[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 82 (Wednesday, June 3, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H6146-H6153]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE STIMULUS PLAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the recognition, and I 
thank the minority leader for giving me the opportunity to take some of 
the Republican time this evening. And we're going to talk about a 
couple of things that, one, we've talked about before, and two, we're 
going to talk about this mess.
  Never in my lifetime did I think that the United States of America 
would not only own a lot of banks in this country, but also two of the 
big three automakers are soon to be owned by the American taxpayers.
  The first issue of business, just to do some cleanup, you will 
recall, Mr. Speaker, that earlier in the year, in President Obama's 
stimulus bill there was a provision, originally it was inserted by the 
Senate, and the Senate indicated that AIG executives should not receive 
exorbitant bonuses unless there were some conditions put on it.

                              {time}  1930

  That legislation, that section of the stimulus bill was authored by a 
Democrat and Republican: Senator Snowe, the Republican of Maine, and 
Senator Wyden, the Democrat of Oregon. And the House version was 
silent. And then it went into this conference committee and, Mr. 
Speaker, you know well that when we pass something and the Senate 
passes something and they're not exactly the same, we have to have a 
conference and we have to work out the details and resolve things.
  So there was a conference committee. Sadly, there weren't any 
Republicans on the conference committee. The conference committee was 
comprised of all--completely of Members of the Democratic Party. And in 
that conference room, somebody took out the Snowe-Wyden language that 
put restrictions on the AIG bonuses and instead put in this paragraph, 
about 50 words over there to my far left, that not only removed the 
Snowe-Wyden language but it put in that paragraph--and that paragraph, 
if you read it closely, indicates that not only were we not going to 
put restrictions on the AIG bonuses but that specifically protects them 
because it says any bonus that was entered into before February 11 of 
this year--which happens to be the date that the stimulus bill passed, 
the conference report passed--is protected and you're not going to mess 
with it.
  Well, a lot of people were embarrassed, and I would dare say--and I 
don't cast aspersions on my Democratic friends. I suspect a lot of them 
didn't know about it. But every Democrat in the House of 
Representatives voted for the stimulus bill with the AIG bonuses 
protection language included in it except for 11, and every Republican 
voted against it. And we had made kind of a simple argument. If you 
remember, the stimulus bill was a thousand--it was over a thousand 
pages long and it spent upwards of $790 billion of taxpayers' money. 
And we had sort of this novel idea, and that was maybe Members of 
Congress should have the opportunity to read the bill before we are 
asked to vote on it.
  So the Tuesday of that week we had a motion on the floor and 
everybody, every Republican, every Democrat voted that we would have 48 
hours to read the bill. And as a matter of fact, it further stipulated 
that it would be put on the Internet just in case some of our 
constituents were wondering how the government was going to spend $792 
billion of their money.
  A funny thing happened between Tuesday and Thursday at midnight, and 
that is apparently the President had promised he would have the 
stimulus bill on his desk for signature for the President's Day 
weekend, and that weekend was the President's Day weekend. So the bill 
was filed at about midnight on Thursday night and it was brought to the 
floor. And rather than having 48 hours, we had 90 minutes--90 minutes--
to read a thousand pages of how the hundreds of billions of dollars 
were being spent. And son of a gun, it got missed that this paragraph 
was in there protecting the AIG bonuses.
  The next day, if you remember the news, Mr. Speaker, everybody was 
shocked. The President was shocked, Members of Congress were shocked. 
We can't believe it. We couldn't believe that $173 million was going to 
be given out to AIG executives in the form of bonuses. How can this 
happen? You have to do something about it. You have to lock them up.
  They came up with a goofy idea to put a bill on the floor--and I said 
it wasn't a fig leaf, it was a fig tree--that we should tax these 
bonuses at 90 percent. And oh my gosh. First of all, the thought that 
we would use the United States Tax Code to punish people that we're mad 
at to the tune of 90 percent is nuts; but then secondly, if you look at 
the top bonus receiver at AIG, he was getting $6.4 million. And so if 
we're really, really mad at them, why are we only taking 90 percent 
away from them in taxes? Why don't we take the whole thing? That guy or 
gal--I don't remember if it was man or woman--still got $640,000.
  Somebody in my district making 40,000 a year has to work 16 years to 
get $640,000. So clearly stupid, clearly people were embarrassed.
  So we have been on the floor the last little bit, and most people who 
grew up in my generation are familiar with the very fine Hasbro game 
Clue, and we have been trying to determine how that paragraph got into 
the bill 'cause nobody wants to claim it. It just all of a sudden 
showed up, but we know that can't be right. Somebody had to physically 
take out the Snowe-Wyden language and put in this language.
  So we do have a game of Clue that we're working our way through. And 
I think, hopefully, we're going to be close to solving it.
  And just around the board, Mr. Geithner, who is the Treasury 
Secretary, Rahm Emanuel--who happens to be the President's chief of 
staff--Charlie Rangel, who is the Ways and Means chairman, Senator Dodd 
from Connecticut, who was the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, 
the Speaker of the House, Mrs. Pelosi, and the leader of the Senate, 
Mr. Reid of Nevada.
  If you remember, in the game of Clue you have to identify where the 
thing happened, what was the weapon used and who did it. And over the 
last couple months we've made amazing progress. We know that the weapon 
used was a pen--might have been a computer but we're going to go with a 
pen. We also know from the President's reports that it either happened 
in the Speaker's office where there was shuttle diplomacy going back 
and forth, or

[[Page H6147]]

the conference room. And now we just have to get down and figure out 
who did it because nobody is willing to stand up and say who did it.
  Mr. Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, has testified that he got 
instructions from Senator Dodd's staff. Senator Dodd says, Okay. Maybe 
we put it in but we did it at the request of the Treasury. We ruled out 
Mr. Rangel because we don't think he had anything to do with it. But 
Mr. Emanuel, the Speaker, and the majority leader were in the room when 
the deals were being cut. And so we're just trying to figure out who 
did it.
  And it would be nice so we could move on to other things if the 
person that did it would come forward and say, You know what? I wrote 
those 50 words to protect $173 million in bonuses at AIG and here's why 
I did it. But sadly, we haven't had anybody step up to the plate and be 
willing to talk about that.

  So we filed what's known as a resolution of inquiry, and if there is 
a very cooperative bipartisan person in the story, it's Barney Frank, 
who is the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, a 
Democrat from Massachusetts, and he moved that legislation out of his 
committee--I think the vote was 63, 64-0. Everybody said let's get to 
the bottom of it. But now sadly--and somebody who's not pictured here 
is the distinguished majority leader of the House of Representatives, 
Mr. Hoyer of Maryland. He has the power to schedule things and not 
schedule things, and sadly, we're now entering our third month and Mr. 
Hoyer has not seen fit to schedule this legislation on the floor for 
consideration.
  But Chairman Frank did organize a meeting with folks at the Treasury, 
and they had promised to send us a letter. And they have indicated in 
this letter that we might finally be able to say that it was, for 
instance, Senator Dodd in the conference room with the pen. So we hope 
to get there from here.
  But, sadly, this isn't where it stops.
  The automotive world has been shaken by the bankruptcies, forced 
bankruptcies of Chrysler and General Motors. And the auto world has 
been shaken with the forced bankruptcy of Chrysler and now General 
Motors this week. And a couple of things happened that have again 
spawned our curiosity and we can't quite get to the bottom of it.
  Chrysler. We'll start with Chrysler. Chrysler filed a viability plan 
with the Treasury on February 17, and that was rejected. They then 
filed another one and it was accepted. And they sent on the Wednesday 
of the week that the President made his announcement on April 30, 
anybody that was a UAW member, United Auto Worker, who worked for the 
Chrysler facilities went to the ballot box, if you will, to determine 
whether or not to authorize a new contract that gave pretty serious 
concessions in terms of wages, health care benefits, retirement 
benefits to Chrysler.
  And one plant in my district--I'm from northeastern Ohio, Twinsburg, 
Ohio, stamping plant there, 1,200 people employed--they went and they 
said, Look, we want to keep our jobs and so even though these are 
pretty significant reductions in pay and benefits, we're going to vote 
for it. And they did. Eighty-eight percent of the autoworkers in 
Twinsburg voted for the contract. They were further emboldened and 
happy because this paragraph that's on this chart was specifically 
bargained for by the Twinsburg workers with Chrysler--and you can read 
it for yourself, Mr. Speaker--but it basically indicates that Chrysler 
has agreed to bring more work to Twinsburg. So 88 percent of the people 
voted for it. And as a matter of fact, all across the country the 
contract passed pretty handedly.
  Then you fast forward to Thursday.
  Thursday, if you were interested and you are a Member of Congress, 
you could get on a conference call with the President's automotive task 
force and they indicated to us that it's a great day for Chrysler and 
we're saving a lot of jobs. There will be no disruptions. There will be 
no displacements. People aren't going to lose their jobs and 
communities aren't going to be affected. So I was pretty happy. I sent 
out a press release saying ``thank you'' to the President, ``thank 
you'' to his task force, ``thank you'' to Chrysler, ``thank you'' to 
the UAW, that this looked like pretty good news.
  Then at noon that day, that's what President Obama had to say on noon 
on April 30. He indicated, Lest no one should be confused about what a 
bankruptcy process means, it will not disrupt the lives of the people 
that work at Chrysler or live in communities that depend on Chrysler.
  So that's pretty good news.
  So the President says no people's lives are going to be disrupted who 
work at Chrysler and no communities will be disrupted. Which, again, 
just from my parochial view was pretty exciting because 13 percent of 
the tax base where this stamping plant is located is based upon the 
stamping plant and the people that work there.
  So the mayor was relieved. She sent out a press release. Everything 
was good.
  So then at 1 o'clock on April 30, we had a conference call with 
Robert Nardelli. He was former chief executive officer at Chrysler. And 
it was a question-and-answer session. And the first question was asked 
by the Democratic Governor of the State of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm. 
And she said, Congratulations, guys. This is great news. I just heard 
the President, but I want to make sure that the President wasn't 
speaking in code because I heard him say that this deal saves 30,000 
jobs and we, especially in Michigan, know that more than 30,000 people 
work for Chrysler. It's about 39,000. So I'm just asking it to make 
sure that he wasn't saying we saved 30,000, but we couldn't save the 
other 9,000. And the answer was, Absolutely not. The President was just 
giving us a round number and there would be no disruptions to people's 
lives and no disruptions to the communities.
  Well, son of a gun, that afternoon there was a pretty famous picture 
in most of the newspapers of this young guy with a truck taking these 
bankers boxes into the bankruptcy court up in New York. And buried in 
that set of documents is an affidavit by a guy named Robert Manzo. Mr. 
Manzo happens to be one of the consultants who was guiding Chrysler 
through this process. And in there it identifies eight plants and 9,000 
people that are going to be shut down, including the Twinsburg plant. 
And, clearly, that came as kind of a shock to people. And I have an 
article that talks about--they interviewed the President of Local 122 
in Twinsburg, and he said, Well, what do you think? And his response--
Doug Rice is his name--he said, I don't know if I was told the whole 
truth on everything. I don't feel like I was. It would be a shame if 
this was something that was known for some time. If they kept this back 
from people, that's wrong. That's wrong.
  He was later on a radio program, and the host of the radio program 
asked him, Would that vote have been the same had you had the 
information you have now? And he says no. Needless to say, people ain't 
gonna vote to eliminate their jobs. And I think Mr. Rice is right. What 
autoworker would go to approve a contract on the belief that their jobs 
are going to be saved if they really think their jobs are going to be 
gone?
  So we have developed, Mr. Speaker, Clue, the travel edition now, to 
supplement our work on AIG. And in this case clearly--I mean, the 
documents that were wheeled into the bankruptcy courts on the afternoon 
of April 30 with Mr. Manzo's affidavit, clearly somebody knew. Somebody 
knew that when the President got up and delivered this happy news, this 
good news that five plants--eight plants were going to be closed and 
9,000 people across the country were going to be out of work.
  And here's how silly it got. One of the next questions was by a 
Democratic Representative from Wisconsin, Gwen Moore, who represents 
the Milwaukee area, and she said, Hey, Mr. Nardelli, how about our 
plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin? Eight hundred people and we are really 
proud of it. It has a long history of manufacturing automobile parts. 
And so are we going to be okay? And Mr. Nardelli says, We're proud of 
Kenosha, Wisconsin. Kenosha is part of the new Chrysler, and we very 
much look forward to continuing that partnership.
  Sadly, like my stamping plant in Twinsburg, the Kenosha plant was one 
of the eight scheduled to be shut. Obviously, Representative Moore had 
some

[[Page H6148]]

questions and said, Well, I asked you. It's not like I didn't ask you. 
I asked you about Kenosha, Wisconsin. And Mr. Nardelli's response was 
he got confused. He confused Kenosha, Wisconsin, with Trenton, 
Michigan. They don't sound alike to my ear, but when he was saying that 
Kenosha, Wisconsin, was safe, he really meant Trenton, Michigan.

                              {time}  1945

  In addition, the mayor of my town, Katherine Procop, wrote Mr. Bloom 
on the President's task force and said I heard the President say no 
communities were going to be affected. We're just taking a pretty big 
whack here; what's going on? And she got a nice letter back, and the 
letter said, well, what the President meant to say was that no 
communities were going to be disrupted other than the eight with the 
plant closures and the 9,000 people out of their jobs
  The problem with that is that was known by no one. Nobody knew, at 
least the auto workers, the elected officials, the mayor and others, 
that this was going to happen. And when you ask them, they said, well, 
we couldn't tell anybody, it was a secret. Somebody knew, because it 
was in the documents.
  So we have created Clue, the travel edition, and this time instead of 
a pen, we know that the weapon is an ax, because they axed 9,000 people 
who work in this country and had good, paying jobs. And again, we have 
the same rooms where these negotiations took place, and our suspects 
this time are the President of the United States. President Obama is up 
there; Larry Summers, who is the President's economic adviser; down 
here Mr. Nardelli, who I referred to, the former CEO of Chrysler, the 
ax of course; Ron Bloom, whom I referenced and communicated with my 
mayor; again, Mr. Geithner, the Treasury Secretary; and up here is 
President George W. Bush.
  Now, somebody in this Clue edition knew that eight plants were going 
to be closed and how easy would it have been for the President's speech 
writers to give him the information that, great news, we saved 30,000 
jobs, we saved all these plants, but we can't save them all. It's like 
four words. But rather than diluting the happy message, somebody didn't 
tell eight cities, eight plants, 9,000 workers, that their jobs were to 
be lost, and I think it's a shame.
  And again, I should just tell you, nobody is stepping up yet. The 
call that I referenced with Governor Granholm and Representative Moore 
was tape-recorded, and I called up the Chrysler guys. And I said, hey, 
the thing was tape-recorded; why don't you let us have the tape. And 
first response was, it wasn't tape-recorded. And I said, well, you 
know, my hearing isn't what it used to be when I was in my 20s, but I 
do remember people saying it was recorded. And then they called back 
and said, yes, it was recorded, we have a transcript. And I said, well, 
send it over, and they said, sure. And I said, how about that courier? 
They said sure. And so that was in the morning.
  About 5 o'clock in the afternoon. You know, I'm looking around, I 
don't see any package from Chrysler. And so I called back and was told 
that the lawyers have it. And listen, anytime the lawyers get a hold of 
something, you know you've got a big problem. And so I was beginning to 
think that I wasn't going to get this transcript. And then a couple 
days later, they called and said, I'm sending you a letter. And I said, 
I think that means I'm not getting my transcript. And they said 
absolutely not, we're not sending you the transcript.
  And again, if the facts were not as I just laid them out, the 
transcript speaks volumes. I mean, it is what it is. And again, in the 
game of Clue, I mean, who knew? Who knew? And I yield to my friend, Mr. 
Tiberi.
  Mr. TIBERI. Well, I thank the gentleman and my friend from 
northeastern Ohio. Your explanation and your comments have been very, 
very enlightening. I'm pleased to be here to participate in the travel 
edition, as well as the original edition.
  I'm a bit confused, though. You haven't explained why the pictures, 
the six pictures--I understand five of the six. But the top, as I'm 
looking at it or as I guess the viewers are looking at it, the top 
left, right there, why the former President's picture is on it when 
he's been out of town since mid-January of this year.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. That's a great question, and the reason that 
President George W. Bush is up here is that there's some people that 
blame him for everything bad. And so as a result, I thought to be fair, 
just in case, even though he was back in Crawford, Texas, when all this 
was going on, just in case, we should have President Bush up there to 
satisfy those that blame him for just about everything that has 
happened.
  I want to move on for just a second before I yield to my friend 
again, and the news has gotten worse. And the news has indicated that 
in addition to the 9,000 people who worked for Chrysler that aren't 
going to be able to work for Chrysler anymore, for some reason, through 
the bankruptcy, first Chrysler indicated and sent notices to 789 auto 
dealers across the country that they needed to shutter their doors. And 
according to the National Association of Automobile Dealers, about 60 
people work on average at each auto dealership. And then this week's 
news, with General Motors news, 2,600 General Motors dealerships, and 
again, 60 employees.
  So the first job loss is projected to be 47,000 roughly, second job 
loss 156,000. So another 200,000 people are going to be out of work. 
And you know, some people don't understand how an auto dealer costs the 
car company any money. And some people further think it's a strange 
business model to have less stores. You want to sell more stuff, and in 
particular in rural areas and in particular when it comes to their 
service department.
  On top of that, The Detroit News reported on May 11 that this task 
force that Mr. Geithner's on and Mr. Bloom's on indicated that during 
the bankruptcy proceedings not only were we going to have to approve 
these closures of these 789 Chrysler dealerships, they also said they 
didn't want Chrysler spending any money on advertising during the 
course of the bankruptcy. And finally, when it was indicated to them 
how stupid that was, they let Chrysler spend half of what they 
intended.
  So, again, you have a business model where the thinking is that 
Chrysler's going to be more successful with less stores, and Chrysler's 
going to be more successful with no advertising, especially when it's 
in the news and people have concerns about buying a car from a company 
that's in bankruptcy.
  So some strange decisions have been made, and it's caused some people 
to ask Harley Shaiken, who is a labor expert at the University of 
California, Berkeley, certainly not a hotbed of conservative thought; 
he said the auto task force tends to be a little tone deaf. A large 
part of their approach tends to be at cross-purposes with the stimulus 
package. The Obama administration is trying to spend money to create 
jobs at the same time that they're cutting jobs.
  I know my friend from Ohio knows that another colleague of ours from 
Ohio, Mr. Jordan from the western part of Ohio, participated in a 
hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee. And the question came up, 
These people on the task force, do any of them have experience in 
manufacturing, manufacturing cars, selling cars, making parts? And the 
answer was none, nobody has. They had plenty of Wall Street experience, 
but they don't have any experience when it comes to the automotive 
industry.
  And the witness went on to say--and this was really startling--that 
most of them don't own cars, and not only don't they own cars, those 
that do own cars drive foreign cars. But again, this is a group of 
people that are making--and they're not elected, they're appointed--
this is a group of people that are making these decisions that is going 
to cost, if you add in the Chrysler stuff, we're getting north of--and 
you have to put in the GM workers, another 21,000 workers this week, 
you're north of 250,000 jobs. I yield to my friend.

  Mr. TIBERI. Well, and just to kind of emphasize a point that you had 
made earlier about your mayor and the response that she got, that the 
President's quote of it will not disrupt the lives of the people who 
work at Chrysler or live in communities that depend on it, his quote, 
and then the reply back to her meaning, well, those communities outside 
those targeted for

[[Page H6149]]

closing. Well, that doesn't include, to the point of your chart right 
there, the thousands, the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands 
of jobs that are going to be lost by dealers throughout America and 
many communities, and those who are subcontractors within the industry 
or others in the supply chain, suppliers of different parts.
  And we have in Ohio, as you know, one of the larger presence of auto 
suppliers throughout our State. And if you look at the dealers, as your 
chart demonstrates, 789 Chrysler dealers throughout many small 
communities and larger communities, 2,600 GM dealers, many of whom by 
the way made money last year. These are not dealers that were 
struggling or going to be put of business. They were making money. They 
were employing people. They were participating in their communities, in 
their Rotaries, sponsoring Little League baseball teams. This is a huge 
jolt to many communities throughout our State, throughout our country, 
let alone the plants that you had spoke about earlier.
  But there is a missing link here as to who is calling these shots, 
how are they determining which dealers close, who is actually making 
the call, the decision, that Chrysler cut their budget in half, what 
kind of decisions are being made with respect to General Motors that we 
don't know about. I know I'm asking more questions rather than 
providing answers. Maybe one day we will get to some of these answers, 
but I see the gentleman has a new chart.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank you very much, and I want to go back to Mr. 
Manville because we know already that the President's task force 
determined that Chrysler shouldn't have an advertising budget that they 
wanted to have, and now with the GM news, it's sort of been like 
Pontius Pilate; they're washing their hands. These are all decisions 
that have been made by the car companies, we don't have anything to do 
with it.
  But here's an e-mail that was exchanged the day before the bankruptcy 
filing between Robert Manzo and Matthew Feldman, who is an attorney on 
the President's automobile task force. And just to indicate the depths 
and the breadth to which these unelected folks who have plenty of 
bankruptcy experience and Wall Street experience but don't have any 
automobile experience will go to, Mr. Manzo is saying, well, do you 
think it's worth giving us one more shot. And the one more shot that 
he's referring to, he testified in court, was maybe we don't have to go 
to this bankruptcy route, maybe we can come to some agreement with our 
bondholders, and do we have to do this?
  Well, the rather professional response from Mr. Feldman is that I'm 
now not talking to you, you went where you shouldn't. And Mr. Manzo 
backs up and he apologizes, and Feldman writes him another e-mail, it's 
over, the President doesn't negotiate second rounds. We've given and 
lent billions of dollars so that your team could manage this properly, 
and now you're telling me to bend over to a terrorist like Lauria.
  And Lauria is another bankruptcy lawyer who represents some of the 
bondholders in the GM suit, and I think he might--I may be wrong about 
that--but I think he represents the Indiana Teachers Pension Fund. And 
he was basically saying, it's all well and good that you want to do 
this, but I invested teacher pension fund money in Chrysler and you're 
now telling me that I have to go back to my clients and say that I 
agreed to take five or ten cents on the dollar. He could be sued. He 
might be able to be put in jail. So I don't think that's the definition 
of a terrorist. And of course, Mr. Feldman signs off with an 
affectionate ``that's BS.''
  So the day before you still have Chrysler trying to work it out and 
the President's task force telling him to take a hike. And the same 
thing happened this week. And if you look at how this thing is being 
manipulated, the same thing happened when--as you know, the GM 
bankruptcy is in New York as well, and people think that, well, that's 
kind of strange because we thought General Motors was either organized 
under the laws of Delaware or the laws of Michigan certainly. And as a 
matter of fact they are, and you don't get into Federal court in New 
York without some kind of nexus.
  Well, lo and behold, the brainiacs at General Motors and on the 
President's task force found one General Motors dealership in Harlem, 
New York, and they are the lead pleader in the bankruptcy so that they 
could get a New York bankruptcy judge rather than having it decided 
where the company actually does business and people who work there, you 
know, live.
  Mr. TIBERI. Being a lawyer and former prosecutor, can you explain the 
advantages of a bankruptcy in New York City rather than Detroit?
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Well, I'm going to tell you, first of all, you don't 
have the affected parties, and so all of the people that worked for 
General Motors, all of the dealers that depend on it, they're not in 
New York. They could only find one dealer in Harlem, and so you avoid 
that problem.
  In addition, you are able to judge shop. I mean, it's called forum 
shopping, and every lawyer would love, I mean love--lawyers like to 
win--every lawyer would love to be able to go out and pick his judge or 
her judge, because who wouldn't? I mean, this judge is tough, this 
judge is not so tough; this judge is smart, this judge is not so smart. 
So I mean if you could pick where your case goes, you could do pretty 
well. And it appears exactly what our friends at the task force did and 
our friends at General Motors did.
  And then on top of it, I go back to the job losses at the auto 
dealer. It's worse than that chart because every dealer who sells GM 
products has gotten a letter, and it's either a you're gone letter or 
you're safe letter. But the guys that are safe, they are going to be 
required, the dealers that are going to be part of the new GM, to sign 
participation agreements. And if they don't sign the participation 
agreement, they're out and they will lose their franchise, their 
livelihood--their 60 people are out of work. And we have both State and 
Federal legislation that says, look, the car companies are pretty 
powerful. They have bargaining power that the small dealer doesn't. 
They've got lawyers, they've got millions of dollars.

                              {time}  2000

  And so we're not going to let this sort of unfair stuff happen. But, 
again, the beauty of picking a New York bankruptcy judge is that they 
are arguing that we should preempt all of those laws, and the car 
dealers no longer have protection.
  So they're telling them things like, Well, you have to buy so many 
cars from us, even if it's a horrible business decision. And they used 
to have these noncompete clauses that the car company agreed not to put 
another GM dealership within 2 miles or 5 miles, or whatever the case 
may be. If we decide to put a new GM dealership right next to you, 
tough. That's just the way it goes.
  It's unconscionable. The Sopranos would be proud of this letter by 
General Motors. It's clearly not--I never thought I'd see the day that 
this was happening in the United States.
  Mr. TIBERI. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. I'd be happy to yield.
  Mr. TIBERI. They could essentially say to a dealer, If you don't sign 
this agreement which we could ultimately say you're going to rebuild 
your store, you're going to make it so many more square feet, you're 
going to move your location, if they don't sign that, if that business 
owner doesn't sign that, they're out. They have absolutely no leverage. 
All contract law has been violated.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. General Motors has made clear that there's going to 
be a new Chrysler and an old Chrysler--the bad assets going to old 
Chrysler; the new Chrysler, the good assets. The same thing with 
General Motors. The letter to the dealer is clear that if you don't 
sign these participation agreements and agree to whatever terms we can 
think of, you're out. And you're going to go under the old General 
Motors. Not much of a choice.
  We were talking about you, my friend; our friend from the western 
part of Ohio, Mr. Jordan. We were talking a little bit about your 
experience in the Judiciary Committee. Maybe you can share, since you 
were there. I tried to relate it as best I could, but maybe you could 
chat about what happened.
  Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. Well, thank you. I appreciate the gentleman for

[[Page H6150]]

yielding and for this Special Order on just a critical issue 
highlighting why you should never start down this road where government 
is making decisions in private enterprise.
  But the gentleman related 2 weeks ago in Judiciary Committee we had 
auto dealers, we had experts, and two experts on the auto industry, 
unlike the auto task force, which has no manufacturing experience, no 
auto dealer business experience. We had real experts in there talking 
about the fact that these handful of people who are making decisions 
that impact so many communities and so many families across this 
country really have just that, no experience whatsoever in 
manufacturing, and particularly auto manufacturing.
  I just appreciate my colleagues from the Buckeye State pointing out--
here's what is so frustrating. Government caused this problem, and now 
government is going to fix it? I mean, the CAFE standards artificially 
plucked out of the air, which are the reason, frankly, one of the 
reasons that the stamping facility in the Fourth Congressional District 
was closed down, announced foreclosure this Monday. The lack of what I 
call a coherent, commonsense energy policy.
  Let's remember where we were last summer that really started to lead 
to this situation. It was $4 gasoline. And the fact that we don't use 
the natural resources we have in this country to help this situation 
and specifically to help this industry. Again, a failure of government 
to do the right thing, which helped bring us to this day.
  Frankly, we're only going to make it worse, as my colleagues know, if 
we pass this crazy cap-and-trade concept, which will make it even 
tougher for manufacturing and auto manufacturing. So that's the 
frustrating part.
  One last point before I yield back to my colleague. I was on a 
conference call Sunday night with some of the members of the auto task 
force briefing Members of Congress about what was going to happen with 
the restructuring at General Motors and, frankly, the announcements 
that were going to occur the next day, June 1, 2009, when 11 GM 
facilities, an announcement was made they were going to close. Again, 
one of which was in Ontario, Ohio, in Richland County in the Fourth 
Congressional District.
  Mr. Sperling, a member of the auto task force, stated in his comments 
that the government, the auto task force, wasn't going to be involved 
in day-to-day decisions about General Motors. They would only get 
involved if it was a ``major event.''
  And so when his comments were done and Members of Congress began to 
ask questions, I finally got around to my turn and I said, Mr. 
Sperling, you indicated in your opening comments that the auto task 
force, the government would only get involved if it was a major event. 
I said, It's going to be pretty major tomorrow when they shut down 11 
facilities in 11 congressional districts. What is your definition of 
``major''?
  And here's the scary thing. He didn't have one. He said it could be a 
merger, it could be a major change in corporate philosophy. He didn't 
have a definition, which just tells you they can do whatever they want, 
whenever they want, and that's why it's so appropriate what Mr. 
LaTourette and Mr. Tiberi are doing here tonight on the floor of the 
House of Representatives, showing the chaos that they have caused in 
all kinds of congressional districts, in all kinds of families and 
communities around this country.
  So I want to applaud, again, the Member from Ohio and his hard work 
in trying to get to the bottom of this and letting the American people 
know what is really going on out there in this important industry in 
our country.
  With that, I would yield back.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank you, Mr. Jordan, for saying that. Listening 
to your story, I couldn't make that conference call. I made one the 
next day with Fritz Henderson, who's the CEO after the President fired 
the old CEO of General Motors.
  Hearing your description, it sounds like the Supreme Court used to 
wrestle with the definition of pornography. They don't know what the 
definition is, but they'll know it when they see it. So perhaps a major 
event will be known by the President's task force when they see.
  Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. If the gentleman would yield.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Sure.
  Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. I think this is important to understand. If 
President Obama can fire the CEO of General Motors, then he can keep a 
facility open. Frankly, his task force and members of his Cabinet, who 
are traveling across the Midwest right now, who are in our State, in 
Ohio as we speak--they were there yesterday and today--they owe it to 
those communities like Twinsburg, like Ontario. They owe it the those 
workers, those families to go to those facilities, look those workers 
in the eye and explain to them why they chose to shut down their 
facility and keep another one open. They owe that to them.
  This is coming from someone whose father worked 30 years at a General 
Motors facility in Dayton, Ohio. I know what it's like for those 
families. I remember when I was a kid and there was talk of a possible 
layoff, talk of a possible strike. The emotion that that causes in a 
family and the concern that caused within a family is real.

  So we know what these families are going through in Twinsburg, Ohio, 
and Ontario, Ohio, and Michigan and other States. We know what they're 
going through. Frankly, the auto task force owes it to those families 
to come to those communities and explain to them why they're closing 
their facility.
  I yield back.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. I'm glad my friend brought that up, because one of 
the people that has been sent out as a member of the auto task force, 
Mr. Montgomery, and he was in Twinsburg, and rather than explaining how 
Twinsburg got picked and these 1,200 people are out of jobs, they were 
there to announce a great new initiative, a nationwide initiative, $50 
million, to take now 30,000 unemployed autoworkers, $5 million for 
30,000 unemployed autoworkers, and transition them to green jobs.
  Now, I made the observation, and the Labor Secretary didn't like it 
very much, but I made the observation at the rate these guys are going, 
the only green jobs that are going to be left are cutting the grass of 
the Wall Street guys that got the $700 billion bailout. So some of this 
defies logic.
  I just want to close the loop on these auto dealers, not only the 
workers, but the dealers. Because if you look who's being negatively 
impacted, it's the bondholders who had $27 billion in General Motors 
and they are being forced to settle for peanuts or they're called not 
patriotic.
  You have 30,000 autoworkers whose livelihood and their family's 
livelihood depends upon getting up and going to work for this company. 
You have the communities that are impacted, and you have over 200,000 
people that work at auto dealers.
  Mr. Nardelli was on the witness stand in New York and he was being 
questioned by Amy Brown, who's an attorney for the Chrysler dealers who 
doesn't seem real happy about this decision. And the question was, 
Well, what is it that these dealers are costing the company? Mr. 
Nardelli's response was, Well, there's a host of expenses relating to 
such things as tooling, service training, advertising, and sales 
incentives.
  But when Ms. Brown asked him to quantify how much those things cost 
the automaker, Mr. Nardelli said he could not, and he wasn't sure if 
the automaker had ever determined those exact costs.
  So I don't think that that's what's going on here. I think that you 
have people taking advantage of a bankruptcy situation, a crisis, to 
engage in an agenda that they perhaps have been wanting to engage in 
for a very long time. And I think that it's disingenuous. And that's 
why we have unveiled Clue, the Travel Edition. We would like to know.
  I want to yield to my friend now, one of the great champions of the 
auto industry from the State of Michigan that's been more impacted. I 
think at lunch today I heard his State may crest 25 percent 
unemployment as a result of some of these decisions.
  My friend, Mr. McCotter from Michigan.
  Mr. McCOTTER. I thank the gentleman from Ohio and I thank him for 
what he is doing today. As you mentioned, I come from the suburbs 
northwest of Detroit. Obviously, what we have seen with both Chrysler 
and with

[[Page H6151]]

GM is very painful because of the human cost involved: the workers at 
these plants who will lose their jobs, the manufacturing supply chain, 
those employees and owners that will lose their jobs, lose their small 
businesses, and the dealers who will lose their jobs and their small 
businesses.
  But it will not simply be a Michigan problem. It will not simply be a 
Midwest problem. As we found out from the Chrysler dealerships that 
were closed, it went across the country, all the way from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific.
  Many of our colleagues all of a sudden remember that if auto 
manufacturers have a problem, auto dealers have a problem. This was not 
news to many of us, but it portends what is going to happen over the 
course of this year and next year as these plants are closed.
  The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. LaTourette, the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. 
Kucinich, put forward a bipartisan letter, which I was very grateful to 
be able to sign, that talked about how Congress should reexercise its 
power in this area, how the task force should have become advisory and 
brought the stakeholders together in a process similar to what was done 
with Chrysler in the 1970s to allow all stakeholders to come together, 
as opposed to being pitted against each other, workers or investors, in 
the process that we saw, which in the end turned out to be nothing but 
a prepackaged bankruptcy that could not be avoided.
  At this point in time, obviously all of us who have plants closed--I 
had my Livonia power train assembly plant notified it was going to 
close; 164 workers going to lose their jobs. And I know that next door 
to me we saw the Willow Run assembly plant closed that had produced the 
B-24 Liberator bombers that helped this Nation in World War II.
  Our thoughts are with those workers and with all the workers who are 
going to be displaced. But to those who think again that this is simply 
an economic problem for Michigan, for the Midwest, I ask them a simple 
question. General Motors was a symbol to the world of the United 
States' prosperity and security. When this icon of the United States 
went into bankruptcy, in the nations that bode ill toward us, they were 
gleeful. Because with General Motors going into bankruptcy, it sends a 
clear signal to the world that the United States is in decline, and 
into that perceived vacuum these nations will inject themselves to 
advance their interests, with very detrimental results to the United 
States of America.
  It is so often that we forget because we live in a land of prosperity 
and security what these corporations, especially General Motors, have 
meant throughout the world. It has not been lost on the rest of the 
world. And you ask yourself: If General Motors goes into bankruptcy, 
what do they think?
  We have already seen what the Russians think. We will soon find out 
what the Communist Chinese think. And ask yourself this question as 
well: What do you think is going to happen when cars are made in 
Communist China, imported into the United States for sale? What does 
that tell us about the future of the United States, both in terms of 
its ability to defend itself by manufacturing the armaments necessary 
to undergird a peace through strength policy or the ability to provide 
prosperity for its people.
  It's been a very painful week for Michigan and for America. The 
manufacturing base will be far smaller. We will get through this. We 
will help our fellow citizens who are going through a very difficult 
time, and we will emerge stronger, if not larger.
  I yield back to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank my friend from Michigan. I just want to bring 
to a conclusion this evening, we hear a lot that we can't deal with 
some of the problems in the country because we're really busy here in 
the United States Congress, and so we don't have floor time.
  I talked a little earlier about the AIG thing and the majority leader 
can't schedule it on the floor because we're really busy doing other 
stuff. As a matter of fact, when we broke for the Memorial Day district 
work period, the Speaker and the majority leader and the Democratic 
leadership had a big press conference hailing all of the great things 
that we did. But I can tell you we didn't do anything about Chrysler, 
we didn't do anything about General Motors.
  And so I went back, and in the last Congress, Mr. Speaker, you may 
remember that gasoline was going through the roof. In Ohio, it topped 
$4 for the first time in my lifetime. And you would think that we would 
be doing something about a national energy policy here in the United 
States Congress, the greatest deliberative body in the world.
  When the majority changed--and, again, as Republicans, we did such a 
swell job that the voters threw us out and they installed the Democrats 
as the majority. They took over and began their legislative 
responsibilities on January 29, 2007.

                              {time}  2015

  Gas was about $2.22. On that day, the most important thing that the 
majority leader could schedule was congratulating the University of 
California at Santa Barbara's soccer team. Gas goes up a little bit to 
$2.24, and that's getting people's attention. The most important thing 
we could do in the United States Congress is pass a resolution honoring 
National Passport Month. Gas goes over $3, which has people alarmed. My 
phones are ringing off the hook, and my colleagues' phones are ringing 
off the hook. On that day, the most important thing we could do is 
commend the Houston Dynamo soccer team.
  You see a pattern here, Mr. Speaker. We are told, in order to be 
successful in elective office, we have to get the soccer moms. So, as 
gas is going through the roof, we are congratulating a soccer team in 
California and one down in Texas. Just to make sure nobody is confused, 
we like soccer and we like soccer moms.
  Gas goes up to $3.77, and the most important thing that the majority 
can put on the floor is a resolution honoring National Train Day. Most 
of us like trains, but gas is $3.77. Gas goes up to $3.84. We passed--
and I had to look this up because I didn't know what a ``canid'' was. 
When gas hit $3.84, we passed the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act. 
Again, if you have trouble with canids, Mr. Speaker, that's a dog. So 
gas is $3.84. Our constituents are suffering as they fill up their 
tanks, and we're talking about cats and dogs here in the United States 
Congress. It gets up to $4.09. It crosses $4 for the first time. Do you 
know what? A lot of people in my district don't know this, but 2008 was 
the International Year of Sanitation. So that was the most important 
thing we could do. Then out here, when we get to $4.14, which is about 
where it crested in Ohio--it might have been higher or a little bit 
lower in other States--the most important thing that the majority can 
put on the floor is the Monkey Safety Act.
  So, again, when talking about tone deaf, that made some of us think 
that perhaps the new majority was tone deaf, and we talked to them 
about it. We said, Hey, you know, maybe we could do other stuff. So 
this year, when hundreds of thousands of people in this country who 
work in the automotive industry are losing their jobs, we're thinking, 
oh, they get it; they understand you can't do goofy things and 
commemorative things when people are losing their jobs.
  Earlier this year, 4,000 people were axed at Chrysler. On that day, 
we honored former Senator Claiborne Pell. He had a long, storied 
career, but we've got 4,000 people out of work, and maybe we could be 
doing something else; 9,500 Chrysler people are out. On that day, the 
most important thing that the majority can put on the floor is a 
resolution supporting the goals and ideals of national team dating. All 
of us think team dating is important unless you happen to be the father 
of one of the team members; but we passed that resolution. You get up 
here just south of 10,000 Chrysler workers who are losing their jobs; 
and son of a gun, we pass the Monkey Safety Act again.
  So we had time not to deal with gasoline prices, not to deal with an 
energy policy, not to deal with the automotive industry, but we did 
have time to take up floor time, 2 years in a row, on the Monkey Safety 
Act.
  Then we got out here where 13,000 people are losing their jobs, and 
son of a gun, I guess the Senate didn't pass the bill about cats and 
dogs, and so we take more floor time talking about

[[Page H6152]]

cats and dogs even though 13,000 people have lost their jobs.
  Then you get out here. This is another guy who, I think, we all like, 
but now 16,000 people are out of jobs, and the most important thing the 
majority can put on the floor is awarding a gold medal to Arnold 
Palmer. I think most of us like Arnold Palmer, and we think he has had 
a nice career, but 16,000 of our friends and neighbors are without 
jobs. Then when it hits the top at 18,365, son of a gun, it's National 
Train Day Again.
  So there clearly are difficulties with priorities here in the House, 
and I don't want to disparage the Democratic leadership too much. I 
would be happy to yield to my friend in just a second because it's not 
fair just to talk about the Monkey Safety Act and National Train Day 
and the International Year of Sanitation.
  I want my colleagues to know that, since the beginning of this 
Congress, the majority has also taken up floor time at 40 minutes a pop 
to name all of these post offices in the United States of America. So, 
if you live in one of these towns, Mr. Speaker, you can rest assured 
that the United States Congress is on the job and that we have named 
your post office. So, when you go in and get that 44-cent stamp, it has 
got a name on it. The folks know that each one of these takes about an 
hour of floor time and a vote. I think there are 14 of them. There may 
be a few more. So that's about 14 hours of precious time when the 
United States Congress could have been talking about jobs at Chrysler, 
about jobs at GM and about gasoline prices last year when we couldn't 
quite get there.
  Just to close the loop on that thought, as we know, 11 plants have 
closed this week, GM plants, and another 21,000 people are out of work. 
So you would think, okay, because Chrysler is smaller than GM, maybe we 
didn't think it was that huge; but Flagship GM, as my friend from 
Michigan has talked about, is a national icon. So we came back from our 
district work period yesterday, and just to make sure that people don't 
think that I'm somehow bad-mouthing the Democratic majority, they 
really did stuff yesterday to take care of the GM situation other than 
naming post offices.
  Yesterday, we debated legislation on the direct fish stocking of 
certain lakes in Washington State, and we commemorated the 75th 
anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains. Apparently, the soccer moms 
have been replaced with basketball moms, and we honored the University 
of Tennessee's women's basketball team.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Michigan.
  Mr. McCOTTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  In fairness, I must point out that one of the first things that this 
Democratic-controlled Congress did, in conjunction with the 
administration, was pass a $1 trillion stimulus bill, because I include 
the interest, and we're all going to have to pay it. The $1 trillion 
stimulus bill had one provision that would have particularly helped the 
auto industry that was virtually eliminated in the dead of night by a 
hidden hand that also did something interesting. The $1 trillion 
stimulus bill had protected the AIG bonuses, and yet it did nothing to 
prevent Chrysler and GM autoworkers from going into bankruptcy. At the 
time, I referred to it as a post-American manufacturing bill. I would 
just like to point out that, sadly, events have proven that assessment 
correct.

  I yield back to the gentleman.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Tiberi, I would yield to you for an observation.
  Mr. TIBERI. Well, thank you for yielding.
  The gentleman from Michigan brings up the stimulus bill, and I just 
had a thought cross my mind.
  Not to add more questions rather than answers, but maybe the next 
edition of Clue is to figure out how--as the gentleman from the 
Cleveland area knows and as the gentleman from western Ohio knows, just 
today, we find out that 1,200 jobs in the Miami Valley at NCR were lost 
from Ohio to Georgia, in part because, at least according to the 
employer, in the stimulus bill, there were provisions to allow for a 
potential office building/manufacturing facility to be used to build 
and to lure jobs from Ohio to Georgia, which is absolutely outrageous. 
These aren't the types of jobs that we thought were going to be 
created. These are pitting States against States and localities against 
localities.
  So I would ask the gentleman from Ohio if, maybe the next time we get 
together, we could add that to the auto industry and to the AIG 
bonuses. These are things that are done here, not on this House floor, 
not in the people's House, but in one of those rooms behind closed 
doors.
  I yield back.
  Mr. McCOTTER. Will the gentleman yield for a question?
  My question is: If these 1,200 jobs in Ohio were in Ohio and they 
have moved to Georgia, does the administration consider them created or 
saved or is it going to have to come up with a third category--or 
shifted?
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. To answer the gentleman's question, I think it's 
both. I think we'll see the administration taking credit for saving 
2,000 jobs and for creating 2,000 jobs. It will be too bad for the 
folks in the Miami Valley, and that's just the way it goes.
  I would close with: we sent the President of the United States, 
President Obama, a letter that was signed by 36 of our colleagues. I 
believe all of the Members on the floor signed it. It basically asked 
the President to take a deep breath. As Mr. Jordan has indicated, this 
unappointed task force, in my opinion, is not serving the President of 
the United States well. So take a deep breath.
  Go back to 1979. There was Jimmy Carter, Lee Iacocca and the problem 
with Chrysler back in 1979. Have thoughtful hearings. Have thoughtful 
discussions. Have people who are experienced in the automotive industry 
or who, at a minimum, own a car, and let's have this conversation. In 
that case, my colleagues will remember, the United States not only got 
paid back, but we made money. We made $35 million on the first Chrysler 
bailout. The problem that the government had is nobody ever expected us 
to make money on it, so there was no provision on how to spend it; but 
people at home need not worry--that Congress at the time figured out 
how to spend it rather quickly. It goes to show that, when done 
thoughtfully, it can be done okay.
  So we come to Clue, the travel edition--and oh, by the way, we 
haven't heard back from the President yet. I know he is overseas and 
that he is a busy person being the leader of the Free World, so he 
hasn't had a chance to get back to us. I hope that he does. I hope he 
takes our suggestion. It is a bipartisan letter--I want to say that--
from Republicans and Democrats who are concerned about the autoworkers, 
the plants, the auto dealers, and the people who invest money.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, I think it's a shame. You know, if our 
constituents want safe monkeys, they can rest easy tonight because 
we've passed that bill twice. If you like cats and dogs, they're okay. 
You can rest easy. If you like trains, it's not a problem. If your post 
office hasn't been named this year, call your Member of Congress, and 
I'll bet we can slap a name on it sometime rather than dealing with the 
problems that ail the country.
  If you're a union member who works for the United Autoworkers, too 
bad. We don't have time for any legislation for you. We will train you 
for a green job--cutting somebody's grass. If you, God forbid, were a 
stockholder in one of these companies or invested money in one of these 
companies, you're now being told your investment is worthless, so 
things like secured debt don't mean ``secured debt.'' It's a little bit 
like the mortgage crisis. If you're tired of paying your mortgage, 
don't worry about it. We'll pay it for you.
  There is the supply chain that Mr. Tiberi talked about, and there are 
the dealers that, I think, we've all talked about. We're talking about 
200,000 people. Again, it doesn't make sense.
  I think Mr. Jordan's observation was right on the money. First of 
all, we have got to solve Clue, the travel edition, to figure out who 
did this. Secondly, I think they owe people an explanation. Why did my 
plant get closed and not somebody else's? Why did this dealership get 
closed and not somebody else's? Why are 1,200 people out of work in my 
district and not someplace else? Why are we picking on the dealers 
when, according to Mr. Nardelli, he

[[Page H6153]]

doesn't know if they cost him any money? It is, indeed, a strange 
business model to think that you're going to sell more Chryslers with 
less stores and with no advertising, but maybe that's just me.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank you. I thank my colleagues--two from Ohio and 
one from Michigan--for joining us for this hour.
  I yield back our time.

                          ____________________