[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 192 (Wednesday, December 14, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H8956-H8962]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           JOBS FOR AMERICANS

  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 this 
evening. I'm joined by my colleague from Ohio, Marcy Kaptur.
  I want to thank our colleague from Texas for the explanation he gave 
about the tragedy at Fort Hood. It was, indeed, an American tragedy, as 
were other acts of violence against this country, both within the 
country and around the world.
  No doubt that there is radical Islam, no doubt that it is killing, 
not only Americans, but others around the world. And it is part of our 
task to find an appropriate way to deal with it. It's also part of our 
task to appropriately recognize the tremendous sacrifice made by our 
soldiers, both here, as in the Fort Hood incident, and certainly in 
Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Today marks a very, very special day in American history. It is the 
end of one of the great American tragedies, and that is the war in 
Iraq. No matter how we may think of this today, I think we can be very 
confident that this war of choice was, indeed, a very bad choice. More 
than 4,000 Americans have been killed in this war, and perhaps several 
times that number injured.
  Physical injuries, we often see them just off the floor as these men 
and women return from their medical treatment at the Bethesda hospital, 
and we mourn their physical loss.
  The mental problems that our veterans have incurred after multiple 
deployments in Iraq will go on for years, as will the physical 
injuries. Post-traumatic stress syndrome is a major,

[[Page H8957]]

major problem among the thousands of veterans, hundreds of thousands of 
veterans that have returned. These are issues that we must deal with.
  And as we mark, today, the final withdrawal of American troops from 
Iraq, our heart, our compassion, and indeed our actions go out to those 
veterans who have served this Nation in this war. Whatever we may think 
of the war, we must always think well and appropriately of these 
soldiers, men and women, multiple tours, National Guard, the Reserves, 
and the active Army and Navy and Air Force and Marines, all serving 
this country.
  Many things have happened here on the floor to deal with those issues 
that they have incurred. Just 2 weeks ago we passed major pieces of 
legislation that are a followup to earlier pieces of legislation for 
the veterans. The Democratic Congress, in 2009 and `10, enacted the 
most far-reaching veterans benefits since the end of World War II. A 
new GI bill is in place. Job opportunities and training are in place. 
Enhancement of the medical services through the Veterans Administration 
and many other that were culminated last week--wrong word. Not 
culminated, but added to last week with the legislation that provides a 
very strong incentive for employers to hire unemployed veterans.
  The unemployment rate for veterans is generally twice as high as the 
average American unemployment rate. Those benefits go to the employer, 
reducing their taxes by $2,600 for every veteran they hire. If they 
hire a long-term unemployed veteran, it'll be $5,600, and if it happens 
to be one of the disabled veterans, perhaps one that we often see 
outside this Chamber, then it's a $9,600 reduction in the taxes for 
that employer. We hope employers all across this Nation hear this and 
reach out to the veterans in their community and give them a job.
  The rest of the time we have tonight I'd like to talk about jobs for 
Americans. As much as we may want to think about the wars, and today we 
did, we passed the Defense Authorization Act, we have to also think 
about Americans here at home that need a job. We've been working for 
some time on a program that we call ``Make It in America,'' a 
rebuilding of the strength of the American manufacturing industry.

  Over the last 20 years, we have seen a rapid decline in the 
manufacturing base of America because that's where the middle class 
found its place. That's where the middle class found their opportunity 
to use the skills, whatever training they may have, whatever education 
they may have, and get a good, solid job that would support a family. 
Twenty million Americans were employed in manufacturing 20 years ago. 
Today, it is just over 11 million, almost a 50 percent decline.
  We can't let this continue. We cannot allow the outsourcing of 
American jobs. We have to bring those jobs back home, and there are 
many ways that we can do that. And our ``Make It in America'' agenda by 
the Democratic Party here in Congress is taking root. And tonight we're 
going to talk about many parts of that.
  Joining me is Marcy Kaptur from Ohio, which once and will be the 
heart of the American manufacturing sector. I know you have many pieces 
of legislation, and I know your intense passion on rebuilding the 
manufacturing sector in America. So let's talk about some of the things 
that are going on here in Congress and what we can do.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I want to thank Congressman Garamendi for, again, 
bringing us together to discuss the most important issue on the minds 
of the American people, and that is healing the economy here at home 
and producing a sufficient number of jobs to employ all Americans who 
want to work.
  And I join the Congressman's comments about our veterans, veterans 
who have served our country so bravely, a great sense of self-sacrifice 
and national sacrifice. We thank them, particularly during this holiday 
season, their families, their children, their relatives, their friends, 
their communities, all their employers, all of those who understand 
what this requires.
  And I wanted to just mention that, in connecting our veterans coming 
home to the employment question, it's a very serious challenge that we 
face because, even in a State like Ohio, currently, of all those who 
remain unemployed in Ohio, and there are many, 52,000 are veterans, 
already. And it was correct, I think, for President Obama, in going to 
visit with our veterans and active military at this holiday season, 
that one of the issues that came up repeatedly was, well, with our 
veterans coming home, where are they going to work with so many 
unemployed already?
  And to give an example, in Ohio and many other parts of the country, 
for every job that exists, 100 people apply or more. And even if we 
filled every job that exists, we would have millions of Americans still 
out of work.
  And yet, we have huge, unmet national needs, and that's why making 
decisions here, both on the tax side and the spending side, to get our 
economic house in order and to rein in the abuses in the financial 
sector on Wall Street that have caused such damage here and abroad, is 
absolutely critical for us to deal with and to keep those at the top of 
our priority list.
  I think Congressman Garamendi and I agree that some of the partisan 
wrangling here is really so nonproductive. And if you want to put the 
country back to work, that's what the debate should be about. We should 
have job thermometers here showing how well we're doing and how fast we 
are helping to grow this economy.

                              {time}  2030

  So as with Congressman Garamendi's support of the veterans tax credit 
for hiring, I obviously support that as well. But it's not sufficient 
because, as I understand it, the tax credit will yield about 40,000 
openings around the country; 40,000 companies will hire maybe one 
worker, or however it will ultimately transpire, but we have a need to 
reinvest in America.
  The most important factor in reinvestment is for our banks to have 
confidence and our people to have confidence that there's going to be 
stability for people in our economy. I think our party wrangling really 
works against that.
  Wouldn't you agree, Congressman?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. It really does, if I might take a moment here.
  You raised one of the very important points. I know later in this 
discussion you're going to take this up in much more detail. But it's 
very, very clear that the financial sector, in their rush for profit, 
created the housing bubble. Didn't do it all by themselves. There was 
plenty of greed on the part of certain people that bought houses, and 
the real estate community was involved in that, the mortgage community.
  But here we are after bailing out Wall Street. What is Wall Street 
doing to bail out Main Street? Not much.
  I heard a discussion earlier today from a banker that said, Oh, we're 
making all kinds of SBA loans. Yes, that's guaranteed. Those are loans 
guaranteed by the Federal Government. But what risks are they taking?
  We passed the Dodd-Frank language, which was designed to rein in Wall 
Street. Good. Very good. As strong as I would like? No. I would go back 
and put in place the Glass-Steagall Act. I was the insurance 
commissioner before the Glass-Steagall Act disappeared, and insurance 
was over here and banks were over there and investment banking was 
separate. So that the kind of problem that existed in 2000 where the 
banks went berserk and crazy in greed creating all of these CDOs and 
other kinds of really fake instruments, they couldn't do it. But 
nonetheless, the Dodd-Frank is there. Our Republican colleagues are 
refusing to fund the implementation of that program, putting all of us 
at risk once again.
  I want to go back to the manufacturing sector and some of the issues 
that arise there, and particularly the unemployment rate in your 
communities.
  Now, we have to reauthorize the unemployment insurance program; 
otherwise, is it 3.3 million Americans are going to lose their 
unemployment insurance in the first of the year? And when you have such 
high unemployment as you do in your communities, what are they going to 
do? How are they going to feed their families, pay their mortgages? And 
when you provide an unemployment check, it immediately goes into the 
economy and creates $1.6 for every dollar of the check.
  And I know you see this in yours, and you've talked to me about the 
unemployment and the way in which the cessation of the unemployment 
insurance would just devastate people here

[[Page H8958]]

at holiday season. So share with us what you were sharing, just this, 
earlier in the week when we were talking about this issue.
  Ms. KAPTUR. The problem is, when you have 100 people out there 
looking for a given job, it means 99 won't get it. And these are people 
who want to work. They have a record of working. They have actually 
collected their benefits. They've paid into the insurance fund for 
unemployment in their respective States. But when the economy doesn't 
recover as fast as it must, then what happens is, after they use up 
their first 26 weeks of unemployment, what are they supposed to do? 
Where are they going to work in order to provide for their families?
  We've had to, at the Federal level, extend unemployment because of 
this massive recession that we are digging out of. We have had to 
extend people. These are people who want to work, who have worked, who 
have a working record. So they continue looking for jobs. And I can 
tell you, some of them have been looking for jobs for 3 and 4 years. It 
isn't that they don't want to work. How many have I talked to where 
they have sent out hundreds of resumes? They have gone door-to-door 
looking for work. They have tried, and yet the door keeps getting shut 
in their face.
  At some point, any human being begins to think, There must be 
something wrong with me that I can't obtain work, when they have a very 
good record. Many of them are doing two and three jobs just to bring 
income in and then look to find a full-time job. It's very disruptive 
to family life. Many of them have moved in with their relatives now.
  And they shouldn't feel like failures. I said to my audiences back 
home, It isn't your fault. You didn't do this to America. The biggest 
banks failed us. They failed our country. They've hurt us. They've 
created false money. Many of them became so rich that no normal person 
could even imagine what they're floating in.
  But it isn't the fault of the ordinary worker. They shouldn't eat 
themselves up in self-agony. There's a lot of that out there.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I see it in my own district in California.
  One of the things that we've been trying to do is to take up the 
President's call on this matter. The President, back in September, put 
forth the American Jobs Act. Many pieces of it. We'll talk about some 
of those pieces today.
  But in the American Jobs Act, there was an extension of the 
unemployment insurance, which economists, left, right, and center, all 
say it's the best way to stimulate, to keep the economy moving. He 
suggested that we extend it for those who have been unemployed for 2 
years or more. And I think it's the only humane and compassionate thing 
to do, particularly here at the holiday season.
  He also made the suggestion that we continue the payroll tax 
reduction, which was 2 percent, that is from 5\1/2\ percent to 3\1/2\ 
percent. He suggested that the reduction be 3.1 percent.
  Now, we are as concerned as our Republican colleagues about the 
deficit, and the President is, too. And he suggested that this needs to 
be paid for. We cannot borrow money from China to do the unemployment 
insurance or to do the payroll tax deduction.
  Now, the payroll tax deduction, it's rather important. It's over 
$1,500 in the pocket of every working person in this Nation. That's an 
enormous amount of money for a person that's earning $10, $20 an hour. 
So he wanted to do that.
  How is he going to pay for it?
  He suggested that we pay for this in what is called tax fairness, 
that we take the upper income, those people that have earned a million 
dollars a year or more, and increase the tax that they pay over a 
million dollars by 3\1/2\ percent. A 3\1/2\ percent increase above a 
million dollars--not below but above. Now, that's fairness, because 
these folks have had an enormous tax reduction over the last decade, 
part of the Bush tax cuts.
  Unfortunately, that didn't happen, and you and I have been here. And 
perhaps we ought to share with the public what happened yesterday when 
a bill came to the floor to provide unemployment insurance extension 
and a payroll tax deduction. It was really not a shining day for the 
House of Representatives.
  We'll go into some detail here, but essentially what happened was 
that the legislation put forth by our Republican colleagues basically 
said, okay, we'll continue the payroll tax deduction, not at 3.1 
percent but at a 2 percent reduction, which is about a thousand dollars 
for an average worker, and that's good, certainly better than not doing 
anything; and we will also do the unemployment insurance, but only for 
half the time that the President suggested.
  And here's the kicker. All of that will not be paid by those who earn 
more than a million, the millionaires and billionaires. That will be 
paid for by the middle class. It was the 99 percenters that were going 
to have to pay for this. Not the 1 percenters, but the 99 percenters. 
It was the great shell game, and a very, very sad day. Fortunately, the 
President said, I will veto that if it ever gets to my desk; and the 
Senate has said, No way; this is not fair to the working men and women 
of America.

                              {time}  2040

  Now, we were here, and we heard some of the debate. Share with us 
your thoughts about all that went on yesterday in that rather sad piece 
of legislation.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Again, it's like a teeter-totter. It's like it's tipped 
in one direction.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Yes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I think everybody in our country knows that we all will 
have to sacrifice in order to pay down our long-term debt and that when 
we make public decisions that we help our economy grow.
  In every business I go into, they say, Marcy, bring me customers, 
bring me customers.
  Whether they're out of work and they receive unemployment benefits, 
which they have earned, or whether it's allowing an individual through 
a payroll tax holiday to have a few extra dollars of spending money, 
the advantage of helping the middle class is that it's going to go 
directly into our economy. It goes to every small business. Whether 
it's to buy vegetables at the corner stand, whether it's to buy 
gasoline for your car, whether it's to buy clothing for your children, 
when you think about where those dollars will go, it's going to go to 
essentials. It won't be wasted money.
  All of history shows us, because their incomes have really not gone 
up, because buying power has gone down for the average family and 
prices are going up, that the middle class is guarding every penny so 
much more carefully.
  I had to go out and buy some throw rugs the other day because of all 
the rain in the Midwest that had caused water to rise in our basement. 
I couldn't believe the price of throw rugs. I thought, oh, my goodness, 
and I went to two or three stores. I don't have time to do that, but I 
was reacting to the increase in prices. The average family has great 
difficulty in buying those kinds of items, so those few hundreds of 
dollars mean everything, and they will use it to improve their homes, 
for example.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. If I might interrupt for just a moment, you raised a 
very, very important point about the fate of the American middle class 
and of the extraordinary benefit that has grown for the top 1 percent. 
This is where the 99 percent comes in.
  Let me just show you this chart. It has become one of my favorites. 
This chart is about the growth of income.
  Down here on the bottom are the bottom 99 percent of Americans and 
the income that they have seen since 1979: virtually no real growth in 
the income of the working men and women, of the middle class of 
America. So, if you look at these lines, this is the top quartile; this 
is the middle quartile and the bottom quartile here: no growth or just 
a little tiny growth. Incidentally, most of that comes because now both 
the husband and wife are working, not because just one of the wage 
earners has seen it.
  This top line, Marcy, is the 1 percenters. We can see, over the last 
25, 30 years, the 1 percenters have done very, very nicely, and there 
are many reasons for this. One, they are very productive. They've been 
able to find good opportunities and to make the most of them. We 
wouldn't deny anybody that opportunity to become very, very wealthy in 
America if they play by the rules. I know, a little later,

[[Page H8959]]

you're going to talk about some who have not played by the rules and 
who have become extraordinarily wealthy. But if you play by the rules, 
you ought to be able to do very well in America.
  Yet what we're talking about here is tax fairness. A lot of this 
growth right here in the last decade was as a direct result of tax 
policy. Now, the George W. Bush tax cuts for the super wealthy, which 
were supposed to create jobs, didn't create jobs. In fact, we had a 
loss of employment in the United States. Even if you discount and take 
out the great crash of 2007-8, in the George Bush era, the argument for 
reducing the high-income tax rate was that it would create jobs because 
these were the job creators. It didn't create jobs. It did not create 
jobs. So now we're talking about how do we keep this economy going, 
about how do we provide for those who don't have jobs. How do we put 
money back into the economy? As you say, it will be spent. We do it 
with tax fairness.
  As the President suggested, for those people who earn more than $1 
million a year after all the deductions, the amount of income above $1 
million would be taxed an additional 3\1/2\ percent. That's fair. 
That's fair to the American workers, if they're unemployed or if 
they're looking for jobs, so that they'll have an opportunity.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Congressman Garamendi, as you were talking, I was 
thinking about that chart that shows the flatness of income growth in 
the middle class, and I was thinking about the last several years and 
about our U.S. trade deficits.
  Most Americans probably don't realize it, but annually, we rack up 
about $500 billion more in imports coming into our country than exports 
going out, and it hits the working class--the middle class of people--
very, very hard because it substitutes for the income that they would 
normally earn if they were manufacturing in this country as many cars 
as they used to.

  What we see happening is a tipping toward the top, but really all 
sectors are affected by the fact that our trade deficit lops off most 
of the gross domestic product growth every year. A half-trillion 
dollars bleeding out of our economy for purchases of everything from 
electronics to energy to automobiles, which are things that should be 
made inside this country, is a huge downdraft on every income quartile 
in our country. Thus, your efforts to promote American-made goods are 
right on target.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Before we go back to Make It in America, which is our 
principal policy, at least among those of us who are talking about the 
Make It in America agenda, I want to just make it very clear that this 
debate over the payroll tax reduction and the unemployment insurance is 
not over. We've got a little bit of time to get this done before the 
end of the year when all of these opportunities for people to continue 
to survive terminate.
  Right now, the Senate is going to take up the House bill, and it is 
our understanding that that bill is not going to move in the Senate. We 
need to get past this gamesmanship that we saw in the legislation that 
passed here just yesterday, and we need to get serious about finding a 
compromise that can deal with this problem.
  Here is our wish list. This is the American wish list. We have Santa 
up here, but let's just say it's to the House of Representatives--all 
of us--and to the Senate. What we would like to have in the stocking is 
not a bad lump of coal but, rather, a payroll tax cut extension. We 
could probably settle for the present. If we were to compromise, we'd 
want 3 percent, but we could settle for the 2 percent reduction. That's 
$1,000 in the pockets of every working man and woman in the State. 
That's 160 million people. That's an enormous thing for us to do.
  So this is one of the things that we would wish would happen, that we 
wish that we would do--your Representatives, Democrat and Republican 
alike, and the Senators--for the working men and women of America so 
that they can have food on their tables and roofs over their heads.
  The other deals with the unemployment insurance--5.7 million people 
are going to be losing their unemployment insurance in the coming year. 
What in the world are they going to do? Their jobs are not there, as 
you so clearly pointed out, Ms. Kaptur. The jobs are not there, and 
they need help. That's where the unemployment insurance program will 
help them and will simultaneously help the economy, as Ms. Kaptur 
pointed out. We can pay for this. We can pay for this with a Fair Tax 
system in America.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I wanted to just comment obliquely here based on what 
you've been talking about.
  In looking at job creation in a given region, if I look at the 
regions that I've been privileged to represent, we have many small 
companies or medium-sized companies. I happened to be speaking with one 
of them the other day, Hirzel, which is a major producer of tomato 
products in our region.

                              {time}  2050

  And I said, you know, I was looking for your spaghetti sauce on the 
shelves of one of our major grocery chains, and I couldn't find it. And 
it's the best sauce I have ever eaten. I said, How can I help you 
expand your product placement on the shelves of stores across the 
country? The owner of the company, a family-owned company--and they are 
the most wonderful people--he said to me, Well, you don't really 
understand, Marcy. We really aren't allowed on those shelves because 
one of the big spaghetti sauce manufacturers--and I won't mention the 
name--pays the grocery store a fee to keep all new products off their 
shelves. And even though Hirzel's is not a new product, it's regionally 
bound; and they can't get on the shelves of supermarkets because of 
what's called ``slotting fees.''
  Mr. GARAMENDI. We should work together. Excuse me for interrupting, 
but in my district, we have a ravioli company. We're talking out of 
this world. Now, maybe your sauce on top of their raviolis we could 
actually get on the shelf.
  Ms. KAPTUR. You know what, these large outfits that control retail 
sales in our country hurt innovation because what they do is they make 
deals with some of the biggest companies. Ask yourself, why, when you 
go through a supermarket and you want to find soda pop--they call it 
soda pop in some places, and they call it--what do they call it in your 
part of the country?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Obesity.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Well, if you try to find different brands, you will see 
certain brands at eye level because they pay thousands of dollars to 
each grocery store to put it there. But if you want locally bottled 
soda, or pop, you are lucky if you can find it on the bottom shelf, and 
you probably can't.
  So we have like gatekeepers. The public is largely unaware of this. 
Local meat. I represent a region that is both urban and rural. I love 
it. I am privileged to represent it. Try to get locally produced pork 
on the shelves of large supermarket chains. Good luck. You know, the 
same is true with vegetables. We could have so much more income growth 
and job growth in this country if we would have some consciousness by 
these big retailers and box stores to go local. We grow local. We make 
local. But then to try to move it to the shelf, it's almost impossible.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Black Friday, a week ago. It is all about the big 
retailers. But Small Saturday, now that was exciting. A lot of 
advertising out in California about, Go to your local shop. Buy local. 
Buy small. And it was just what you are talking about, and that is to 
find a way to provide opportunity, moving, in this case, customers to 
the local stores. Instead of the big box store, go down to Main Street. 
Stop at the local shop. Very, very powerful. And I suspect that many of 
us did that. We stopped at the local store, and we didn't go down to 
Home Depot. We went down to the Ace Hardware.
  Ms. KAPTUR. This year, again, I went to craft shows. I buy dozens and 
dozens of gifts. And I find locally made items because I know the money 
will go right in the pockets of local people. And why is it these craft 
shows, they hold them in churches, and they hold them in auditoriums, 
why don't some of these big shopping center complexes invite them in? 
What's the problem with trying to help local innovation, local 
development? We find so many restrictions that make it hard.
  One of the reasons we can't grow jobs fast enough is because certain 
interests in our society have such a lock on who can get in the door. 
There ought to be a section for local. We shouldn't have

[[Page H8960]]

to pass a Federal law for that. People should be smart enough out there 
to do it. It creates more customers all ways around, and a lot of us 
want to support local.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I don't think we're talking about a law or a new 
regulation here, but we're talking about something that we ought to do 
for our communities, and that is recognize that we're all part of a 
community.
  You said something a few moments ago that caused me to come back to 
this issue. You talked about the trade deficit. And the way in which we 
are literally exporting our money, we're also exporting our jobs.
  Last December--just a year ago--on this floor, we took up a piece of 
legislation that dealt with this issue. In the previous Tax Code, there 
were tax breaks given to American corporations for shipping jobs 
offshore. For offshoring American jobs, they got a tax reduction. And 
some of us said, Well, what in the world is that all about? So we 
scrambled and tried to find out where the codes were. And a bill came 
forth on the floor that eliminated about two-thirds of those tax breaks 
given to American corporations when they offshore jobs.
  A very interesting division occurred here on the floor of this House. 
It was a straight-up bill. It wasn't complex. It was on that issue: 
Should American corporations continue to receive tax breaks 
for offshoring jobs? That was the bill. No riders. No hidden agendas. 
No extraneous sentences put in. This House divided right down the 
middle. The Democrats voted to end the tax cuts. The Republicans, not 
one Republican voted to end those tax breaks given to American 
corporations for offshoring jobs.

  And I'm going, I don't get it, guys. You guys talk about jobs all the 
time. You talk about small businesses, and here you want to continue to 
subsidize the offshoring of American jobs? What's that all about? We 
never got an answer. But it speaks directly to the point that you were 
making earlier about policy choices. Our work is policy, policy 
choices: Are we going to do this, or are we going to do that? Are we 
going to continue to support American corporations for offshoring jobs, 
giving them our tax dollars? Are we going to continue to allow the oil 
companies to be subsidized?
  The wealthiest industry in the world takes about $15 billion a year 
of your tax money, and we give it to them. The oil, the gas, and the 
coal industries, about $15 billion a year in tax subsidies. Why do we 
do that?
  Ms. KAPTUR. You raise a very good point, Congressman. And I went into 
one of these dollar stores--I won't say which name it was--with one of 
my good friends the other day. I couldn't find a non-Chinese-made item 
on the shelf.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Wouldn't you love to go into Wal-Mart and find ``Made 
in America''? Wouldn't that be something?
  Ms. KAPTUR. I'm a city planner by training. So I look at the space in 
these stores, and I thought, I could do this. I could clear one of 
these aisles. I could consolidate over there. I could provide a place 
for locally made items, and let the local entrepreneurs compete. But 
give them a place on the shelf, and don't make them pay these 
exorbitant fees. It doesn't take an act of Congress for some business 
innovation in these big box stories. And I am thinking, you know, maybe 
America in some ways is losing her edge. Because if the CEOs in charge 
of these retail stores can't be creative enough to figure out how to 
help us encourage innovation at the local level, what are they getting 
paid so much for?
  I think of all the local food products, all the hand-made sweaters, 
all of the artwork, all of the pottery that's made locally, the food 
products that can't get to shelf because they keep them out. Come on, 
men and women out there in the retail world. Show a little creativity 
here. We have a lot of innovation at the local level.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. A little bit of patriotism.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Boy, it takes a little bit of patriotism.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me give you another example of what we can do with 
policy. Right now we have a ``Buy American'' policy that really has not 
been enforced much. So I've introduced a piece of legislation, H.R. 
613, that simply says that if it's our tax money--and every time we buy 
a gallon of gasoline or a gallon of diesel fuel, we pay either 18.5 
cents for the gasoline or 26 cents for the diesel fuel in taxes, 
where's the money going? Some of it all too often, in fact, a lot of it 
all too often, winds up going offshore.
  I will give you an example: the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, a 
multibillion dollar project, $1 billion worth of steel going into that 
bridge. It will be a beautiful thing when it's completed. The bids for 
that came in for an American-made steel bridge or a Chinese-made steel 
bridge.

                              {time}  2100

  It was a 10 percent difference in cost. That's a lot of money. So the 
State of California Bridge Authority decided that they would take the 
10 percent cheaper Chinese steel. The result is after years, the steel 
had problems. The welds had problems. The cost went well above 10 
percent, and 3,000 jobs wound up in China, and zero jobs wound up in 
America.
  So what this bill does, it simply says no more waivers. No more. If 
it is American tax dollars that are being used, it is going to be used 
to buy American-made equipment--buses, trains and the steel and 
concrete. It works.
  In the stimulus bill, which all of our Republican friends want to 
dismiss, in the stimulus bill there was one line for the several 
billion dollars of money that went into transit that said that money 
can only be used to buy American-made light rail, transit trains, and 
locomotives for Amtrak.
  Siemens opened a factory in Sacramento, California, to build those 
light-rail cars and the locomotives because the policy, drafted here on 
this floor, passed by the Senate and signed into law by President 
Obama, said that tax money can only be used to buy American-made 
equipment. And it created hundreds of American jobs in Sacramento, 
California.
  This bill, and another one like it that has now been introduced by 
the ranking member Democrat in the Transportation Committee, will bring 
hundreds of thousands of jobs when our tax money is going to be used to 
buy American-made equipment.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I wanted to mention as you were talking, Congressman 
Garamendi, as a result of the refinancing of the U.S. automotive 
industry in northern Ohio--from Cleveland, Elyria, Lorain, Avon Lake, 
Sandusky, Toledo, Defiance, the whole corridor--what we are seeing is a 
reinvestment in the supplier chain. That includes steel such as 
Republic Steel. People don't realize how many jobs in America are 
connected to the automotive industry.
  Your State of California, which manufactures a lot of semiconductors, 
half of the semiconductors procured in this country go into the 
automotive industry. If you think about carpeting, half of the 
carpeting sold in this country goes into automotive production. 
Plastics, glass--think about what is really in there. As a result of 
what we were able to do here, with a lot of flak from one side of the 
aisle, although there was some support, was to refinance the U.S. auto 
industry.
  We just had an announcement in Avon Lake that the truck platform will 
be coming back to us from Mexico. So that is retention of jobs in Avon 
Lake. It is part of the rebirth of automotive and truck transportation 
across the north. We are producing vehicles like the Wrangler, one of 
the most popular vehicles in the country, obviously, and the new Cruze 
for General Motors.
  But all the supplier chain, Republic Steel, they're putting in a new 
arc furnace. You're looking at the restoration of production. It's 
coming slowly, but it's coming. So we have to be proud of actions that 
were taken by the Government of the United States of America through 
the action of Congress and by the President to help save one of 
America's lodestar industries, which has now paid back its loans and is 
rehiring.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me just add to this. This was a result of the 
stimulus bill that put the money there, if need be, to rebuild certain 
sectors of America. President Obama courageously, and with enormous 
opposition from Republicans, said, I will not let the American 
automotive industry die. This is a fundamental industry in the United 
States; I will not let it die.
  And so he authorized the money that went to bail out General Motors 
and

[[Page H8961]]

Chrysler. Ford didn't take advantage of it because they had a different 
financial situation. But the result of that is precisely what you've 
described. It is precisely the saving of the American automotive 
industry and all of supply chain that goes with it. A very courageous 
action by the President, one that worked for the benefit of America so 
that we can once again make it in America.
  I'm going to wrap this up very quickly because I know you have a 
couple of things you want to talk about with regard to Wall Street.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I would like to add one item, though.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Why don't you go ahead, and then I will wrap up at the 
end.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Perfect. I just want to say a deep thanks to Congressman 
Garamendi for bringing us together tonight.
  I wanted to say as a member of the China Commission, we had testimony 
yesterday from various witnesses on the economy, on the legal structure 
of China, on democracy and the lack thereof in that country. One of the 
points that we discussed was how closed the Chinese market is to 
products from around the world--much like Japan, much like Korea. You 
look at Singapore, many of the Asian nations keep our products out. And 
we're asking American companies to try to compete in a situation where 
our market is open and their market is closed. So we can't get access 
to those customers.

  One of the points that was brought up by one of the top economists 
that testified before the China Commission was the fact that the 
Chinese Government backs those companies. Really, the government owns 
the companies, and they infuse billions of dollars. So think about 
this. The workers and companies of northern Ohio and the U.S. 
automotive industry are trying to compete in a global market where some 
of the major markets in the world, like Japan, are closed. And they've 
remained closed for decades. China does not welcome us in. We are 
literally competing against state-managed capitalism. It is not a free 
market. It is not a market economy we are dealing with. It is very 
controlled.
  There was criticism by some that, oh gosh, look at Congress, they are 
helping the U.S. automotive industry. It showed a lack of understanding 
of what these companies face in the global marketplace. It is not a 
level playing field. It is simply not. And, unfortunately, we have 
never had a trade ambassador knowledgeable enough about the automotive 
industry--that came out again yesterday--who can really successfully 
bargain to give us a level playing field in one of the most important 
industries that we have.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me just give you another example. I thank you for 
raising that very, very important issue.
  Last year, this House by an overwhelming bipartisan vote set out to 
address the China situation. It was a piece of legislation that simply 
said that when any government anywhere around the world unfairly 
subsidizes its business sector in a way or to the detriment of American 
businesses, then that country will face sanctions. And specifically, it 
had to do with the Chinese currency. The Chinese currency is 
significantly undervalued, perhaps giving as much as a 20 percent 
advantage to China in its exports. Bipartisan, it passed here. It did 
not pass in the Senate. However, this year my Republican colleagues 
would not even allow that to come up for a vote here, even though it 
has now passed in the Senate. So the Chinese currency bill passed the 
Senate; it is languishing in this House. I do not understand why our 
Republican colleagues want to continue to allow China to have an unfair 
advantage.
  I was going to wrap up with this. China subsidizes to a fare-thee-
well its solar and wind industries. So much so that they have taken 
over the market and have led to the bankruptcy of a couple of American 
solar manufacturers, Solyndra being one example that is much discussed 
around here. But it was really as a result of China driving down the 
price of solar panels.
  This bill, again one that I have introduced, and it comes directly 
from my district because we have a major wind farm and solar system 
there, it says that our tax money that presently goes to subsidize the 
purchase of solar systems and wind turbines must only be used to buy 
American-made wind turbines and solar panels. In other words, buy 
American, make it in America, and rebuild our industry.
  I am going to just wrap up quickly.
  It's the holiday season. It's that time when we think about our 
families. It's that time when we think about our communities. We have a 
real obligation here in the House of Representatives to put forth 
really solid legislation to support those men and women and families in 
America that, through no fault of their own, are unemployed or are 
having a very difficult time in making it in the current economy as 
wages are driven down and as opportunities for advancement are 
diminished.

                              {time}  2110

  What we hope for, and literally pray for, is a consensus, a 
compromise, in the next couple of days here on the floor of this House 
and with the Senate so that we can pass legislation that would actually 
help the American workers, those that are unemployed and those that are 
seeking a job or have a job and are unable to make it, and with that 
payroll tax deduction put another $1,000 in their pocket. And I want us 
to keep in mind that in America today there are 1.4 million children--
1.4 million children--that are homeless. Their parents have lost their 
job, they've lost their home, and they're sleeping in cars. They're 
homeless. They may be able to find an opportunity at a motel. We've 
seen some of this on television. But this is in all of our communities. 
Every community in America has this problem.
  And it's up to us here in Congress to use what compassion and wisdom 
we possess to find ways of addressing it. We have such an opportunity 
with the payroll tax deduction, with the welfare. And, unfortunately, 
the bill that passed here yesterday basically would put money into the 
right pocket through a payroll tax deduction or an unemployment check, 
and then take it out of the left pocket with an increase in fees, a 
reduction in medical services, the closing of clinics or other ways in 
which that money would be extracted.
  Yes, it would balance. It wouldn't increase the deficit except for 
the working men and women of America. We think that's wrong, and we've 
offered a different solution.
  My colleague from New York has come for a couple of short comments. I 
promised Ms. Kaptur the last few moments of this. Welcome, Mr. Tonko. 
The East-West Show is back in session.
  Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, thank you again for leading us 
in what has been a very important discussion about job creation and job 
retention in our country. And I couldn't agree more than with your 
sentiments that include this concern about providing a benefit to the 
middle class in terms of a payroll tax holiday extender, but then also 
asking them to pay for that benefit. So it is like one hand is offering 
and the other hand is taking from our working families, middle class 
Americans. This is not the prescription for success.
  What has been offered by the President is a payroll holiday extender, 
a tax holiday extender for both employers and employees. And there are 
many small businesses that stand to gain. The overwhelming majority of 
small businesses gain by that extension, and certainly the employees 
do. But it works best when you bring leverage into the equation that 
comes from the surcharge that is placed upon the most high income 
strata in our country.
  And when you look at the charts from 1979 to the present day, there 
is no denying what statistics indicate. Facts can't be argued with. 
There has been this exponential rise in the growth of income for the 
top 1 percent to about 250 percent of an increase, all while, from 
1979, middle-income Americans have seen a flat-lining of their 
household income, and now it's even dipping. So why mess with this 
progress that has been realized, this steady climb upward--slow but 
steady--from an 8.2 million jobs loss hole? We have climbed steadily. 
Why would you mess with that obvious success that is coming back into 
the economy? Allow for America's middle class families to move forward, 
and allow for that benefit to be paid for by someone other than the 
middle class. Otherwise, it's giving and taking from the same audience. 
It makes no sense.
  We stand by progress, we stand by progressive policy, and we stand by 
our

[[Page H8962]]

middle class, our working families. Let's get it done for middle class 
America. Without a strong middle class, there is not a strong America.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you very much, Mr. Tonko, for bringing that 
up.
  I'm going to ask Ms. Kaptur of Ohio to take the podium here and to 
tell us about Wall Street and some of the reforms that she is 
advocating.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and rise 
this evening on the subject of MF Global and the clear need for 
oversight by the Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, Congress isn't doing its job to investigate the fraud 
that has infected our entire financial system, fraud perpetrated by 
Wall Street, and it has hurt the global financial system as well. I 
think the reason is that too many people have forgotten that gambling 
with other people's money often entices very addictive personalities 
who are incapable of self-policing. They need rules, they need limits, 
and they need oversight. Otherwise they just keep getting into the same 
trouble again and again, harming innocent people in the process by 
looting their assets.
  The American people know that corruption on Wall Street is pervasive, 
and millions upon millions of our fellow citizens have been harmed by 
it. The Republican leadership in this House have failed in their 
responsibility to aggressively investigate crime in the financial 
services sector.

  Earlier this month, I spoke about Bloomberg's report on how President 
Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson, in 2000, 
inappropriately and behind closed doors in a private meeting tipped off 
his former colleagues at Goldman Sachs and a handful of Wall Street 
insiders about how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac might collapse and what 
steps the government intended to take. All of this occurred on the very 
same day that Secretary Paulson led The New York Times to believe that 
those two companies would give a signal of confidence to the markets.
  You can imagine what those financial insiders did with their 
investments before the rest of America was even aware.
  I also reminded my colleagues that the Securities and Exchange 
Commission was finally rebutted recently in a New York court for 
settling fraud cases with major Wall Street banks like Citigroup in a 
way that allowed the biggest banks to walk away by simply paying a few 
fines without so much as admitting any wrongdoing.
  I ask, where is this Congress' oversight of these most crucial 
financial machinations that have so harmed our Nation and world since 
the market crashed in 2008?
  Finally, after months and months of press coverage, Congress is 
taking a tad of action. Last week, the House's Agriculture Committee 
held one of the first hearings we have seen all year. That hearing, 
called by Chairman Frank Lucas of Oklahoma and Ranking Member Collin 
Peterson of Minnesota, began to shed some light on what is the eighth-
largest bankruptcy in U.S. history at MF Global Holdings. Its misdeeds 
had been widely reported, but they deserve much closer scrutiny. We 
need to subpoena their full records and transactions that led to the 
collapse.
  Even before last week's hearings, we knew that MF Global Holdings 
filed for Chapter 11 on October 30. Citizens in my district have been 
impacted and harmed as over $1 billion disappeared from customer 
accounts. The Washington Post and other press reported weeks ago that 
the firm's CEO, former Governor Jon Corzine, had essentially placed a 
$6.3 billion bet on the sovereign debt of several European Governments. 
After its most recent quarterly return showed almost $200 million in 
losses, MF Global stock lost 67 percent of its value.
  But this is not just a case of an investment firm being lured by the 
higher returns of riskier bonds. As investigators continue to piece 
together what happened at MF Global, there is increasing evidence of 
criminal activity. This case has all the trappings of a massive case of 
fraud.
  Now, CME Group Incorporated, which audited MF Global's accounts, 
reported weeks ago that Mr. Corzine's company violated key Federal 
requirements to keep its accounts separate from their customer 
accounts. At last week's Agriculture Committee hearing, the public was 
once again told that as much as $1.2 billion may still be missing from 
segregated customer accounts.
  This isn't just a case of misplaced money. The financial press has 
been reporting a staggering amount of malfeasance in the days before MF 
Global filed for bankruptcy. In an apparent effort to buy themselves 
time, MF Global sent checks instead of wiring money. Many of those 
checks, we all know now, bounced. There are stories of requests to 
transfer funds being denied and even inaccurate account statements 
being issued. Even more egregious are accounts of people receiving 
bounced checks going back and finding their accounts were also altered 
inappropriately. May I ask, if this doesn't sound like fraud, what is 
it?

                              {time}  2120

  The American people must demand more congressional oversight. 
Congress needs to produce more information.
  I attended last week's hearing in the House Agriculture Committee. 
While some important questions were asked of Mr. Corzine, Congress' 
responsibility has been far from met. Anyone who carefully followed the 
hearing watched as Mr. Corzine dodged questions and provided hollow 
responses.
  The Wall Street Journal provided us with an interesting assessment of 
Mr. Corzine's testimony that is worth entering in the Record. According 
to the Journal, Governor Corzine ducked or deflected questions 15 
times. On five occasions, he used a well known strategy for avoiding 
accountability by using some variant of the phrase, ``I did not intend 
to break any rules.'' He apologized or expressed regret six times for 
the damage his choices wrought on countless families and businesses. 
But the operative fact is $1.2 billion; that is the amount that is 
missing from MF Global's segregated client funds for which Mr. Corzine 
could provide no explanation. In fact, astoundingly, this seasoned 
trader pleaded ignorance of what was happening at his own company.
  Let me mention that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Jill 
Sommers, a representative who testified at the hearing, was very 
invaluable to public understanding.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Griffith of Virginia). The time of the 
gentleman from California has expired.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I believe that I have a Special Order and 
time remaining, my own Special Order for 30 minutes.

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