[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 132 (Thursday, September 8, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H5972]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 WE NEED A BOLD VISION FOR THE ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. We have the economy the tax cuts will give us. Eight 
years of Bush tax cuts, 2 years of Bush-Obama tax cuts, and now the 
individual Obama tax cut proposals. We have $5 trillion borrowed, 
distributed generally with the Bush tax cuts, principally to the job 
creators, as the Republicans call them--millionaires and billionaires--
and in little bits to working Americans. It's not working. So why would 
we do more of the same?
  Apparently, the President tonight is going to propose again to extend 
the Social Security tax holiday. Two things wrong with that, maybe 
three. One, it's not putting anybody back to work. Two, we borrowed 
$110 billion this year to put into the Social Security trust fund 
because we cut the income of Social Security by $110 billion. And now 
we're being told perhaps we should double down. Let's give both the 
employers and the employees a little bit of a Social Security tax 
holiday.
  That's $20 a week to someone who earns $50,000 a year. Not bad. They 
can use it. It's probably about the difference they pay for filling up 
their car to get to work. But ExxonMobil isn't hiring. Or maybe they 
use it to put food on the table for the kids or maybe buy junk from 
China. It's an old economic theory: Put money in the pockets of 
Americans and the idle plant capacity in America will rev up and hire 
Americans to make things in America. We don't make things any more 
because of failed trade policies. Apparently, failed trade policies are 
going to be part of this jobs proposal.
  Three more Bush free trade proposals now adopted by Obama. That would 
be a disaster if that's a part of this so-called package. It would be a 
travesty.
  Let's forget about the tax cuts. Let's not just have a little dribble 
or drab of infrastructure investment. People say, Oh, the stimulus 
failed. What happened? All your infrastructure investment, 40 percent 
of that stimulus was tax cuts; 7 percent was investment in 
infrastructure. Yes, it worked, but it was a pathetically small part of 
the package in a country that has a $3 trillion infrastructure deficit, 
with dams that are failing, levees that are failing, highways that are 
crumbling, bridges that are falling, transit systems that are based in 
19th- and early 20th-century technology; and our competitors are 
building out a 21st-century infrastructure.
  We need a bold vision. We don't need another little dribble or drab 
in infrastructure. We sure as heck don't need another one of these 
stupid shovel-ready project things. We need long-term investment. When 
you do long-term investment, the private companies who build all these 
projects--these aren't government projects. Taxpayers fund them. The 
private sector builds them. Many small businesses, they will go out and 
buy equipment. When they buy equipment, especially if we put Buy 
America requirements on all these proposals, they'll buy things that 
will be made in America that will put people back to work in 
manufacturing.
  So this isn't just about construction jobs. It's about manufacturing 
jobs, it's about engineering jobs, it's about small business jobs. But 
it needs to be a major, bold, long-term vision on building a 21st-
century infrastructure for America to make us more competitive in the 
world.
  Enough with the tax cuts. They don't work. They don't put people back 
to work. Guess what? If you don't have a job, you don't get a tax cut, 
do you? Let's do something for the people who need jobs and for the 
future of the country and for our kids with a grand long-term vision 
tonight, not more of the same.

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