[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 166 (Wednesday, November 2, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H7238-H7243]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
JOBS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Guinta). 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 very much for the opportunity
to take this hour together with my colleagues to discuss jobs in
America. I think we know from our recent visits back to our districts
that there's a great deal of pain in America. Americans want to go to
work, and yet the jobs are not available.
Our President has proposed the American Jobs Act, a program that
would put perhaps 1.9 million Americans to work as soon as the Congress
of the United States were to pass that legislation. And so that's the
subject matter of this hour, how to get Americans back to work and how
to pay for it.
I'm going to start with the pay-for, a word that's used around here
but perhaps not readily understood by Americans. Pay-for is how are we
going to pay for the Federal programs.
Let's start with an analysis of the distribution of income in
America. There's been more and more discussion about this in recent
weeks, and appropriately so because what has happened over the last 25-
30 years is a skewing, a wide separation of wealth in the United States
to a point where it is now perhaps the widest separation between the
very wealthy and the middle and poor people in America that has ever
occurred in our history. Here's a pretty good description of it. If you
take the top 1 percent, we've seen an enormous growth in their income,
about 350 percent.
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If you take the middle, the other 99 percent of the American
population, you see very, very modest growth. And in the case of the
poor, you've actually seen a decline in their income over the last two
decades. And that's what's happened, this enormous separation between
the very wealthy and the middle class, the working men and women of
America. It's not that the real rich don't work; just not that many of
them. But they sure have got a big share of the money.
Let's take, for example, the top executives of the oil industry. If
we were to take the top executives of the big five oil companies and
compare them to a firefighter, a firefighter averages about $47,000 a
year. An executive, a CEO of an oil company, would have 307 times that
amount of income. And if you take a teacher at say $53,000 a year, the
CEO would have 273 times the amount of income of a teacher. So what
you're seeing here in just the oil industry--and this is repeated
certainly in the banking and the Wall Street industries, the financial
industries--you see this enormous separation. Thirty, 40 years ago,
this was in the range of 40 times, maybe 50 times. But now we're
talking 300 to, in the lower 300s, a separation of the super wealthy
and the working middle class, the men and women that are out there
constructing schools, making our schools or teaching our kids or
protecting us, police and firefighters.
I put those graphs up because it provides us with a solution. Before
I get to the solution, let's just take one more look at the way this
income distribution is occurring here in the United States. The rising
inequality since the 1970s saw a very sharp break in the prosperity
from an earlier era. From 1946 to 1976, the top 1 percent actually had
a very small portion of the total wealth. From 1976 to 1990, we've seen
enormous growth in the average income--not the wealth but the average
income--of the top 1 percent so that now it dwarfs the rest of the
population. So this is why you see Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Oakland,
and the other cities talking about the 99ers, the 99 percent. The 99
percent are the rest of us, and the 1 percent are the CEOs, the Wall
Street barons and those that have made enormous amounts of income over
the last 20 years.
In the last decade, that's become even more apparent with the Bush
tax cuts that occurred in 2001 and 2003. They basically significantly
lowered the tax rate for the super wealthy and allowed them to keep
even more of the extraordinary growth in their salaries and their
income.
So how does that relate to American jobs? Well, very, very directly.
The American jobs program that the President put forth called the
American Jobs Act would provide very substantial opportunities for
employment. And what I'd like to talk about is small businesses here.
The small businesses of America are given a very substantial tax break
in two different ways if they are to hire new people. For example,
small businesses with less than $5 million of payroll are able to not
pay their payroll tax, in other words, keep that money and go out and
hire people. In addition to that, with Veterans Day coming up in just 1
week, we ought to be thinking about the veterans. We know that we have
more than 1.5 million Americans that have been overseas fighting in
Iraq, Afghanistan, and a few other places around the world. As those
veterans come back, they have become the highest proportion of
unemployed in America.
It would seem to me that since we are asking so much of those men and
women that have served in our Armed Forces, particularly those that
have served in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, we ought to be looking to
their interest very directly and making certain that our programs are
focused on them. Well, this is not lost on our President. In the
American Jobs Act, he deals very directly with this by providing
employers with a very powerful incentive to hire veterans. So with
Veterans Day coming up, let's take a look at that. Let's take a look at
what the President is proposing for the 877,000 unemployed veterans,
the men and women that were out there fighting for this country,
protecting us and doing what has been asked of them in an extraordinary
way. More than 6,000 of them have given their lives, and over 40,000
have been seriously wounded. Of that 40,000, a very large proportion
are permanently, permanently damaged in many difficult and
extraordinary ways. And 877,000 of them are unemployed. And the
President, looking at the necessity of building jobs in America, said,
let's take care of those people.
So what he has proposed, and I think this is a terrific idea, is that
small businesses, in fact, any business that is out to hire a veteran
will be given an immediate $5,600 tax credit so that the taxes owed by
that business or that employer would automatically be reduced for every
veteran hired by $5,600. Hire an unemployed veteran, and you can reduce
your taxes by $5,600. Even more so, if that veteran happens to be among
those that have been wounded--and as I said, that is over 40,000--if
you were to hire one of those wounded veterans, one of the seriously
wounded that is connected with their service disability, the tax credit
increases to $9,600. That's a very, very powerful incentive for
businesses to hire our veterans. So with Veterans Day 1 week away, it's
incumbent upon the 435 of us here in the United States Congress to not
just talk the talk, but begin to vote to provide the veterans with the
services that they need.
Now why did I start off with this graph? Why did I start off with
this, showing the income disparity in the United States? Because this
is how we should be paying for it--those Americans that have done
extraordinarily well. And we're not talking about just extraordinarily
well; we're talking about extraordinarily extraordinarily well. They
have seen their income rise to a point of astronomical figures in some
cases. And certainly it's seen on Wall Street. It's time for them to
push aside the George W. Bush tax cuts. These tax cuts allowed them to
keep a very large portion of their income. Taxes went down on income
over $250,000 for joint filers, it went down from 39 percent to 35
percent. And do keep in mind all of the tax writeoffs that they're able
to take advantage of that most Americans can't get. But nonetheless,
since they've had 11 good years, 11 good years where they have received
a significant tax cut, I think
[[Page H7239]]
it's time for them to share and help our veterans get a job.
And so the President has proposed, as part of his American Jobs Act,
which is fully paid for, that those men and women whose annual adjusted
gross income after deductions--adjusted gross income after deductions--
is $1 million or more, we're not talking about mom and pop on Main
Street here, we're talking about those folks on Wall Street and those
CEOs from the energy industry and the oil companies, those folks, it's
time for them to come back and help America. It's time for them to stop
shipping jobs offshore, stop playing all the Wall Street gambling games
that got us in such trouble, and it's time for them to share in a fair
way to pay for an American Jobs Act that would put veterans back to
work by providing businesses in the United States with a tax credit
when they hire one of those 877,000 unemployed veterans that have been
out there keeping this country safe.
So if you earn more than $1 million adjusted gross income after all
of your deductions, yes, 5.6 percent of that income over and above
would be surcharged, and it would go back up to just about 40 percent.
{time} 1500
Is that going to hurt anybody? No. Is it going to help somebody? Oh,
yes. Oh, yes, it's going to help Americans go back to work. And it's
not just in the area of veterans, although we certainly ought to be
focusing on this. My plea to my Republican colleagues here on the floor
is, let's not just talk about veterans and how we honor them next week.
Let's vote this week while we are here to put the American Jobs Act out
of this House, or at least put this part of the American Jobs Act out
of the House and pay for it with a surcharge on those very fortunate
Americans who have worked hard, been lucky, or whatever. Allow them the
opportunity to pay for putting our veterans back to work. So let's get
with it.
Now I know you're going to go back to your districts, and you're
going to go to the veterans parades and you're going to talk all the
talk. But here's where the walk occurs: in this House, in this week, we
have the opportunity--in fact, we have the obligation--to really help
our veterans, to really help them by putting them back to work; and
this is one way to do it.
Let me talk for a moment about another way of doing it, and I think
I'll deal with this one. Not only are there 877,000 veterans
unemployed, but well over 9 million, 12 million Americans, and another
12 million that are underemployed. The President, in his jobs act, says
for small businesses, if you hire an unemployed person who's been
unemployed for 6 months or more, you can have a $4,000 tax credit. So
veterans, $5,600; a wounded veteran--one of our returning heroes--
$9,600; and for a long-term unemployed American, hire somebody and you
can reduce your tax burden by $4,000. That's a pretty good deal.
In addition to that, if you're a small business with a payroll of
less than $5 million, you can write off, not pay the payroll tax at
all. For individual families, the President has proposed--and we all
talk about the need for individual families to have additional money in
their pocket, so the American Jobs Act said, for individual families,
tell you what, half of the payroll tax that you're presently paying--
about 6 percent--you don't have to pay it; you can keep that money.
It's over $1,500 a year in the pockets of average Americans out there.
So the President has put together a program here, the American Jobs
Act, to deal with unemployed--some 6 million have been unemployed more
than 6 months; hire them, get a $4,000 tax credit. Hire an unemployed
veteran and you can get a $5,600 tax credit. Or if that veteran happens
to be one of the wounded warriors, one of America's true heroes, it's
$9,600.
So it's time for us to act. It's time for the American public to tell
Congress we can't wait. We can't wait. We can't take any more of this
unemployment. Pass a real jobs program.
I know my colleague here, a few moments ago, was talking about the 15
bills that went over to the Senate. If you take a look at those bills,
not one of them was a real jobs bill. What they did was basically gut
the environmental regulations of this Nation so that our children can
have a little more arsenic, a little more mercury, a little more
pollution, and a little more polluted water. That's not a jobs bill.
There is no economist in this Nation that will tell you that by gutting
the environmental regulations you're going to produce jobs. What you're
going to produce is sickness, ill health, cancer, and the rest. So
those are not real jobs bills at all. The real jobs bill is the
American Jobs Act, and we're going to be talking about that with my
colleague from Ohio in just a few moments.
I want to share with you a piece of legislation that I've introduced.
All of us are paying taxes--or at least I think most every American
pays some sort of tax, a payroll tax or perhaps an income tax. That tax
money is used for a variety of things. It's used for our military; it's
used for our Social Security and Medicare and the like. It's also used
to subsidize a variety of programs. Today at a press conference, we
talked about the $12 billion a year of subsidies that we pay to the oil
companies. That's right, you and I pay our tax money to the oil
companies so they can have a little more. Keep in mind that this year
their profits are up 100 percent. In the last decade, they've had $1
trillion of profit. They don't need our tax money. But there is a
program for clean solar and wind. Those kind of programs are our tax
money being used to subsidize green energy.
We also use our tax money to build highways, bridges, trains, light
rail systems. This bill, H.R. 613, simply says that if our tax money--
in this case, the gasoline tax money--is going to be used, it must be
used to buy American-made equipment, so that that Amtrak train out
there is made in America. We're paying for it. It's our tax money; it
ought to be American made. This is part of the Make It In America
agenda. If you want to put a solar panel on your roof and you want the
Federal tax credit, terrific, buy American-made solar panels. If you
don't like American-made solar panels, use your own money, buy whatever
you want; but don't use our tax money to buy a Chinese panel. Help
American jobs; make it in America.
The same way with these wind turbines we're seeing all around the
United States. It's our tax money that's subsidizing that, and that's
good. What's not good is if that wind turbine is made in China or
Europe. American made. You want the tax credit, buy American made
credit.
Now joining us from the great State of Ohio is Congresswoman Betty
Sutton. I know that you've been involved in this for a long time, the
Make It In America agenda.
I yield to the gentlewoman to share with us her thoughts.
Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman for his leadership. Representative
Garamendi has been a strong voice for the people of this country,
standing up for the middle class, and it is my privilege to join you
down here on behalf of the hardworking people of Ohio.
I think that we begin by noting that we think that the true measure
of America's economic success is the well-being of American families,
not just the stock market or corporate profits. Now, I know that you've
already talked about this, but it's just so important that we focus on
the fact that the promise of America must be for all Americans, not
just the wealthy few.
So we come to this floor and we once again look at a couple of
things. One of them--we've heard it many times, but it bears
repeating--you know, even some of those who have done so well in
America now are calling on us to have them do well by America. We've
heard Warren Buffett say--here's a chart that shows that his income was
$46 billion, his tax rate is 17.7 percent. His secretary's income is
$60,000 and his secretary's tax rate is 30 percent. And to quote Warren
Buffett, he says: ``My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a
billionaire-friendly Congress.'' So even he is calling on Congress, and
we join him in that call because it's so important that we focus on
what is the backbone of this country. What makes this country so great
is the strength of its middle class, and we know that it has been
squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.
We are now in a place where one in four homeowners are under water.
That means owing more on their mortgage than their house is even worth.
We
[[Page H7240]]
know that college tuition and fees increased about 300 percent over the
last 20 years, and graduates are now leaving school with an average
debt of $24,000. Taxes for the richest 400 Americans were sliced in
half as their income quadrupled and now are paying only 17 percent.
Now, this is a complicated problem, and it's a serious problem; but
the good news is that it doesn't have to be this way. We all know that
the key, the solution to strengthening this great country and restoring
the promise of the middle class lies in getting people back to work.
So I'm very happy to hear you talking about your bill that deals with
making sure that we're buying American--iron, steel and manufacturing
goods--when we move into new industries in the future. And I have a
number of bills that require the use of iron and steel and manufactured
goods made in America when we build our infrastructure, which, of
course, is one of the key components, that building of our Nation's
infrastructure that our President is trying to make happen with the
American Jobs Act.
{time} 1510
Why do we need to do that? Obviously we need to put people back to
work, but we also have this: We have more than 2,700 miles of our roads
in need of repair. That's greater than the distance between Washington,
D.C., and San Francisco, California. Now, that's from the Research and
Innovative Technology Administration at the U.S. Department of
Transportation. So we know that the need is extraordinary.
What would this mean for our workers? Under the American Jobs Act,
building new jobs for nearly 2 million unemployed construction workers.
Can you imagine?
We know that when we strengthen our infrastructure, we strengthen our
middle class and we strengthen our Nation as a whole and its place in
the world.
So, with that, thank you again, Representative Garamendi, for being
down here fighting the fight, because we can do things differently and
get different results, results that work, not just for the privileged
few, not just for the billionaires and millionaires, but for people out
there who want nothing more than a chance, a fair chance at the
American Dream.
Mr. GARAMENDI. How correct you are. Thank you very much, Ms. Sutton,
and thank you for bringing up the issue of infrastructure.
Infrastructure's a problem all across this Nation.
I spoke earlier about the use of our tax dollars to support
infrastructure so that we buy American, so that we can make it in
America. And those are middle class jobs. Once we start making things
in America, we start making middle class jobs.
The American Jobs Act has the potential of putting 2 million
Americans back to work, many of them construction. Those are not just
temporary things that are going to be built. Those are permanent
foundations upon which the economy will grow in the future. So it's a
sanitation system; it's a water system; it's a highway. That is a solid
investment that gives the American economy a foundation upon which it
can build, and immediate jobs.
What does it take?
Ms. SUTTON. You mentioned our water and our sewer infrastructure,
which is important, critically important. And as we build that out, I
have a bill that's called Stop American Jobs from Going Down the Drain
Act, and what that would do is it would require that when we build that
water----
Mr. GARAMENDI. Reclaiming my time, you have a bill that does what?
Ms. SUTTON. It's called Stop American Jobs from Going Down the Drain
Act.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I thought I heard you correctly.
Ms. SUTTON. That's correct. And it's very simple because it deals
with our water and our sewer infrastructure, which is in desperate need
of rebuilding in this country. And as we rebuild it, we can even
multiply the jobs out if, as this bill requires, we use American iron,
steel, and manufactured goods, because then the ripple effects of
putting those folks who work in those industries, our ironworkers, our
steelworkers, those who work in manufacturing, they also will have the
benefit of us building out, in addition to our construction workers.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I want to come back to your Don't Let American Jobs Go
Down the Drain Act. I love that title. But even more so, I like what it
tries to accomplish. I'm going to come back to it.
Our colleague from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) has also joined us here
today.
If you could share with us your thoughts. You're not too far from
Ohio. You must have similar issues in that great Midwest.
I yield to the gentlewoman.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Everybody has the same issues: the underground
systems, the water systems, the overhead systems, the bridges. I wonder
sometimes about those who don't support the American Jobs Act. Don't
they drive over bridges? Don't their families drive over bridges?
We have 400 unsafe, structurally unsafe bridges in the State of
Illinois, and so aside from the jobs that it would create, the safety
issues that would be addressed.
I wanted to just debunk a myth that is so persistent and that some of
our colleagues on the Republican side want to repeat over and over
again, and that is that the stimulus bill did nothing, created no jobs.
And of course that's just not true. No matter how many times they say
it, it is not true. Between 1.9 million and 3 million jobs were created
or saved.
But I also know it's not true because many of those same people, when
the ribbons get cut on those projects, actually appear at the ribbon
cuttings. As we speak right now, there are people who are collecting
those photos and videos and news accounts of those people who say the
stimulus program created no jobs so that we can compile those kind of
things and show the hypocrisy that you have when the project opens,
there they are, smiling and cutting the ribbon, because it's not true.
It did create jobs.
I wanted to point out that at the very beginning of our country,
George Washington asked Alexander Hamilton to come up with a
manufacturing strategy. Hamilton was the Secretary of the Treasury, and
he came up with an 11-point manufacturing strategy because, at that
point, almost everything had to be imported mainly from England, from
whom our colonies had just broken and now our new country was trying to
create its independence.
Really what Alexander Hamilton did was kick off the American
industrial revolution, and there are a number of principles which I
think are very applicable today. They call stimulus--he doesn't use
that word, but he talks about pecuniary bounties, which essentially is
to support industries, to give money to create jobs. This has been
found to be one of the most efficacious means of encouraging
manufacturers; and it is, in some views, the best, though it hasn't
been the practice, he says, of the United States, and that we should do
that.
He also says, the encouragement of new inventions and discoveries at
home, and the introduction into the United States such as may have been
made in other countries, particularly those which relate to machinery.
So we had a comprehensive industrial manufacturing policy which
involved the public sector making contributions, investing and making
sure that not only did we have a vibrant industrial economy, but we had
people that would work in those things.
By the way, when George Washington found out that he had been elected
President, he looked for an American-made suit and finally found
someone in Connecticut that was actually making those, the fabric;
because, while we had the raw materials, they were made into clothing
mostly in England, and he was darned if he was going to be wearing an
imported-from-England suit to the inauguration as President.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I'm absolutely fascinated. I'd heard some of this
before, but I'm so happy you brought that to our attention. So since
the very first day of this country, we've had a policy in the United
States of encouraging manufacturing, making it in America.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. That's exactly right.
Mr. GARAMENDI. George Washington's inaugural suit, I'm going to use
that. That is a wonderful, wonderful story.
[[Page H7241]]
I understand the canal system, that was a way of transportation.
Infrastructure also came about at that time. I know here in the Potomac
River canal, George Washington started that at about the same time, and
then the Erie Canal. All of these were transportation systems that were
right back at the very beginning of our country.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. These are called public works projects for a reason.
They're done by the public sector. They are good for our country. They
are good for our economy. They put people to work. And that's exactly
what we ought to be doing, and that's what the American Jobs Act is
for.
Let me just emphasize one other piece of it, and that is the piece of
fixing our schools. Again, not only does this create jobs and not only
does this do it summer, winter, spring, and fall because you don't have
to wait for construction season, but it's also good for our children
who are sitting in schoolrooms around the country that are really
toxic, where there's asbestos contamination and that are dangerous or
inadequate in the sense of being unwired for the kinds of technologies
that we need for the future in order for them to be able to get good
jobs, not only now but when they become adults and go into the
workforce.
This is such a no-brainer to me. If we are serious about wanting to
educate or children as well as put people to work, as well as create a
healthy environment for them, this is such a sensible proposal, a part
of the American Jobs Act.
Mr. GARAMENDI. As I recall, there are 35,000 schools that could be
renovated--classrooms, playgrounds, roofs, painting, bathrooms,
laboratories--35,000 schools across this Nation.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And electrical connections for the Internet.
{time} 1520
Mr. GARAMENDI. I bet some of those are in Ohio.
Ms. SUTTON. Absolutely. Ohio is in need, and I think it's important
that we look at not just the cost that we're experiencing today from
the failure to put people to work doing this work that needs to be done
in our schools, building our Nation's infrastructure, which needs
serious attention, according to all of the estimates and all of the
surveys out there. The fact of the matter is, it's important to look at
the long-term effects, too. Because those schools, if we fail to invest
in education, whether it's in the physical facilities or education in
general--which is another place that some of our colleagues across the
aisle want to cut back.
The American Jobs Act is going to put more teachers in the schools.
One of the things that we do is we choke off our future because other
countries, make no mistake, they're investing in education because they
know that that creates a better future, not just for the children and
the students themselves, but for their Nation and the strength of their
Nation.
They're also investing in their infrastructure for the same reason,
because having an up-to-date, a state-of-the-art infrastructure is
going to strengthen their competitiveness. It's going to strengthen
their place in the world.
And while others are doing that, here we are with all of this work
that needs to be done that would add to the value of our Nation which
is so great in the first instance. But there is no substitute for
creating real value.
In this last recession, we saw the very risky proposition of people
on Wall Street moving money around, not creating any real value. You
would think that more would have learned the lesson, because we need to
have strong infrastructure. When you put people to work building
things, you're creating real value. When you put people to work in
manufacturing and you take something of lesser value and you turn it
into something of greater value, that cannot be replaced with the
smoke-and-mirrors trading that we saw going on before the recession.
Mr. GARAMENDI. You're quite correct about smoke and mirrors.
When you brought up education, in the American Jobs Act, the
President has proposed a better deal for America. And part of it is
this education piece. It's right here.
In the American Jobs Act--fully paid for; we're not adding a nickel
to the deficit--fully paid for is a huge and important education piece.
We talked about the renovation of schools. Just the environment in
which kids will learn. If you have a good learning environment, it's
clean, it's healthy, well lit, the electrical system is working, you
have air conditioning and the rest, kids are going to learn much, much
faster in a better situation.
But you also need a teacher. Now, I know in California, I know from
my daughter and son-in-law, both of whom are teachers, the layoffs that
have occurred in their school and the increase in their class size. My
daughter went from 22 or 23 to 32 or 33 students in her class because
of layoffs. The President in his American Jobs Act has proposed that
280,000 teachers across this Nation go back into the classroom, that
they don't have a pink slip, that they're not unemployed. That they're
actually teaching our kids.
And as you said, the most important investment a society makes is in
the education of their children. Infrastructure, critically important.
Security, national security, military, critically important. But if you
don't have a well-educated workforce, all the rest will fail.
So let's put those teachers back in the classroom. Let's use a fair
tax policy: Those that have done so extraordinarily well in the last
two decades, the top 1 percent, let them help the rest of the 99
percent by paying 5\1/2\ percent more on income over and above a
million dollars. It works. It's fair. And 280,000 teachers will be back
in the classroom in my own State. Some 30,000 teachers will be back in
the classroom. And there will be police and firemen in the street to
help protect us. What's wrong with that? Why are we not doing it?
In the Senate last week and again this week, a Republican filibuster
was used to stop the progress of the American Jobs Act, and here in the
House of Representatives, it's not even heard before committee. The
Republican leadership will not even allow it to be heard.
So let's get on with it. Let's put Americans back to work.
I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.
Ms. SUTTON. Thank you so much, Representative Garamendi.
It seems there are some here in this body, and, with all due respect,
there are a lot of folks who come to Congress and they're fairly well-
heeled themselves. It seems that some who are here, they seem fixated
on protecting those tax breaks that ship jobs overseas. They seem very
concerned about that top 1 percent, the billionaires and the
millionaires.
It seems as if they almost believe that we can fix this country's
economy without making most Americans better off, which is a backwards
proposition. It's almost like they think that the top 1 percent is who
built this country, and that that's where all of our policies should be
aimed.
But I disagree and I know, Representative Garamendi, that you do as
well. We understand that when we have people working, building
infrastructure and making things and manufacturing, that that has a way
of rippling out, right? And then we have those taxpayers who of course
are energizing our economy. And then we have the revenue that comes
into our communities that can put our firefighters and our police
officers and our teachers into a salary that they have earned and they
deserve for doing the important work that they do.
But instead of doing that, instead of making the choice that those at
the top should pay a fair share, they want to take more out of those
firefighters and teachers and police officers and nurses.
Right now as we speak, we're a week away from a referendum in the
State of Ohio. If that issue, Issue 2, is voted down, it will be a
really big moment because what that would do is it would repeal a bill
that was passed by the State legislature there. And that bill is aimed
at attacking our firefighters, our police officers, our teachers, and
our nurses by reducing their collective bargaining rights, their
ability to even have a voice at the table, to be part of the solution,
which they always are because they know what's going on in America.
They didn't go into those jobs because they thought that they would
[[Page H7242]]
make tons of money. They went into those jobs because they had a
commitment to service, to teach our kids, to run into our homes when
they're burning to try and save us, to go out on our streets and make
them safe. And yet they're the ones that some are looking at to get
money back?
It wasn't our teachers or our firefighters or our police officers, it
wasn't the seniors on Social Security or Medicare, it wasn't the
students and their Pell Grants that drove our economy off the cliff. It
was Wall Street that drove our economy off the cliff. And it's time
that they pay a fair share so middle class America can start to breathe
a little easier again knowing that they'll have opportunities in this
country.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I am so proud of what you and others are doing in
Ohio, fighting back against an extraordinarily unfair law that takes
away the ability of people to come together and collectively voice
their concerns. That's what it's all about.
You can say it's unions, and yes, but it's also the ability of people
to say, Wait a minute--we're all working here at this school. We're the
workers. We're the teachers, and we should have a voice in what is
going on here. Not just in our pay and in our benefits, but also in the
way this is working.
{time} 1530
So you're fighting back, and you're making progress. Hopefully, that
proposition will pass, and we'll begin to set a new model.
Ms. SUTTON. Representative Garamendi, I couldn't agree more with the
idea that this is the voice of the people, that this is a referendum.
They said to the Republican Governor and the legislature there, You've
gone too far. Our firefighters and our police officers and our
teachers, they're not our enemies. They're our heroes; they're the
people who we look up to, who do good work on behalf of all of us, not
just those who are the privileged few. And this is where we make our
stand: on this referendum.
It's so important that the American people look at what's going on,
frankly, in Ohio, and that we have a strong voice. Just to make sure
that we have a correct record, a ``no'' vote on that issue is going to
repeal that bad bill. We'll see what the people in Ohio do, but I am
confident that we're speaking up together for one another and for
police and firefighters and teachers.
Mr. GARAMENDI. We need to also understand where the power has
shifted. The power has shifted here.
This is the average pay of the CEOs of the five biggest oil
companies--$14.5 million. That's 307 times the pay of a firefighter,
273 times the pay of a teacher, 263 times the pay of an average police
officer, and 218 times the average pay of a nurse.
So what we have seen--and part of this has to do with collective
bargaining--is that the power has shifted to the CEOs, to the
extraordinary wealthy, and that it has resulted in this situation:
where the middle class and the poor in America have seen virtually no
change in their incomes over the last 20, 25 years. They've been
flatlined--basically the same level of income. They're just making it.
This particular line is the next highest 20 percent. The only reason
they've seen their incomes grow is that both husband and wife are now
working. Back there, back in the seventies, mostly just one or the
other was working; but now both are working.
But look here: this is the top 1 percent. Here are the 99ers. Here is
the 99 percent down here at the bottom and the 1 percent up here. What
we're saying is let's put Americans back to work with the American Jobs
Act, and let's have a Fair Tax, not the George W. Bush tax cuts that
gave this group even greater wealth, a greater annual income by cutting
their taxes, but rather to restore that tax rate and allow that money
to be used to hire the unemployed veteran.
There are 877,000 unemployed veterans. These are the men and women
who fought for us in Iraq. These are the men and women who fought for
us in Afghanistan. These are the men and women who came back without
their legs, with their minds jumbled because of an IED--877,000 of
them. Give them a chance by this group that has been so extraordinarily
successful, in part, because of their own work and, in part, because of
the tax cuts that they've enjoyed for the last 11 years.
Ms. SUTTON. The gentleman makes such an important point.
Here we are. We're coming up on Veterans Day. It is not enough to
just go out to ceremonies on Veterans Day and express our appreciation,
although that should happen. We should be expressing our appreciation
to veterans, not just through those ceremonies but through our
policies. We have all of these veterans out there who are returning
from the current wars, and we have other veterans out there looking for
opportunities. The American Jobs Act will help us to create those
opportunities that they so richly deserve.
Let's be clear: the people who are fighting our wars, they are part
of the 99 percent. Very few are part of the 1 percent. So it's really,
really important that we do focus on giving them the opportunities, the
American Dream, the fact that if you work hard and if you try hard and
if you play by the rules that you'll be able to make it in America.
That is part of what they were fighting for.
So I could not agree more. We've got to focus on getting help to our
veterans.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Exactly.
As we begin to wrap up our hour here, Veterans Day is one week away.
There are 435 of us here in this House who are representing the
American people, and we have an opportunity. All of us will be out
there on November 11. We'll be doing our parades, and we'll be giving
our speeches about how wonderful the veterans have been in America;
877,000 of them have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan and have served
this country in an extraordinary way. They're unemployed. They need a
job.
The American Jobs Act will provide every employer in the United
States with a $5,600 tax reduction, not a tax credit, that is, their
taxes will be reduced by $5,600 for every unemployed veteran they hire.
If they hire a veteran who has been wounded, one of the returning
American heroes, it's a $9,600 reduction in that employer's tax.
Why are we not doing this? It's fully paid for. It's paid for with a
small tax increase by those who have been so extraordinarily successful
in the last decade. Why are we not helping our veterans find a job?
Because, in this House, the Speaker and the Republican Party refuse
to address this issue. No hearings have taken place on the American
Jobs Act that the President has put before this Congress. You can talk
the talk. You can talk the talk forever. You can go home and you can
talk the talk; or you can be here this week, and you can give our
veterans a real opportunity. It's not just those who have returned from
the war. There are veterans out there who fought in the previous wars,
who served this country in Vietnam and in the first gulf war. They're
unemployed or they are retired and they're receiving Social Security.
So, here on this floor, proposals have been put forth; and in the
supercommittee, again proposals have been put forth to reduce the
Social Security benefits, to reduce the foundation for retirement in
this Nation so that the 1 percent don't have to pay their fair share of
the taxes. Something is desperately wrong. Those seniors and those
veterans are dependent upon Medicare for their health when we consider
that it was Medicare that took more than 50 percent of the seniors out
of poverty in the 1960s and gave them the health care that they needed
to stay alive. Yet the proposal put forth on this floor that was voted
on three times by our Republican colleagues would destroy Medicare and
put every senior at risk, and those who are 55 and younger would never
receive Medicare. They'd be thrown to the mercy of the private
insurance companies.
Why would we ever allow that to happen? Because apparently some want
to continue the tax breaks for the superwealthy.
But here we are one week away from Veterans Day--and a lot of talk. I
want some action. America can't wait. These 877,000 veterans can't wait
for a job. In Ohio and in California and in every other State in this
Nation, this is the reality faced by veterans. This House has an
obligation, this Speaker has an obligation to put the legislation
before this House and to let us speak, to let us represent the people
who elected us.
Ms. Sutton, thank you so very much for joining us. You've been a
wonderful
[[Page H7243]]
Representative of Ohio. I've watched you fight day after day to put
legislation in place so that your men and women in your district can go
back to work. Please wrap it up. Share with us your thoughts.
Ms. SUTTON. It is my honor and my privilege to stand up for the
people of Ohio and for the veterans you were just speaking of.
I just have to say, those veterans, those men and women who were on
the battlefield, they weren't just fighting for Wall Street; they were
fighting for the United States of America and all that it stands for.
They weren't just fighting for the top 1 percent; they were fighting
for all of us. Now they're coming back, and we have an obligation. We
have a promise that we have made to them, part of which would be
fulfilled if we could get the American Jobs Act passed. So it is
incumbent upon us to beat back.
{time} 1540
We hear a lot of rhetorical terms. In the last election we heard over
and over again, Oh, we could create jobs if we could get government off
the backs of the job creators.
Well, look, the refrain, people don't want government on their back,
I agree they don't want government on their back. But you know what?
They do want government on their side. And that is not what they have
been getting and that is why we have to be here, to stand up for the
middle class, to stand up for those veterans, for those seniors, for
those college students, for those workers, for those firefighters and
those police officers, those teachers and those nurses who have
suffered far less growth as, we know, Wall Street continues to flourish
with record CEO bonuses and all of those profits. We just want people
to pay a fair share, and we want the American people to have a fair
shake.
Thank you for your leadership. You have been tremendous.
Mr. GARAMENDI. And thank you so very much for so ably representing
Ohio and your constituents.
We've got work to do. We've got veterans to care for, and they need
help. Americans want jobs, and the American Jobs Act is there. If we
were to bring that up today or tomorrow instead of the foolish little
bills that have been going on around here for the last month and a
half, Americans could go back to work, and it would be fully paid for
with a fair tax. We have work to do.
I ask the Speaker of the House and my Republican colleagues to give
Americans a chance to go back to work. Put the American Jobs Act up for
a vote; put that tax up for a vote, and let's pass it. I think we'd
vote it out of here in half a moment if we had a chance. But right now
we don't even have that chance.
With that and hope for the future and thanksgiving for those men and
women that have been out there protecting this Nation, the veterans,
young and old, able and disabled, we thank them.
I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________