviously have much occasion to run into at all when they are on the 
trail at these $1,000- and $2,000-a-plate dinners that the President is 
going to these days; it is about time that he took a look and saw that 
the middle class is being squeezed out of existence.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from 
Illinois. I appreciate her description of the squeeze on the middle 
class, because I think when any of us goes out into our

[[Page H3950]]

districts and talks to people, not preselected crowds that when 
prominent politicians, particularly the President, when he went to 
Youngstown to the area of the gentlemen from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and (Mr. 
Strickland), and spoke to a group at the community health center and 
they were all doctors.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Invitation only.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Invitation only, 150 people, something like that, 
and they all cheered at everything he said. But when they put 
themselves out in front of the public and they hear these stories, they 
hear about someone making $22,000 a year who has just had their meager 
health insurance scaled back even further; who is facing increased 
gasoline prices; who wants to send their kid to Akron University, which 
had a double-digit tuition increase each of the last 2 years, I 
believe, on the average; who faces increased child care costs; whose 
wages likely will not go up, they are just hoping they can keep their 
job for another year or 2 before it is outsourced, or before their 
plants close down. And then they read these stories in the paper, they 
read the Secretary of Commerce say it is the best economy of my 
lifetime, they hear our colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk 
about the shining city on the hill and how great the economy is, and 
they just wonder if they live in the same country that their leaders 
are presiding over and that their leaders live in.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, can I just say it another way? The vast 
majority of Americans are not asking for special favors. The American 
ethic of working hard and taking personal responsibility is alive and 
well. Americans want to work and take care of their families. But they 
expect just a little bit of help from the government, that when they 
get sick, they are not going to go bankrupt, that the school that they 
send their children to and they pay taxes for will provide a quality 
education; that when they retire, they will be able to retire in some 
dignity. The reverse of what the gentleman is saying is that Americans 
do not want that much from government, but they are not getting even 
the helping hand that they expect, deserve, and in fact, they have paid 
for.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, they want Medicare they can depend 
on, they want decent public education, they want affordable 
prescription drugs, they want a fair tax system that does not give tax 
breaks to the wealthy and leave them wanting for pennies, if that; they 
want fair treatment.

                              {time}  2215

  They want fair treatment.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to belabor this point, but 
I want to go back to what was said about these Ohioans who find their 
situation so serious that they have to go to a food pantry to get food 
for their families, and the fact that a member of this administration 
said this terrible thing. I just think it is awful what he said. And 
the President campaigned as a compassionate conservative, and the good 
book teaches us that we have a responsibility to care for the poor and 
to feed the hungry, to feed the hungry. That is a responsibility that 
we have as individuals, as people of faith. And I believe ultimately as 
a government. And yet the President's man, this Mr. Bost, when 
confronted with the fact that there are increased numbers of people in 
food lines as a result of this Columbus Dispatch series, he said, There 
is a bump but how much of that is due to people taking the easy way 
out, I do not know, he says.
  Now, this is the response that comes from the Executive Director of 
the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks. Her name is Lisa 
Hamler-Podolski, and she said, ``Bost makes unfair judgments of people 
who use Ohio food banks and food pantries and he underestimates the 
courage it takes for many people to ask for help.''
  Now, that is a compassionate attitude. And Mr. Bost's attitude is a 
callous attitude. And I think the President has got a responsibility 
here. I think he should hold this man to account. Does this man 
represent the President's attitude? When the President is informed that 
there are increased numbers of people standing in line for food 
throughout Ohio, is he sympathetic? Is he compassionate? Or does he 
support this person who is a part of his administration and who, quite 
frankly, used to work for him when he was Governor of Texas. So this is 
a man he knows apparently pretty well. He brought him from Texas to 
Washington to oversee this program.
  So I think the President has a responsibility either to accept this 
man's attitude as reflective of his own or to reject this callous 
attitude and his callous comment.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, as sad as it is, I just want to say 
how this has just followed a very consistent pattern that this 
administration has taken with regard to the facts. And most recent, I 
think the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) already brought it up 
tonight, was with the Vice President's office regarding Halliburton. We 
do not have anything to do with their contract, they said. My office 
had nothing to do with it, the Vice President says. I do not even know 
what you are talking about, the Vice President says.
  Well, it is in the New York Times today. Scooter Libby, the Chief of 
Staff for the Vice President, approved the contract, okayed it, with 
Halliburton. State Department, terrorism is down. Well, another 
analysis comes out. Terrorism is up. They were wrong. Colin Powell 
apologizing again after the U.N. fiasco. Weapons of mass destruction. 
No weapons of mass destruction. Greeted as liberators. Greeted as 
conquerors. They are going to love us. They hate us. We need 200,000 
troops. No, we do not. You are fired. We only need 130 and now we do 
not have enough.
  Consistent pattern, whether it has been foreign policy or domestic 
policy, this administration at least, if we can give them some kudos 
but they have been consistent, but consistently wrong and have been 
consistently harming people.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I think my friend is absolutely correct in pointing 
out these inconsistencies.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Consistently inconsistent, just to clarify.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I thank the gentleman. I understand that none of us 
are perfect. No administration is perfect. Every administration makes 
mistakes. I certainly have made more than my fair share. But the fact 
is that there is an attitude reflected in these comments and I think in 
other actions of this administration that indicate that there is a 
total disconnect between their fantasy land, their world as they 
imagine it to be, and the real world that you and I and others who go 
home and spend time with their constituents and listen to their stories 
and hear their hopes and fears understand.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. It is generous of the gentleman to say that all 
administrations make mistakes and that even you have made a mistake. 
But I just want to remind the gentleman that the President could not 
think of a single mistake when asked at a press conference if there 
were any mistakes that he has made in his presidency. He said that none 
came to mind. He thought there probably were some but he could not even 
think of one.
  It seems to me that just condoning, or in the case of the gentleman 
you talked about, the employee of this administration who says that 
people in food lines are just maybe looking for an easy way out, I 
would say that statement is a mistake and that the person that made 
that statement who is in a position of authority in a department that 
gives out food stamps that is supposed to help poor people with feeding 
programs, that is a mistake and he should be fired.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I absolutely believe that.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. The gentlewoman from Illinois' (Ms. Schakowsky) 
statement about the President when he could not think of any mistakes 
that he made, several of us came to the House floor and talked about 
that a couple of nights, and not so much to be critical of the 
President, but to sort of think about mistakes this administration has 
made, because as you learn when you are a child you cannot really learn 
very much until you acknowledge the mistakes you make and then you 
correct them.
  The President still has not come forward on Iraq, on this issue we 
talked about, on the prescription drug bill when they said it cost $400 
billion over 10 years and then it later came out it was $534 billion 
and they knew that but the did not tell the American public

[[Page H3951]]

and they threatened someone's jobs if he told the media or told the 
Congress.
  I think if we are going to move ahead, if we are going to solve this 
Nation's economic problems, the President, it would be so much better 
if he would say, hey, this was a mistake. Ronald Reagan did that. 
Ronald Reagan, when he was going a certain course in driving up the 
budget deficit, at a couple points he made a change and he did some 
different things and the country was probably better off for it.
  This is really the first President in our lifetimes that I think has 
not been able to acknowledge a mistake and change course. I do not want 
him to go around doing mea culpa, mea culpa, but I do want him to 
acknowledge a mistake and do a correct and change course. He really has 
failed to do that.
  Again, his answer to every economic problem no matter what the 
situation is more tax cuts to the wealthy and trickle down economics 
and more trade agreements. His answer to every situation remains 
unchanged and he will not change the direction of failed policies. That 
to me, it is not personal to George Bush, but it just makes me wonder 
the character and the motive sometimes, but not even so much that it is 
the judgment of the very stubborn people in the White House that think 
they have the answer because it fits their ideology and they will not 
change that direction when it is clear their economic policies have 
failed. It is clear their environmental policies, their health care 
policies, as the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) said, a 
million more people are uninsured every single year in this country 
since President Bush took office. Clearly these policies are not 
working. Would they not want to change these policies and go in a 
different direction?
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I think the ability or the willingness, the 
capability to admit a mistake is a sign of strength and a sign of 
character. I fear the person who is so self-assured and so arrogant in 
his or her self-confidence that they refuse to acknowledge the fact 
that they may have made a mistake or made a misjudgment or made a wrong 
decision. I think that kind of person tends to be brittle and 
inflexible. So, consequently, if you get started down a route or 
pathway that is the wrong pathway, rather than having the ability or 
the willingness to change course, you continue to plunge headlong into 
some economic or social or military disaster.
  The fact is that a lot of mistakes have been made. We made a terrible 
mistake when we sent our soldiers into battle without having adequate 
body armor. We made a terrible mistake as a government, as a Pentagon, 
as an administration, when we had soldiers in Iraq without up-armored 
Humvees.

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. That is a mistake that neither the Pentagon or the 
President has acknowledged, even though we know dozens if not more men 
and women were killed because they did not have body armor, because the 
Humvees were not up-armored with the kind of protection that we know 
how to put on and failed to do.
  No one in the administration, in the Pentagon was punished for that 
failure, no one was reprimanded, no one lost their job. Yet dozens of 
young American men and women died because of it.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Actually, it was reported in Newsweek and other 
places that there had been a Defense Department study that showed that 
perhaps as many as a quarter of those troops in battle that were killed 
or injured would not have been had they had the proper equipment, 25 
percent. So we are talking about more than a few dozen.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. So imagine if the administration when we first 
were in Congress, and all four of us talked about this, as members of 
the Committee on Armed Services, as members of the Committee on 
Veterans' Affairs, as members who were involved in a lot of Iraq things 
in the beginning, every one of us came to the floor as well as at least 
a couple of dozen other Members of Congress and hundreds of 
representatives of veterans' organizations and people advocating for 
soldiers, for their better treatment, if the administration had said 
earlier when we first started talking about this, right when the war 
started in March and April of 2003, if they had said, we have made a 
mistake. We have got to do something about this today, and if we do not 
do something, the people who are responsible will be punished, imagine 
how many more lives would have been saved, how many fewer soldiers 
would have been injured and lost their limbs and capacities.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, we are standing here in the Chamber. We 
are talking about problems that we see, mistakes that have been made, 
and some I guess would say why regurgitate that. That is old news. What 
we need to do is look forward and decide what we are going to do from 
now forward rather than dredging up mistakes that have been made. My 
answer to that question, and I think it is a legitimate question, but 
my answer to that question is this: The same people who made those 
faulty decisions, who made those misjudgments, who made those mistakes 
and are unwilling to admit them are the same people who are still in 
charge and they want to make decisions regarding our future. They want 
to make decisions regarding our future military actions. They want to 
make decisions regarding our future health care policy. They want to 
make decisions regarding our future education policy. They want to make 
decisions about a whole range of things.
  The American people, I think, deserve to know that these people who 
are currently in charge and want to remain in charge are the very ones 
who have made these mistakes and refused to acknowledge them and are 
continuing to pursue policies which are harmful to this country. So we 
need to call attention to the past in order for us to have some sense 
of what we can do to correct the situation and move this country 
forward in a positive manner.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Our responsibility here is to identify what these 
problems are in order to change course for the country. We are not just 
sitting here talking amongst the four of us. We are here talking to the 
American people because we want to engage them in the discussions. 
Something that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) said and the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) said that I want to identify with, 
when we talk about people not admitting their mistakes we have lost the 
constitutional balance in the legislative branch and our oversight 
ability on the legislative branch because it is all controlled by one 
party. We are in a very, very dangerous situation.
  I think this is something that maybe the American people do not 
understand at home is that, and I hate to use this as an example, but 
when President Clinton was in and this House was controlled by the 
Republicans and the Senate was Republican, the Republican chairmen of 
the committees had the ability to subpoena witnesses and call hearings 
in which they could oversee the executive branch. In this case it was 
Mr. Clinton. But today we have the Republicans who control these 
committees in the House. They control the committees in the Senate. 
There is no oversight of the executive branch, and so we are getting 
legislation and mandates coming out of the executive branch with no 
oversight from the legislative body.
  Article I, section I, the people should govern. We do not have the 
ability, the minority party, to subpoena witnesses and do what we have 
to do to oversee the executive branch. I think the American people need 
to know that. There is a reason why they are getting away with all of 
this and we do not have the proper oversight abilities.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. The words of the gentleman reminded me of something 
that happened just 2 weeks ago. We had a forum to discuss the mandatory 
funding for VA health care. We had a forum and we had representatives 
of the national veterans organizations before us and they laid out 
their rationale for mandatory funding for VA health care.

                              {time}  2230

  The reason it was a forum and not a hearing is because we could not 
call a hearing. We do not have the authority. Only the majority party 
can call an actual hearing, and so we had a forum; and in that forum, 
we did receive information from the American Legion, from the DAV, from 
the Vietnam Vets, from the purple heart folks, every veterans 
organization in this country; but it is sad that it could not be an 
official hearing which would have a different

[[Page H3952]]

standing within the Congress in terms of its ability to actually deal 
with legislation and move it forward into a place where it could 
finally become acted upon.
  So that is an example of total one-party control of the Supreme 
Court, of the Senate of the United States, of the House of 
Representatives and of the Presidency; and that means that they are 
responsible, totally responsible. They cannot shift the blame. They 
cannot say it is someone else's fault. It is the fault of the 
leadership of this party.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friends for joining me.
  It is the duty of us, as we talk about the middle class ways, and it 
is our duty to offer what we would do positively with what we have 
talked about in the past with Crane-Rangel and looking at these trade 
agreements again and extending unemployment compensation and doing the 
right things and changing the economic policy into the right direction 
in this country.
  I thank my friends, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. 
Schakowsky), and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones) for joining us.

                          ____________________