[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 64 (Wednesday, May 11, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H3213-H3216]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1940
                    LOST JOBS AND THE TRADE DEFICIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, jobs need to be America's number one 
priority. When people go back to work, it seems fairly obvious that 
we'll not only balance family budgets, but we'll be able to balance 
America's budget. They're tied together. But for some reason, too many 
officials here in Washington, both elected officials and those who 
lobby, simply haven't gotten that message. At the end of last month, 
The Washington Post ran an excellent piece, asking, ``What is it about 
the word 'jobs' that our Nation's leaders

[[Page H3214]]

fail to understand?'' ``How has the most painful economic crisis in 
decades somehow escaped their notice?'' and ``Why do they ignore the 
issues that Americans care most desperately about?'' Very good 
questions. I tried to answer them myself, as I have fought the 
resistance to try to help reemploy those who seek work across our 
country.
  I would have to say that, in some ways, some here in this city are 
privileged. They've really led very privileged lives. They've been 
insulated, insulated from living in a family that gets a pink slip, 
insulated from being in a family that knows what it's like to live on 
an unemployment check and wonder if you will ever be able to get 
regular checks again, insulated from families that desperately worry 
when their unemployment checks expire and there is no job.
  A lot of people here inherited their wealth, and they truly are 
insulated, but for the rare few. Others had their educations paid for. 
They didn't work for them. It's unbelievable. There are a lot of people 
here just like that. Some of them always had enough to eat. They really 
never had to scrimp and choose whether they'd have milk, whether they'd 
have water, whether they'd split a cabbage in order to get their family 
through the weekend. So there really is a lot of distinction between 
what people have had to endure in their own lives. And frankly, there 
are a lot of people in this capital city that make a whole lot of 
money. I'm going to talk about some of them in a second.
  But recent polls tell us what the majority of Americans are thinking 
about. And according to two recent polls, four out of 10 Americans 
believe our country is heading in the wrong direction. I agree with 
them. And as gas prices rise and have climbed to record levels, 71 
percent of our citizens are experiencing financial hardship. More cars 
are along the roads in Ohio where people just simply run out of gas. Or 
you see them at the pump, and they only put in $20, and they hope that 
maybe a week from now, the price won't be as bad.
  I want to dedicate my time this evening to talking about jobs, about 
America being held hostage to what the gentleman ahead of me was 
talking about, Big Oil, and policy changes we need to make to get our 
economy running strongly here at home. And I want to just point out a 
couple of measures of our predicament so that people are thinking about 
different aspects of what we face so that we can really fix it.
  Now, this first chart up here shows that for the last quarter century 
or more, America has not had balanced trade accounts. What does that 
have to do with the budget deficit? When you are in the red and you are 
importing more than you are exporting, you are having to actually 
borrow money to pay the difference. Somebody else is making the money 
off of us. We have not had balanced trade accounts since the 1970s. 
Every single year, more and more of America's wealth has been 
outsourced to someplace else. Every American knows that. You see the 
jobs that have disappeared from your own community.

  I use the Maytag Washer Company in Newton, Iowa. I'm not from Iowa. 
I'm from Ohio, but I still have my old Maytags, great product. Those 
jobs ended up in Mexico after they were actually outsourced because of 
a big buyout that happened in that company. And that's happened in 
company after company after company. That's what's happened to all of 
our manufacturing jobs. But this chart here shows the U.S. trade 
deficit, every single year. In 2010, last year, we had $500 billion 
more in imports into our country than exports going out. This is a 
serious part of the problem.
  Now, those trade deficits result from agreements America has signed 
that were supposed to result in exactly the opposite, job creation in 
our country. Probably the best known is NAFTA. In 1993, this Congress 
passed an agreement called NAFTA, and the people who voted for it said, 
Oh, it's going to create all these jobs in the United States, and we 
won't have to worry. Relations with Mexico will be terrific. Well, 
guess what? Ever since NAFTA passed, there hasn't been a single year 
when we have had even a trade balance with Mexico. No. Every year, our 
deficit with Mexico--more imports coming in here from Mexico than 
exports going out--has gotten worse.
  And what about in Mexico? In Mexico, over 35,000 citizens of that 
country were shot last year related to the illegal drug trade. We are 
receiving the reciprocal of that across our border as people flee just 
to try to have a better way of life. Because you see, the farmers in 
that country, the small holders, were thrown off their land as a result 
of NAFTA. Two million people desperate to earn a living. We said that 
would happen. People didn't care. They simply didn't care. And so we 
lost that vote on the margin of about 12 votes. But what we said would 
happen in '93 has happened, and we've had over $1 trillion of trade 
deficit with Mexico.
  The balance of trade with South Korea. Knowing the terrible trade 
record that this country has had with every country we've signed one of 
these free trade agreements with, what is the administration proposing 
and the majority here proposing? They want to bring up more, more 
NAFTA-like agreements. They want to bring us Korea. They want to bring 
us Colombia. I don't know what else they're going to throw in. But you 
know what? We've already got a trade deficit with Korea. We take 
hundreds of thousands of their cars. They take a few, a few thousand 
from us. And the agreement that the last administration and this 
administration has reached with Korea won't bring us trade balance with 
Korea. There is no requirement that it's a tit for tat, a reciprocal 
agreement, or it's one car there for one car here. So we are going to 
lose more jobs if that agreement moves through here.
  This is a pattern that Americans need to understand. And if you look 
at that overall trade deficit that's been going on and getting worse 
and worse every year, what is the top category of that deficit? The top 
category is imported oil. I agree with some of my colleagues who have 
pinpointed the problem, but we can't continue to hold ourselves hostage 
inside our own Nation on the spear of petroleum. We have to support 
additional exploration; and we are doing that on our own continent with 
the Alberta oil sands project, for example, in Canada, the largest 
construction project on our entire continent. But we also have to 
diversify. We have to be smart. Prior generations were smart. We need 
to be smarter.
  Today, The Washington Post just published an article on the latest 
trade numbers. They tell us a lot about our economy. There was some 
good news. We sold more exports and services. And why wouldn't that 
happen? The value of the dollar has dropped as we've hemorrhaged jobs 
here in this country. But a funny thing happened--the trade deficit 
grew again. More imported oil. High-priced oil keeps pushing us further 
and further in the red. That $500 billion trade deficit from last year 
that I referenced, according to the Manufacturing Policy Project, 
represents a loss of 7 million American jobs. In other words, this hole 
that's been accumulated over the years, 7 million manufacturing and 
other jobs lost across our country. That means jobs outsourced 
someplace else, and then they're imported here. We keep shooting 
ourselves in the foot over and over and over again.
  We can no longer afford to add hundreds of billions of dollars 
annually to our trade deficit. We need a different trade model that 
results in trade balances at a minimum and hopefully trade surpluses 
because you simply can't balance our Federal budget or family budgets 
when our trade accounts are so costly and so out of whack and so many 
jobs have been moved offshore.

                              {time}  1950

  We hear that the majority wants to bring up more NAFTA-like trade 
agreements, and one of the countries they're talking about is Colombia. 
They're talking about Korea; they're talking about Colombia. What 
Colombia is really about is oil, more imported petroleum, when you 
really get into the weeds and you look at what that agreement is about.
  And the question for America really is, If this is the history of 
imported consumption of petroleum, is that really the future that we 
want for this generation and the next and the following?
  The red lines here represent the growing share of petroleum 
consumption in our country that's represented

[[Page H3215]]

by imports. It's increased steadily over the last quarter century. That 
is not a path for American liberty nor American economic success.
  We need a trade policy that is results oriented, that results in 
balance and energy independence here at home. We need to grow our 
exports, yes, and create jobs here in our country by moving our Nation 
toward energy independence here at home.
  And we need for somebody in the executive branch to stand up and 
fight for reciprocal trade agreements. I said that to President Obama. 
What's wrong with a trade surplus? What's wrong with a trade balance? 
Why do we keep going in the red? Why would anyone accept that as a 
solution for America?
  The unemployment rate rose this past month, I contend, because of 
rising gas prices. It was not good news for an economy that has been 
struggling to recover. And if we look back again at the last quarter 
century, and this chart looks a little complicated, but what it shows--
the red line is oil prices--is that every time oil prices peak, what 
follows? Higher unemployment. It's a very predictable pattern. It 
happened in the 1970s twice. Here we go, high oil prices with the Arab 
oil embargo back in the '70s. What happened? Rising unemployment.
  If you go back to the late 1980s, early 1990s, same thing. Higher oil 
prices, higher unemployment. And certainly, now, with the greatest 
recession since the Great Depression, an enormous rise in 2008 when the 
stock market crashed. What preceded it was an increase in oil prices to 
over $4 a gallon. And what happened? The crash. Yes, it's a housing 
crisis. Yes, it's an unemployment crisis. But what triggered it? Gas 
prices over $4 a gallon.
  The American people, once they understand what's happened, will fix 
it. America really is a hostage in her own land as a result of imported 
petroleum.
  Just as America is starting to re-grow her economy now, Big Oil wants 
to steer our country back toward recession.
  Now, look at this chart. In the first quarter of 2011, just one of 
the companies, ExxonMobil took in $10.7 billion--that's a B--in profits 
in one quarter. That's a 69 percent increase over last year.
  Occidental, that's the group that wants to drill more in Colombia, 
and they need a free trade agreement to do that and bring it in here. 
Their profits are up $1.6 billion, 46 percent increase.
  Conoco Philips, $2.1 billion. Their profits are up 43 percent in one 
quarter, and most of these profits are being pocketed tax-free.
  While working Americans earning less than $20,000 paid 15 percent of 
their income in taxes, Chevron, which made $6.2 billion in one 
quarter--their profits went up 36 percent--they only paid 4.6 percent 
in taxes on their total of $32 billion in profits last year.
  Now, I heard my colleague earlier talking about, oh, gosh, we should 
really feel sorry for them because, my gosh, they're making all this 
money, but they need more tax preferences because they won't invest. 
What are they doing with all this money? These are the largest profits 
in American history.
  Oil companies aren't paying what they owe in taxes. I'll tell you one 
thing they are doing with their money. They're handing out handsome 
campaign contributions.
  The Koch brothers of Texas, who made a whole lot of money in that 
industry, generously donated more than $2 million last year and 
recently bankrolled Governor Walker in Wisconsin and the anti-worker 
movement that they're pushing in that State.
  Overall, the big oil and gas industry donated $27 million last year 
to political campaigns and, get ready, spent $146 million on lobbyists. 
That's over, gosh--for each Member of Congress it's like they've 
assigned one or two people to each one of us. No wonder Congress voted 
against closing $53 billion in tax loopholes to Big Oil. That's a 300 
percent return on their investment, more than they can make searching 
for new sources of energy.
  In 2010, the biggest oil company, ExxonMobil, paid only 2.3 percent 
of its profits to the United States. That's scandalous when businesses 
in my district are paying at a 35 percent corporate profit rate. And 
you know what? They don't ask me for all those special privileges. The 
businesses working hard in my region, gosh, I can think of bakeries and 
of factories and of machine tool companies. They don't ask for special 
privileges. They want to help America. They want to do their fair 
share.
  But this group, they're wired in here.
  The year before, ExxonMobil received an $838 million tax refund. 
Meanwhile, those in the majority would take away unemployment benefits 
for working Americans. And I can tell you what: you can go across this 
country in the food lines in community after community, and you know 
who's lined up? So many of our veterans who have come home to no work.
  I say take some of this, create a civil works program, let our 
returning veterans lead it and improve communities across this country. 
Let them take unemployed Americans and move around this Nation, fixing 
up roads, fixing up bridges, painting up what needs to be done, 
reforesting, doing what Franklin Roosevelt knew how to do a century 
ago.
  Of course, you know, looking at these numbers is British Petroleum. 
British Petroleum, over the last 5 years, instead of paying taxes, 
actually took over $48 billion in tax breaks. And in the first quarter 
of this year they've already made $7.2 billion more, a 16 percent 
increase over what they earned last year. That's despite the terrible 
oil spill down in Louisiana and along the gulf.
  So it's clear who the winners are. Since January, crude output has 
actually risen slightly. And although demand has remained steady, 
prices have climbed by 23 percent. Meanwhile, oil stock prices have 
risen. Just at Chevron, the stocks have risen 14 percent.
  Tax loopholes, corporate welfare, government subsidies, does this 
really sound like a free market to Americans who are listening tonight?
  I urge my colleagues to reject more giveaways for oil companies who 
are raking in money by holding the American people hostage. It's time 
to hold them accountable. They ought to pay their fair share. Other 
businesses do. Americans do.
  Let's cut the billions of dollars in corporate welfare and focus on 
getting hardworking Americans back to work. We need to create jobs in 
this country and close those trade deficits. We need to stop 
outsourcing our jobs through these so-called free trade agreements that 
really aren't free, and we need to move to balanced trade accounts.
  We need to reform the NAFTA trade model and not pass the same kind of 
deal for Korea or Colombia. We need reciprocal trade, not trade 
deficits. Our country, for too long, has been held hostage to these 
agreements.
  And we need energy independence to help restore our own liberty. 
Wouldn't it be great if we could put all Americans to work that need a 
job and helping to create these new sources of energy? And I know full 
well it is within the capability of American people to do this.
  But we shouldn't put all our eggs in the basket of Big Oil. We ought 
to give them some competition on price. We ought to look at hydrogen-
generation facilities across this country. We have the capability to do 
that.
  We need to move into biofuels. Through the Department of Agriculture, 
working with our renewable energy community, we are fully capable of 
unlocking the power of the carbohydrate molecule in this century just 
as we did the hydrocarbon molecule in the last.

                              {time}  2000

  We need to bring our natural gas resources forward. We really need to 
crack the clean coal riddle and find a way to use our huge reserve of 
clean coal. We need to keep investing, yes, in solar and in wind power 
and in geothermal. We are just bringing up these technologies around 
the country and creating thousands and thousands of jobs.
  I represent one of the three solar platforms on the continent, and 
for the last four decades those who have worked in the glass industry 
and the silicone industry have been transforming and creating companies 
like First Solar, which was the hottest stock on Wall Street a couple 
years ago, companies that are involved in green energy production.
  Is it perfect yet? No. But neither was Edison's light bulb when he 
invented it in Milan, Ohio, where he did so much of

[[Page H3216]]

his work, a community that I represent, and we are about to put his 
statue over in Statuary Hall.
  So America has to think about a full set of energy sources and not be 
so dependent on just one that, for whatever reason, lack of competition 
probably, but also abuse of power has just come to play too important a 
role in our economy and in our people. It hurts our people too many 
times over and over and over again.
  Fifty percent of what we could actually save in energy comes through 
more judicious consumption. We have tried to provide incentives for 
Americans to insulate their homes, to put in new kinds of windows. 
There are new building materials coming on the market, new types of 
insulation, building your home in a manner that uses less energy in the 
way that it is sited on the spot, using the full energy of the sun 
where you can. We are much smarter about the way we are building than 
we were 30 or even 20 years ago, and those improvements need to 
continue.
  Imagine an America where every roof was a solar producer where there 
is enough sunshine to make a difference. Imagine an America where we 
captured the power of the wind and properly stored it and moved it to 
grid. Imagine an America where what you put in your tank, if you even 
put something in your tank to fuel it, that it is grown and renewable 
in this country. Imagine an America where you could have plug-in 
hybrids that move around this country and our gas stations become a 
different type of fueling station. That is all possible.
  We are working through the U.S. Department of Defense, and I will 
just sort of end with this, because I believe that the Department of 
Defense knows better than any aspect of our society what we are paying 
as an oil hostage. Our soldiers are deployed all over the world and 
very close to oil reserves. I think they are worth more than that. I 
think their genius can be used inside the boundaries of this country to 
make us energy independent again. Our energy dependence is our chief 
strategic vulnerability.
  Go to the Marine Corps Web site. I salute the Marines. They are 
taking the lead inside the Department of Defense in trying to create 
new solutions, not just on their own bases, but as their troops move 
around the world.
  I salute the Navy. Some of the incredible inventions that they are 
coming up with to move power from one point to another with not a loss 
of one kilowatt, are unbelievable, some of the superconducting work 
that is being done inside Navy today.
  I congratulate the Air Force for trying new biofuels and helping to 
push America forward in terms of its ability to power itself 
internally.
  And I salute the U.S. Army. Your work on solar tents, your work in 
trying to capture the power of the Earth, to power the systems that you 
are involved with today is something that is absolutely technologically 
amazing.
  You inspire us all. And there is a way for America not to be so 
dependent on those who would extract from us but in fact use our genius 
to restore our liberty and independence again.
  Imagine how many jobs we could create in this country if we could 
bring our military back home and could spend the trillions of dollars 
that have been spent in oil-producing foreign lands here, at home. 
Literally, we could rebuild the transmission grid of this country from 
one end to the other. We could bring up the genius of patent holders 
who, as we are here this evening, have ideas that can be brought to 
market and put that money to work for the American people. They deserve 
it.
  God bless America. God bless the future of this country.

                          ____________________