[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 131 (Wednesday, September 7, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H5948-H5951]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     QUESTION OF PERSONAL PRIVILEGE

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of personal privilege.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Schweikert). The Chair has been made 
aware of a valid basis for the gentleman's point of personal privilege.
  The gentleman from Ohio is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, tonight I wish to speak to this Congress 
and to my fellow Americans about international policy and its 
relationship to the domestic economy. I will advocate a new direction 
America must take in the world so that we can meet the needs of our 
people here at home.
  For the past decade, we have relied on the force of our arms to make 
America more secure while our economy has rotted from within. America 
has lost its focus. America has spent more time concentrating on 
reshaping the world than on reshaping our economy. We have created 
hundreds of thousands of jobs for military contractors all over the 
world while we have just learned that we have created zero jobs here in 
the United States in the month of August as unemployment continues to 
stay above 9 percent. Come home, America.
  We must begin to focus on things here at home and stop roaming the 
world looking for dragons to slay. We have a right and an obligation to 
defend our Nation, but that includes working for peace abroad and 
seeking peaceful resolution of conflict, a capacity that, at our peril, 
we have not fully developed. I call it strength through peace. It 
involves the pursuit of what President Franklin Roosevelt called the 
science of human relations, actually engaging those with whom we 
disagree most to attempt to find a way to coexist peacefully.
  As Dr. Martin Luther King said at a commencement address at Oberlin 
College in 1965: ``We must find some alternative to war and bloodshed. 
I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems to be faced in 
achieving disarmament and peace. But we shall not have the courage, the 
insight, to deal with such matters unless we are prepared to undergo a 
mental and spiritual change. It is not enough to say we must not wage 
war. We must love peace and sacrifice for it. We must fix our visions 
not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive 
affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter 
music, far superior to the discords of war.''
  I believe the American people have the capacity, Mr. Speaker, to 
undergo the mental and spiritual change that Dr. King spoke about.

                              {time}  1910

  People are about that work in their own private lives every day. The 
question is: Does our government and those who lead it have that 
capacity? Are we willing to look, recognize that the path we are on 
leads only to destruction and poverty, and are we willing to embark 
courageously on a new path?
  To those who say that this is naive, I ask: Has the strategy of 
military intervention which took us and keeps us in Iraq, Afghanistan, 
and Libya, made us any safer? The musclebound ``with us or against us'' 
mindset which passes for statecraft has placed us on a march of folly 
that in the past decade has left America with thousands of dead young 
soldiers, over a million dead innocents in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, 
and the surrounding region, a new generation of terrorists, and 
trillions upon trillions of dollars of debt. As poverty and war are 
twins, so are peace and prosperity.
  Mindful of the disaster of spreading war and being an eyewitness as 
to how easily our country seems to be drawn into conflict, I traveled 
to Syria this year to personally urge their leader to stop the 
violence, respect human rights, and begin a transition towards a 
democratic state. I traveled to Lebanon afterwards to hear the concerns 
of leaders who also believe that the violence in Syria must stop and 
who are concerned that if radical fundamentalism results in the 
overthrow of the government of Syria, the same fires will consume their 
own nation which developed a fragile political and social consensus 
after years of civil war.
  I opposed the war in Libya, not only because it was unconstitutional 
but it was, and is, unconscionable for America to precipitate or take 
sides in a civil war, spending perhaps billions in an ongoing war when 
we have so many pressing needs here at home. We went in because we were 
told a massacre could occur. Yet civilian casualties in Libya mounted 
after the U.S. and NATO attacked. In order to please the West, Libya 
cooperated with the CIA, got rid of its WMD program in 2004, and 
privatized its economy, resulting in massive unemployment.
  It was moving through to reform even as the West moved to bomb it 
and, inexplicably, the West moved to take up the cause of elements of 
al Qaeda spurring the rebels. We learn today from CNN that the rebels 
and fighters aligned with them are looting weapons warehouses across 
Libya, where as many as 20,000 surface-to-air missiles had previously 
been kept under lock and key. Western officials, perhaps the same 
geniuses who knowingly helped rebel elements with ties to al Qaeda 
overthrow the Libya Government, are now worried that the surface-to-air 
missiles and other weapons will get into the wrong hands.

[[Page H5949]]

  This lawless interventionism spurred on by an unaccountable NATO 
which violates United Nations Security Council resolutions with 
impunity, this attempt to use force to bring others to subjection in 
the name of democracy, actually has become a device for control over 
the wealth of other nations and the squandering of our own wealth and 
the spreading of poverty here at home.
  Did our government just wake up one day and discover that 14 million 
Americans are out of work and that we need a massive program to put 
them back to work? No. It's known that for some time. War has become 
our great distraction. It has given those who have little or no ability 
to construct a fair economy an opportunity to pretend leadership at the 
expense of those brave men and women who served and at the expense of 
the American economy and the expense of the American taxpayers. We can 
no longer afford participating in this war-game of nations.
  I opposed the war in Afghanistan and have brought Congress to 
confront it several times because the U.S. has spent half a trillion 
dollars trying to democratize a tribal nation while failing to spend 
sufficient resources to protect our democracy here at home. The latest 
report is that we may be in Afghanistan through 2024 at the request of 
the Afghanistan Government. This will cost us hundreds of billions, 
perhaps even trillions, more. Doesn't it make more sense for America to 
come home at the request of and for the benefit of the American people?
  I led opposition in this Congress to the war in Iraq. Nine years ago, 
I warned this Congress that there was no reason to go to war against 
Iraq. I was asked at that time, Whose side are you on, America's or the 
murderous dictator, Saddam Hussein? Opposing that intervention was seen 
by some as coddling a murderous dictator, no matter that Hussein had 
opposed al Qaeda, no matter that there was no proof that Iraq had 
anything to do with 9/11 or al Qaeda's role in 9/11, no matter that 
Iraq did not have the intention or capability of attacking the United 
States and that no one had been able to show that Iraq had weapons of 
mass destruction. I wasn't ``for'' Saddam Hussein. I was for the 
troops. And for peace.
  America pursued war anyway. America put the lives of its sons and 
daughters on the line. America will spend over $3 trillion for this war 
that was based on lies. And even today we find our government will not 
bring the troops home as promised, but instead will continue to spend 
billions on this stupid and corrupt war in Iraq while our own Nation is 
falling apart. Money for war, but no money for jobs?
  Am I advocating isolationism? Certainly not. We need to strengthen 
the United Nation's peacekeeping ability and blunt NATO's war-making 
capability. We must stop NATO from going rogue. We need a 
counterterrorism strategy which brings people to justice, not that 
dispenses justice from 10,000 feet with the help of Predator drones. It 
is the predatory interventionism which must stop. We must stop 
intervening for the benefit of oil companies or other corrupt corporate 
interests.
  We cannot be the policeman of the world and lay off police and 
firemen in our own Nation. We cannot continue to bomb bridges in other 
countries and say that we do not have the money to build bridges in 
America. We must stop pretending that America can solve all the 
problems in the world when we can't solve our own problems here at 
home. How can we bring democracy to other nations when we are losing it 
here at home? We cannot tell other people how to live when we have 
people here at home having trouble or difficulty living. We should look 
to the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs where it was written: ``He who 
troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.'' And we must work to 
set our own house in order.
  Mr. Speaker, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but 
there are weapons of mass destruction here in America. Unemployment is 
a weapon of mass destruction. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. 
Homelessness is a weapon of mass destruction. Inadequate education is a 
weapon of mass destruction. Lost pension benefits are a weapon of mass 
destruction. Poor health care is a weapon of mass destruction.
  Yet despite the obvious needs domestically, the Pentagon budget now 
consumes over 50 percent of our discretionary spending. And the 
Pentagon budget has grown alongside the war budget.

                              {time}  1920

  Just this year, the wars and the Pentagon budget will consume close 
to $1 trillion of taxpayers' money. Do you have any idea how many jobs 
$1 trillion can create? Stop the wars, trim the bloated Pentagon 
budget, use the savings to put America back to work. The American 
people want work, not warfare.
  Can we see any clearer example of the danger of endless war? We are 
supposed to be impressed with the strength of our leaders who, in the 
name of America, wield awesome weapons against states a fraction of our 
size, but when it comes to the economy and jobs, the same leaders lack 
the ability to confront Wall Street, which is destroying jobs on Main 
Street.
  While spending trillions for unnecessary wars, the government bailed 
out the banks for $700 billion, refusing to link the bailout to 
mortgage modification which would have helped millions of Americans 
stay in their homes. The Fed, which infamously looked the other way as 
the financial crisis was building and failed to properly monitor the 
overexposure of top banks, created $1.2 trillion out of nothing and 
gave secret emergency loans to some of the largest banks who helped to 
cause the financial collapse through reckless investments. This secret 
money, created out of nothing but backed by the full faith and credit 
of the U.S., is going to fuel an international financial system which 
siphons wealth out of the U.S., avoids paying taxes, and takes American 
jobs and moves them to low-wage climates.
  According to Bloomberg News, the $1.2 trillion peak on December 5, 
2008, was almost three times the size of the Federal budget deficit 
that year and approximates the amount of money, $1.27 trillion, that is 
due in unpaid principal on 6.5 million homes that are in or facing 
foreclosure. Secret loans went to Morgan Stanley for $107.3 billion; 
Citigroup, $99.5 billion; Bank of America, $91.4 billion; Goldman 
Sachs, $69 billion; and to foreign borrowers, including the Banks of 
Scotland, $84.5 billion, and to Zurich-based UBS AG, $77.2 billion.
  How is it possible that banks too big to fail still exist? We all 
know these banks will fail again. The taxpayers will be asked to bail 
them out again to preserve the wealth of shareholders, bondholders, and 
executives again. The destruction of the middle class has been 
accelerated by the Wall Street manipulators who brought about the 
collapse of the housing market that destroyed trillions of wealth built 
into American homes.
  Risk, like taxes, is a yoke unfairly placed upon the shoulders of the 
middle class. As income and resulting wealth is being redistributed 
upward at a pace not seen since the 1920s, the purchasing power of the 
middle class has been seriously eroded. Americans have less equity in 
homes to fuel home equity loans to keep their consumer spending up.
  A third of all Americans owe more than their home is worth. How is it 
possible that 120 million Americans literally have no wealth, just 
debt? How is it possible that 150 million Americans have less wealth 
than the top 400 individuals? How did it come to pass that the top 
13,400 households, according to David Cay Johnston, have more yearly 
income than the bottom 96 million Americans? Who created this economy 
where welfare for the wealthy creates a system where a person earning 
$4 billion a year managing a hedge fund pays a lower tax rate on most 
of his income than a person who drives a truck?
  In a report just released, the Pew Charitable Trust wrote: ``The idea 
that children will grow up to be better off than their parents is a 
central component of the American Dream and sustains American optimism. 
However, a middle class upbringing does not guarantee the same status 
over the course of a lifetime. A third of Americans raised in the 
middle class fall out of the middle as adults.''
  The implications of the Pew Charitable Trust report are chilling. 
America's middle class is being destroyed. America is headed towards a 
two-class

[[Page H5950]]

society. Just as America could not survive half free and half slave, so 
America cannot survive half rich and half poor.
  What happens to a dream deferred?--wrote Langston Hughes.
  Does it dry up
  like a raisin in the sun?
  Or fester like a sore--
  and then run?
  Does it stink like rotten meat?
  Or crust and sugar over
  like a syrupy sweet?
  Maybe it just sags
  like a heavy load.
  Or does it explode?
  It is democracy, itself, which is at risk here. An economic democracy 
is a precondition of a political democracy. With endless wars, without 
solid jobs to sustain a middle class, a new national security state 
armed with the PATRIOT Act will exist primarily to provide surveillance 
of a growing, bristling poverty class. America knew this 44 years ago 
when, on February 29, 1968, the report of the National Advisory 
Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner report, 
pronounced: ``Our Nation is moving towards two societies, one black, 
one white--separate and unequal.''
  Then, the inequalities were in lack of access to opportunities for 
jobs, housing, education, and social services. In 1998, 30 years after 
the Kerner report, Senator Fred Harris said: ``There is more poverty in 
America. It is deeper, blacker and browner than before, and it is now 
more concentrated in the cities which have become America's 
poorhouses.''
  The inequalities exist today. Just since January of 2009, 
unemployment has skyrocketed among African Americans from 12.7 percent 
to 16.7 percent. Among Hispanics, the unemployment is currently 11.3 
percent. While intensifying among people of color, poverty today is 
colorblind. Foreclosures have spread through all American neighborhoods 
as a wildfire, consuming with it the hopes and dreams of millions.
  We had a moral urgency to address unemployment in the inner cities, 
but we failed as a society to do that. We have learned that writ large 
in the fate of people who live in our cities has been the fate of those 
who live in the suburbs, because the same massive economic machinery 
that for generations was crushing the hopes of millions of inner-city 
Americans--banks who disinvested, insurance companies who redlined, 
businesses which pulled out--this same plague is now visited throughout 
America.

  The official unemployment figure of 9.1 percent conceals a much 
larger, more devastating picture in America. According to a recent 
study by Youngstown State University, the de facto unemployment rate, 
as conceived and computed by their Center for Working Class Studies, is 
26.37 percent. This figure includes individuals who are no longer 
looking for work, discouraged, underemployed, and those who are 
marginally employed.
  Corporations, meanwhile, are sitting on trillions of dollars and not 
hiring because of uncertainty, insinuating that small changes in 
Federal regulations or tax policy are killing jobs. Yet we know that 
massive changes in Federal tax policy and government regulations have 
taken place at periods of great economic growth in the United States. 
Our economy has not hit a rough spot on the road; it has hit a wall.
  The greatest losers in today's economic system are the young. They 
have been fleeced. They were promised good jobs with good pay if they 
got a good education. Millions have done that only to discover that the 
jobs that were promised were not there. Millions of young people have 
moved in with their family and friends, barely scraping by, dreading 
the student loans which come due.
  The major fault of the domestic economy is the failure to provide 
good-paying jobs for all Americans.

                              {time}  1930

  The reasons for the high unemployment and low-paying jobs are many, 
but two major reasons stand out: lack of consumer demand and stagnant 
wages accompanying low union participation. There is a lack of consumer 
demand in an economy that is 70 percent dependent on consumer spending.
  There are those who say we can spur demand with more tax cuts for 
businesses. Well, this fails the test of experience. Business received 
tax cuts. We still have high unemployment. Business profits, greater 
than ever. Investment, less. We have learned from the past few years 
that businesses will not invest while the economy is in bad shape.
  Since World War II, America has come out of every recession in less 
than a year. But this time we had a false recovery. The economic 
numbers improved briefly while stimulus was injected. Today we're back 
in a recession, a double-dip recession that is destroying people's 
lives and setting back our Nation.
  We did not have enough stimulus to begin with. As the stimulus runs 
out, things are getting worse. The recession is feeding on itself.
  In 1937, a second round of depression surfaced as stimulus was 
withdrawn, requiring another effort by the government to stabilize the 
economy. The parallel between 1937 and 2011 is obvious. We need a 
second stimulus, and it has to be strong enough to put millions of 
Americans back to work.
  State and local governments are forced to lay off people by the 
hundreds of thousands. These layoffs are not introducing efficiency. 
They undermine service. They reduce the necessary role of government in 
the life of a community.
  Massive aid is needed to all areas of government, not because 
governments have spent recklessly, but because revenues are down. 
Income tax revenue is down. Sales tax revenue is down. Property tax 
revenue is down due to foreclosures.
  We can stimulate the economy by providing revenue to rehire State and 
local government employees. This is the easiest way to put hundreds of 
thousands back to work. This is an obvious way to stimulate the economy 
on a significant scale. State, local government, public schools, public 
and private colleges would all have an enhanced ability to restore 
service. Such a stimulus would create an economic climate where 
businesses will expand their investment utilizing their own profits.
  The same thing is true in the housing area. The government must 
immediately implement a new housing program. More and more properties 
are becoming vacant and vandalized while people are doubling up. We 
need a full-scale program where economically troubled homeowners are 
given the right to rent, at market rate, property in foreclosure. The 
government would provide a rent subsidy while the homeowners seek work. 
After all, the American people want work, not welfare. There should be 
work for those who are able to work. Government must become the 
employer of last resort.
  The private sector is not providing the jobs. When the private sector 
fails to provide the jobs, the government has a moral responsibility 
and a practical responsibility to step forward to put the country back 
to work.
  As with FDR and the New Deal, the government must now put millions of 
Americans back to work rebuilding our infrastructure. The American 
Society of Civil Engineers issued a report that there is $2.2 trillion 
in infrastructure rebuilding that must take place to move the commerce 
of America.
  It's not enough to describe the situation and make a few suggestions 
as to what could be done to take us in a new direction. But there comes 
a time when we need to look at some dramatic change that needs to be 
done, to restructure our economy.
  This month I'm going to be introducing a bill which will be aimed at 
addressing our structural economic problems directly. It is called the 
National Employment Economic Defense Act, the NEED Act.
  America needs millions of jobs. How can we create millions of jobs in 
a time of annual deficits, long-term debt, and contracting budgets? 
Here's how.
  The Federal Reserve creates money out of nothing, and, as we all 
know, it's given it to the banks. The Fed assumed that power through an 
act of Congress. The Federal Reserve has used all of its standard 
monetary policy tools, but the American economy is not getting any 
better. Whatever the Fed is doing, it is not working. The reason why is 
perhaps best explained by the Fed itself: ``The Fed can't control 
inflation or influence output and employment.''
  The Fed has been buying Treasury and our securities to put downward

[[Page H5951]]

pressure on interest rates. The idea is to lower finance costs, 
encourage more borrowing, and nudge investors into riskier investments. 
This provides breathing space, but little else. Consumers are already 
over their heads in debt. They aren't going to borrow more, neither 
will producers whose sales are slack.
  High default rates are widening spreads. Many investors will still 
prefer to make a small gain on government securities rather than risk 
taking losses.
  Reality beats theory. The reality is that not enough people have 
enough money. Why is this? Where does the money come from? Why isn't it 
coming?
  The Fed doesn't create money we use in our bank accounts; the banks 
do. Most of this money is created when banks make loans. This is why 
the Fed can't control inflation or influence output and employment. 
Output and employment depend on demand. Demand depends on how much 
money people have or can borrow. Because banks create this money, they 
control demand.
  If banks aren't lending, or borrowers aren't borrowing, new money 
isn't being created to replace the money removed when bank loans are 
paid, so the money supply shrinks.
  The Fed can only put more money into the economy by buying assets 
from non-banks. No money goes into the economy when the Fed buys their 
assets. It's just a swap of one asset for another called reserves. 
Banks can't lend reserves into the economy.
  The non-bank sellers of assets are mainly large institutional 
investors. They don't spend much of the money they receive; they 
reinvest it in other assets. That's their business.
  But this churning of assets up into the stratosphere doesn't trickle 
down to Earth. The real economy of families and shops, small 
businesses, of roads and schools, that real economy is bypassed, and we 
know this. The money is not getting to where it's needed; and until it 
does, things can only get worse. None of the current policies work 
because of the way the current system is set up.
  So here's how we fix it. We have to reclaim our constitutional power 
to issue money into the economy, unburdened by debt.
  Last Congress I introduced legislation to do just that, and I'll be 
reintroducing it next week. Here's what this legislation does.
  First, it ends the Fed's unaccountability by putting it under 
Treasury.
  Second, it ends fractional reserve banking, ending the banks' ability 
to control demand in our economy.
  And, third, it empowers our Nation to issue money directly into the 
economy to create jobs to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure 
unhindered by debt and interest payments, creating millions of new 
good-paying jobs. It gets the money to where it's needed the most. It 
gets the economy going and keeps it going. It avoids debt and deficit. 
It primes the pump of the economy. It enables us to regain control of 
our destiny as a Nation.
  This plan would not create inflation because it would reduce 
infrastructure costs. Lower costs means that prices can go down. Lower 
prices do not define inflation.
  Real wealth will be created with new money. Infrastructure is 
enduring wealth, unlike the financial wealth of the stock market. If 
government borrows money created by banks for infrastructure, it's an 
interest-bearing debt paid for over a long time. But if government 
creates the money for infrastructure, spends it in the circulation, 
there's no debt or interest cost. The same amount of money is created 
in either case, adding to the money supply by exactly the same amount. 
This is also a way to save the free enterprise system from self-
destruction.
  The American people know what's going on in our economy. It's run by 
Wall Street for Wall Street. It's run by banks for banks. Unless we 
take a look at serious structural reforms, we are headed for a two-
class society.
  The ability to coin or create money is an inherent power under 
article I, section 8 of the United States Constitution. The NEED Act 
would enable government to invest in America.
  This coming Sunday, we will observe the 10th anniversary of a 
terrible blow to our Nation's sense of security and confidence.

                              {time}  1940

  We will never forget September 11, 2001, but we also need to remember 
the enduring capacity of our Nation to bounce back from tragedy. We 
need to remember what this country is made of. America is made of 
vision and courage--the courage and vision of Washington, Jefferson, 
and Adams to put lives, fortunes, sacred honor on the line for the 
purpose of freedom and independence. We are the country of FDR and the 
New Deal, of John F. Kennedy and the New Frontier, of LBJ and the Great 
Society. We are a nation of charismatic leaders like Ronald Reagan and 
Bill Clinton who, agree with them or not, inspired a sense of optimism 
and confidence in America.
  We need to remember who we are, and perhaps in that act of 
remembering, we'll regain our confidence; we'll regain our economic 
strength; we'll regain our ability to put people back to work; we'll 
help millions save their homes; we'll protect the retirement security 
of the elderly; we'll ensure that our children will be able to obtain a 
college education and a job when they graduate; we'll restore our 
public institutions and the services they provide.
  We can do all of this and more, but we must ask that those who 
operate the engines of finance abandon their recklessness, their 
selfishness, and pledge allegiance to our Nation and its people. We 
must demand that corporations pay a fair share of the tax. We must end 
the off-shoring of jobs and profits.
  While some of our leaders, with trembling hands and nervous eyes, 
have focused abroad, our country is falling apart from within. America 
was never meant for decline. America was always meant for an upward, 
up-lit path. We must now correct our course. We must move away from 
trying to determine the fate of nations around the globe and focus on 
the fate of the one Nation that must matter to us more than all others, 
the United States of America.
  Thank you.

                          ____________________