[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 162 (Wednesday, October 26, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H7115-H7122]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             AMERICAN JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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, thank you for the opportunity to present 
here on the floor the solution to the question that was just raised by 
my colleague from the Republican side of the aisle.
  A month ago, the President laid out a plan that would create millions 
of jobs here in the United States. It was the American Jobs Act. We are 
going to talk about this tonight. Before I get into the details of it, 
last week, in fact 1 week ago, I held a town hall meeting in Fairfield, 
California.
  At that town hall meeting the question of jobs was on everybody's 
mind. What are you doing about jobs? What is Congress doing about jobs? 
It just seems as though nothing is happening, and all we're seeing from 
Congress is talk of the deficit and cuts.
  Every time there's a cut, we have another job loss here in our area. 
Maybe it's a school teacher that's laid off or some highway project 
that's not going forward. So what's happening with the jobs?
  And I then began to explain the American Jobs Act, and we're going to 
spend some time this evening talking just about that issue, the 
American Jobs Act.

[[Page H7116]]

                              {time}  1730

  As proposed by the President, it does address a variety of ways in 
which American jobs will be created, and not increasing the deficit at 
all, but rather fully paid for.
  I would like to start off this evening by asking my colleague from 
the great State of New York (Mrs. Maloney) if she would like to express 
the view from the East Coast, and then I'll move to the West Coast.
  Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to thank my colleague from the great State 
of California for bringing the American Jobs Act to the floor, every 
single week, speaking out in favor of American workers, small 
businesses, and a sane, balanced approach that not only has a cutback 
in order to cut back our deficit and our debt, but also a revenue leg 
and a jobs leg. And the President has come forward with a balanced 
approach that has won support not only from New York and California but 
clear across this country. Economists are speaking out in support of 
the American Jobs Act. There have been two Nobel Laureates that have 
come out in support of it. Mark Zandi, who was the economist in Senator 
McCain's race for the Presidency, he has come out and he has said that 
next year it would increase the GDP by 2 percent. It would lower the 
unemployment rate by 1 percent, and would create 1.9 million jobs.
  Now, after hearing your Special Orders on this, I think it would 
create even more jobs. But this is just a sense of economists from all 
sides of the country coming out in support of it.
  I think it is unfortunate that the Senate did not pass it because we 
need this act, and we need it now. Americans have shown that they are 
worried about their future and they want this Jobs Act. Analysts have 
speculated that our country faces the same kind of lost decade that 
Japan has struggled with.
  In a New York Times article by Daniel Alpert, a managing partner at a 
private capital firm, he was quoted as saying, and I'd like to bring it 
to your attention and the American people's attention: ``Unless we take 
dramatic steps, it will be Japan all over again--continuous deflation, 
no economic growth, in and out of recessions, and high unemployment.''
  Robert Hockett, a professor of financial law at Cornell in New York 
and a consultant to the New York Federal Reserve, added: ``It will be 
like the economic version of chronic fatigue syndrome--a low-grade 
fever all the time.''
  So we need to prevent that fatigue and cure the low-grade fever. 
That's why we need to pass this bill. It would be the kind of short-
term immediate impact that our economy needs. With job creation stalled 
and median income dropping, Americans just aren't buying. That's why 
economists and forecasters are so strongly in support of it. And the 
American Jobs Act goes after unemployment in three big ways: it cuts 
taxes to spur small business hiring and consumer spending; it prevents 
layoffs of our vital services, our teachers, our firefighters, and our 
law enforcement officers; and it puts people to work building roads, 
bridges, and schools. That's so important.
  The infrastructure jobs not only create good paying jobs now, they're 
an investment in the future to help America compete in the world 
economy. I know from my own State many of our bridges and tunnels and 
roads and mass transit are crumbling, and we could use this influx of 
infrastructure money to rebuild and put people back to work. Very 
importantly, the President's plan maintains a safety net for Americans 
most hurt by the economic downturn. It's a good plan.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you very much for bringing us the overall view 
of this. You are quite correct about the small businesses. Let me just 
put this pie chart up here.
  Small business is where 64 percent of all new jobs have been created 
over the last 15 years. Big businesses actually lost many, many jobs as 
they have offshored jobs. In fact, it was just last December that the 
Democratic-controlled House passed a tax bill that terminated tax 
breaks for big businesses sending jobs offshore. That was about $12 
billion of tax breaks that were terminated so that American businesses 
would not get a tax break to send jobs offshore. I would just like to 
point out that not one Republican voted to end that tax break that sent 
those jobs offshore.
  But the point here is that small businesses really do create 64 
percent of the jobs. Now, in the American Jobs Act, as my colleague 
from New York said, there are some very, very important provisions that 
deal directly with small businesses, encouraging them to hire. For 
example, we've got some 6 million people that are unemployed more than 
6 months, so those are the long-term unemployed. If a small business 
were to hire one of the long-term unemployed, they would receive an 
immediate $4,000 tax credit. That is off the bottom line of their 
taxes, providing a very powerful incentive to hire the long-term 
unemployed.
  Now, I think the entire Nation is sick and tired of our wars, but the 
wars are real. Those wars have created a situation where a very, very 
high percentage of the veterans that come back are unable to get a job. 
These may be those veterans that have been off in Afghanistan or Iraq. 
There's a tax credit again for a veteran returning from the wars, a 
$5,600 tax credit for hiring an unemployed veteran. Now if that veteran 
happens to have a service-connected disability, and we've seen the 
terrible tragedies of those disabilities, arms, legs, and other 
problems that have befallen the veterans as they serve our country, 
there's a $9,600 tax credit in the American Jobs Act for those small 
businesses that hire the veterans. So by hiring new people, small 
businesses will be able to receive a very, very significant benefit as 
a result of this American Jobs Act.
  If the gentlelady would like to continue on with some of the reasons 
why this is important to New York, please, Mrs. Maloney, if you would 
take care and have at it.
  Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to respond to the point that the gentleman 
made. Economists tell us that one of the ways that we climb out of 
recessions--and we're in the worst recession that I've experienced in 
my lifetime, the worst since the Great Depression--the way we climb out 
is often small businesses. Small businesses hire and grow. Two out of 
three people hired in America are hired by small businesses. But at 
this time their hiring has not moved forward. That's why this subsidy 
and support for small businesses is so important, and I applaud the 
President for including it in the American Jobs Act.
  But because of the economic downturn, localities across our country 
are having to lay off workers, essential workers who are investors in 
the future of our young people: Teachers and the protectors of our 
communities, firefighters and our law enforcement, are being laid off.
  I want to talk a little bit about New York, the great State that I 
have the honor of representing, and I have some numbers that I would 
like to share with you, but they are the same in many localities across 
the country. In my own State of New York, according to the 
Congressional Research Service, the estimated grant for the teachers 
and the first responders would be $1.7 billion, which would save an 
estimated 18,000 educators and first responder jobs. That's important 
not only to these families but to the localities. These teachers are 
needed. These fire and police are needed. And very importantly, one of 
the things that I think is so important is the focus that the President 
has put on modernizing our schools.
  When I was in school, all you needed was a piece of paper and a 
teacher and a pencil. Now our young people need computers, and we need 
to start teaching them computer sciences and math and technology very, 
very early. This would have grants to modernize schools so they are 
really ready for the 21st century, wired appropriately for high-tech 
computers. This would have a grant for New York City alone of $1.6 
billion to modernize the community colleges and the public schools so 
they are ready for the next century.

                              {time}  1740

  But it's our infrastructure that is so important. We are falling 
behind in terms of high-speed rail. Much of our infrastructure is 
crumbling. And the infrastructure investment would total over $105 
billion, including $50 billion on transportation infrastructure. This 
not only moves people and makes a

[[Page H7117]]

more livable environment, it's an investment also for not being 
dependent on oil that we have to import.
  Very importantly, there is $10 billion on a new national 
infrastructure bank that would help finance private ventures of public 
roads and highways and bridges and railroads. And so that's a very, 
very important part of it.
  Very importantly, it also talks about rehabilitating the foreclosed 
or vacant properties. This is a problem. Some of my colleagues in Ohio 
tell me they're literally bulldozing down vacant foreclosed properties. 
And this would allow to help these blighted neighborhoods and help 
rebuild.
  All in all, it is a great plan. We need to get behind it. We need to 
put Americans back to work. And we should have passed it yesterday. But 
I'm here tonight supporting the President's plan to put Americans back 
to work and to invest in our future, invest in America's 
competitiveness, and our leadership in so many areas depends on getting 
our economy moving again.
  I appreciate being here with my good friend and colleague, and thank 
you so much for raising these issues. You're doing an excellent job.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I can go through each one of those numbers that my 
colleague from the wonderful State of New York talked about. 
California, similarly, would receive very, very significant benefits.
  However, we need to look at the reality of what is happening here in 
this Chamber where the Speaker of the House refuses to even allow a 
vote on the President's proposal. All of the things you talked about 
that would benefit New York will come to nothing unless the Speaker of 
the House will allow these proposals to come to a vote.
  Mrs. MALONEY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Certainly.
  Mrs. MALONEY. This is a democracy, and I believe that there is no 
idea in the world that is so dangerous or challenging that you can't 
debate it in the United States Congress. It should be put up for a 
debate and have it fully debated and have a vote. That's the least that 
the Speaker should provide for the American people.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Over on the Senate side, the leader of the Senate, Mr. 
Reid, brought the issue to the Senate floor and was unable to even get 
a vote on the Senate floor because of the Republican threat of a 
filibuster and the 60-vote requirement to end that filibuster. And so 
even though on the Senate side they almost came to a vote, they were 
stopped short by a filibuster. And the reason, apparently, was that the 
Republicans did not want to raise a one-half of 1 percent tax on those 
very small number--the top 1 percent of Americans that are earning more 
than a million dollars of adjusted gross income a year. And so with 
that small tax increase, they refused to go along.
  So here we are in this House without a vote and on the other side 
because of the threat of a filibuster, and 280,000 teachers are not 
going to be hired unless we're able to break through. The only way to 
break through is for the American public to rise up, the 99ers out 
there, and say: Enough. Give us our jobs. Give us the opportunity to go 
back to work.
  I yield to my colleague.
  Mrs. MALONEY. It could not be stated more appropriately. The 99ers 
and all Americans should speak out and demand a vote on this.
  Now, the President has pointed out that it should be a three-legged 
stool. It should be revenues, we need to cut back on other 
expenditures, and we need to invest in jobs. Right now, we have roughly 
15 percent of our GDP is revenues, but our expenditures are roughly 35 
percent.
  The gentleman points out the tax on millionaires and other areas that 
they were looking at. You have to bring that in balance. You cannot 
continue with 35 percent of the GDP being expenditures and only 15 
percent being revenues. Granted, we do have to cut back, and that's 
what the supercommittee is working on, but it needs to be a balanced 
approach. Actually, that's what's always worked in the past. It's 
always been a balanced approach. That's the only way we can get this 
country on firm ground to reduce our debt, reduce our deficit, invest 
in opportunities, innovation, and jobs for the future.
  You expressed it very well, and I support your efforts here tonight.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much for joining us this evening.
  Before I turn to my colleague from California, I want to just 
emphasize the point that the President's American Jobs program is 
balanced, fully paid for. It's paid for with a fair tax.

  We know that over the last 12 years now the upper income, that top 1 
or 2 percent, has enjoyed an enormous tax break that was put in place 
during the George W. Bush first and third year. They've had it good. 
They've really seen their share of income in America grow 
extraordinarily fast while the great middle class of America has had 
basically a flat situation. They've seen no improvement in their 
income. And then in the last couple of years, they've seen a very 
precipitous decline.
  The President has also proposed--and I know I agree very strongly 
with this--end the tax breaks for the oil companies. Why does the oil 
industry need another $5 billion or $6 billion a year of tax breaks 
when in fact over the last decade they've earned more than a trillion 
dollars in profit?
  Our colleague from California is ready to go. This is Maxine Waters, 
representing Los Angeles, a colleague of mine dating back to our years 
in the California Legislature, which was just a few years back.
  If you would care to share with us your thoughts on how we're going 
to get Americans back to work.
  Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much. I'm very appreciative, Congressman, 
for your taking this time out on the floor this evening and sharing 
this time with your colleagues to talk about the American Jobs Act.
  What I'm going to say will take a little bit of a different tack. As 
you know, we just had a contest about the use of social media in our 
caucus, and I devised a program where I promoted a campaign on 
#ourspeech, which asked our followers, if they had the opportunity to 
speak to Congress, what would they say, using the 140 or so characters 
on Twitter. We got a lot of comments in. We combined them, and now I'm 
going to share them. A lot of it is about jobs, but they speak about it 
in a little bit different way. If you would indulge me, I would like to 
take a few minutes.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I'd be fascinated to hear. I know that your 
constituents have been very, very active, and I know that over the 
years you have been superactive. Please share those tweets with us.
  Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much.
  Today, I'm delivering what is known as #ourspeech--a speech composed 
of words solely from my followers and friends on Facebook who posted 
their thoughts about the economy and jobs online. This is a part of my 
effort to bring Americans closer to Congress.
  To the people that sit on Capitol Hill:
  As Members of Congress in the greatest country in the world, you are 
very well aware of the concerns expressed by the American 
constituency--jobs, stable economic environment, education, crime, war, 
et cetera. You are not Republicans. You are not Democrats. You are not 
an independent. You do not belong to any faction. Stop worrying about 
party and do something for the people. Pass the jobs bill. Pass the 
American Jobs Act. We all need to work.
  A child with no food doesn't care about your power struggle with 
those who are across the aisle. You must represent the most downtrodden 
people in your district, not the most successful business nor any 
special interest. Big money donations from corporations and the 
financial industry have purchased our democracy. America elected the 
House, not corporations. It is time they represent us. You have an 
obligation as a public servant to ensure that the underprivileged of 
our society will be protected. Don't forget the poor, a group that 
continues to grow while the rich get richer. We have to trust you to 
make the right decisions for us. Support and pass the American Jobs 
Act.
  My Facebook followers continue by saying:
  We labor to right our small, overturned coffers to replace what was 
lost. We labor and pay three and four times over for substandard 
services.

                              {time}  1750

  We have become the disenfranchised while billionaire executives live 
and work in very comfortable environments. We are bludgeoned with 
partisan rhetoric that detracts from the

[[Page H7118]]

real American issues and Representatives who feel they may act without 
giving heed to the desires of their constituents.
  Put partisan politics aside, they say. Start serving your citizens 
with measured focus on supporting the people. Congress must support 
jobs. Congress must support the American Jobs Act. We need jobs so that 
we can pay our reasonable share for life activities and services. We 
want the right to realize the promises of our founding documents.
  The middle class have been the legs this country has stood on. The 
lack of meaningful action in D.C. has crippled us. We have not been 
able to save for our children's college education as we live paycheck 
to paycheck. We worry about the more immediate dilemma--will we be able 
to keep our home? We are 2 months behind in our mortgage. Bank of 
America, our lender, was bailed out with our tax money. Now who is 
going to bail us, who played by the rules and worked hard, out? Please 
don't give another dime of our money to save the banks, they do not 
care about us.
  Americans are sick of hearing Congress bicker about who is to blame 
for our issues. While Congress pontificates and filibusters, Americans 
are starving, losing their homes, working multiple jobs if they can 
find them, and puzzling over ways to balance our incredibly shrinking 
budgets against the rising costs of tolls, gas, food and corporate 
thievery in the guise of bank fees and loan rates. Good, hardworking 
Americans shouldn't be rubbing nickels together and shouldn't have to 
pick food over medicine.
  My Facebook followers wrap up by further saying: We wonder how we 
will pay our taxes and student loans, avoid answering our phones, leave 
our mail unopened as we struggle. The system, if it ever was for us, 
has failed at this critical juncture in history to safeguard us. The 
global Occupy Wall Street movement illustrates beautifully the 
consciousness of the people which has been missing from the political 
landscape. Congress must support jobs, education and health care. 
People are hurting out here. Our silence has finally and irrevocably 
been broken. Those of us who have been awakened are now willing 
soldiers in the fight.
  The voice of the people occupying around the Nation will not go 
unrecognized. Our strength, our passion and our vision can, and should 
be, harnessed to power change.
  Thank you so very much for allowing my Facebook followers to have a 
word on the floor tonight. They are watching us. They will be 
responding. But I think they are very appreciative that you have 
allowed me this time to condense those comments and the words that they 
gave to me to bring to the floor.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the gentlelady from California so very much 
for sharing with us the words that she has received from her 
constituents. I know that for me, and I suspect for many of our 
colleagues, there are similar words, similar comments to us. It's time 
for us to get with it. Let's pass a jobs bill. Let's really work for 
the people out there, not only the unemployed, but for the great middle 
class that has been pushed down over the last decade. It's time for 
them to have their say. Thank you so very, very much for being with us 
this afternoon.
  Ms. WATERS. Thank you so very much.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. You said something that came to my mind--I'm going to 
do this quickly before I turn to my colleague from--Rhode Island? You 
mentioned student loans. Now, the President has been out in California, 
in Los Angeles and in San Francisco, near my district, and he's been 
saying something that really caught my attention, and that is: we can't 
wait. Speaking for the American people, we can't wait for Congress to 
act. We can't wait.
  And he did something that is really, really close to home. My 
daughter and son-in-law just finished medical school. They have huge 
loans that they took out to go through medical school. But across this 
Nation, about $1 trillion of loans have been taken out by young men and 
women--and older--who have gone back to school to improve themselves, 
to get an education, to learn a skill, $1 trillion out there. And many 
of those loans are at a very high interest rate, and they may be from 
different sectors.
  And the President says, we can't wait to help these people. These 
young men and women and others who have these loans, they need help 
today. And so he put together a new program based upon a law that we 
passed last year--the Democrats passed last year--that said we're going 
to do some consolidation. So he's taken that step. He's going to allow 
for the consolidation of these loans into one loan package and allow 
the interest rate to be reduced, on the average, at least a half 
percent interest rate and stretched out--and a small percentage of the 
income. And many of these young men and women--I'm just going to say 
men and women, they're not all young--aren't able to get a job other 
than just a minimum wage, and so they can't pay. So he's giving them a 
break.
  And that's what we want our President to do. We want our President to 
go out there and say we can't wait for Congress--even though I'm ready 
to go and I know my colleagues are--and giving them a break. This is 
really important that he has done this.
  Ms. WATERS. I thank you. That is well said. You are absolutely 
correct. And the young people are waiting on us to act. They are 
burdened with debt. They can't get careers started. They can't get 
families started. This will be very helpful to them. The consolidation 
and the reduction of the interest rate is extremely important.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. We can't wait to get a bill out of this House, and 
hopefully the Speaker will allow us to bring it to the floor. And I 
can't wait to hear from Mr. Courtney of Connecticut.
  Mr. Courtney, please join us.
  Mr. COURTNEY. I thank the gentleman from California. Connecticut, 
Rhode Island--you know, when you're from California, I'm sure we all 
look like one of your counties there. But it's eastern Connecticut. At 
least I abut Rhode Island. But thank you for the invitation to speak 
this evening.

  I wanted to start, first of all, by just sharing with you that I am 
in the final day of a 1-week challenge that myself and four other 
Members of Congress have engaged in to live on a food stamp budget for 
a week. That's $4 a day, which is what the budget is for millions of 
Americans today. And my wife and I and my daughter got through it in 
one piece--although I had to kind of take my little care package down 
to D.C. with me. And frankly, it has been harder than I thought and a 
real eye opener. I mean, a cup and a half of coffee----
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Excuse me. May I interrupt? You and three of your 
colleagues or four of your colleagues have undertaken a program to try 
to live on the unemployment insurance?
  Mr. COURTNEY. No. This is a food stamp budget, the SNAP program. 
Again, the SNAP budget for millions of Americans is $4 a day. And so 
obviously you've got to shop as aggressively as you possibly can, and 
frankly you're buying somewhat lower-cost items. As I said, we're about 
to get across the finish line at midnight tonight. Again, a cup and a 
half of coffee a day, half a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, generic 
cereal, little bananas, some meals at night. You don't have to worry 
about cleaning dishes when you're on this kind of budget because you 
eat every bit of it. And as I said, it has been a real eye opener in 
terms of the fact that this is really an experience that isn't just 
limited to 1 week for millions of Americans. It's something that, 
again, is just part of a growing reality.
  I raise it in the context of the Jobs Act because today there are, 
again, millions of Americans who are 99ers; they are people who have 
gone through their unemployment compensation period, which, as we all 
know, has a cap of 99 weeks. For a lot of them, there really is nothing 
else waiting at the end of that time other than food stamps--or the 
SNAP program as it's now called. To basically live on $32, which is 
really what the amount is for a single adult, is really impossible.
  As a result, we're seeing, again, record numbers of people showing up 
at food banks, record numbers of people showing up at soup kitchens. 
There is now a suburbanization of poverty that's going on in this 
country. Again, I represent Connecticut, which has the highest per 
capita income in America--obviously lots of suburbs. There are now, 
again, food banks that are operating in a lot of these communities.

[[Page H7119]]

Clearly, this is an issue in terms of the supercommittee and the 
sequestration, whether or not a program like SNAP is going to be at 
risk. For people to go backwards from $4 a day is something that I 
personally can't imagine.
  But at the end of the day, the real solution is to get this economy 
growing again, and the best social program is a job. I mean, that is 
the bottom line in terms of what is a real fix to this problem.
  One of the things that I just wanted us to, again, spend a minute on, 
and then I'll hand it over to my friend from Ohio who's here, is that 
the pay-for that's been proposed and supported in the Senate and the 
White House is a 5 percent surcharge on income above $1 million. 
Recently we had, again, in my opinion, a patriotic, courageous American 
who stepped forward to really put the spotlight on what that means. 
Warren Buffett, who, again, is a legendary investor, financier, 
commentator on all the news programs and the business channels, shared 
his tax return for last year.

                              {time}  1800

  His gross income, his top line was $63 million, his adjusted gross 
income was $32 million, and his payment was roughly about $6 million. 
As he explained in a number of op-eds, that roughly translates into a 
tax rate of 17 percent, which, again, you're here, Johnny-on-the-spot 
with the charts, which is terrific.
  If his tax return was subjected to the surcharge which has been 
proposed and supported in the Senate, basically, it would add about 
another $2 million to $3 million of tax liability in terms of what his 
return would be, and his overall effective rate would be roughly about 
25 percent.
  He clearly makes the argument about the Buffett rule that he should 
pay a higher rate than his secretary and his staff--today he pays a 
lower rate than all of them. But the real, I think, power of his 
argument which he made in The New York Times op-ed piece, ``Stop 
Coddling the Rich,'' was that the tax rates that he paid gladly back in 
the eighties and nineties, which again, is even higher than it would be 
if we passed the surcharge, did nothing to inhibit his willingness or 
desire to go out and compete and invest and participate in the drive 
for the American Dream.
  And if you look at the growth rates that we experienced in the 1990s 
when, again, the tax rates on both capital gains and regular income 
were much higher than today, and would still be higher than if we 
adopted the Jobs Act pay-for, as he powerfully makes the point, it 
would do nothing to inhibit growth, and it would do nothing to inhibit 
or punish success.
  It, in fact, would just do a lot to try and create some balance in 
our public finances so that we can afford to do the great things that a 
great Nation must do to get us out of the predicament that we're in 
today.
  What I want to say to anyone who's watching here today, who's on food 
stamps, having experienced briefly the challenge that you face over a 
1-week period of time, we can do better, as a Nation, than that, and we 
must adopt the Jobs Act to make sure that we solve the problems of 
Americans who today are trapped in an economy that allows no way out 
except subsistence programs that are inadequate to lead a healthy 
productive life.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the gentleman from Connecticut. My apologies, 
Rhode Island being not too far away. Thank you very much. And thank you 
for pointing out that it's very, very difficult in America if you're 
poor. One out of six Americans now live in poverty and are dependent 
upon food stamps and other kinds of subsistence in order simply to stay 
alive.
  And we cannot forget that, although we ought to remember that here on 
this floor very recently there was an effort to reduce the food stamps. 
So I don't quite understand why anybody would want to do that, given 
the poverty rate.
  You also spoke to the issue of fairness in taxes. Eighty-four percent 
of all of the wealth in this Nation is now controlled by the top 20 
percent, and the bottom have become more and more poor.
  Now, one of the States that is struggling to get back into the 
American Dream is the State of Ohio, and there's a lot of conflict 
going on there about labor and politics and the like.
  But I know, Mr. Ryan, that you're focused solely on trying to get 
people back to work in your community. If you would please join us. If 
I recall correctly, you're from the eastern part of Ohio.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is correct, the northeastern part, and I'm 
happy to be joined by my colleague from the northwestern part, Ms. 
Kaptur, to talk about these issues.
  I think, as I sat here and I listened, whether it was California or 
whether it was Connecticut or whether it's Ohio, I think the number one 
issue facing the country right now is the income inequality. It is now 
just starting to percolate up as the number one issue, the greatest 
inequality in this country since the Great Depression.
  I know many of us have been talking about this for a long, long 
time--we've had 30 years of stagnant wages in the United States. There 
is no way that we're going to be able to continue to be the leader of 
the free world, or really even have the kind of country that we want, 
if we have this kind of level of inequality.
  There are issues that come before the House of Representatives. There 
are issues that the President is continuing to push that will help 
rectify this problem that is not getting any attention at all in the 
House of Representatives, whether it's the American Jobs Act, which 
would put people back to work, infrastructure, roads, bridges, get that 
20 percent unemployment within the construction trades, or 18 or 19 
percent, or whatever it may be, and drive it down.
  The China currency bill, passed by the Senate with well over 60 
votes, passed the House of Representatives last year, had 99 
Republicans, 350 total votes, and we can't get a vote in the House of 
Representatives to take on the Chinese.

  Mr. GARAMENDI. Explain to us what the Chinese currency bill is all 
about.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, they're manipulating their currency. They're 
devaluing it so that the exports coming into the United States are 
artificially cheaper than they would normally be, already with benefits 
of no EPA, no OSHA, no regulations. But in addition to that, they 
manipulate their currency, devalue it to make those exports landing on 
the shores of the United States even cheaper.
  Now, all of these unfair trade practices have cost the United States 
2.8 million jobs in the last 10 years; 1.9 million of those are 
manufacturing, and 100,000 in Ohio. When manufacturing jobs pay more, 
there's more intellectual property spinoff, better benefits, better 
pension.
  All of this comes together with an issue that we're facing back in 
Ohio, and a philosophy in the country that is basically saying, if the 
middle class just made a little bit less, the country would be better 
off; we'd finally fix these problems. That's what's happening with S.B 
5 and S.U. 2 in Ohio, where we have a Republican administration taking 
on the teachers, the police and the fire, and saying they make too much 
money, and it's because of them that we have these huge budget issues, 
when really, they're the last bastion of the middle class, and they run 
into burning buildings, and they go out and they take care of us when 
we're in a dangerous situation, or they teach our kids, or they clean 
the public restrooms, or they clean the restrooms in the schools.
  These are people who serve us, all of us as a country. For us to 
continue to go down the path of, we've got to dismantle the middle 
class, we've got to dismantle the unions, we've got to cut programs 
like Pell Grants or food stamps or things that help us invest, or keep 
interest rates high on student loans, or cut funding for the National 
Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, this is not a recipe 
for success. This is a recipe for the destruction of the middle class.
  These are investments we've always made as a country that have 
benefited us. And to say to these police and fire and teachers and 
public employees, you're making too much money, you're part of the 
problem, when they're making $30,000, $35,000 a year, is ridiculous.
  The policies coming out of Washington and the House of 
Representatives, we don't even have the courage

[[Page H7120]]

to take on China to say maybe we'll drive some manufacturing jobs back 
into the United States, create some wealth back in the United States so 
these local communities have money to fund their police and fire. This 
is what we've always done.
  One final point. You're starting to see it percolate. You saw it in 
Wisconsin. The coalition in Ohio, now, against this issue too, is 
incredible. Police, fire, teachers, public employees, building trades, 
auto workers, machinists, average people, all coming together to say, 
this is the middle class, and we've had it up to here. With Occupy Wall 
Street, it's the same thing. Income inequality. High levels, it's been 
going on for a long time. People are up to here.
  And for a while, my friend, they have said, go get Washington, D.C. 
Look at them. Look, it's the Democrats, get them. It's their fault. But 
the reality is it's where the money is, and that concentration of 
wealth you were talking about, that's driving the policies here.
  Somebody explain to me how we can pass a China currency bill last 
year, with 350 votes, 99 Republicans, and we can't get a vote in the 
House of Representatives on it now. The Senate just passed it. Because 
there are some very powerful interests that don't want it on the floor. 
They don't want to vote on this. They like the system just the way it 
is. They can locate over in China and ship their product back and the 
Americans will buy it.
  But what's coming home to roost now is that the Americans aren't 
making the wages they were in the last 20 or 30 years.

                              {time}  1810

  In the last 20 or 30 years, consumer spending is down, consumer 
confidence is down, wages are stagnant, and there are high levels of 
poverty even in the suburbs. And so it's all coming home to roost.
  I think it's time for our country and all of these disparate groups 
to now come together--police, fire, teachers, building trades, and 
working class people. I'm telling you, in Ohio they're coming together 
and they're saying: We are the middle class, we are working America, 
and we are going to set the agenda.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. And we can't wait. We cannot wait.
  I'm just going to toss out two more statistics here. The top 1 
percent of Americans in 1974 had about 9 percent of income of all 
sorts--capital gains, interest, dividends, as well as earned income, 
about 9 percent. In 2007--that was 4 years ago--they had 23\1/2\ 
percent. So you've seen the income of the very few at the top grow 
extraordinarily from 9 to 23. It's probably up to 25 or 27 percent this 
year. The top one-tenth of 1 percent--this is 15,000 families in 
America--have raked in more than $1 trillion of income in 2009; just 
15,000 families, $1 trillion of income.
  Yet, when the Senate took up the bill to provide about 2 million jobs 
for America to be paid for by these men, women, and families that have 
had this extraordinary growth in their income, just a small percentage 
of a surcharge, 5 percent surcharge on that additional income, the 
Republicans in the Senate refused to pass that bill. So 280,000 
teachers are not going to get a job, 100,000 police and firemen will 
not be back on our streets protecting us, and $50 billion of 
construction programs will not be built, 35,000 schools will not be 
renovated, and all across this Nation the pain of the middle class will 
continue.
  It's time for us to have a better deal for America. The American Jobs 
Act can do that. And I think it can help Ohio in the central part.
  Ms. Kaptur, if you would care to join us, thank you so very much. I 
yield to a terrific Representative who I know has fought fiercely for 
years and years here to bring back to middle America the manufacturing 
base and the middle-income jobs that are so important.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Congressman Garamendi, I want to thank you for your 
leadership coming from California. And my dear, dear colleague Tim Ryan 
from the eastern quarter of Ohio, what a privilege it is to be here 
with you as well and to be a voice for we the people--we the people, 
not just the superrich people, not just the people running the six 
biggest banks in the country that just took the rest of America to the 
cleaners, but Americans who speak for the vast majority who, like that 
chart states, want a better deal for America. We want investment in 
America. We want to make goods in America because we know, when we 
create here and we make here, we create jobs here and we create real 
wealth here for everyone, not just the privileged few.
  It's really an amazing fact to think about that General Motors, when 
I was growing up, was the biggest employer in the country, and northern 
Ohio just hummed. Plants had 14,000 workers, 10,000 workers. Now you're 
lucky if a plant has 1,200 workers, and you see shuttered plants around 
our country. Thank God for the recovery package and what was done to 
resuscitate and refinance the U.S. automotive industry so that other 
countries can't eat our lunch, that they can't eat our investment 
capital and all of the investment that still exists around this 
country, the millions of families and retirees that depend on a healthy 
automotive sector.
  When you think about it, today, Walmart is the largest employer. We 
have gone from General Motors being the largest employer to Walmart 
being the largest employer. And this week, Walmart announced that even 
though it's the largest employer, even though it's making so much money 
for its shareholders and top executives, if you work for Walmart and 
you put in under 24 hours a week work, you're not eligible for their 
health insurance. Yup, I can just think of all those women, all those 
people that are working in Walmart around the country, their standard 
of living will drop.
  I agree with what Congressman Ryan says about the middle class. We 
believe in people earning a living and, as a result, being secure in 
the middle class--earning a decent wage, getting a decent health 
benefit, and having a retirement program you can depend upon.
  I'm really happy that the cost-of-living increase will give, on 
average, to seniors across this country 360 extra dollars--360 extra 
dollars a year on average--because they're going to be able to buy some 
food, better food for themselves. They're going to be able to pay their 
utility bills. Do you know the first thing they will do? I'll tell you 
the first thing they'll do. They're going to buy their grandchildren 
presents. They're going to go spend that money. They're going to spend 
it in the economy.
  Every single business in this country, what do they say? We need 
customers. We need customers. We don't have enough people working--
carrying 14 to 24 million people unemployed or underemployed--to really 
get this economy to hum. They're waiting for customers. Every Member of 
Congress, if they're awake, knows that.

  And so when we see a call for a better deal for America--for all the 
people, for we the people, not just for the Wall Street bankers who 
brought us to this juncture who, by the way, are doing very well and 
controlling two-thirds of the financial system of this country, which 
is part of the problem we are facing--too much power in too few hands. 
But as we look across our country to say what can we do, as Members, in 
order to create more of an investment climate here, you create 
investment when you create customers. And, honestly, you don't create 
customers and create wealth at the same time when you just take all the 
stuff that's made in China, bring it here and sell it. That money 
goes--most of it goes back to where those goods were made.
  We have a real challenge in our country to reward Make It In America, 
to make goods here and to sell goods here. And as Congressman Ryan 
says, for those countries that don't play by the rules--and China 
doesn't--whether it's on currency, whether it's on the environment, or 
whether it's on the fair treatment of workers, they're not even living 
in the same universe as we live in. Who would want to live in Beijing? 
You'd need a gas mask to survive. Is that really what we want to do is 
downgrade our standard of living for the American people to that level? 
And that is the course we are on. That is the course we are on, 
Congressman Garamendi.
  When you talk about how many people in America are poor today, do you 
think they like being poor? God loves them just as He loves everybody 
in the upper class and the middle class. They don't want to be poor. 
They want a job.
  Here's the figure. Let me put this one on the table. I was talking to 
one of

[[Page H7121]]

the major rail executives today, and I was inviting him to come out to 
our region because we have a lot of railroads, and they're hiring. He 
said, Congresswoman, I want you to know something. We posted 4,000 jobs 
in rail across this country. And he said, Guess how many applications 
we got? Five hundred thousand. Five hundred thousand applications for 
4,000 jobs.
  Think about what the American people are saying to us. Austerity will 
not bring prosperity. What will bring prosperity is investment in 
America, making goods in America, creating goods in America, growing 
products in America, processing products in America, and holding our 
trade partners accountable for their actions, whether it's currency 
manipulation or renegotiating trade agreements that are not operating 
in the interests of the United States and that are far out of balance.
  Let me tell you, the most out-of-balance trade agreement is with 
China. And if you go back to NAFTA when it passed here in 1993, they 
said, Oh, my goodness, there are going to be millions of jobs. Well, 
they're not in the United States. They're not here. In fact, we've 
amassed a $1 trillion trade deficit with Mexico since NAFTA passed. So 
all those people must live somewhere in outer space to think that that 
has actually created wealth in America. It has been a sucking sound, a 
sucking sound to other countries--not here.
  All you've got to do is know the math. Know the math. Just look at 
the numbers. You don't have to believe me. Look at the trade accounts. 
It's written in black and white every month. We aren't winning. We are 
losing the trade wars all over this world, and it is costing us 
investment here. It's costing us jobs here. It's costing us wealth 
here. And that is where those poverty figures are rising, because we 
aren't reading the math and we aren't making goods in America and 
balancing our accounts here at home by putting people back to work.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. We certainly can rebuild the American manufacturing 
industry, and there are ways of doing it. That was done in part when 
the President stepped up using the stimulus money to rebuild General 
Motors and Chrysler. They're now back, and millions of jobs have been 
saved and, simultaneously, the entire small business supply chain is in 
order.

                              {time}  1820

  Mr. Ryan, I know that you have other thoughts that you'd like to add, 
so please share with us.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I just think we're competing directly now with 
China in such a significant and direct way. So we put, say, $8 billion 
in the stimulus package for high-speed rail. I think China is spending 
tens of billions of dollars----
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well over $100 billion.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think it's $120 billion, maybe, on high-speed 
rail. They're going to have more tracks in China than in the rest of 
the world combined in the next 5 or 10 years; and we're sitting here 
saying we're not going to do anything because we're not for high-speed 
rail. Ohio gave back $400 million, and Florida gave back a few hundred 
million dollars. We know from conversations we've had with 
businesspeople that that would have lured companies into the State of 
Ohio because they want to build railcars, but they're not going to 
build them if we don't have a high-speed rail program. These are 
investments that we have made.
  We've gotten into the mind-set that the government can't do 
everything, but it has to do something. What it has to do is make sure 
our roads and our bridges and our infrastructure are up to speed.
  I was just talking with Congressman Doyle from Pittsburgh. He said $3 
billion in sewer projects need to get done--EPA-mandated in Pittsburgh. 
I think Cleveland is $2 billion to $3 billion and that Akron is about 
$1 billion. It's hundreds of millions in places like Youngstown and in 
smaller cities. I'm sure Toledo is up there in the hundreds of millions 
in these older cities.
  Ms. KAPTUR. And Sandusky.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I saw Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayor. He was 
saying these are 100-year-old systems in Chicago. Do we really think 
that Pittsburgh and Cleveland and Akron and Youngstown and Toledo have 
$1 billion to go make these investments? But if we say collectively as 
a country we're going to rebuild the country and that right now we're 
going to use the power that we have to go out and get the money and 
make these investments and put all these people back to work, they'll 
be working for a decade.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me tell you how that could be done. It's in the 
President's American Jobs Act.
  He has suggested that we establish an infrastructure bank. Every one 
of the projects that you just described is a cash flow project. There 
is a fee for sewage and there is a fee for water. There are fees that 
come traditionally with each of these services. If we had an 
infrastructure bank--and the President has suggested we put $10 billion 
into it--we know that we could get the various public pension funds 
around to invest in it and that we could probably have $100 billion 
within several months that could be invested in each one of the 
projects that you talked about, and those projects over time are able 
to repay. Do keep in mind that the Federal Government is now able to 
borrow that money at about 2 percent for 10 years. So this is an 
investment opportunity to build for the future.
  We've got about 5 minutes. So, Ms. Kaptur, if you'd like to take it, 
then we're going to wrap this thing up.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I would just like to say, for investment in our ports, in 
our airports, in our rail, what could be more important to our country?
  When I was born, there were 146 million people in this country. We're 
now near 320 million people. By 2050, we will have 500 million people 
in this country. We cannot continue to live like it's 1950. We have to 
sort of catch up, which is where these public investments come in. They 
create jobs. They create real wealth that you can't take away or 
outsource. It belongs to the American people. It belongs here.
  I wanted to say a word about Ohio. We're facing this vote on Issue 2 
in Ohio, which is an effort, as Congressman Ryan says, to dismantle 
what's left of the middle class in our State: our teachers, our 
firefighters, our police. We have a Governor who called an Ohio highway 
patrolman an ``idiot,'' which I consider a complete degradation of the 
Office of Governor and an insult to those who put their lives on the 
line for us every day.
  We stand against Issue 2. We're going to defeat Issue 2 in Ohio 
because we believe in building the middle class; and we are proud of 
our police, of our highway patrolmen, of our firefighters, of our 
teachers. They hold us together as a community, and it is our job to 
push investment into airports, highways, high-speed rail, trains, 
transit, ports, water and sewer--all of the pieces of ``community'' 
that hold us together and make our economies hum. Either you're looking 
through the rearview mirror or the windshield going forward. This is an 
``I can'' Nation. The last four words of ``American'' are ``I can,'' 
and we are an ``I can'' country.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Indeed, we can.
  This piece of legislation, H.R. 613, is one that I've introduced. It 
simply says that this money that we want to invest in our sanitation 
systems--high-speed rail and energy systems, whether those are the wind 
turbines or similar systems--is American taxpayer money. This bill 
says, if you're going to use American taxpayer money, then you're going 
to spend that money on American-made equipment. Make it in America. 
It's our money. Use it here in America.
  The Chinese currency bill ought to be passed. I know that our 
Republican colleagues are going to be following me here in a few 
minutes, and they're probably going to say the solution is to end 
regulation. They had a bill on the floor that would end the regulation 
that would prevent the despoiling of our air with such things as 
mercury and arsenic and dioxins and other kinds of poisons. We can't 
build America by ending the regulations that protect America: the food 
safety regulations, the environmental safety regulations, the clean 
water regulations. That's not how we're going to build America. That's 
how we'll destroy this country.
  We will build America through the kinds of programs that the 
President has proposed with the American Jobs Act, which is fully paid 
for with a fair tax system, one in which those at the top end of this 
economy, who have

[[Page H7122]]

prospered so well over the last 15 years, will now pay just a little 
bit more so that Americans can go back to work and so that those 
unnecessary tax breaks that have been given to the oil industry for a 
century--that 5, 6, $7 billion a year that they've received on top of 
their trillion dollars of profit over the last decades--will go back 
into America's Treasury so that we can build America once again. We 
will make it in America.
  The President is quite right: we can't wait. Americans can't wait. 
It's time for Americans to go back to work. The American Jobs Act will 
put Americans back to work without increasing the deficit and, in fact, 
by creating tax revenues for the American Treasury.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________