[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 34-42]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I take to the floor this evening for the 
first day of the new Congress basically to talk about the economy and 
my concern about the fact that the Republican majority, President Bush 
and the Republican majority now in both the House and the other body, 
really are not doing anything, in my opinion, to address the downturn 
in the economy, the loss of jobs, the loss of production.
  It is of a great deal of concern to me and I know to my constituents. 
This is their number one concern, what is this Congress and what is 
this President going to do to turn the economy around. Today is a very 
important day in that regard, because the President today, in Chicago, 
we understand, is unveiling his economic stimulus package, what he 
claims will be the answer to try to revive the economy. Every 
indication that we have had so far, as Democrats, is that his proposal 
will not do anything significant to turn the economic situation around, 
will not create more jobs. It is primarily a plan that benefits the 
wealthy, the corporate interests, and does very little, certainly very 
little in the next year or two, that would make any difference in terms 
of the economic situation in the United States and the world.
  Sometimes I think that the White House and the Republican leadership 
in both Houses here would like us to think that the situation is not 
that bad and so maybe we do not have to do much in Congress because the 
economic outlook really is not that bad. Let me assure them that that 
is certainly not the case. It certainly is not the case with my 
constituents in New Jersey and it certainly is not the case with any of 
my fellow Democrats that I talked to today or in the last couple of 
days since we have returned and since the swearing in.
  Just to give some idea, and I will not talk too long about this, 
Madam Speaker, but since January 2001, when President Bush first took 
office, private sector employment has been reduced by 2.1 million jobs. 
The number of jobs that have been lost in that period now, which is 
essentially 2 years, is over 2 million in the United States.

                              {time}  1745

  If we look at other indicators, business investment since the first 
quarter of 2001, that is down 10 percent. If I look at the budget 
outlook, that has deteriorated by $5 trillion since January 2001.
  I do not need to show the statistics. Members are aware that the 
stock market has declined considerably, unemployment is up, the budget 
surplus that existed during the Clinton administration which was the 
first time in almost 20 years that we had actually turned around a 
budget deficit and we had a budget surplus, and that meant that we were 
paying down the debt and more

[[Page 35]]

jobs were being created and Americans had more money and long-term 
interest rates were down because of the surplus. In the last 2 years 
during the term of this Republican President, we have seen that 
situation go the other way. We now have a budget deficit that is 
something like $150 billion, and we anticipate that it will only get 
worse.
  It is only going to get worse unless something is done in this 
Congress to turn it around. The sad thing is when I listen to some of 
the suggestions that have been coming out of the White House in the 
last few weeks, including today, I am concerned that their proposal 
continues this country down the path of larger tax cuts for the 
wealthy, for corporate interests, and larger deficits that are only 
going to make the economic situation worse instead of better.
  One of the things by way of background that really bothers me in 
terms of what comes out of this Republican White House is the notion 
that somehow the recession began under the previous administration and 
that the recession is not a product of the Bush administration. Again, 
let me give some information on that. The National Bureau of Economic 
Research, Business Cycle Dating Committee, and this is a direct quote, 
``In November 2001, the committee determined that the peak in business 
activity occurred in the United States economy in March 2001.'' A peak 
marks the end of an expansion and the beginning of a recession. The 
determination of a peak date in March is, thus, a determination that 
the expansion that began in March 1991 ended in March 2001, and a 
recession began in March of that 2001.
  So essentially we had 10 years of increased economic activity, of 
growth, and that ended in March of the first year that President Bush 
took office after a 10-year expansion that included the entire time 
that President Clinton was the President of the United States. I do not 
come here because I want to talk about who did this or who did that, 
but the bottom line is for Members to suggest that we are not in a bad 
situation economically today, by any indicator we clearly are, and 
clearly this recession began under President Bush and has only gotten 
worse in the 2 years he has been in office.
  Now what is the President proposing and why is he proposing what he 
is proposing today? Well, he claims that he is trying to put together 
an economic stimulus package that essentially will turn the economy 
around, create more jobs, get consumer spending up and improve the 
business cycle.
  If we look at what he actually has proposed, it is more of the same. 
It is more tax cuts, permanent tax cuts primarily for the wealthy. He 
thinks that he is going to turn the stock market around by a full 
exclusion of dividends; but, the bottom line is, again, that is only 
going to help wealthy people.
  Media reports on possible elements of the administration's package 
include the following: full exclusion of dividends from individual 
taxation; acceleration of marginal tax reductions from the 2001 tax 
cut; acceleration of child credit increase from the 2001 tax cut; more 
corporate tax cuts; and possibly some State fiscal relief rumored at 
$10 billion. But if we look at what the President is proposing today, 
it will primarily mean more of the same, more tax cuts and more 
benefits for the wealthy and for corporate interests, and it will 
balloon the Federal deficit. It will cost up to $6 billion over 10 
years with more than 80 percent of the cost after 2003.
  I think what we are going to see from this administration is 
essentially more deficits, larger deficits, more money going to the 
wealthy, and very little, if any, short-term stimulus to the economy 
that will turn it around. Members do not have to believe me, though. I 
do not like to get in the well and just talk about what I think. I like 
to talk about what other third-party commentators have been saying 
about the President's plan; and I wanted to mention this evening, and I 
may read all or parts of two comments that were in the New York Times 
today in reaction to what has already come out about the President's 
tax proposals and the President's so-called economic stimulus package.
  The editorial in today's New York Times is particularly revealing, 
and I will read parts to give Members an idea why I think what they are 
saying is so true. The title is ``The Charles Schwab Tax Cut.'' It 
begins: ``The Bush administration never met a domestic problem that tax 
cuts couldn't cure, and today in Chicago the President is planning to 
call for more of the same. The centerpiece of Mr. Bush's new economic 
plan is to eliminate the tax on dividends that will cost the Treasury 
about $30 billion over the next decade. In a theoretical world, ending 
the dividend tax might make sense. Unfortunately, we live in the real 
one, where it's the wrong move at the wrong time for the benefit of the 
wrong people.
  ``Ending the dividend tax cut will not provide the economy with a 
short-term stimulus, the ostensible goal of the plan. Investors won't 
be seeing their savings until 2004.''
  Eliminating the dividend tax, admittedly, has something to commend 
it, but as became all too apparent in the financial bubble of the late 
1990s, the Tax Code currently contains some perverse incentives for 
companies to becoming overly indebted and to manipulate their short-
term stock price, instead of paying dividends as a form of prudent 
profit sharing.
  The editorial continues: ``If Mr. Bush's mind had been on the long-
term economy rather than on politics, he might have listened to the 
advice of his former Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, and dropped the 
idea of further tax cuts altogether. But Mr. O'Neill is a former 
Treasury Secretary for a reason. The President cannot afford to look 
indifferent to the problems of average Americans in a sluggish economy. 
These days average Americans own stock, although most of it is in tax-
sheltered retirement funds.''
  This is what they say in conclusion, and I think it is important: 
``Ending the dividend tax is something almost nobody has been crying 
out for, except the megabroker Charles Schwab, who made a pitch for it 
at the economic summit meeting at Waco last summer. The President 
happened to drop in on the panel on which Mr. Schwab was speaking and 
pronounced it a good idea. It may turn out to have been one of the most 
expensive courtesy calls in modern history.''
  What the New York Times is essentially saying and what the Democrats 
are saying is that this elimination of the tax on dividends is going to 
cost the Federal Government a tremendous amount of money, $300 billion 
over the next 10 years, but it is not going to do anything to actually 
put money back into the pockets of consumers. It is not going to create 
any new jobs. It is not going to provide any real incentive for 
companies to start new production and create more jobs, do any 
investment in new production; and all it does is give another huge tax 
break primarily to very wealthy individuals who own most of the stock. 
How is this a stimulus? How is this in any way going to help the 
economy?
  I wanted to talk about what the Democrats have in mind, and then I 
want to give some third-party validation of what we have proposed. Over 
the last month, the House Democrats have gotten together and basically 
thought about what needed to be done to try to give some short-term 
stimulus to the economy, to create jobs, to put more money in people's 
pockets, to turn things around.
  We came up with a set of principles initially, and then yesterday we 
revealed our actual plan. I think the principles are important and need 
to be repeated before I mention some of the specifics of the plan.
  The principles say any economic stimulus plan should, first, be front 
loaded and fast acting; second, avoid a mushrooming deficit in the long 
term; third, boost consumer demand and investment; fourth, help States 
through their fiscal straits; five, spur the economy by funding 
homeland defense; and, last, devote every penny to short-term stimulus.
  We are not interested in looking right now at how something is going 
to impact 10 years from now. We need to get people back to work. We 
need to put money in consumers' pockets, and we need to make sure 
whatever we do

[[Page 36]]

does not have any ballooning effect and create more of a deficit down 
the road in 2 or 3 years.
  What the Democrats have proposed in that regard is very detailed, but 
I wanted to just go over some of the more important points, if I could. 
With regard to individuals in terms of individual tax cuts, basically 
we are proposing essentially a rebate that Americans get back 10 
percent of what they earned in 2001 up to $6,000 of wages for a couple. 
This rebate is paid from the Treasury, not from the Social Security 
trust fund, because one of the other concerns that I have and all of us 
have as Democrats is not only do we do not want to increase the 
deficit, but we also do not want to delve into the Social Security and 
Medicare trust funds and aggravate the deficits that potentially could 
exist long term in those trust funds. We want to make sure that those 
trust funds have a surplus and that the money is available for Social 
Security and Medicare for senior citizens in the future. So our rebate 
plan does not tap any of the Social Security or Medicare trust funds.
  Let me give a little more detail about what the Democrats have in 
mind. The Democratic plan is $130 billion as opposed to the Republican 
plan, which is $600 billion. Now the $130 billion is a smaller plan 
because, again, we do not want to increase the deficit. We are trying 
to do everything in 2003 to stimulate the economy and not cause long-
term deficits. But even with the $130 billion stimulus, we can create 
as many as a million jobs, increase consumer spending, and help States 
out of their fiscal straits because if the States have to significantly 
cut back on their budgets, that is going to be taking more money out of 
the economy and could also aggravate the problem in terms of Americans 
losing their jobs and not having money to spend. We have to address the 
States as well.
  The Democratic plan calls for a 26-week extension of unemployment 
benefits and a tax rebate of up to $300 per person, $600 per couple. It 
would also permit businesses to increase their write-off on new 
investments and provide $31 billion to State and local governments to 
help defray the cost of domestic security, Medicaid, highway projects 
and other programs.
  Just a little more detail because I do not want to get into all of 
the details tonight, but in addition to extending the unemployment 
benefits and offering a tax rebate, the plan would allow small 
businesses to write off up to $50,000 of the cost of new investments 
made in 2003 as opposed to the current maximum write-off of $250,000. 
The plan would also permit companies to depreciate 50 percent of the 
cost of new plants or equipment in 2003; current law permits them to 
depreciate only 30 percent.
  So we have a program that helps individuals by extending unemployment 
insurance for at least 26 weeks. We have a program that puts money back 
in consumers' pockets with the rebates that I mentioned, and we have a 
plan that helps small businesses, which is the backbone of our economy, 
to grow and invest in new production and create more jobs.
  Lastly, we have an answer that we think can make a difference for the 
States: as I said, $31 billion in State aid. The plan would give $31 
billion to States which as I said are struggling with these budget 
shortfalls, a one-time increase in the Federal share of Medicaid 
payments amounting to $10 billion. It would also give them $10 billion 
in grants to help them pay for domestic security needs like airport 
protection and public health preparedness, as well as $5 billion in 
Federal aid for highways and $6 billion for critical State needs to 
help those most hurt by unemployment and the lackluster economy.

                              {time}  1800

  So, as I said, Madam Speaker, the idea is to help individuals, help 
small businesses, and help the States. But all of it is designed 
specifically for the year 2003 to turn the economy around, to provide a 
stimulus, to create jobs. It is really a job creation program. If you 
look at what the Democrats have proposed, it is a job creation program. 
If you look at what the Republicans have proposed, it is a stock 
market-oriented program. And we know about the volatility of the stock 
market. I would venture to say that it is highly speculative. Even the 
White House will say that their dividend plan will not necessarily 
result in a significant increase in the stock market's performance. Yet 
they continue to make the highlight of their economic stimulus plan 
related to eliminating the tax on dividends.
  Again, I always say that rather than just listen to me, I would like 
to have some third-party validator of what I have mentioned this 
evening in the brief time that I have talked about the need for an 
economic stimulus. I saw an article, an op-ed that was in today's New 
York Times, also, by Paul Krugman. He basically criticizes the 
President's proposal and he talks about the Democratic alternative in a 
very succinct way. I would just like to read some sections of that now 
and include the op-ed in its entirety in the Record, if I could, Madam 
Speaker.
  It says:

       Here's how it works. Faced with a real problem--terrorism, 
     the economy, nukes in North Korea--the Bush administration's 
     response has nothing to do with solving that problem. Instead 
     it exploits the issue to advance its political agenda.
       Right now a sensible plan would rush help to the long-term 
     unemployed, whose benefits--in an act of incredible 
     callousness--were allowed to lapse last month. It would 
     provide immediate, large-scale aid to beleaguered State 
     governments, which have been burdened with expensive homeland 
     security mandates even as their revenues have plunged. Given 
     our long-run budget problems, any tax relief would be 
     temporary, and go largely to low- and middle-income families.

  That is what the Democrats want to do. What does Paul Krugman say?

       Yesterday House Democrats released a plan right out of the 
     textbook: aid to States and the jobless, rebates to everyone. 
     But the centerpiece of the administration's proposal is, of 
     all things, the permanent elimination of taxes on dividends.
       So instead of a temporary measure, we get a permanent tax 
     cut. The price tag of the overall plan is a whopping $600 
     billion, yet less than $100 billion will arrive in the first 
     year. The Democratic plan, with an overall price tag of only 
     $136 billion, actually provides more short-run stimulus.
       And instead of helping the needy, the Bush plan is almost 
     ludicrously tilted toward the very, very well off. If you 
     have stocks in a 401(k), your dividends are already tax-
     sheltered; this proposal gives big breaks only to people who 
     have lots of stock outside their retirement accounts. More 
     than half the benefits would go to people making more than 
     $200,000 per year, a quarter to people making more than $1 
     million per year.
       Even the administration's economists barely pretend that 
     this proposal has anything to do with short-run stimulus. 
     Instead they sell it as the answer to various other problems.

  I do not want to keep reading, but the point I am trying to make is 
very simple. What the President appears to have done, and I do not 
necessarily want to give him bad intentions, is rather than doing a 
real economic stimulus that is going to have a short-term impact on the 
economy, turn the economy around and create jobs and put money back in 
people's pockets, he is trying to simply make more tax cuts primarily 
for the wealthy, for the corporate interests that are the primary 
backers of the Republican Party. And he does not even care about the 
fact that on a long-term basis this is only going to increase the 
deficit. I just cannot believe that this is the President's and the 
Republicans' answer to this economic downturn.
  I think that as Democrats, we have to do whatever we can over the 
next few weeks to bare this proposal for what it really is and to make 
it absolutely clear that this is not going to do anything to turn the 
economy around.
  Madam Speaker, I include the following for the Record:

                [From the New York Times, Jan. 7, 2003]

                         An Irrelevant Proposal

                           (By Paul Krugman)

       Here's how it works. Faced with a real problem--terrorism, 
     the economy, nukes in North Korea--the Bush administration's 
     response has nothing to do with solving that problem. Instead 
     it exploits the issue to advance its political agenda.
       Nonetheless, the faithful laud our glorious leader's 
     wisdom. For a variety of reasons, including the desire to 
     avoid charges of liberal bias, most reporting is carefully 
     hedged. And the public, reading only praise or he-said-she-
     said discussions, never grasps the fundamental disconnect 
     between problem and policy.

[[Page 37]]

       And so it goes with the administration's ``stimulus'' plan.
       Boosting a stumbling economy (``It's Clinton's fault!'' 
     shouted the claque) isn't rocket science. All a sensible plan 
     must do is focus on the present, not the distant future; on 
     those who are suffering, not on those doing well; and on 
     those who are most likely to spend additional money.
       Right now a sensible plan would rush help to the long-term 
     unemployed, whose benefits--in an act of incredible 
     callousness--were allowed to lapse last month. It would 
     provide immediate, large-scale aid to beleaguered state 
     governments, which have been burdened with expensive homeland 
     security mandates even as their revenues have plunged. Given 
     our long-run budget problems, any tax relief would be 
     temporary, and go largely to low- and middle-income families.
       Yesterday House Democrats released a plan right out of the 
     textbook: aid to states and the jobless, rebates to everyone. 
     But the centerpiece of the administration's proposal is, of 
     all things, the permanent elimination of taxes on dividends.
       So instead of a temporary measure, we get a permanent tax 
     cut. The price tag of the overall plan is a whopping $600 
     billion, yet less than $100 billion will arrive in the first 
     year. The Democratic plan, with an overall price tag of only 
     $136 billion, actually provides more short-run stimulus.
       And instead of helping the needy, the Bush plan is almost 
     ludicrously tilted toward the very, very well off. If you 
     have stocks in a 401(k), your dividends are already tax-
     sheltered; this proposal gives big breaks only to people who 
     have lots of stock outside their retirement accounts. More 
     than half the benefits would go to people making more than 
     $200,000 per year, a quarter to people making more than $1 
     million per year. (``Class warfare!'' shouted the claque.)
       Even the administration's economists barely pretend that 
     this proposal has anything to do with short-run stimulus. 
     Instead they sell it as the answer to various other problems. 
     (It slices! It dices! It purees!) Above all, it's supposed to 
     end the evil of ``double taxation.''
       Now lots of income faces double taxation, in the sense that 
     the same dollar gets taxed more than once along the way. For 
     example, most of us pay income and payroll taxes when we earn 
     our salary, then pay sales taxes when we spend it. So why has 
     it suddenly become urgent to ensure that dividends, in 
     particular, never be taxed more than once!
       That is, if they're taxed at all. In practice, the Bush 
     plan would exempt a lot of income--rich people's income--from 
     all taxes. Thanks to the efforts of lobbyists, today's 
     corporate tax code has as many holes in it as a piece of 
     Swiss cheese, and today's corporations take full advantage. 
     Case in point: Between 1998 and 2001 CSX Corporation, the 
     company run by the incoming Treasury secretary, John Snow, 
     made $900 million in profits, but paid no net taxes--in fact, 
     it received $164 million in rebates. This wasn't exceptional; 
     the average tax rate on profits has fallen to a nearly 60-
     year low.
       Anyway, even to debate the pros and cons of dividend 
     taxation is to play the administration's game, which is to 
     change the subject. Weren't we supposed to be talking about 
     emergency economic stimulus?
       No doubt the final version of the ``stimulus'' plan will 
     contain a few genuine recession-fighting measures--a child 
     credit here, an unemployment benefit there, a few crumbs for 
     the states--for which the administration will expect immense 
     gratitude. But the man in charge--that is, Karl Rove--is 
     clearly betting that the economy will recover on its own, and 
     intends to use the pretense of stimulus mainly as an 
     opportunity to get more tax cuts for the rich.
       Ideology aside, will these guys ever decide that their job 
     includes solving problems, not just using them?

  I yield to my friend from Oregon.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I appreciate the gentleman coming to the floor to try 
and explain the differences between these two critical plans. I happen 
to represent a part of the State of Oregon which has the highest 
unemployment rate in the United States of America and a part of the 
State which is particularly hard hit and am very concerned about an 
effective economic stimulus package. Representing a district with a 
high and enduring unemployment rate, I do not find that the elimination 
of the tax on dividends is very high on the agenda of anybody that I 
meet with in my district, but how we are going to put people back to 
work and how we are going to get the economy rolling again.
  I share the gentleman's concerns. Certainly there are some 
interesting arguments to be made about how best to properly tax 
corporate profits and/or dividends which result from them, but if one 
looks underneath that whole issue, we find that many profitable 
corporations do not pay taxes and, therefore, the dividends are not 
being double-taxed in any way or form whatsoever. And also many of the 
individuals who realize these dividends are not the people who are 
unemployed or are worrying about their future or how to put food on the 
table for their kids. In fact, as the gentleman said earlier in the 
discussion, more than two-thirds of the benefits will accrue to people 
with incomes over $100,000 a year. The question becomes, is that an 
effective economic stimulus?
  Let us see. A year from now, people will begin to file their taxes, 
probably most of the folks who clip coupons and dividends would be a 
little later in the year, so maybe 15 months from now some of those 
people who earn over $100,000 a year would realize an additional 
savings in their taxes or maybe a refund which would come in April or 
May or June and somehow that is going to provide an economic stimulus 
in the year 2003 when that does not happen until the year 2004? Beyond 
that, there is a whole issue of is this not a revisiting of trickle-
down economics? If we give a little bit more to the people who are 
already doing relatively well, or in some cases very well, will they 
not spend that money in a way to put people back to work? I think there 
are some real questions about that, but it is at least more artfully 
presented than it was years ago under the Reagan administration. They 
are avoiding the words ``trickle down.''
  But as the gentleman discussed, there are alternatives out there. We 
could certainly look at, as an alternative, things that are going to 
have a more immediate impact on the economy of the United States and 
put more middle- and low-income families back to work or on a more 
secure economic footing. If we look at, from my perspective on the 
Transportation Committee, the Nation's incredible underfunding of 
infrastructure, in my State alone, again the State with the highest 
unemployment in the union, has discovered that because of construction 
techniques used for the interstates back in the sixties, we have a $4 
billion bridge problem on I-5, the most vital interstate-international 
link on the western corridor between Mexico, California, Oregon, 
Washington and Canada. That is something, in a State in as deep a 
recession as we are, that is beyond our capabilities. We need some 
additional help from the Federal Government. We know what the problems 
are. We could get people back to work within months, as soon as the 
contracts could be let on making those repairs. Critical water. There 
are a whole host of infrastructure needs, rail, bridges, highways, 
water, that would put people back to work and would provide secondary 
benefits to suppliers and small businesses in the communities where the 
workers would be. All these things would certainly have a much more 
direct economic impact than a tax break to people who are concerned 
about the taxation on their dividends that would accrue to them some 16 
or 18 months from now. Hopefully by then this issue will be behind us.
  The President's plan, of course, is so extraordinarily expensive. I 
mean, more than half of the President's entire plan is devoted to the 
concern about people who pay taxes on dividends as opposed to his 
rather small benefits for people on unemployment. We need a much more 
robust extension there. We need more worker retraining. There are other 
issues that could be debated. Whether or not we should have some sort 
of tax holiday on part of the FICA tax. More than half the families in 
America pay more in Social Security and Medicare taxes than they do in 
income taxes to the Federal Government. So if we could provide some 
relief there but not short the Social Security fund by putting that 
money back in; the States, as the Democrats have proposed, to provide 
to the States.
  We have heard for years from that side of the aisle, Federal 
mandates, no unfunded Federal mandates. A whole host of new ones have 
come down, including the Leave No Child Behind Act and the testing that 
is required, yet there is no additional money flowing from the Federal 
Government; yet the States and particularly my State is strapped and 
the President's tax proposal would actually take money from

[[Page 38]]

the States, $4 billion for the exemption of dividends, so States again 
would not be able to get taxes from those most well off and would be 
forced to either cut benefits for everybody else on programs, or 
essential schools, on health care, or they would have to raise taxes 
again on the remaining smaller tax base.
  I applaud the gentleman for taking the time to come and try and 
outline some of these differences here on the floor. It is critical 
that people know they have a very clear choice. I think over the last 
couple of years, that was not so clear to many people, but now it is 
our duty to show them that there are clear choices to be made on some 
of these very, very critical issues, and this is the first one out of 
the chute after the elections of last year. I am determined that we 
will draw the lines and we will show here is what we would do, it is 
more responsible, it would provide more direct stimulus, it would 
benefit more people and more people in need in particular as opposed to 
what is being proposed by the other side of the aisle which is fiscally 
irresponsible, not paid for, will not kick in for 16 to 18 months or 
even longer and is really just trying to do what they were already 
doing before we were in a recession or proposing before we were in a 
recession but justify it by saying it will help us with a recession.
  I thank the gentleman for clarifying those issues.
  Mr. PALLONE. I just want to thank my colleague from Oregon for coming 
down and saying what he said. The thing that is amazing to me, I tried 
to point out in the beginning that essentially this recession began in 
March of 2001, I guess 3 months into President Bush's term. Not too 
long after that he imposed or got the Congress, primarily Republicans, 
to pass this huge tax cut which primarily went to the wealthy 
individuals and corporate interests. That has now been around, I guess, 
for a little over a year approximately and the recession has only 
gotten worse. So why now are we talking about another major tax cut 
that essentially does the same thing, making permanent those tax cuts 
from a year ago and then coming up with this exclusion of tax on 
dividends which admittedly is being done in order to try to boost up 
the stock market and therefore again primarily benefits wealthy people. 
It is sort of like a failed policy has not worked, so why are you going 
to make it worse? But even beyond that, the idea, as you say, of having 
the majority of this stimulus package be directly linked to trying to 
boost the stock market is such a risky thing. We all know the stock 
market's volatility. It is not necessarily dependent on any one factor. 
So to suggest that dealing with dividends is somehow going to increase 
the indexes dramatically I just do not buy, and I think it is so 
speculative and it is so much easier to do the kinds of things that the 
Democrats have proposed. I just want to thank you again for joining us.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I want to thank my very able colleague the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) 
for participating and spearheading this special order this evening. I 
think when the gentleman from New Jersey reminded us that the current 
recession was triggered back in March of 2001, we have to ask 
ourselves, well, what happened there? What happened was again rising 
oil prices in the global market, which America does not control because 
we are totally dependent on imports, thrust us into a recession which 
has only gotten worse and all the pump priming on Wall Street cannot 
draw us out of it because we are not energy independent. Oil just went 
up to $33 a barrel. There is instability obviously in the Middle East, 
certainly in Venezuela, Colombia, all these places where we are getting 
our oil, and the kind of short-term stimulus package that you are 
talking about would be an immediate shot in the arm here in the United 
States of America, whether it is building bridges, whether it is 
putting a small tax refund in the pockets of Americans that they can go 
out and buy things, ordinary Americans who are having trouble meeting 
ends from paycheck to paycheck. But beyond that, looking at how we can 
create entire new industries in this country so that we do not have to 
send our men and women to war for oil but, rather, that we can invest 
here at home.
  Can you imagine the sentinel call it would be across just rural 
America if we really racheted up biofuels production and ethanol and 
biodiesel from coast to coast, what we could do to replace 25 percent 
of what we are importing today? I really wanted to say to both of my 
dear colleagues that there was an editorial in the New York Times on 
January 5 by Tom Friedman called ``A War for Oil.'' I would like to 
place it in the Record this evening as a part of this discussion and to 
say with all the pomp and circumstance that occurred here in the House 
today, the reality is we are faced with a likelihood that we will be at 
war with Iraq very soon. To do so at a time when we are suffering this 
major recession here at home, where we have got these rising oil prices 
globally and we are not energy independent, we are going into huge debt 
in terms of the government with all these tax payouts left and right to 
some of the wealthiest people in our country and no help for job 
creation here in this country, even in the key industry where we are 
totally vulnerable, that is, new fuels production.

                              {time}  1815

  We are importing over 60 percent of what we consume today and paying 
exorbitant prices for it, and Mr. Friedman says in his article that any 
war we launch in Iraq will certainly be in part about oil and that the 
Bush team is preparing to launch that war for oil and to deny the fact 
is actually laughable. And he says that the Bush policy towards North 
Korea has made it abundantly clear that the war with Iraq indeed is 
about oil.
  The question is whether it is only about oil. And I am sure that the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), who has been a leader in new-fuels 
production and energy independence for America, in his own region when 
we consider the biomass that is out there that could be turned to new-
fuels production we can see the jobs and the investment here in the 
United States that could happen if we would really propel this new 
industry forward.
  What good does it do to give shareholders in multinational oil 
companies on Wall Street more dividends when those dollars do not have 
to be invested in this country at all? So much of what Wall Street has 
been doing is not investing in the United States. They have been moving 
jobs to Mexico. The other day I just bought some windshield wipers for 
my car, turned the package over, made in Mexico. In fact I have a 
question. Is anything made in America anymore? If we look at this past 
holiday shopping season, what is actually out there that we make? I am 
glad we can still make bridges if we would only fund them in our 
country, but try to find an American-made clock, American-made 
clothing. I just talked to a gentleman today downstairs. He said, Boy, 
I wish I could find a good pair of shoes. He said, My feet are killing 
me. And I said, Well, they are not made in America anymore.
  What is it that we do make that is not being outsourced somewhere 
else? So the recession is being exacerbated by the fact that so much of 
what Wall Street has done with the money is not to put it here but to 
put it elsewhere where they can pay slave wages to people and then ship 
all those goods back here. So all this investment, I would be very 
interested in entertaining a proposal from the Bush administration to 
require that any benefits to Wall Street be invested in the USA and to 
do it in a stimulus plan in some of the key sectors where we are 
strategically vulnerable, including energy, where we are totally 
dependent on these international imports now more and more every day.
  And when we think about the fact that Iraq has the second largest 
reserves in the world, one of my questions of the Bush administration 
is, if they are going to go in and take over these reserves, who is 
going to benefit? Which companies are going to get the

[[Page 39]]

benefit of that? Maybe we should do some windfall profits taxes on the 
companies that are going to be getting all these Iraqi oil concessions 
and then use those dollars to buy down our public debt and pay off some 
of the bills that are being added every day with the tax cuts to the 
wealthiest people in this country.
  So I just am very interested in what Tom Friedman said here, and he 
even talks about handing out drilling concessions to U.S. oil companies 
and how are those decisions going to be made by the administration. How 
is the administration going to get through this issue of nation-
building in Iraq? Is this going to be like Somalia? I thought we were 
not supposed to be involved in nation-building. We are not out of 
Afghanistan yet. We are paying more and more and more every day. Our 
troops are on the ground there. Of course there is a press blackout; so 
you really do not know everything that is happening. We are not going 
to be out of there for years. The President of Afghanistan was on the 
board of Unical Oil Company, and when one looks at the movement of oil 
globally, it is obvious that control of that country and the movement 
of pipelines is really very essential to the global movement of oil, 
which is a diminishing world resource.
  So the real question I have is, if we are going to have a stimulus 
package, how do we get investment here at home and how do we displace 
particularly in the energy area the kind of imports that have now moved 
us to the brink of war again in the most oil-rich region of the world? 
I am deeply concerned about the direction of this country and whether 
or not we have an exit strategy from Iraq. And when we look at the 
amount of money we are going to be spending on defense in order to move 
these troops and planes and ships for long periods of time now, the 
Ohio National Guard just had the longest deployment in Ohio history in 
that part of the world, and they have just returned home, building 
airfields, preparing.
  This is costing an enormous amount. Imagine if we could invest those 
dollars here at home and create entire new industries, not just off 
biofuels, ethanol and biodiesel in the rural countryside, but what 
about photovoltaics to really rachet up our knowledge in that key area 
and manufacture those systems here in the United States not just for 
use here at home but for use abroad, to really move us into renewable 
resources of energy for the future. What an incredible job creator that 
would be, good jobs, high-paying jobs coast to coast in order to buy 
America true national security and energy independence here at home.
  So I want to thank the gentleman for allowing me to share in this 
Special Order this evening and to say that I agree with Tom Friedman. I 
am not somebody who wants to go to war for oil. I think we should 
invest those dollars here at home and help America move beyond the 
petroleum age into a new age of renewables. I thank both gentlemen.
  I include the following editorial for the Record:

                [From the New York Times, Jan. 5, 2003]

                             A War for Oil?

                        (By Thomas L. Friedman)

       Our family spent winter vacation in Colorado, and one day I 
     saw the most unusual site: two women marching around the 
     Aspen Mountain ski lift, waving signs protesting against war 
     in Iraq. One sign said: ``Just war or Just Oil?'' As I 
     watched this two-woman demonstration, I couldn't help notice 
     the auto traffic whizzing by them: one gas-guzzling S.U.V. or 
     Jeep after another, with even a Humvee or two tossed in for 
     good measure. The whole scene made me wonder whether those 
     two women weren't--indeed--asking the right question: Is the 
     war that the Bush team is preparing to launch in Iraq really 
     a war for oil?
       My short answer is yes. Any war we launch in Iraq will 
     certainly be--in part--about oil. To deny that is laughable. 
     But whether it is seen to be only about oil will depend on 
     how we behave before an invasion and what we try to build 
     once we're there.
       I say this possible Iraq war is partly about oil because it 
     is impossible to explain the Bush team's behavior otherwise. 
     Why are they going after Saddam Hussein with the 82nd 
     Airborne and North Korea with diplomatic kid gloves--when 
     North Korea already has nuclear weapons, the missiles to 
     deliver them, a record of selling dangerous weapons to anyone 
     with cash, 100,000 U.S. troops in its missile range and a 
     leader who is even more cruel to his own people than Saddam?
       One reason, of course, is that it is easier to go after 
     Saddam. But the other reason is oil--even if the president 
     doesn't want to admit it. (Mr. Bush's recent attempt to hype 
     the Iraqi threat by saying that an Iraqi attack on America--
     which is most unlikely--``would cripple our economy'' was 
     embarrassing. It made the president as if he was groping for 
     an excuse to go to war, absent a smoking gun.
       Let's cut the nonsense. The primary reason the Bush team is 
     more focused on Saddam is because if he were to acquire 
     weapons of mass destruction, it might give him the leverage 
     he has long sought--not to attack us, but to extend his 
     influence over the world's largest source of oil, the Persian 
     Gulf.
       But wait a minute. There is nothing illegitimate or immoral 
     about the U.S. being concerned that an evil, megalomaniacal 
     dictator might acquire excessive influence over the natural 
     resource that powers the world's industrial base.
       ``Would those women protesting in Aspen prefer that Saddam 
     Hussien control the oil instead--is that morally better?'' 
     asks Michael Mandelbaum, the John Hopkins foreign policy 
     expert and author of ``The Ideas That Conquered the World.'' 
     ``Up to now, Saddam has used this oil wealth not to benefit 
     his people, but to wage war against all his neighbors, build 
     lavish palaces and acquire weapons of mass destruction.''
       This is a good point, but the Bush team would have a 
     stronger case for fighting a war partly for oil if it made 
     clear by its behavior that it was acting for the benefit of 
     the planet, not simply to fuel American excesses.
       I have no problem with a war for oil--if we accompany it 
     with a real program for energy conservation. But when we tell 
     the world that we couldn't care less about climate change, 
     that we feel entitled to drive whatever big cars we feel 
     like, that we feel entitled to consume however much oil we 
     like, the message we send is that a war for oil in the gulf 
     is not a war to protect the world's right to economic 
     survival--but our right to indulge. Now that will be seen as 
     immoral.
       And should we end up occupying Iraq, and the first thing we 
     do is hand out drilling concessions to U.S. oil companies 
     alone, that perception would only be intensified.
       And that leads to my second point. If we occupy Iraq and 
     simply install a more pro-U.S. autocrat to run the Iraqi gas 
     station (as we have in other Arab oil states), then this war 
     partly for oil would also be immoral
       If, on the other hand, the Bush team, and the American 
     people, prove willing to stay in Iraq and pay the full price, 
     in money and manpower, needed to help Iraqis build a more 
     progressive, democratizing Arab state--one that would use its 
     oil income for the benefit of all its people and serve as a 
     model for its neighbors--then a war partly over oil would be 
     quite legitimate. It would be a critical step toward building 
     a better Middle East.
       So, I have no problem with a war for oil--provided that it 
     is to fuel the first progressive Arab regime, and not just 
     our S.U.V.'s, and provided we behave in a way that makes 
     clear to the world we are protecting everyone's access to oil 
     at reasonable prices--not simply our right to binge on it.

  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Ohio 
(Ms. Kaptur) for her remarks. Two things or maybe three things that I 
really appreciate. One, I think it is very important to bring up the 
crises or I should say the increase costs of oil and how that has 
steadily gone up in the last 2 years or so and is a major factor also 
impacting the economy and that this administration has not done 
anything in the first 2 years to make us more energy independent. They 
have fiddled around and talked about a lot of things, but nothing has 
actually been accomplished.
  The other thing is, in listening to the gentlewoman, it is almost as 
if President Bush is just going back to the old sort of trickle-down 
economics; in other words, we give all the money to the rich. Now we 
give this huge tax break with dividends primarily to the wealthy and 
somehow that is going to trickle down. But as the gentlewoman pointed 
out, that is not what happens because the money is just invested 
overseas, and one of the things that I mentioned before and that is an 
important part of the Democrat stimulus package is relief for small 
businesses, which is specifically targeted so that it has to be used to 
reinvest in new jobs, new means of production, and the majority of the 
jobs that are created in the United States these days are through small 
business.
  So we are doing the opposite. They are saying we will give a big 
boost to the big corporate interests and the wealthy and they are 
somehow going

[[Page 40]]

to spend it to create jobs; but there are no strings attached, whereas 
the Democrats have a proposal that specifically targets small 
businesses and insists that whatever tax savings or credits are 
specifically for new jobs and new production here, which I think is 
crucial because otherwise it is a waste, and the gentlewoman has 
pointed that out very effectively.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to say to the gentleman, if one 
looks at the last 25 years, it is very important to point out that our 
last four recessions were all related to rising oil prices going back 
to the 1970's, the 1980's, and now the new 21st century. And if we do 
not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it; and what has 
happened over a period of time is that there has been more and more 
military presence placed around the world in order to guard the oil 
lanes coming in here, and it truly would be destabilizing to our 
country if those paths were eliminated, but the answer for America is 
not to become more and more dependent on foreign supplies but rather to 
use not just the short-term stimulus package but the long-term economic 
growth strategy for our country to create energy independence so that 
we are not so vulnerable, and every time some oil baron or king wants 
to make it a little tough on America, they raise prices and then we are 
thrown into recession. They know they do not want us to go into deep, 
deep depression because then they lose some of their revenue, but the 
point is we are like a puppet on the end of a string and we are not 
controlling our own destiny. So I would hope that as we move forward, 
pass this short-term stimulus package that the Democratic Party has 
offered, and then move into long-term economic growth, that we really 
look at energy independence as a major pathway to new job creation and 
investment here at home.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, that is a very good point. And the other 
thing too is that everyone is sort of assuming that this recession is 
at its worst and somehow we are now going to turn it around; but if the 
government goes in the wrong direction with President Bush's plan, it 
could very easily get worse. There is nothing in that plan that is 
going to stimulate the economy. The consequence could very well be that 
the recession gets worse and unemployment gets worse. I hope that does 
not happen, but I think it would be naive for us to suggest that we 
have necessarily hit bottom. One of the reasons we need to do this, 
what the Democrats propose, is that we do not want things to get worse. 
It is not just a question of getting better, but not having the economy 
even move in a further downward direction.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman raised the unemployment 
numbers. It is interesting that recently a survey has come out of rural 
areas in my State, particularly areas that were previously timber-
dependent areas, about unemployment; and the numbers that we record 
today in unemployment do not reflect the real suffering or the true 
degree of unemployment. As high as unemployment is in the United 
States, and it is at some of the highest numbers it has been in a 
decade under this administration without an extension of unemployment 
benefits, which hopefully will be rectified here this week, but the 
numbers are actually much worse because the definitions have been 
cleverly changed to say, well, if they are unemployed and their 
unemployment benefits have run out, they are not considered unemployed 
anymore in the United States.
  So if we follow that illogic through, if everybody in America lost 
their job today and all their benefits an out a year from today and 
nobody got their job back, no one would be working and we would have 
zero unemployment. It is an absolute absurdity. So the true measure of 
unemployment is actually much, much higher than we are seeing; and the 
struggle, as the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) said, to bring some 
productive capacity back to this country and put people back to work, 
we were all first promised, well, they are losing their jobs in 
industry but they will all go into the new economy.
  Well, the new economy has gone bust, and most of them did not get 
jobs there anyway or benefit during those good years; and one cannot, 
in my opinion, be a great Nation if one does not build things, and the 
reliance on foreign oil is extraordinary. The fact that our greatest 
balance of payment, the deficit, is to buy foreign oil, supporting 
people who hardly have any interest in the United States in mind and 
our future in mind and the investment in alternative fuels, alternative 
fuel technology to include fuel cells and all the other things that the 
gentlewoman talked about, bring those industries home to the United 
States and begin to export them into the rest of the world in addition 
to insulating ourselves from these people who are jacking up oil prices 
around the world would be an extraordinary benefit to the American 
people. And I hope that this administration, this unfortunately oil 
administration that we have in the White House, might be able to clear 
their vision a little bit, instead of saying we can somehow drill our 
way out of this, which we cannot. Even if there was as much oil as the 
most optimistic say up in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge and 
along the coast of the United States, we still could not drill our way 
out of this problem. We would still have a growing dependence on 
foreign oil. We need to make dramatic steps and investments in that 
direction, and we should orient more longer-term packages toward the 
recovery of our economy toward those new technologies, toward those 
investments in our country, and those are the kinds of things we need.
  An ephemeral investment or expenditure of $300 billion to relieve 
people from paying taxes on dividends on stock, mostly people who earn 
over $100,000 a year, as an economic stimulus is almost laughable. I 
mean, it is extraordinary to me. And if it does work and it stimulates 
the stock market without dealing with the underlying problems and the 
fundamentals of U.S. industry and their unwillingness to invest if this 
country, in the productive capacity of this country, it will create 
another bubble, and guess what, some people will ride the bubble up, 
get out, and it will pop again, and what happens? The people who are 
always stuck are the middle class and working people who cannot get in 
and out of the market because their only investments in the market are 
through their retirement funds which they cannot liquidate and 
speculate on the way that some of these other folks can. It may well 
cause a big run-up in the stocks that pay dividends in particular, but 
it is not going to generally leaven the economy and put people back to 
work. I have yet to see a single credible economist make that 
assertion, that somehow this $300 billion gift other than through the 
trickle-down theory is going to somehow put people in this country back 
to work.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, the other problem that we have too, which 
we really did not dwell on too much but I think it is important, is 
that it really was disgraceful that the Republicans, who are in the 
majority, with the President went home after December 28 and the people 
that did not have their unemployment compensation just ran out.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, 28,000 people in my State alone saw an end 
to their unemployment benefits in the week between Christmas and New 
Year. Happy New Year from the Federal Government.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, in the State of Ohio it was 24,000 people 
who fell off their benefits right before the New Year and 1,100 
additional people in my own congressional district.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, the amazing thing, we were trying, the 
Democrats insisted before we went home that we would stay here to pass 
a package, but of course the Republicans just adjourned.

                              {time}  1830

  My understanding is, and I have not seen the proposal, I guess we may 
consider something tomorrow or Thursday, is that the Republicans are 
coming back with something like a 12-week extension which may or may 
not even be retroactive. That is a very short period of time, given 
what we are facing

[[Page 41]]

here. The Democratic proposal is for double that, basically 26 weeks, 
and goes back to December 28.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would keep in perspective, 
the total cost of the Democratic proposal, as I understand, it is to be 
twice as generous in terms of the extension of unemployment benefits; 
and to again, to begin to even penetrate some of those other people who 
have been longer unemployed or underemployed, is about one-twentieth, 5 
percent, of what the President is proposing to gift upon the wealthiest 
by relieving them of the horrible burden of paying a small percentage 
tax on the dividends they earn by clipping coupons on stocks that they 
own.
  Where are our priorities? Could he not do 10 percent for the 
unemployed and for their families? I mean, it is just extraordinary to 
me that the emphasis would be so thinly disguised.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, every single one of those families would 
spend that money on basics. They would be buying food.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. From local small businesses.
  Ms. KAPTUR. From local small businesses. They would be shopping at 
local stores. They would be making their mortgage payments, if they can 
hold on to their houses.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, if I could, in my State, we have an 
extraordinary, we have already exhausted this year's allocation of low-
income energy assistance in our State; and we are, what, 3 months into 
the year, the beginning of the heating season; and there are tens of 
thousands of people on the waiting list in my State, and I am sure in 
other States across America. And to say, well, we just cannot afford 
those things, but we can afford for the people who live up on the top 
of the hill in the big houses with all of the lights on and the windows 
open, we are going to give them a little extra gift so that they can go 
to Antigua to avoid the colder months.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I was struck by the fact that here we are on 
the very first day of the 108th Congress, and I am proud to say it is 
the Democratic Party that is down here on the floor tonight talking 
about the economy and the recession and how we invest our way out of 
it; we are talking about war, how we avoid it; we are talking about new 
job creation for our country. I do not hear anything from the other 
side. I mean, it is easy to go to cocktail parties and leave for 
dinners because it is kind of a day of pomp and circumstance; on the 
other hand, we are a serious party, we are true to our traditions, and 
I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) and the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for being a part of this this 
evening. I am very proud to be a Democrat tonight. We are doing our 
job.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, if I could expand on that, it is day 10 
since the extended unemployment benefits expired, and Congress is not 
in official session this evening taking care of that problem. They are 
out, many of them downtown with the lobbyists on K Street celebrating 
with champagne beyond the weekly food budget of many of these families 
who are unemployed.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I thought we would have extended the unemployment 
benefits today. I promised my constituents that it would be my top 
priority when I came back here to Washington; and, quite frankly, I was 
surprised that that bill was not offered today.
  Mr. PALLONE. And we did have votes today. We did have the adoption of 
the rules package. So it was not that we only had a ceremonial session. 
We did have votes.
  The other thing is that in the last few weeks I was hearing from some 
of our Republican colleagues about how maybe we did not even need to do 
it, to extend unemployment compensation because it has been going on 
too long, almost like it is some sort of welfare benefit or something. 
When the recession continues, and it is getting worse, there is no 
indication it is getting, things are getting better, it is only fair to 
extend it. I mean I could not believe I would even have to try to argue 
the case for it. But there are those on the other side of the aisle who 
do not think we should even do it.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I would have to say this also, that when the 
Bush administration's unemployment proposal was talked about, the 
President talked about this before the first of the year; he did not 
say what his proposal really was. His original proposal would have only 
taken care of the unemployed in three States. The State of Oregon was 
one of them, but our State was left out, the State of Ohio. I fail to 
see how an unemployed worker in Ohio who has exhausted his benefits is 
any different than an unemployed worker in Oregon or New Jersey.
  Then there was the issue of how many weeks and at what level for 
benefits they had worked for. These are working people. They are people 
who have believed in our system of enterprise and have tried to make a 
difference in their lives. I was just amazed that none of the press 
talked about the difference in the bills, that we were as the 
Democratic Party talking about every State in the Union, every 
unemployed worker who had fallen off of benefits, and that we were 
talking about a realistic number of weeks, not just 6 weeks or 7 weeks, 
but so that people could plan, 26 weeks, which has been historic here.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, we should remember that unemployment 
benefits have been paid for by the employers and the employees. The 
employers have to pay a tax; most economists say that comes in the form 
of lower wages or at least is shared in lower wages by the employees, 
and there is a large and healthy balance in the unemployment trust 
fund. Yet our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the President 
and the Republican majority, have refused to expend some of those 
taxes. That was money that was saved for a rainy day for families and 
individuals across this country. It is raining like hell out there 
right now, and they need that money. It is their money. That, in fact, 
does not have an impact on the deficit. Giving a $300 billion tax break 
to people who clip coupons on their taxes does cost the Federal 
Treasury and will increase the deficit, but if we kept the books 
honestly, money spent out of the unemployment trust fund which has been 
accumulated over many years for a rainy day would not count as money 
that is spent and created out of nothing. There is money there to 
spend. It is just like we could invest in infrastructure by spending 
down the highway trust fund. We could invest in aviation by spending 
down the aviation trust fund. We could accelerate a whole bunch of 
projects across this country and put people back to work, really. I 
mean, in the phony way we keep books here, it counts as deficit; but in 
reality it would not be. The American taxpayers would be getting the 
money back that they paid for the purpose for which it was intended, 
which is unemployment benefits or investment in bridges, highways, 
roads and aviation.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I want to say a word about Amtrak. I 
represent the largest passenger terminal in Ohio, and it has been 
amazing to me to watch under this administration's purview how service 
has been cut back. I travel around the world, and I ride trains that so 
far surpass anything that we have over land in this country. It is 
actually embarrassing. We talk about a stimulus package. What about 
high-speed rail? Why has it taken us as a country to this point in the 
21st century where we have an antiquated system that needs new 
stimulus, that needs new investment, coast-to-coast, in order to meet 
all of the congestion problems we have at our airports; to provide a 
real, third rail, one might say over the road, in the air, and over 
land, not counting the sea ways, but to take a look at our rail system 
and the investment that is needed in it, and to think that we are 
cutting back to allow Wall Street to put our investment in China or 
Mexico or somewhere else.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. China is building a huge and very expensive multibillion 
dollar new high-speed rail system, probably with some U.S. investment 
behind it.

[[Page 42]]


  Ms. KAPTUR. Very interesting. Maybe some of those Wall Street dollars 
are going to China rather than inside the United States. That is why it 
is important to target the investment here and to make sure that it 
builds wealth in our country, not someplace else.
  When the gentleman mentioned about infrastructure, that really struck 
me because northern Ohio has been seriously diminished in its ability 
to move passengers. And the equipment, the trackage, everything that we 
need really has been underinvested, and this is a system that when one 
goes around the world, I do not care whether it is France, Japan, the 
gentleman mentioned China, we are falling behind, falling behind.
  Mr. PALLONE. There is no question about that. Again, part of our 
Democratic stimulus package does provide for money to go back to the 
States for infrastructure, airports, highways, and the things that the 
gentlewoman mentioned.
  I think we are running out of time, so we are going to have to wrap 
it up; we only have a couple more minutes. But I just want to thank 
both of my colleagues. The bottom line is that this is just the 
beginning. The gentlewoman mentioned the media not comparing the 
different unemployment compensation packages. Part of it is because the 
Bush administration has not really said exactly what they are 
proposing. I gather from today that they are talking about 12 weeks, 
and we will find that out tomorrow. But we are going to have to insist 
beginning tomorrow that this package pass and pass in a way that is 
effective before we leave this week, let alone tonight. So I 
particularly appreciate the fact that my colleagues mentioned that, 
because I think it is something we are going to have to deal with 
literally tomorrow.
  But I thank my colleagues again, and we will continue to point out 
these differences between what the President is proposing and the 
Democratic stimulus package, not because it is partisan, but just 
because we honestly believe that the Republican proposal will not do 
anything to reverse the economic downturn.

                          ____________________