[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 174 (Tuesday, December 10, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H7620-H7626]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bentivolio). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Garamendi) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, we come here about every week to talk 
about jobs in America. This last Friday, we held a jobs fair in my 
district in Fairfield, California, and it was a remarkable event. I 
have been around a long time. I have seen many, many things. As 
remarkable as it was, it was also one of the saddest events I have been 
to. I have been to a lot of funerals and a lot of tragedies over the 
years, but this one ranks very high.
  I put this picture up here because this is a picture of the second 
hour after that job fair had begun. The line outside the building, 
where we had some 40 employers that were offering to hire people, 
stretched over 200 yards. The temperature was about 37, 38 degrees. It 
was one of those cold mornings, and these people were determined to get 
a job. They were willing to stand in that line for up to an hour and a 
half, some of them perhaps even 2 hours, just to have a shot, just to 
be able to talk to an employer, to have the opportunity to look face-
to-face at an employer and say, ``I want to work.'' The stories were 
incredible. I spent about an hour, maybe an hour and 20 minutes, 
talking to the men and women that were in this line.
  I remember one gentleman who had served several tours in Afghanistan 
and Iraq. He said he was with the Army Rangers, said he had four Purple 
Hearts. He left the military and is now unemployed. In fact, in this 
line were 141 veterans, unemployed, looking for work. They have skills, 
know when to get up in the morning, know what it takes to go to work, 
to put in a full day or more--unemployed.
  A young woman, fresh out of school, a child at home, she wanted to go 
to work. She had an associate's degree in social welfare programs, 
human relations, anything in that area. She said: I will take any job. 
I just want to go to work. I want to take care of my child.
  Another woman, 50, 55, divorced, had an 18-year-old child. Her 
alimony is over: I have got to go to work. I have got to support 
myself.
  The stories of life, the stories of America, the stories of 971 
people that stood in line just to have a shot at a job.
  There are 435 of us in this room on a full day. We have a job. We are 
employed, and we have a good wage. We have a very good wage, and we 
have health care. And we are not doing our job. We are not doing the 
job that America sent us here for. America sent us here to put America 
back to work. That is our job. We are not living up to that.
  Two years ago, the President of the United States put forth in his 
State of the Union message an American jobs plan, an American jobs plan 
to put people in this Nation back to work. It was complete: education, 
retraining, a research component for the next sector of this economy 
for the future, a transportation infrastructure sector, a way to 
finance it--2 years ago.
  Mr. Speaker, 971 people were standing in the cold in Fairfield, 
California, just wanting a shot at a job; and here we are, 2 years 
after the President of the United States put forward a jobs plan for 
America, and it has not been done. The majority in this House has 
refused to bring up even one of those programs.
  I am going to talk about those things tonight, those things that we 
can do here in America, that we can do so that when 971 of my 
constituents are willing to line up to get a job, they will have one. 
They will have that opportunity. They will have a shot at the future.

  It is a disgrace that after 2 years with a complete plan that would 
put people back to work, the majority has refused to bring forward any 
part of that legislation. It is a disgrace. It is time for this country 
to go back to work. It is time for this House to go back to work to put 
Americans back on the job.
  You want to deal with the deficit? Put people to work. They will 
become taxpayers. You want to deal with food stamps? You want to cut 
food stamps? Put people to work. Build the infrastructure. Put the 
teachers back in the classroom. But no, you are going to slash the 
benefits.
  These people, searching for a job, know that unless this Congress--
and I see our esteemed leadership and the Republicans leaving this 
House, this floor. These people want to go to work. They are losing, in 
the next 2 weeks, their unemployment benefits. What will become of 
them? What will become of those 971 people, including 141 veterans who 
have fought, who have been wounded? What is going to become of them?

[[Page H7621]]

  Joining me today are my colleagues on the Democratic side. I would 
like to start with my colleague from Illinois, General Bill Enyart, who 
is now a Member of the House of Representatives.
  Bill, please join us.
  Mr. ENYART. Thank you, Mr. Garamendi.
  I am privileged to represent the people of southwestern Illinois, 
that swath of the great State running along the Mississippi River from 
just north of St. Louis, from Alton, Illinois, all the way south to 
Cairo. And those 12 counties of southern Illinois, southwestern 
Illinois, were once an industrial powerhouse.
  It was said four decades ago, five decades ago, if you wanted to 
work, go to East St. Louis, Illinois, and there will be a job for you 
there. There were jobs in the steel mills. There were jobs in the 
packing houses. There were jobs in the stove foundries in Belleville. 
There were jobs in the coal mines of southern Illinois. Those jobs are, 
by and large, gone today.
  There are a few bright spots. U.S. Steel has a plant in Granite City 
that is still pouring steel. Alton Steel in Alton, Illinois, has 
reopened. A local entrepreneur bought it, and they are pouring steel in 
Alton again.
  But, you know, those jobs in the packing houses are gone. The jobs in 
the aluminum industry, those jobs are gone. And that is why they call 
it the rust belt, because so many of those factories are closing and 
rusting away.
  Technology has changed a lot of that, and we need to adapt to that 
technology. And to that end, the assistant minority leader, Mr. Steny 
Hoyer, along with Mr. Garamendi and myself, introduced the JOBS Act. 
The JOBS Act is sitting here. It needs to be acted upon. We can't get 
the leadership to act upon it. But we introduced this JOBS Act, and we 
introduced it because there are really four priority areas that are 
central to achieving manufacturing growth in this country again:
  First of all, we need to have a national manufacturing strategy. 
Other countries have it. We need to have one. We need to have a 
strategy that pushes our manufacturing;
  Secondly, we need to promote the export of U.S.-made goods;
  Thirdly, we need to encourage businesses to bring jobs and bring 
innovation back to the shores of our country; and
  Lastly, we need to train and secure a 21st century workforce.
  And that is really what the JOBS Act does. That act invests in our 
future. It invests in our infrastructure, our human infrastructure, the 
people who drive those machines and the people who drive our economy.
  And it was interesting that Mr. Garamendi mentioned food stamps. I 
want to talk about food stamps for just a minute because far too many 
people in my district survive on food stamps.
  Something like over 60 percent of the people on food stamps are 
children. It is not people who aren't working because they don't want 
to be working. Sixty percent are children who are in low-income 
families. And the bulk of the adults who are on food stamps are working 
adults, and they are working in minimum wage jobs. They are working in 
fast-food restaurants. They are working in other minimum wage jobs. And 
you can't raise a family in southern Illinois on a minimum wage job.
  We need to have jobs that pay a living wage with good health 
insurance, with good fringe benefits that provide a living wage for 
families. When you do that, what happens? You don't have people on food 
stamps. You don't have people on unemployment. You, instead, have 
people who are paying taxes. You have people who are spurring the 
economy. You have people who are buying new pickup trucks and new 
curtains for the living room and so on and so forth, and that generates 
an economy that generates good jobs.
  Now, to talk about the JOBS Act that Mr. Garamendi, Mr. Hoyer, and I 
introduced, what does it do? It is designed to support advanced 
manufacturing. Now, why do we want to support advanced manufacturing? 
We want to support advanced manufacturing because--there was an article 
in The Wall Street Journal just the other day. I have it right here, 
The Wall Street Journal, the journal of American business. 
Manufacturing jobs pay nearly 40 percent more than other jobs in our 
Nation's economy. That is why we need advanced manufacturing.
  So our bill--Mr. Garamendi's bill, my bill, Mr. Hoyer's bill--would 
amend the Workforce Investment Act to provide targeted investment to 
partnerships with community colleges, local workforce investment 
boards, and advanced manufacturing firms to design and implement 
education and training programs for current and prospective workers.
  Now, currently, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College 
program does provide some funding for that type of thing; but, 
unfortunately, there is no assurance for investments in advanced 
manufacturing, and that is where we need to go in this Nation. What we 
need to do is to align the training opportunities for those advanced 
manufacturing firms, for their needs, for adaptability in the training 
of workers.
  I toured the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I have one of those in my district, too.
  Mr. ENYART. I toured that brewery a couple of weeks ago, and the 
brewery manager told me that, in 1999, they had 3,500 hourly employees. 
And those were good jobs. Those are good jobs. Anybody can tell you 
that if you work union work, a brewery job working for Anheuser-Busch, 
that was a job you would have for your entire life. That would be a 
great career for a working man.

                              {time}  1700

  That would be a great career for a working man. Today, they are down 
from 3,500 to 785 jobs. Now that is due largely due to improved 
technology, and they simply didn't need that many workers anymore. But 
that displacement of workers has happened throughout our economy, and 
it has happened in other areas of our economy, in addition to 
breweries.
  So we need to grow the kind of advanced manufacturing jobs, and we 
need to have the workers who have the skill to move up so they are not 
working in those minimum-wage jobs and getting food stamps and Medicaid 
and those other government programs. Instead, we need people who are 
paying money in, and that is what our jobs bills does.
  I know that Mr. Garamendi, Mr. Hoyer, and I want that bill to come to 
a vote. We believe that bill would pass with a resounding bipartisan 
vote if simply the leadership would allow it to be brought to the floor 
for a vote.
  Advanced manufacturing is growing in this country. It is increasing, 
but the problem is it is not growing fast enough.
  When we look at our economy over the last 5 years since President 
Obama won election the first time, we lost 5 million jobs when he was 
first elected, virtually immediately, and we have been growing those 
jobs back at 200,000 a month, 200,000 a month, 195,000 a month. We need 
to grow them back faster, and we can do that with this JOBS Act.
  With that, I yield back to my partner and friend here, Mr. Garamendi.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much, General Enyart.
  Joining us also is another Representative from the Midwest who has 
considerable experience here in the House of Representatives--Ohio, in 
this case--Marcy Kaptur.
  Welcome. I am delighted you are with us. You talked about making it 
in America and about American jobs many times, and we have shared this 
floor on that subject in the past.
  Welcome.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Congressman Garamendi, I would like to commend you for 
the leadership that you have shown on the jobs front here. Your coming 
from California, that vast, vast State, I think brings such a 
perspective to all of us. And Congressman Enyart comes from a rough and 
tumble region of Illinois. We in northern Ohio identify with your cause 
and are one with you in your cause.
  If there is an ad in our district for a job--or for maybe 10, 20, or 
30 jobs--thousands of people apply. It is incredible to see.
  And you mentioned in your earlier remarks how many veterans are 
unemployed. About a week ago, at one of the food banks that I 
represent, 1,050 veterans showed up to get a bag of food to keep it 
together for another week.
  If you look across this country, there are many whose glass is only 
half full,

[[Page H7622]]

and it is not for lack of effort or service to this country. It is 
still a lack of jobs.
  During the Bush years, we hemorrhaged over 8 million jobs as a result 
of the recession. We have gained over 7 million of those now, but we 
still haven't come back to the 8 million, even though we have had 44 
months of consecutive job creation, as Congressman Enyart mentioned, at 
about 200,000 a month. But that is not enough to employ all those who 
remain unemployed and those who are underemployed, those who literally 
have to apply for SNAP coupons to help their family afford food because 
they are not paid enough.
  And what I see happening over the last quarter century is that even 
though those who have capital--big resources--and they invest money and 
they make a lot of money for their shareholders and themselves, the 
people that they hire are falling further and further behind. And they 
expect the government to compensate for low wages.
  And so if we have SNAP coupons, there are millions of people who 
receive them who are working for minimum wage. They don't make a living 
wage.
  If you look at health benefits, it used to be that you got your 
health insurance through your place of employment. But guess what, that 
is all turned upside down. Now the companies are saying, Let the 
government pay for it. We have to do this because they do not make 
access to health insurance as a part of the employment package that is 
offered to their employees. Some still do; but my goodness, how much 
has changed.
  The same is true with retirement: defined benefit as opposed to 
defined contribution plans. People used to get a benefit in their 
retirement that the corporation provided. They just didn't hog 
everything to those at the top, but the pyramid has gotten very 
pointed; and the money flows up, and it isn't flowing down. We have an 
attrition in the middle class. Every single American knows it.
  Now, if you look at the Congress and the very worthy legislation that 
you have introduced, I say to myself, What has happened here?
  I read one magazine that said for the new Members that were elected--
and it was quite a sizeable class--the average worth of those new 
Members was about a million and a half dollars.
  Think about that. The pyramid we see in the corporate sector is 
reflected right in here. Fewer and fewer people are getting elected 
from the middle class. And I don't come from the middle class. I came 
from the working class. We looked up to the middle class. So I know 
what part of America I came from.
  So many people here, honest to God, are good people, but they are so 
privileged. They have myopia. They can't help it. They really can't 
identify with the struggle of ordinary families, and the other part of 
it is they look down because they have never walked in the shoes of 
those who have gotten an unemployment slip or a pink slip.

  I remember when our dad came home with those. I used to have to sit 
by our dining room table and figure out how much would we spend on 
food, how much would that be worth, how long would he be unemployed. It 
was a very hard thing for our family. He actually had to sell his 
little store because he didn't have health insurance, and he went to 
work in a company on the line in a factory for one reason: to get 
health insurance for his family. Not for himself, but for his wife and 
two children.
  There are so few here who actually have walked in those shoes.
  So we do have a problem here. That same pyramid is operating.
  If I could just finally mention the value-added investment in 
manufacturing. Manufacturing now comprises about 13 percent of our 
economy--the jobs--but it packs a much larger wallop for what it 
provides because it really does create something that didn't exist 
before. It isn't just shifting product around. It is actually creating 
something.
  The decline in manufacturing as a percent of our total economy has 
declined so much in the last 25 years. We are now trying to pick it up, 
with the President's help; and we are seeing that in the automotive 
industry. Just this week, General Motors paid back and is flying on its 
own now again. All of us who supported that refinancing of General 
Motors are cheering and cheering and cheering wherever we can--
certainly in the communities that we represent.
  But I can remember when the other side didn't vote for it; and they 
would have killed all those jobs in our country, the community, the 
people that work in them.
  So I say to the gentleman, I thank you so very much for standing up 
for job growth in this country. Thank you for standing up for 
manufacturing, because for every one of those jobs added, we create new 
wealth for our country, and we help America to come out of the slump in 
manufacturing that she has experienced over the last quarter century.
  I just hope that in the new trade bills that come before us we will 
have jobs as our first priority and market opening abroad that keeps 
our products out.
  Again, I want to thank the gentleman. I support your legislation and 
I support your efforts for investment to create wealth, whether it is 
infrastructure on the public side or whether it is infrastructure on 
the private side. Those are the jobs that really create the new wealth 
and expansion of jobs for America.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Representative Kaptur, you have been at this for a 
long time. You come from an area in this Nation that in recent decades 
has been called the Rust Belt. I think that is not the situation, with 
your leadership.
  We have seen a resurgence in American manufacturing; and 20, 25 years 
ago, we had just under 20 million Americans working in manufacturing 
with those middle-income jobs. This is the middle class. They were able 
to support their family, educate, get a boat, go on vacation, buy a 
house, provide the food, and take care of their family, just as you 
described.
  And then we have seen in the last 20 years an enormous decline--from 
20 million down to just under 11 million manufacturing jobs, and a lot 
of that decline had to do with American policies.
  You mentioned trade programs. Clearly, that had a lot to do with 
offshoring tax policies that encouraged corporations to send jobs 
offshore rather than keeping jobs here. And there are other labor 
policies and the like that made it difficult for the American family to 
earn that living.
  Our challenge is to reinvigorate the working American families' 
opportunity. And to address that, I will say that I heard a remarkable 
speech by a freshman. And it is not that I have been here so long. 
Steve Horsford from Las Vegas gave a speech on the floor here about a 
week ago, talking about these issues and talking about the challenge 
that American families face. I asked him to join us. I was impressed by 
his grasp of the issue and the passion with which he spoke.
  Representative Horsford, welcome to the one hour of what we call Make 
It in America, the American Jobs Program.
  Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Garamendi) for yielding time. I appreciate your leadership, as well as 
the work that you and our whip, Mr. Hoyer; General Enyart; the 
gentlelady from Ohio; the gentlelady from Maryland; and many of my 
other colleagues, who have been working for so long to bring the focus 
to jobs, job creation, and growing the economy in America.
  We are here today to talk about the American Dream, and that is 
having a good job--a family-sustaining job that can provide for 
yourself and your loved ones. We are talking about expanding economic 
opportunity not just for a select few at the top, but for those who are 
in the middle class who are striving to become a part of it. We are 
talking about the basics of job creation.

  And, yes, I am a freshman. I have been here for just under a year. I 
am amazed and quite humbly frustrated by the fact that in 1 year not 
one comprehensive jobs bill has been brought to this floor for a vote 
by the majority on the other side; and yet we have example upon example 
of good job-creating legislation. The package of bills that is under 
the umbrella of the Make It in America proposal are good, commonsense 
proposals that would help every region of our country.

[[Page H7623]]

  Now, I am from Nevada. At 9.3 percent, my State, though, has the 
highest unemployment in the country right now. It is nothing that we 
are proud of. It is stubbornly high, in large part because we 
experienced the hardest impact during the recession. When people aren't 
doing well in other regions of the country, they are not making money. 
That means they can't come to Nevada to spend money.
  While our economy is largely dependent upon hospitality and the 
service industry, my district, which encompasses some 51,000 square 
miles throughout every corner of Nevada, has mining, agriculture, and 
four military installations, including many, many private small 
business contractors who are doing work at our Air Force bases and the 
Army depot. It has other small businesses who are ancillary to the 
hospitality industry. And so they have all been impacted by this 
decline in the economy, and so we have an unemployment rate that is 
currently at about 9.3 percent.
  I am glad that my colleague from California showed those pictures 
from the job fair that you conducted. I want to commend you for doing 
that because it puts a face on these numbers. It is not about a 
percentage point here or there. It is about the faces of the people who 
are standing in line looking for work.
  Right now in this body at this time it is incredibly important for us 
to focus on the lives of the people who are impacted because of this 
Congress's inability to get something done as important as jobs 
legislation for this country.
  Now I would like to touch just on two major points, if I could. The 
first is the fact that, again, in my State, we have had a prolonged 
recession. So many of the people who have been unemployed have been 
unemployed for going on a year or longer. Some of them actually are 
from the construction sector, which was our number two industry in 
Nevada. But because of the burst in the housing market, the fact that 
we are not building as much in the commercial sector, the lion's share 
of the people who are unemployed actually come from the construction 
sector.
  They also come from engineering companies. They also come from 
architecture companies. I have talked to small business owners who run 
architecture firms who have had to lay off more than 40 to 50 percent 
of their staff over the last few years.

                              {time}  1715

  These are good-paying jobs as well, jobs that provide good wages for 
families to provide for themselves.
  But the points I want to make include the fact that on December 28, 
if this Congress doesn't do something in the next few days, some 20,000 
individuals in Nevada who currently are receiving emergency 
unemployment compensation are at risk of losing that safety net, if 
this Congress fails to act.
  Now, I don't see how in good conscience we as Members of Congress 
who, as you say, get paid a good wage--the best wage I have ever had as 
a poor person growing up in Nevada who has had to work two jobs 
virtually since I was 14, 15 years of age, to now be a Member of 
Congress, is a great honor. But I do not see how in good conscience we 
could leave here on Friday and fail to extend unemployment benefits for 
millions of Americans who need this safety net, especially at the 
holiday season
  Now, a lot of people who were standing in that line have children. 
They have families that are relying on them to put food on the table. 
There are people in my district who I have talked to who say that they 
are going to go without having a holiday this December because the only 
thing they can do is to provide enough money to keep a roof over their 
head, food on the table, and gas in the car so that they can keep 
looking for a job.
  So I would encourage the leadership here to do everything that they 
can to allow us to vote to extend the unemployment emergency 
compensation that is set to expire on December 28; 20,000 Nevadans in 
my home State are relying on it, and I know millions of other Americans 
are as well.
  Let me just close to my colleague from California by also offering 
one more suggestion of ways in which we can get America working again. 
I introduced legislation, Putting Our Veterans Back to Work Act of 
2013.
  One other interesting fact about Nevada, about a third of our 
constituents are veterans. These are people who have given their all to 
protect our country's freedom in a time of combat; and now all they ask 
for when they come home is an opportunity for a job, an opportunity for 
decent housing, for quality health care, access to education for 
themselves and their kids.
  So, with my colleagues, I have introduced H.R. 3454, the Putting Our 
Veterans Back to Work Act. It renews our vow to hire our heroes by 
reauthorizing the transition, retraining, and employment services that 
have been created. It expands our vow to veteran small business owners 
to ensure that they have access to capital that they need for the 
veteran-owned small businesses that we are encouraging to grow.
  It builds on our vow to hire heroes by basically committing 
additional resources through job training, the Workforce Investment Act 
system, to ensure that our veterans are given priority for hiring.
  Finally, it ensures that our veterans are not being discriminated 
against in the workplace. So this is an important contribution I think 
to the Make It in America proposal, and I think it speaks to the other 
opportunities that we have here today to grow our economy.
  I just want to close by saying to Mr. Garamendi that it is great that 
we can have a focus on what we can do in this Congress. Again, I have 
only been here a year, and it is frustrating to hear what we can't do: 
the fact that we haven't been able to pass comprehensive immigration 
reform or employment protections for individuals regardless of who they 
love, the fact that there are infrastructure bills that have been 
proposed by the Make It in America proposal that have bipartisan 
support so we can revitalize our country.
  We can do great things if this body, if the Members on the other side 
who have refused to allow these bills to come to a vote, if they could 
meet us halfway. We can meet the needs of the American public. We can 
provide equal pay for equal work and make sure that women are paid the 
wages that they deserve. We can invest in education and make sure that 
our schools are adequately funded. We can replace the sequester and 
make sure that our kids have a head start at a bright future, and we 
can strengthen our social safety net for seniors and the poor and those 
who are in the middle class.
  Mr. Speaker, there is no shortage of what we can do to increase 
opportunity, to grow the economy and to create jobs. This Congress just 
needs to show the willingness to work, to put the American people back 
to work.
  I want to commend, again, my colleague, Mr. Garamendi, and the others 
who have spoken this evening for putting this issue front and center. 
This is the priority that the American people want us to focus on: 
jobs, jobs, jobs. Thank you.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so very much, Mr. Horsford. Thank you for 
your passion, for your knowledge, for your concern about your 
constituents, and particularly about those men and women that are from 
the military.
  I also have two major Air Force bases in my district with a very 
large population of veterans, both young and old, from the various wars 
and conflicts of the past. And they need a shot. Your legislation ought 
to be the law. It simply should be the law of the land. We should put 
these people back to work. We showed the picture earlier of the people 
lined up; 147 of those were veterans. I think about 14 were actually 
hired that day and given a chance.
  I often put this up when we have these opportunities to speak on the 
floor about jobs and putting men and women back to work, because this 
is kind of a compass that I like to use when I think about legislation, 
when I think about what we ought to be doing here.
  Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR, talking about a New Deal, he said 
this:

       A test of our progress is not whether we add more to the 
     abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide 
     enough for those who have too little.

  We need to think about that often here on the floor. The issues that 
we have talked about today--putting people back to working, the minimum 
wage, and unemployment insurance, and food stamps or the SNAP program--
all speak to this fundamental

[[Page H7624]]

test of America's moral compass. A test of our progress is not whether 
we add more to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we 
provide enough for those who have too little.

  December 28--Representative Horsford laid out that date--December 28, 
millions upon millions of Americans will lose their unemployment 
insurance, not because they are lazy, not because they don't want to 
work. These people, 971 of them last Friday in my district at my jobs 
fair, they want to go to work. Many of them will lose their 
unemployment insurance on December 28.
  Joining us today is a remarkable woman, incredible background in 
caring about the people of America, working on a national program to 
make sure that women have a good shot. Incidentally, let me put this up 
there just before I introduce Representative Edwards. Today is a 
remarkable day for women. The new CEO of General Motors is a woman. She 
is not going to be on the unemployment line. She has spent 30-some 
years with General Motors, has visited the very, very top. I understand 
coming from the factory floor, all the way to the top. That is your 
story too, Donna Edwards, incredible Representative from the State of 
Maryland. I think you wanted to talk to us about your citizens, your 
constituents.
  Ms. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from 
California because every week you are here talking about what we can do 
and what we should be doing to create jobs in this country.
  Now, I have heard it said by some that there is nothing that the 
Congress can or should do to try to create jobs. Well, that is just a 
bunch of hooey. We know that the Federal Government, Mr. Speaker, has a 
lot of capacity to help spur private sector job creation, but we 
haven't done it in this Congress. We have had an opportunity, but we 
haven't done it in this Congress.
  I thought as you put that quote up there by Franklin Roosevelt, when 
I think of all the memorials there are here in Washington, D.C.--and 
there are plenty of them, free to the public, paid by the taxpayers. 
One of my favorite is the FDR memorial, and the reason is because as 
you are walking through that memorial, you have there, in bronze, 
replicas of people standing in line: standing in line waiting for 
assistance, standing in line waiting for a job.
  When President Franklin Roosevelt saw what was happening in this 
country, try to come out of that Great Depression, he didn't say, oh, 
well, there is nothing we can do. Now, it is true, he did have some 
Members of Congress who were fighting him every step of the way, who 
didn't want to do what it would take to wholesale the Federal 
Government all in, investing in the American public, investing in job 
training, investing in rebuilding this country. Franklin Roosevelt knew 
the difference, and he pushed for that so that all of those people 
standing in that line would have jobs. And that is what I see when I go 
to the memorial.
  Now, if you take the trail along from the FDR memorial, you can walk 
along the pathway and it brings you to the new Martin Luther King, Jr. 
Memorial--another great man who stood at the foot of the Lincoln 
Memorial, calling for us to put people to work for equality, right on 
the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
  Each man, including Lincoln, in their time calling on the Congress: 
do the right thing. Well, now, Mr. Garamendi, it is our time. It is our 
time to invest in our infrastructure that by all accounts is crumbling. 
And you know what, we don't even need experts to see that our roads, 
our bridges, our railways are crumbling. We don't need those experts 
because we can see that for ourselves. I see it when I drive over some 
of our bridges in Maryland. I see it across our roads. I see the 
crumbling bridges.
  Now we wait. When a bridge does in fact fall, potentially injuring or 
even killing people, and certainly killing the economy around it, oh, 
we are all in. The Congress is right there, injecting the Federal 
resources that it takes, but why do we have to wait until a bridge 
falls for the Congress to do the right thing to invest in our 
infrastructure, knowing that every investment of a billion dollars 
creates 35,000 new jobs in the economy?
  If we were doing what it would take just to keep up, we would be 
investing about $200 billion. Think of the millions of jobs we could 
create by making those investments.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Excuse me for interrupting.
  Ms. EDWARDS. Go right ahead.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. You are talking about some really, really important 
issues here. Bridges falling down?
  Ms. EDWARDS. Bridges falling down.

                              {time}  1730

  Mr. GARAMENDI. One of the reasons is this: this is the infrastructure 
investment from 2002 to 10 years later. That is about an $85 billion 
reduction in infrastructure investment.
  I wanted just to drive home the point that you have made about 
putting people to work and about what happens when you bring down the 
infrastructure investment. People are unemployed, construction workers 
and beyond.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I thank the gentleman for pointing that out. Because 
what we can see is that with that decades-long disinvestment in our 
infrastructure, not only do we have new needs, but we have the old 
ones, the old repairs stacking up.
  I am glad that you mentioned unemployment, because as the gentleman 
from Nevada mentioned, unemployment in so many areas is still up there. 
Now, across the country, I am proud to say that last week unemployment 
numbers were reported 7 percent--the lowest since November 2008, the 
lowest since when I first came into this Congress. In some ways, it has 
been despite us. I think the President, the administration, have done 
all of the things that they can do, the private sector that they can 
do.
  But think if we had those infrastructure investments. We could tick 
off 2 more percentage points on unemployment with a robust investment 
in this Nation's infrastructure. That is about building for the future; 
that is about building for the 21st-century economy. Yet here we are--
and as the gentleman from Nevada pointed out--unemployment benefits end 
for about 1.3 million people; 1.9 million Americans' unemployment will 
end December 28.
  Now, here we are in Congress--and we have taken a lot of breaks this 
year without creating any jobs, and we are about to take another one, 
another really long one--and on December 28 some of our Members will be 
finishing up their holiday leftovers. Some people will be sitting with 
their children looking through their toys and the goodies that they 
have gotten over the holiday season, and then there will be 1.9 million 
Americans who will lose their unemployment benefits in the first half 
of 2014, 1.3 million who will lose those benefits on December 28, and 
we will be opening up gifts. That is an embarrassment; it is an 
absolute embarrassment.
  So while we could be doing things that create jobs and opportunity 
for the American people, instead we are doing something that is 
actually going to cost jobs. Not extending unemployment benefits, not 
only is it bad for all of those people who will lose their benefits; it 
also is going to cost the economy another 200,000 jobs. So what we are 
doing in our inaction in Congress is actually counterproductive to 
putting the American people back to work.
  Do you know what? I would like to say that it is the responsibility 
of all of us as Members of Congress; but the fact is, much to our 
chagrin, Democrats don't control the gavel in this House; the 
Republicans control it. And tomorrow, and certainly within the next 72 
hours before we leave town for vacation, Republicans could put a bill 
on the floor that would extend unemployment benefits that would expire 
on December 28 for the American people so that those unemployed persons 
can afford to have a Christmas, a holiday, for their families. But I 
don't see it in the offing. I can tell you this right now: if Democrats 
controlled that gavel, Mr. Speaker, we would be extending unemployment 
benefits, but we are not doing that.
  I want to close very quickly and have a little bit of a dialogue, 
because I want to tell you what unemployment means. It means 37 percent 
of the unemployed workers in this country have been unemployed for more 
than 6 months. So it is true, our unemployment numbers have ticked 
down; but

[[Page H7625]]

for 37 percent of those unemployed workers, it has been a long time. 
These are skilled workers. They are laborers who because the 
construction jobs are not quite up to par they are not working the way 
that they were. They are people who have scientific and technical 
skills. Because we are not making the kinds of investments we need in 
research and development, and I know that has been of particular 
importance to the gentleman, those workers are unemployed.
  The gentleman put up the picture there of the people who were 
standing in line in his district at a job fair. Well, I held a job fair 
in my district. Over 2,000 people, 100 employers, job seekers, people 
who want to work, who are unemployed now but who want to work. What is 
the harm in providing unemployment benefits for those workers?
  Now, I have heard some on the other side of the aisle say things 
like, well, if you provide unemployment benefits, then it will make 
people less likely to go out and find a job. Well, clearly that is 
somebody who has never received unemployment benefits. I had the 
misfortune of having to apply for unemployment at one point in my life. 
I didn't want to be unemployed, but I sure needed that benefit to get 
me to the point where I could then find a job.
  That is what our job seekers do--1.3 million of them who will not 
have unemployment benefits come December 28, who will not be able to 
provide. Forget providing for a holiday or a Christmas celebration. How 
about putting food on the table?
  And this, Mr. Garamendi, at the same time that there are some who are 
contemplating taking away $40 billion from food stamps. So take away 
unemployment benefits, take away food stamps, the nutrition program 
that also supplies our food pantries, and then say, do you know what, 
unemployed Americans, you are on your own.
  Well, that is not the kind of America, Mr. Garamendi, that you and I 
believe in. We believe in the kind of America where as a Congress we 
make a decision about investing in our infrastructure, supporting 
research and development so that all of those innovators and creators 
out there can create more jobs, making sure that we have a 
manufacturing sector that really works in this country, and putting 
people back to work.
  I will just close by saying I don't really get this. But I tell you 
what, the Grinch is in full force right now. The Grinch is out there 
saying, I am taking your unemployment, I am taking away your food 
stamps, I am not going to create any jobs. Do you know what? That is 
not good for America. But we are saying, Happy Holidays, and in 72 
hours the Congress goes home and people who are on unemployment lose 
their benefits.

  Mr. GARAMENDI. Congresswoman Edwards, thank you very much. I have 
known you for the almost 4 years that I have been here. The passion 
that you have for the American people is unmatched. Your willingness to 
stand for them has been seen in many pieces of legislation and votes 
and also on the floor of the House of Representatives. I thank you for 
that.
  How correct you are. We are going to leave here Friday, probably 
around noontime. The question Americans ought to ask us is: So what 
have you done for America? Tell us what you have done, Congress, for 
America.
  I will tell you what we want to do. We want to put people back to 
work. This ought not be America. This is the inside of the hall where 
we had the 40 employers that were looking to hire a few people. The 
outside of the hall, that was 200 yards in 35 degree weather, people 
standing there well over an hour, some an hour and a half, two hours, 
wanting to at least get a shot at a job.
  Have we forgotten, have we forgotten about Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt's moral compass, the moral compass that we ought to be 
employing here? I am going to put up something. Ms. Edwards, if you 
will just stick around just a few moments.
  America has gone back to work, at least some Americans have gone back 
to work. This is the recovery; this is the reduction in the 
unemployment. The moral compass of America. Are we doing more for those 
who have much or are we doing for those who have little?
  This is the fact of the growth of the American economy, the creation 
of wealth, the creation of wealth in America. Billions of dollars. New 
wealth created. Where did it go? Where did that wealth go? Where did 
all the labor, all the hard work, all the men and women that got up in 
the morning and went to work, put in their 8 hours or 12 hours, their 
40 hours a week or more, where did that labor, where did it go, what 
was the result of it?
  Here it is. Here is the fact. The tale of two Americans: 95 percent 
of the wealth created in America from 2009 to 2012 went to the top 1 
percent of Americans. So all those people out there, all the 99 
percenters that worked day in and day out, that struggled for a job, 
that stood in line to get a job, what did they get? They got 5 percent 
of the new wealth of the wealth created in this Nation.
  This is an indictment of the fundamental policies of this Nation. It 
wasn't always that way. During the Clinton period, the top 1 percent 
did very well. They got 45 percent of the wealth. The top 1 percent 
took 45 percent home. They did leave 55 percent for the 99 percent.
  This isn't just happening because the Sun comes up in the morning and 
sets in the evening. This happens because of public policy, tax policy, 
employment policy, social welfare policies, food programs, unemployment 
programs, and the crash of the American economy caused by greed, Wall 
Street greed principally, and greed of others to be sure.
  Keep in mind, America, this is our Nation today. Work hard? No, you 
may not get ahead. Keep in mind the moral compass of Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt:

       The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the 
     abundance of those who have much; it is rather whether we 
     provide enough for those who have too little.

  December 28 is coming. Today is the 10th of December. Eighteen days. 
Just after Christmas, 3 days after Christmas, days after the holidays, 
1.7 million Americans are going to lose their unemployment insurance 
and, since the farm bill hasn't been brought to the floor, the question 
of what kind of cuts will be made in the farm programs specifically for 
the food programs.
  It is not the loafers that are out there, although there are some. It 
is the men and women that stood in line waiting for a job in my 
district last Friday, stood in line at Representative Edwards' job fair 
here in Maryland in the past days, those people, unemployed, depending 
upon the supplemental food program, the senior citizens who are trying 
to make it with the meager benefits of Social Security. They are the 
ones that are receiving the supplemental food program, the food stamps. 
$40 billion over the next 5 to 10 years taken away, away from farmers' 
income, yes, and away from the men and women that are hungry.
  One more thing. I am going to put this up. I have seen this so many 
times. You want to take $40 billion away from the children of America? 
Is that what our Republican leadership wants to do? This is the face of 
America's children right there. One out of every four children in this 
Nation wondering where their next meal is coming from. Jobs? 
Absolutely. Unemployment benefits? Essential, unless you want this to 
be the American story. Food stamps? That is where he gets his food; 
that is where these American children are able to get their food during 
these hard times. They want to cut it. Where is the moral compass in 
that? Where is the fundamental moral compass when one out of four 
children in this Nation goes to bed hungry?

                              {time}  1745

  Where is the moral compass that takes 95 percent of the wealth 
created in this Nation and gives it to the 1 percent who have millions 
and, indeed, billions? Something is wrong here.
  Ms. EDWARDS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I yield to the gentlelady.
  Ms. EDWARDS. As the gentleman was speaking, I thought to myself: What 
could the American people do if they learned that on December 28 
unemployment benefits will end for 1.3 million of their fellow 
Americans? Is there something they could do?
  Well, I always thought when I wasn't in Congress that the one thing 
people can do to stop this atrocity so that we can fix it before we 
leave town in 72 hours, they can call their Members of

[[Page H7626]]

Congress. They can use social media and reach out to their Members of 
Congress. That is what they can do because this should not be allowed 
to happen. We can create jobs so that, come the spring construction 
season, workers go back to work. But in the meantime, people can call 
their Member of Congress and say: Extend unemployment benefits, or 
don't go home for Christmas.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. We will go home for Christmas, and how many hungry 
will there be? How many unemployed will there be? We have work to do.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________