[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 76 (Monday, May 18, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H5691-H5692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 AMERICANS ARE NOW IN THE CAR BUSINESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the people of the United States are now in 
the car business. Our taxpayers own the majority share of Chrysler, and 
maybe General Motors before long.
  Why? Wall Street financial shenanigans and fraud left banks without 
credit to loan to dealers and to consumers who wanted to buy cars in 
this very credit-sensitive auto sector.
  The result? Car sales started plummeting last year, and this occurred 
despite the fact that the Big Three had reached an important plateau in 
the production of the cars of the future.
  In 2007 Ford won 102 quality awards, including AutoPacific's Best in 
Class for three models and Germany's largest auto magazine's Auto 1 of 
Europe Award for its S-MAX.

                              {time}  1930

  In 2008, Forbes awarded the 2008 Chrysler 300 ``the highest-quality 
car in the near-luxury category'' over the Audi A4, BMW 3 Series, Lexus 
IS, and Mercedes-Benz C Class.
  Of the 15 global finalists for the 2008 Motor Trend Car of the Year 
Award, the Big Three manufactured nine, the Japanese only four, and the 
Europeans two. The 2008 winner was GM's Cadillac CTS, which Motor Trend 
described as ``proof that Detroit can still build a world-class car.''
  America cannot afford to let the auto industry vanish any more than 
we can allow our national economy or defense to vanish. They are 
inextricably linked.
  America needs an auto industry that competes on a level playing field 
globally. And America needs Presidential advisors who tell the 
President the truth.
  And what is the truth?
  Truth 1: The U.S. auto industry was poised to rebuild market share 
with its new models until the Wall Street-manufactured financial crisis 
hit. In this situation, Wall Street is the perpetrator and our auto 
industry and our communities the victim.
  Truth 2: The global market in which our auto sector competes has been 
far from fair for a very long time. Closed markets and tax and trade 
policies have really crippled our industry.
  Truth 3: The unfair marketplace players include Japan, South Korea, 
and Communist China. Managed markets in Europe, as well, complicate the 
playing field.
  Japan has the third largest economy in the world, but its automobile 
market is essentially closed to American carmakers. Import penetration 
in Japan by all foreign firms is less than 3 percent, while Japanese 
companies just in this country now command more than half of our market 
share.
  Until recent cutbacks, one manufacturer, Chrysler Jeep turned out 
more vehicles at one factory, the Toledo North Assembly Plant, in a 
single month than the U.S. auto industry sold in Japan and Korea, 
combined, in an entire year. Superlative products made by U.S. workers 
in U.S. factories are still systematically barred entry into the closed 
markets of Asia: Japan, South Korea, and Communist China.
  Truth 4: China and Mexico, whose workers build vehicles the majority 
of their populations cannot afford to buy, while being paid subhuman 
wages, export cars anywhere in the world. We are told now China and 
Mexico are poised, through GM restructuring, to deliver more cars to 
our country. That's right. To get GM profitable as fast as possible, 
America must continue to shut plants down and unemploy our own workers? 
What kind of a solution is that?
  Millions of our own people are falling out of gainful employment, so 
we will use our tax dollars to deep-six U.S. workers while employing 
more Chinese and Mexican citizens? What sense does this make?
  Why would any first-world nation leave its auto sector in shambles?
  America's tax policy and our trade policy are seriously out of whack. 
Germany, through VAT, can export a vehicle here and get a 19 percent 
credit. Our vehicles there are saddled with a 19 percent tax. What's 
fair about managed markets all across the world that disadvantage autos 
from our Nation?
  While the former administration and Wall Street placed our auto 
industry on the operating table, President Obama had best ask his White 
House advisors from Wall Street for the truth.
  Why have the credit lines to the automotive sector been frozen for 
months, like a tourniquet, cutting off their blood supply?
  Why are Japan and South Korea's markets still closed to American 
vehicles?
  Why do nations like Germany employ a VAT tax to their advantage and 
our detriment?

[[Page H5692]]

  Let's get real before this White House's Wall Street advisors ask our 
Nation to take more Chinese and Mexican car imports while thousands 
upon thousands of Main Street Americans hit the unemployment lines.
  Here is the plain, unvarnished truth. The world might be flat in 
America because our markets are wide open, but tax-and-trade terrain is 
mountainous across the world for our country, surely in Asia and in 
Europe, in managed markets, and even on our own continent where tariff 
and nontariff barriers keep out our products.
  What sense does it make for our middle class to prop up companies 
hitting bottom from this financial crisis only to have more jobs 
outsourced, resulting in more unemployment here and more citizens 
expecting care from our government?
  It is time for this administration to employ section 201 trade relief 
in order to get our beleaguered industry back on its feet.
  And frankly, it is time for some truth.

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