[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 136 (Wednesday, September 14, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6168-H6174]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AMERICAN JOBS ACT
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. West). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from California (Mr.
Garamendi) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority
leader.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I suspect that all of us, all 435 of us,
went back to our districts during the August recess. Now, I would
suspect that most every Member of this House heard what I heard. I
suspect that all of us who were listening heard the same message: When
can I go back to work? When will there be a job for me? I'm going to
lose my house because I lost my job. I can't afford to put my kids
through school. You guys have got to get the job engine working once
again. You've got to get Americans back to work.
Well, we are back here at work, and we're probably at the 257th day
of this Congress, and yet the Republican majority has yet to put one
jobs-creating bill on the floor. Now, they put a lot of bills on the
floor, all of which would actually reduce employment. You cut the
budgets, you're cutting somebody's job.
Fortunately, last week, the President of the United States came
before this Congress, stood there where the Speaker is now standing,
and presented to the American people an answer to the question that all
of us heard during the recess. And he said: We can and we will put
Americans back to work when Congress acts on this jobs act.
The American Jobs Act is now before the United States Congress and
the United States Senate, and it's time for us to act so that Americans
can go back to work.
Some say we could delay until after the next election. It will be 17
months--just short of a year and a half--before the next Congress will
be in session and we will be able to pass legislation. There is not an
unemployed American in this Nation that can or wants to wait 17 months
to get a job. We have the opportunity today to put Americans back to
work with the American Jobs Act.
The American Jobs Act works. It works. Americans can immediately go
back to work as soon as that legislation is passed by this House and
the Senate and put on the President's desk.
This afternoon, we're going to take maybe an hour with my colleagues
to talk about various parts of the American Jobs Act, and we're going
to start right now with the Representative from Illinois.
Jan, if you would join us, you talked earlier about this very
eloquently on the steps of the Capitol. Please share with us.
{time} 1510
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Let me add a personal twist to all of this about
jobs.
When I grew up in Chicago--I was the daughter of a furniture salesman
and a Chicago public schoolteacher--the American Dream was alive and
well. On my dad's modest income, we could afford a little house in a
quiet, middle class neighborhood.
Back then, a man could work in the steel mills on Chicago's South
Side--one good union job with family health care benefits and a decent
pension--and really live a middle class life. The family could own a
home and buy a car and even send the kids to college. That was the
1950s, and anything seemed possible if you were willing to work hard.
Incomes were going up for everyone. Income inequality was shrinking,
and Americans were experiencing the greatest growth in living standards
in history. For most working families, that American Dream was in
reach, and that was the normal.
But today, after decades of attacks on organized labor, the passage
of tax policies that favor wealthy individuals and corporations, the
growing disparity of income, the squandering of a
[[Page H6169]]
budget surplus, and the turning of a blind eye to Wall Street greed and
recklessness, that dream is drowning in a sea of joblessness. I feel
like the Republicans are pushing this as the new normal: that the rich
get richer and the rest of the country gets poorer. Fortunately, our
President, President Barack Obama, has made it perfectly clear that we
are not helpless in the face of our daunting but man-made economic
challenges, and he has proposed a jobs bill that will immediately
improve people's lives and jump-start the economy.
The answer to this jobs crisis is surprisingly simple. If you want to
create jobs, then create jobs, good jobs--jobs that can provide people
with a middle class life, that can rebuild our middle class, jobs like
the 35,000 schools that under the President's bill will be repaired.
There are children all over this country right now who are sitting in
classrooms where the ceilings are crumbling, that have dangerous
asbestos in them, that are leaking energy, that don't have the wiring
for the new technologies that our children need to succeed in this
world and to get those 21st century jobs. We don't have the kind of
schools and classrooms in which our children are going to be able to
compete in this 21st century world. At the same time, we have hundreds
and thousands of construction workers and electricians and boilermakers
and maintenance workers who are jobless right now, who are sitting
home, unemployed, who are more than willing to roll up their sleeves
and give our schoolchildren the kind of classrooms that they deserve.
So here we have a tremendous need, and we have the people who can
answer that need. Not only will they be back to work, but it will jump-
start our economy and be good for everyone. It is not rocket science.
We can do this, and we need to do it now. As the President said, the
election isn't until 14 months from now. The Republicans seem to want
to adjudicate this issue at that time, but this isn't about politics.
This is about all those families who simply want a job. They don't want
to be receiving unemployment benefits. As a matter of fact, they want
to pay taxes.
If we want to reduce the deficit, jobs are the answer once again.
Jobs equal deficit reduction. That's why we can't wait to pass this
American Jobs Act. We need to enlist the help of all Americans to call
their Members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats--I'm talking about
the people out there regardless of party--to say, ``We need to pass
this right now.'' This is the way that we can get back to what the
normal was when I was growing up, when there was opportunity. People
lived a middle class life. Instead, we're watching that middle class
disappear and that American Dream slip through our fingers. The economy
needs to be revived. The President has the answer. We need to do it
now.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the gentlelady from Illinois who speaks so
eloquently on this.
As you were talking about the schools, 44 percent of the principals
across this Nation say clearly that their schools are not up to the
standard that they want to have their own children in. In the
classrooms, paint on the walls is falling off and bathrooms are
inadequate, playgrounds and the like. There are 35,000 schools across
this country that can be repaired, that can be rebuilt--new classrooms,
science classrooms, upgrading the Internet systems in these schools,
and the playgrounds. All of that is possible.
How correct you are when you say there are men and women out there
who are ready to do that work. These are a lot of jobs. This isn't
heavy equipment work. This is heavy ``person power'' work. Let's put
these people to work.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. May I say one more thing about it?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Please.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. These are jobs that can be created right away. I'm
from the Midwest, so we actually have a construction season; but for
fixing schools, you can do that around the year, around the calendar.
We can put these people to work within a few months. They can be on the
job, earning money. This is such a sensible program.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Actually, in discussing this with the administration,
the day the bill is signed, the schools can begin the work because the
administrative process is very straightforward. This is a very, very
important one. We're talking 35,000 schools, perhaps several hundred
thousand or a couple hundred thousand men and women going to work
immediately to repair our schools. Wouldn't that give us community
pride? My school is getting repaired. It's getting a paint job. The
toilets are getting fixed and the classroom, the science classroom.
This is community pride. This is American pride in our most basic of
investments--the investment in our children.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. The sign you have there says that poor conditions of
their schools interfere with students' learning. So we are also
depriving our children of that sense of pride that will motivate them
to be good students, to learn, to be ready to take over in this 21st
century job market.
Mr. GARAMENDI. One of my favorite subjects is Making It In America.
The way the legislation is written, when that gallon of paint, when
that heating/air-conditioning system or the playground equipment is
brought to the school, it's going to be made in America. It's going to
be made in America because the legislation that the President brought
to us says that the money will be used to buy equipment made in
America.
I notice that our colleague from Maryland, Donna Edwards, has joined
us.
I know we were talking earlier about some of your favorite subjects.
I believe it was infrastructure. So please, if you will, Donna, join us
in this conversation.
Ms. EDWARDS. I want to thank the gentleman because I think that we've
received some rather sobering news about the state of America and the
state of American workers--the state of Americans.
It is that here we are at a time when we've reached the highest
poverty rates in 52 years in this country, where median incomes are
down lower than they've been in a generation--7 percent less, in fact,
than what median incomes were even in 1999--where nearly a third of
African American families in this country live in poverty, where
millions upon millions of children in this country go to bed hungry
because they live in poverty, because their families--their parents--
don't have a chance for a job and an opportunity.
I think that that should be sobering news for us, not as Democrats
and Republicans; it should be sobering news for us as Americans. That's
why, when I heard President Obama in this House speaking to the
American people about the need to create jobs right now, I know what I
heard was a message that said: I suppose with the politics we could
politic this out for 14 months, that we could fight amongst ourselves
as Democrats and Republicans for 14 months, that we could in the
political arena just raise millions and millions of dollars to run
campaign ads and make annoying phone calls to people across this
country for 14 months--or we could take a different path.
{time} 1520
We could take a path that's really about creating jobs and
opportunities for people who are living in poverty, for Americans who
want to work right now.
I had a really interesting experience for me over the break that the
Congress had. I visited the new Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial with
my mother--my mother, who was born at the beginning of the Depression,
my mother, who lived in a community in North Carolina where she would
visit the local town and had segregated water fountains, where people
really struggled. They were farmers who struggled greatly to put food
on the table.
On the way to the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial, we passed the
memorial to FDR. I saw there the statues representing people who were
standing in employment lines and in food lines, and I saw the words of
that wonderful President who recognized that he had to get beyond the
politics to a point where we were creating jobs, not just meaningless
jobs, but jobs that were about rebuilding the Nation's infrastructure,
that were about putting people to work so that they could put food on
their tables so that they could make a contribution to this country.
[[Page H6170]]
So as I walked, as we walked from the FDR memorial over to the Martin
Luther King, Jr., memorial, I said to myself that the United States
right now, in this time of great need, with 14 million people
unemployed, that we need an FDR moment, that the American people need
an FDR moment and that that moment has to be about creating jobs for
people right here in America, for rebuilding our manufacturing sector,
for investing in research and development and innovation and
creativity, for taking those 150,000 bridges across this country that
are falling apart.
And I know when I drive over a bridge, I don't say, Is this a
Republican bridge or is this a Democratic bridge? What I say is, Is
this a bridge that I can get my car over that waterway safely? And when
I look at that bridge and I see the steel beams, I know that those are
steel beams manufactured by people right here in the United States.
When I look at the asphalt and the cement that covers that bridge, I
see work that took place right here in the United States. When I look
at those bridges and these 150,000 bridges all across the country that
need to be rebuilt by hardworking Americans, what I see are the light
posts up by the bridge with the electricity running through them or the
solar panels on them that are put there and built there by American
workers.
So when the President says to pass the American Jobs Act right away,
the reason he is saying that is because those are jobs right now for
hardworking Americans who actually want to work hard, building things
in this country, rebuilding all of our infrastructure, our bridges, our
roadways, our water and sewer systems that are falling apart. They want
to do this.
I think it's really incumbent on us to do it, and I think that the
American people ought to hold each and every one of us to account for
failing to do it.
I note, as Mr. Garamendi is showing here and that we will see, that
nearly 2 million construction workers across this country are
unemployed. When our colleague, Jan Schakowsky from Illinois, talks
about the 35,000 schools that need to be reconstructed for the 21st
century so that our young people can learn in a 21st-century learning
environment, it is not just because it feels good but because it will
make a difference to our own competitiveness for the 21st century. What
I know is that those are those 2 million construction workers who are
unemployed across this country who can do that work in our schools, in
their communities.
So I think that this is a real imperative, and I would just urge our
colleagues to look beyond the D and an R and look to a job for the
American people who are asking us to do this for them, but also to do
this for us. I don't know how it is that we survive in a global economy
when we are not producing anything, when we are not putting our people
back to work, when we are not engaged in rebuilding all of our
infrastructure that was decades in the making from FDR and beyond and
is now falling apart.
I owe that to my mother and my grandmother and my grandfather for the
generation that did all of that for us. We owe it to them not to allow
it to fall apart.
So I say, yes, let's pass the American Jobs Act now.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Representative Edwards, thank you so very much for
your compassion and passion for these issues. Bringing FDR, the
monument, and Martin Luther King together around this set of issues is
really important.
This is the worst economy since the Great Depression, and I remember
on one of those plaques at the FDR memorial--and I may get this wrong a
little bit--but he said, we measure our progress not by those who have
much could have more, but by those who have little have enough. He had
the compassion.
Last week, the President brought to us an answer to the compelling
question that we hear--what are you going to do about jobs?--the
American Jobs Act.
You spoke so eloquently about the infrastructure--the streets, the
bridges, the schools--and that 2 million construction workers are out
of jobs. The President has proposed a $50 billion immediate infusion of
money into America's infrastructure--into our roads, our bridges, our
water systems, our airports. There is $50 billion available this year
to put Americans back to work.
It's not just the construction workers that will have those jobs,
because these people will be able to keep their homes. They will be
able to buy their food; they will be able to bring that money back into
their economy with what is called the multiplier effect. And so that
$50 billion may run through the economy three times, two and a half
times, so that instead of 2 million, maybe it will be 3 million that
will get their jobs.
I know that you want to add to this, Ms. Edwards.
Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you for that.
I just want to remind our colleagues that for every $1 billion, $1
billion that we invest in repairing the Nation's infrastructure, we
create 35,000 jobs: $1 billion, 35,000 jobs.
So the multiplier effect is really tremendous. It is the construction
worker on the site, but it's also the canteen truck that drives up--
that's the small business person at that site. It's the engineers and
all of the technicians who develop that amazing engineering for these
construction sites. It's the architects who are designing a revamped
school in a neighborhood to educate our children to compete in the 21st
century. So $1 billion equals 35,000 jobs.
Mr. GARAMENDI. There you have it. That's when we have the opportunity
if we act now. If this Chamber, empty but for three of us and our
staffs here and the desk crew, were to act tomorrow on the legislation
that the President has brought before us--it's in proper form; it's
before us--we could take it up, and these people, all that you talked
about, could be at work in the next couple of weeks. That's the
possibility.
Ms. Edwards, thank you so much for joining us and for your eloquence
and for your determination to make this happen.
Our friend from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) has joined us. Please share
with us your thoughts from middle America.
{time} 1530
Mr. COHEN. Thank you, and I appreciate your leading this hour.
Just last week, the President stood just behind where you're standing
and addressed this Congress--bipartisan, bicameral, Senators and House
Members--and laid out a plan to fix this economy. Pass this bill, he
said. And we need to pass the bill. The President and his team have put
a lot of work into it. People want jobs. They want to work.
In my district, there are more unemployed. Every weekend when I go
out in my district, people come up to me and tell me they are either
looking for a job, have lost their job and are looking for a job. We
need to find ways to put those people to work. We are working on ways
to make schools better. Building infrastructure which is so important
to Memphis, Tennessee, where we have rails, roads, rivers, and runways,
the distribution center of America, is so important. And if you put the
money in infrastructure, which this plan plans on, Make It In America,
if you do infrastructure, it's got to be made in America. You can't
export those jobs overseas, and you put people to work immediately.
What they are building are avenues that make commerce move and work.
Federal Express moves more packages around the world than any other
American company, and Memphis International Airport is the largest
American cargo airport in the world. We create jobs by putting money
into infrastructure. Teachers, policemen, and firefighters, 3 million
kept their jobs because of the recovery bill that we passed that did
successfully help this country stay out of a great depression.
Sometimes, Mr. Garamendi, I'm amazed at the rhetoric that you hear
from some people, particularly from the other side, who blithely tell
people that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was $770 billion
that didn't make a difference. The fact is that 40 percent of the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, so as to pass the Senate where
we needed Senator Collins' and Senator Snowe's votes, were the
Republican endorsed and loved tax cuts. How can they talk out of both
sides of their mouth and say that a bill, 40 percent of which--which
means over $300 billion of tax
[[Page H6171]]
cuts--didn't do any good, because now all they talk about is tax cuts.
But when the President of the United States proposes and the Congress
with him in a bipartisan effort passes tax cuts--and I'm not sure that
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was bipartisan. That was
strictly Democrats. But when we passed tax cuts with a few Republicans
in the Senate, in their minds, it didn't create any jobs. But when they
propose tax cuts, this is Christopher Columbus' new way to find the New
World. Well, it's hypocritical.
We need to support our President because he is the President. There
isn't a red America and a blue America. There is, as he said in his
speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, the United States of America.
People need to understand that. We need to be here for that red, white,
and blue flag, for this country, to put this country back to work, to
keep it as the most competitive country in the world so we don't fall
behind China and India in engineering and science, and coming up with
programs that give our children an opportunity to be able to fill the
jobs of the 21st century--the green jobs that the President has
proposed that are the jobs of the 21st century, and the technology jobs
that we haven't done a good enough job in filling, giving money to
colleges to do the research for industry to create jobs.
In our caucus yesterday, we had Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize
winning economist. I read Krugman a lot, a Nobel Prize winning
economist. Both say basically the same thing: The austerity programs
proposed by the other side don't work. They've used them in Japan;
didn't work. Greece, England, didn't work--unless you're in the upper 1
percent. If you wear a crown and you're the queen or the prince or the
leaders of whatever, it works. But in this country, we don't have that
kind of royalty, but we're starting to have a separate society with the
upper 1 percent who the Republican Party won't raise their taxes no
matter what, and the rest.
The President is right. We need to think about the whole country. We
need to come together as a United States of America, not a red, a blue,
a Democrat or Republican, and create jobs. The President's plan, over
half of it, is tax cuts.
Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say we can go for what
we like there even though they said it didn't work when the President
and the Democrats passed it in the Recovery Act, but they can't go for
the infrastructure jobs that, of course, help businesses--trucking
businesses, the airline industry, and the transportation industry.
Automobiles and trucks have to have highways. So we need to pass this.
I support the President. I took an oath to do what I could to make
this country better. We need to come together now because this is a
crisis time.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Cohen, thank you so very much. Your experience
from the great Midwest, along America's great river, is really
important for us to understand.
We really have an opportunity here right now. This legislation is
before Congress and the Senate, and we have an opportunity for a better
deal for America. It's an investment in America. We talked about the
infrastructure. That's an investment that will last for 50 to 100 years
because it's in the ground. It's the roads, the sanitation system. It's
also a critical investment in tomorrow's workers, in our children.
The American Jobs Act has money for 280,000 teachers; 280,000
teachers will be able to stay on the job. Right now in California,
teachers are getting laid off as they are in most other States of this
Nation. That means that classroom sizes are going up, and the
educational opportunity for our children is diminishing. We have no
more important investment. Roads are important and bridges are
important, but the most important investment in any society, in any
economy is the investment in education, in the children, in tomorrow's
workforce. 280,000 teachers will be able to stay in the classroom. This
money flows directly to the school districts, not a big administrative
task at all but one that goes there directly.
Small businesses. Our Republican colleagues love to talk about small
businesses, and they say, correctly, most jobs are created by small
businesses. That's true. That's accurate. Sixty-four percent of the new
jobs over the past 15 years were created by small businesses. But what
are they doing for small businesses? Cutting the contracts that the
small businesses depend upon as they push an austerity budget.
The American Jobs Act takes a different path. It tells small
businesses: You get an immediate tax break; 3.1 percent of your payroll
tax will be eliminated in the next year. That's a lot of money, and
I'll explain how much it is. In addition to that, if you hire a long-
term unemployed worker, your entire payroll tax will disappear.
Let me tell you what that means. Let's take a warehouse.
You've got warehouses in your district?
Mr. COHEN. We've got lots of warehouses. They're full of goods ready
to go on Federal Express planes and service the rest of this Nation. It
all starts in Memphis, Tennessee, and goes out from there.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I thought they might have some of that Tennessee
whiskey in them. Some of that, too?
Mr. COHEN. Some of that, too.
Mr. GARAMENDI. So a warehouse with a payroll last year of $7 million
that this year hires 40 new workers, it would add $2 million to its
payroll. It would get a full refund of the 6.2 percent payroll taxes
paid on the $2 million of payroll. How much is that? That's $124,000
that goes immediately to the bottom line of that warehouse. In addition
to that, they have already seen a 3.1 percent reduction--actually, it's
a 50 percent reduction in their payroll tax for workers who were
already there, and that's another $155,000. So we are looking here at
$279,000 of reduced expenses, taxes, to that company. That means that
they can improve the warehouse. That means they can expand or hire more
workers. This is in the President's American jobs program specifically
for small businesses.
Listen up, America. Listen up businesses out there. There is an
opportunity here for you to immediately expand your business, reduce
your payroll taxes, hire new workers, bringing a new worker on that has
been on long-term unemployment and paying no payroll taxes for the next
year. This is very, very important and very big, and it is immediately
available as soon as the leadership, the Republican leadership in this
House, brings the American jobs bill to the floor.
Mr. Cohen, if you would like to carry on here, I know you have some
more thoughts.
{time} 1540
Mr. COHEN. Well, just the whole prospect. Jobs are so important. I
was thinking back about Stiglitz. I think you were there at the caucus.
He and Krugman say the same thing, that there's several ways you can
get yourself out of this deficit. He went back into a little bit of
history about how during the Clinton years we had a big deficit from
the Reagan-Bush years and that President Clinton, with a bill that was
passed in this Congress with all Democrat votes in about 1994, I think,
put us on a road to balance the budget, and got us a surplus. It got us
a surplus by the time President Clinton left office.
Stiglitz said, which is so true--it's a factoid--the surplus was lost
because of two wars, one of which was a volunteer war, not related to
9/11--Iraq--and Afghanistan, that were both passed through these
Congresses, which were Republican-controlled, Republican Congresses,
without being funded. Then the Bush tax cuts giving the wealthiest
people the largest tax cuts and contributing to the largest disparity
in wealth that we've ever had in this Nation.
Now, the wealthy can only spend so much. There are only so many
Chanel purses a woman can buy. There are only so many Rolex watches a
guy can have, but we are losing a middle class. Then we put all this
wealth through these tax cuts on the richest, making their tax rates
the lowest since the 1950s, and then extended it for 2 years, the
inheritance tax, to where the wealthy get to keep more and more in
perpetuity.
The middle class is disappearing in this country. Jobs are being
shipped overseas. Taxes stay high on them. They're living paycheck to
paycheck. They've got their children in school. Pell Grants are in
danger. They almost
[[Page H6172]]
were reduced in the last month or two, but we salvaged them in the
final bill. People are having trouble making ends meet, and the middle
class has got to be there to be a consumer group. If you don't have
consumers, you can't have an economy to service people who are making
goods and services. You've got to have a customer. We're losing the
customer base.
We can ship all the jobs we want off to Southeast Asia and China,
where they don't pay any salaries and don't give any benefits; but
those people aren't our market, and if our people can't buy goods, then
we're not going to have any manufacturing base and the opportunity to
make it in America.
So we've got to build up the middle class. We've got to produce jobs,
and we've got to see to it that the middle class is given priority and
not the richest 1 percent.
The President's plan, which is so great, is it's all paid for. It's
paid for. But paid for by a tax that's appropriate for the people who
can afford it.
Tell us how we can deal with that and keep this as a paid-for
program.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I've been kind of shuffling the boards down here
because you went through several subjects along the way, and each one
is so terribly important and pertinent to the issue. But I think I can
wrap it all up in this, and that is, America lost about 50 percent of
its manufacturing jobs in the last 20, 25 years. We went from 20
million, 21 million manufacturing jobs to just over 10 million today,
but we can once again rebuild the American manufacturing sector. That's
where the middle class jobs are.
You had talked about tax policy, that the tax policy has shifted from
one that was broad based and which the wealthy and everybody
participated in in a progressive mechanism in which now the wealthy--
and Warren Buffett has said it so very well--he actually pays a lower
tax rate than does his secretary. He said, This is wrong. This is
upside down and wrong. And he's quite correct. But if we take a look at
the manufacturing sector of America and we apply a couple of
principles, that is, that we're going to buy American--and this has to
do with our policies here.
Trade policies. We've been giving it away in these international
trade deals. On the taxes, we just talked about that. The tax burden
has shifted from the wealthy down to the middle class, further eroding
the purchasing power and the status of the middle class, so much so
that just yesterday the Bureau of Labor Statistics came out with a
report that the poverty level in America has reached the highest level
in 52 years. That's the pushing down of the American middle class so
that those at the bottom have been pushed out of the middle class into
poverty.
Mr. COHEN. Out of six adults--think about that--one out of six
adults. Now this body of which I am extremely proud to be a Member is
not representative of America. Because if it were, one out of six, or
74 people, would be earning $22,000 a year or less for a family of
four. So that doesn't happen. One out of five children in this country
is now living in poverty--they're in my district--and people can't get
along without having a job.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Exactly right. Twenty-two million children living in
poverty, not knowing where their next meal is going to come from. At
the same time, they're cutting the food programs.
This is our program. This is the President's program. Every one of
the things that is in the American Jobs Act is here. Taxes. There are
tax breaks for businesses. And this entire program is paid for by
ending the giveaway of our tax money to the oil companies. That's $4
billion a year--$40 billion over the next decade--of our tax money
going to support the oil industry, the wealthiest industry in this
world.
Mr. COHEN. How about the hedge fund guys? There's another Steve
Cohen. There's the one in New York that's got all the money, the hedge
fund guy, billions and billions of dollars.
What does he pay on his income?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, he pays 15 percent. Somehow or another they got
into the law. The hedge fund folks that are making hundreds of millions
of dollars a year--in some cases, billions--are paying 15 percent on
their income. Now they've got it classified as capital gains when, in
fact, it's their labor. That is, it's their work. As you and I are
working here and as people are working in the manufacturing plants,
it's their work, but it's taxed at 15 percent, not at 35 or 38 percent.
What's that all about? Where are we going to end that tax break? That's
about $17 billion over 10 years.
Mr. COHEN. And that shouldn't exist. That's absurd. There's another
Steve Cohen, the magician, and apparently he had something to do with
the Tax Code when they took care of the other Steve Cohen.
Mr. GARAMENDI. So taxes are part of it. The energy policy, we haven't
talk about that. We talked about labor--putting men and women back to
work. And the education system, 280,000 new teachers or teachers in the
classroom. Research and infrastructure, this is part of the Make it in
America agenda which can be carried out with the American Jobs Act.
So, if we pass the American Jobs Act, we've got a really good
opportunity to once again make things in America, because the
legislation calls for about $50 billion in infrastructure and the
establishment of an infrastructure bank for sanitation, water systems,
Internet, high-speed cable, and all of those kinds of things in the
infrastructure bank. So we may be looking at $60 billion, $70 billion a
year of investment in these infrastructure projects. Coupled with that
is Buy America, Make it in America. Buy American-made buses, American-
made locomotives. The concrete and steel in the bridges, that's going
to be American made.
I can tell you one of the greatest horror stories about
infrastructure. It's right in San Francisco, just outside my district.
The San Francisco Bay Bridge, a multibillion-dollar rebuilding of the
Bay Bridge because it falls down in an earthquake. It did once. We
don't want it to happen again. Multibillion dollars. To save 10
percent, the contract went to Chinese steel companies. All of the steel
manufacturing in that bridge comes from China. Thousands of jobs in
China. And to make things worse, the inspectors were over there, and
they didn't do a good job. Beyond that, when the bridge parts came over
here, Chinese workers came with the bridge. No more of that. We're
going to make it in America.
I've got a bill in--others are working on this--and that is, if it's
American taxpayer money, by God, it's going to be used to buy American
taxpayer goods and services. We can do this, and the first step is the
American Jobs Act.
Mr. COHEN. You mention on there--I looked at your chart--education.
Part of the American Jobs Act is to rebuild our schools and to go to
work and make them structurally sound and also energy efficient. When
you look at labor, it's work. The labor movement has been attacked all
over this country, and it's labor who's created the middle class and
seen to it they got good jobs and opportunities and wages and benefits.
In my community, we just had a grocery store taken over by a large
national grocery store. A grocery store from another city had come in
and taken over some local owners. One man worked there for 44 years.
He'd been making $9.85 an hour and working 40 hours a week. They came
in and said, You can work 16 hours. You'll get $7.50 an hour. You won't
get your benefits that you had accumulated, and you'll go to another
store. He quit. They did a lot of employees that way.
What happened yesterday? Help inform me. Because I heard this, and
it's difficult to believe: Bank of America, did they make something
like $7 billion last year? And how many people did they lay off
yesterday?
{time} 1550
Mr. GARAMENDI. They're talking about laying off 40,000 people across
America in the next year.
Mr. COHEN. So how does that jibe with what we hear from the other
side about just trust business to hire people, that the jobs come from
business and the private sector?
They're making $7.8 billion. They benefited from the TARP--a
President Bush/Secretary Paulson plan that I supported in a bipartisan
manner that kept Bank of America alive. I think they're on the hook,
maybe, since some Federal recent action considering their loans and
all. But $7 billion, and
[[Page H6173]]
they're laying off 30,000 to 40,000 people? Those people are going to
need unemployment benefits, and it's not because they don't want a job.
They've been put out.
A lot of qualified people who can do jobs and are intelligent don't
have jobs because they are not there. But the people at the top are
making more money than ever. They're eating at Masa in New York.
They're eating the $500 dinner at the Japanese restaurant and not
thinking twice about it, and they're firing people right and left. The
limousines are still moving. The wealthy are still doing whatever
they've been doing. They've got their jets--not the football team--
their private jets. They're living great, but the American Dream is
disappearing. The American Dream disappeared for my grocery workers.
It's disappearing for Bank of America employees. It's disappearing for
a lot of people.
Mr. GARAMENDI. The American public, through the TARP program, bailed
out Wall Street, bailed out the banks, and the banks have done nothing.
The big Wall Street banks have done nothing except enrich themselves at
the expense of the American taxpayer. Those days should be over. We
need to move in a different direction.
One of the groups we really need to help are those men and women that
have been fighting the wars. Now, my personal view is that the war in
Afghanistan ought to stop tomorrow. We ought to bring that $120 billion
a year that we're spending in Afghanistan, bring it back here, invest
it in America in education and bridges, infrastructure and debt relief;
120 billion a year in Afghanistan, and we're still spending a vast
amount of money in Iraq. End those wars, bring that money home. Bring
the soldiers home. And when we do, we're bringing home a lot of wounded
Americans, wounded Americans who need our respect and who need jobs.
In the American Jobs Act there is a special place for veterans,
special advantage. They deserve it. They're the ones that have
sacrificed. They're the ones that took time out of their lives to fight
those wars. Whatever we may think about those wars, we can only think
good thoughts and honor the veterans, and here's a way to do it.
There are 877,000 unemployed veterans in America today--nearly 1
million; 877,000 looking for work. In the American Jobs Act, there is a
very special tax credit available to any employer who hires a veteran.
You can reduce your taxes by $5,600 right off the bottom, $5,600 tax
credit--not a deduction, but a credit. And if you happen to hire one of
those wounded vets--and we know them, we've seen their pictures, we
know what post-traumatic stress syndrome is all about--hire a wounded
vet, and it's a $9,600 tax credit to every employer, whomever it
happens to be, across this Nation. Now that's what we need to do.
All the talk about balancing the budget, all the talk about a deficit
hasn't put one person to work in America; in fact, it has laid off
hundreds of thousands of people. We need to put America back to work.
The American Jobs Act does that, and it does it in a very special way.
For those Americans that have been out there sacrificing in Iraq, in
Afghanistan it gives them an opportunity. It gives every employer an
incentive to hire those workers. We owe it to these men and women. And
when these men and women go back to work, they become taxpayers. And
when men and women in America go back to work and become taxpayers,
then the deficit will be resolved, then we will solve the deficit.
We need to make cuts, we need to do those things, but those are in
the out years. Right now, it is about jobs. The President has given us
the legislation. The question for our Republican leadership here is--
they control this House; they're the ones that set the agenda; they're
the only ones that can bring a bill to the floor--When will you bring
the American Jobs Act to this floor so that we can put Americans back
to work?
Mr. Cohen, I know how deeply you feel about this. I know that in your
district your people that you represent are hurting. They want jobs.
We're going to wrap this up in just a few moments. So for our closing
remarks, go for it.
Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Mr. Garamendi.
Every weekend I'm home--and the weeks that I'm home, because we're
home many weeks now, this Congress doesn't work them very much. We
spend a lot of time at home. And that's a beautiful thing for us, but
not a great thing for America because we need to be here, working on
trying to get a jobs bill passed, which hasn't been introduced by the
majority yet.
But Professor Stiglitz talked about the causes of the loss of the
surplus that President Clinton and the Democratic Congress got in the
late part of the 20th century. It was the two wars--voted for by this
Congress, supported by President Bush, the Bush tax cuts--passed by
this Congress, proposed by President Bush; and Medicare part D,
President Bush's Medicare plan to take care of the insurance companies.
That's what did it. Those were the causes.
Professor Stiglitz, and he has a lady that works with him--I think
her name is Linda Bilmes--they've studied what it's going to cost in
America in the years to come with the veterans. Now, the ones we can
employ, we need to employ. But 1 to 2 percent are going to come back
disabled, and they're going to need veteran services and they're going
to need money for the rest of their lives. So these wars, particularly
the Iraq war--President Bush and the Republican Congress' war--is going
to cost this country for another 70 years, at minimum; and we need to
be prepared for that.
We need to come together. And there's no question that when Professor
Stiglitz said, when you can borrow money at like 1 or 2 percent and
make a greater percentage on it, this is the time that you borrow
because rates are so low. And the top people in economics say this
whole idea of the austerity and the cut is wrong. What does it do? It
helps the wealthy because they're immune to it. The benefit for the
low-cost labor they get overseas and the salaries they get here, they
get great tax rates, helps them.
But what else does it help? It helps what Senator McConnell said was
the number one job of this Congress the first day after President Obama
was elected, to defeat President Obama. That's what Senator Mitch
McConnell said was the number one priority that he had. He's a focused
man. I admire him for the fact that he gets an issue and he stays on it
and he's focused. And he thought that and thinks that when he works on
the debt ceiling, when he works on the deficit, when he works on the
American Jobs Act. It's all about one thing--not employing Americans,
but taking two Americans, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and making them
unemployed. That's not appropriate.
Mr. GARAMENDI. We have a different view here. I'm confident that the
President will be reelected because he understands very clearly that we
need to put Americans back to work, And he has given us the American
Jobs Act--complete legislation. All the sections are there. All the
writing is done. All the legal work is done. It is now before the
United States Congress and the Senate, and it's up to us, 435 of us in
this House. Are we ready to act? Are we ready to do what Americans want
us to do? And that is to put them back to work.
Mr. COHEN. Pass the bill.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Pass the bill. Pass the bill. Put Americans back to
work.
I'm going to quickly go through some of the parts of this bill and
the way in which they affect Americans.
It's about investment, investing in our infrastructure: $50 billion
directly available for the transportation sector--rail, high-speed
rail, intercity rail, bridges, roads, $50 billion available this year
to put men and women back to work repairing our transportation
infrastructure. Another $10 billion for an infrastructure bank in which
the pension funds of America, the public pension funds, could invest.
And perhaps another $20 billion or $30 billion in that infrastructure
bank to once again augment the development of the infrastructure that
we need--water systems, sanitation systems, all of those communications
systems that we desperately need.
{time} 1600
That's on the infrastructure side.
On the education side, repairing our schools:
Thirty-five thousand schools to be repaired, repainted, classrooms,
science laboratories, as well as the playgrounds; 35,000 schools out
there. Your
[[Page H6174]]
neighborhood school, the opportunity for it to have a new paint job, a
new bathroom, whatever is needed;
280,000 teachers. You could fill the entire stadium in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, football, 100,000, and still have a third game with only
80,000 people. 280,000, think of it. The Ann Arbor, Michigan, stadium
filled 2.8 times over. Teachers in the classroom. This is exciting.
Veterans, a very powerful incentive where a business can reduce its
tax burden. That is the bottom-line tax reduced by $9,600 when you hire
a disabled veteran. That man, that woman is going back to work,
becoming a taxpayer. Once again, pride in our Nation. This is powerful.
For the unemployed, an extension of unemployment benefits, and we
didn't even get to that today--and all of this in the context of
rebuilding the American manufacturing sector.
More than 10 million American manufacturing jobs have been lost in
the last two decades. We can put them back to work if we use our public
policy, use our tax money that's going to build those bridges or those
roads, buses and locomotives, use our tax money to buy American-made,
American-made equipment. All it takes is a law, and it works.
Sacramento, California, near where I live, has built--or Siemens, a
German company, has built a major manufacturing plant in Sacramento,
California, to manufacture light railcars and Amtrak locomotives.
Why did they do that? They did that because the American Recovery
Act, the stimulus bill that our Republican colleagues like to trash,
said that the money for transportation systems--buses, light rail, and
trains--must be spent on American-made equipment. So Siemens said,
well, if that's the law, we want the business. They built the plant,
and they're manufacturing light rail cars and locomotives today in
America, using American equipment, using American workers. That's what
we can do if we are willing to pass the laws to make it in America.
Photovoltaic systems, wind turbines, all of these things supported
with our tax dollars. Why not use those tax dollars to buy American-
made solar cells and wind turbines?
The President has given us the opportunity to do what we should do,
as representatives of the American people. Put Americans back to work.
Pass the American Jobs Act. Pass the American Jobs Act.
Mr. Cohen, wrap this up for us.
Mr. COHEN. I just thank you, Mr. Garamendi, for the leadership and
for putting this hour together and allowing me to join you. And let's
say it together. Pass the bill.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Pass the bill.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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