[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 97 (Wednesday, July 14, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H5785-H5788]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REPUBLICAN PLAN FOR AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) is recognized 
for half the time until midnight as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Madam Speaker, while the Nation has been watching the 
Presidential campaign and the events in Iraq, the Republicans in the 
House have been moving forward with an agenda to bring jobs back into 
America.
  Now, we have seen a lot of economic success over the last year. Just 
as a reminder, back in 1999 we had the first hit to our then strong 
economy when we had the tech bubble burst. We had a lot of technical 
industries lose a great deal of value. The NASDAQ, which typically has 
tech companies as the companies that trade on that exchange, the value 
of that exchange dropped dramatically to less than half. So the tech 
bubble burst.
  Then in 2000 we had the beginning of the recession towards the end of 
the year. Technically, it started in the end of 2000 prior to President 
Bush being sworn into office. That had an impact on our economy.
  Then, of course, there was the events of September 11, when 
terrorists took our own technology and turned it into a weapon and 
attacked the Pentagon and Washington, D.C., and tore down the World 
Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people. That had a dramatic impact 
on our economy.
  It was not any policy of the Republican administration. It was not 
any policies that came out of the Republican House. It was events that 
occurred, as I just discussed, beyond the circumstances of Congress. 
Those events, though, have turned around since we passed tax relief.
  Tax relief has been very beneficial to the American economy because 
people can only do one of three things when

[[Page H5786]]

they get a little money in their pocket through tax relief.
  Number one, they can spend it. When they spend money, that is a 
demand for goods. That means there are more goods being sold in the 
economy and a demand for more jobs.
  Number two, they can save the money. That makes money available for 
home mortgages. And, as we know, now we have the largest expansion of 
home sales we have ever had in our economy; and now minorities in 
America have a higher percentage of home ownership than ever before in 
the history of our Nation. If they save money, that is good for 
building homes.
  Third, they can invest money into the stock market, which is capital 
for companies to invest in their business to hire more people and 
invest in jobs.
  So after the President asked for tax relief and it was initiated in 
the House of Representatives and then passed to his desk for his 
signature, we started to see a turnaround in the United States economy. 
We have had 1.5 million new jobs since last August. We have today more 
people working in America than ever before in our Nation's history, and 
the average salary for all workers in America is higher than it has 
ever been in the history of our country.
  So this has been very good for our economy to have tax relief, and we 
are starting to see the strength of our economy growing and blooming. 
And yet with all that good news, we can do better. We found out that 
there have been problems, barriers to bringing jobs into America. These 
barriers were not created in the boardrooms of America. They were not 
created by the CEOs of America or the managers or owners of small 
business, and it was not created by the employees themselves, either.
  These barriers have been created by Congress over the last 
generation. Good intentions found their way into regulations and laws 
that have hurt our economy and prevented us from bringing jobs back 
into America. So the House Republicans have devised a plan called 
Careers for the 21st Century. That plan is a plan to remove the 
barriers that employees and small businessmen and employees, employers, 
both, face every day they go to work.
  We are going to try to remove those barriers. In fact, we have been 
very active. As of today, we have passed 24 pieces of legislation from 
the House of Representatives. We have started with taking these eight 
issues that are barriers, divided into eight issues the barriers, and 
then we took them a week at a time.
  We started out by addressing health care security. We passed 
legislation that will help reduce the cost of health care in America by 
some common-sense reforms.
  We then moved on to reduce the bureaucratic red tape in America. We 
made significant progress.
  We then went on to life-long learning so we would have an experienced 
and well-trained workforce so when these jobs came to America we would 
have people to take those jobs.
  The next week we went on to energy self-sufficiency. It is very 
important and appropriate, because we are now facing close to $2 a 
gallon for gasoline, and we are having high cost for natural gas. It is 
time we change our energy policy so we can create about 7 or 800,000 
jobs in America, plus bring down the cost of energy, and that in turn 
will allow us to attract more jobs into America. So we passed energy 
self-sufficiency and security.
  We then moved on to spurring innovation and talked about how 
important it is to have solid research and development and how 
important it is to be innovative here in America. We have a long 
history of innovation that starts back during the Revolutionary War. 
The idea of the principles, the virtues, the values we have in this 
country enhance our ability to come up with good ideas and take those 
good ideas and put them into practice by manufacturing goods and 
selling those goods both here and overseas. It is these virtues and 
values we talked about and how we can continue to spur innovation 
through research and development.
  This week we dealt with trade fairness and opportunity, very 
important issues as far as opening up new markets so that we can create 
more jobs by exporting.
  Then we will go on next week to tax relief and simplification. Tax 
relief is so important, but simplification is also important. It helps 
us do the job more quickly and not waste money on preparing taxes. That 
money can be diverted to creating more jobs.
  We will then come back in September and deal with Indian lawsuit 
abuse.
  Going back to trade fairness and opportunity, why is it so important 
for us to address this issue? If you look at the recent history in this 
country, we have had lot of problems in opening up markets overseas. If 
you look at the trade agreements that we have had recently, it was 
during the Reagan administration that we finally got a free trade 
agreement with Israel back in 1985. Then we did not have any agreement 
until we finally got an agreement with Canada in 1988, again in the 
Reagan administration.
  Then we moved on to Mexico in through the NAFTA agreement, and that 
was done in 1994 under the Clinton administration. And since then we 
have been able to get a free trade agreement with Jordan, with 
Singapore, with Chili, and today we passed from the House an agreement 
for free trade between Australia and America.

                              {time}  2310

  These types of agreements are very important because they open up 
markets for small companies. One of these success stories in America is 
a guy that lives in Wichita, Kansas. His name is Leon Trammel. Leon 
traveled around overseas and he saw a very real need and figured out a 
way to satisfy that need.
  Many of the countries import grain or export grain. That grain has to 
be taken off the ship and put into some kind of storage container or it 
would have to be taken out of a storage container and put on to a ship. 
If it was an open conveyor belt to go between those two objects, the 
ship and the containment facility or the milling operation, if it was 
open to the environment, it was subject to environmental risk from rain 
and dust. It would be part of that, and he has figured out a way to 
convey grain or any other substance in a clean fashion by encasing 
these conveyor belts and using a century old principle of elevating 
these conveyor belts on a sheet of air. Much like you have on air 
hockey game that you can find at your local arcade.
  Well, Leon took that, put it into practical application, and he has 
been able to take that technology all over the globe. He has used it in 
Norway, China, in Asia, as well as in America, Canada and Mexico. So he 
has been able to benefit from these free trade agreements that we have 
set into place.
  Now, why is it important we have free trade agreements? Why does it 
mean something when we open up these markets? Here is a comparison of 
existing barriers on the sale of manufactured goods in foreign markets.
  If you look at America, our levels are about 4.3 percent as an 
average for incoming goods. We put a tariff on that, a tax. It helps us 
with our Federal budget, but it is a tax that comes in, and it is an 
opportunity for us to attract goods and services into America.
  But if you compare that to other parts of the world, we have Pakistan 
that has nearly 50 percent tariff. Now, how are we going to be able to 
export goods into Pakistan when we have that big of a barrier to 
overcome in just the amount of money that goes towards paying fees to 
Pakistan? As a result, they have a very weak economy. They should 
change that and open up the goods for trading.
  Saudi Arabia has an almost 12\1/2\ percent tariff; Thailand near 15 
percent. India has a 32 percent tariff. Their economies suffer from 
that, and it keeps us from exporting goods and services to them. It is 
important we negotiate these trade agreements so we can have lower 
trade fees for exports, and that allows us to more easily access their 
markets.
  When they can open up the markets, as in South Korea, which has about 
7\1/2\ percent, we can have people in small companies around the United 
States that can then trade with these countries.
  There is a small company in Wichita, Kansas, called LP Technologies, 
Incorporated. The president is Samuel Lee. It is just a small company 
of eight employees, but their markets are Taiwan and Korea. They sell 
measuring and monitoring equipment for the communications industry. 
Their sales last

[[Page H5787]]

year were $1.8 million. Now, it does not seem like a lot in the scheme 
of things, but when you realize that four out of five jobs in Kansas 
are small employers like this, being able to start a whole lot of these 
small businesses is very good for our economy. It puts people to work 
and allows them to have their dreams come true and export agreements, 
free trade agreements are the things that open up that kind of a 
market.
  Now what happens when you do not have a free trade opportunity? A 
good example is Creekstone Farm Premium Beef in Arkansas City. Now, 
Creekstone used to export meat to Japan and to South Korea, and then we 
had a cow come in from Canada that had BSE or mad cow disease. We were 
able to isolate that cow and it did not get into our meat markets, and 
we now have had measures put in place in Canada so that they can 
prevent this from happening again, but America has the safest meat 
supply in the world. There is no problem there, but yet Japan and South 
Korea were worried about it so they have closed their export markets.
  What that meant to Creekstone is they have already laid off about 60 
people. The 750 employees that are there now are cut back from a 5-day 
work week to a 4-day work week. We are trying to open up the markets by 
allowing some voluntary screening. That is being blocked by USDA right 
now, but as an example of closing markets, it means that we close down 
jobs in America. By opening up markets, we are going to open up jobs in 
America. So Creekstone is currently suffering from that. We are in the 
process of trying to change that environment.
  Another success story, though, is a couple of Americans who came over 
from China as a result of the Tiananmen Square incident. Both of them 
have some experience in aerospace parts manufacturing, and they have 
some contacts in China through their families, but the company's name 
is Mid-American Supply Corporation and Tom Tian is the president.
  They are a wholesaler of aircraft parts to the Chinese aircraft 
industry. They export to China. They exported $2.4 million worth of 
goods in fiscal year 2000. They came about with this idea that took 
advantage of open markets in China, and they went over there and 
created a company, and now they are very successful. It is another 
successful small business. These types of small businesses are very 
important for our economy.
  Trade correctly spurs the economy, and it creates jobs by expanding 
markets for American business. We know all too well that economic and 
market changes brought about by trade do displace workers from specific 
jobs, but rather than turn to a trade barrier, which only slows our 
economy and leads to lower productivity and living standards, we are 
committed as House Republicans to preparing American workers for 
changes in ensuring higher paying and higher quality jobs for them by 
embracing free and fair trade opportunities.
  We have had some people who have resisted change, trying to cling on 
to old jobs in America, and instead of looking forward, they sort of 
look backward. I think a good example is the railroad.
  United Transportation Union was very hesitant to release firemen from 
off the engine on the railroad, the engines that pull the freight cars. 
If you think about it, we had firemen that were initially put on the 
engines of railroads so that they could shovel the coal into a furnace 
which then heated the water. That created steam which propelled the 
engine and pulled the cars down the track. Well, when they went from 
those old coal-burning engines and wood-burning engines that created 
steam and they went to a diesel engine that created electricity by 
turning a generator, which is what it works like today, there was no 
longer a need for somebody to shovel coal or throw wood into a furnace, 
but yet they insisted on keeping firemen on the engine, riding on the 
front of the train, and there was no need for it.
  So years and years went by, even decades, and my brother-in-law works 
on the railroad now. He is a conductor on the railroad, and when he 
first started they still had firemen. Then they let the firemen go 
because there was no need for them. It was an inefficient job. Those 
guys have gone out, many of them have been retrained, and they are off 
learning new jobs and becoming more productive in America with 
productive jobs.
  So we cannot look backwards. We need to make sure that we continue 
our productivity.
  One way of ensuring it is to ensure that we have open trade 
agreements so that we will become more efficient, that we will prepare 
our work force for new technologies and we will be innovative and move 
forward.
  The trade possibilities are endless. As President Bush said, look at 
it this way, America's got 5 percent of the world's population. That 
means that 95 percent of the potential customers are in other 
countries. Even if a great level of protectionism were implemented, 
low-tech jobs would still be replaced by technology or shifted to lower 
wage locations and overtime.
  I think another good example is our agriculture environment here in 
America. If you go back to when I was just a young kid out on a farm, 
we had probably six families that were farming the ground that my 
grandfather owned. If you take those six families and look at them over 
the years, they gradually moved on to other things. My grandfather, and 
then later on my father, bought larger and larger equipment. They 
became more and more productive. Their crop yields increased, and yet 
their expense costs for labor went down.

                              {time}  2320

  So they went from having horses being involved in the agricultural 
process to having huge tractors that pulled eight-row and larger 
equipment. Well, the American farmer has become more and more 
productive and that productivity has ensured lower food costs. In fact, 
in America, we pay the lowest percentage of our income on food of any 
of our trading partners in the world. So it is very important that we 
continue to move forward with productivity as a way of having a strong 
economy.
  There has been a lot of study on this issue, people who have looked 
into this and saw what impact there would be if we did not have trade, 
what impact there would be if we had more trade, and how important it 
is for us to open new markets. Ana Isabel Erias, from the Heritage 
Foundation, said, ``Goods and services flowing across borders foster 
new ideas and allow U.S. producers to learn about the markets from the 
failure and success of trading products. As they learn more, they are 
able to innovate and remain competitive.''
  That is part of why America needs to support free trade, because it 
moves us forward. It does not collapse around us, but it moves us 
forward. The Heritage Foundation went on to say, ``Free trade allows 
the U.S. to specialize in goods and services that American workers 
produce more efficiently than the rest of the world, and at the same 
time free trade allows domestic producers to shop around the world for 
the least expensive inputs they can use for their production, which in 
turn allows them to keep their cost of production down, without 
sacrificing quality.''
  So I think it is very important that we keep this concept of free 
trade moving forward. We have other countries that we need to open up 
markets in, and especially for our agricultural community, especially 
for aerospace products, and especially for these new technologies we 
are currently developing. It is important because that brings jobs into 
the country.
  I have another chart that I want to move on to. This one talks about 
a geographic distribution of U.S. exports and imports from 1990 to 
2002. Now, if we look at the top part of these, it looks like an eye 
test. The group of countries here, Canada, the European Union, Japan, 
and other advanced economies, in 1990 they used to make about 63.1 
percent of our total exports. Today, or in 2002, that dropped slightly 
to 57.6 percent of our exports. On imports, the advanced economies 
consist of 58.7 percent of imports in 1990. By 2002, that dropped six 
points to 57.2.
  But when we look at the developing countries, in 1990, that only 
consisted of 19.9 percent of our exports. By 2002, that had grown to 37 
percent. Imports in 1990 from the developing countries was 36.1 
percent. That has grown to 41.7 percent. So that is a very good 
indication of why we need to open up markets in developing countries 
and why

[[Page H5788]]

we need to look at some of these countries that have these high trade 
barriers and to negotiate those down to where they are closer to where 
ours are. That will help us export goods and develop new markets and 
bring jobs into America.
  The four pieces of legislation that were included in this week's 
trade and fairness opportunity block of bills consisted of H.R. 4759, 
which was the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement 
Implementation Act. That is going to allow us to open up markets in 
Australia and allow us to compete with agricultural goods and 
airplanes, like those airplanes made in Wichita, Kansas, the air 
capital of the world. It will be good for our economy.
  We also passed H.R. 3463, which was the State Unemployment Tax Act 
Dumping Prevention Act. That allowed us to watch these companies that 
are trying to avoid State unemployment tax and bring them back in. This 
makes this unemployment tax system fairer to the other employers in the 
State and fairer to the employees who may have to suffer some 
unemployment at some time while they are being retrained. It brings 
these employers into line with other companies that they are competing 
with.
  Then we passed H. Res. 705, urging the President to resolve the 
disparate treatment of direct and indirect taxes presently provided by 
the World Trade Organization.
  And the last one we passed was H. Res. 576, urging the government of 
the People's Republic of China to improve its protection of 
intellectual property rights.
  As we all know, the intellectual property rights have been greatly 
violated in China. We want them to crack down on that because it means 
that our developing ideas, our art, our books, our pharmaceutical 
advancements are protected by patents, and we want them to acknowledge 
that.
  So these four bills have been added to the 20 bills we passed before 
with previous legislation in the eight categories. We have passed the 
first five categories, that included 20 bills, and these four add to 
that to make a total of 24.
  Again, we started out with health care security, under the eight 
issues that are contained in the Careers For A 21st Century in America. 
We helped lower the cost of health care in America to make ourselves 
more competitive. Then we addressed bureaucratic red tape termination 
to cut down the bulk of paperwork that we have here that prevents us 
from expanding our economy. We then went on to lifelong learning so 
that we would have a trained workforce for these new jobs. We then 
dealt with energy self-sufficiency and security.
  We moved on the following week to spurring innovation through 
research and development. This week, we dealt with trade fairness and 
opportunity. Next week we will be on tax relief and simplification. And 
then, in September, we are going to address the issue of ending lawsuit 
abuse.
  These issues are barriers to bringing jobs back into America. 
Congress created this environment and the Congress is addressing that 
environment, changing it so that we can open markets, so that we can 
bring back workers into America and have a stronger economy. This will 
mean that our kids and our grandkids will have the opportunity to start 
the businesses they want to start or get the jobs that they want.
  It has been a good program that we have dealt with here on the floor 
of the House. We hope that we can get it to the President's desk for 
signature, all 24 of these bills. We will continue this effort until we 
find the relief that is necessary to bring more jobs back into America.
  We have heard a lot of people complain about outsourcing of American 
jobs. The problems that they are facing that cause outsourcing are 
these eight issues that Congress has created, and it is time we change 
that environment.

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