[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 12946]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
                         GOING OUT WITH A BANG

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, Congress can recess for the Memorial Day 
break with a big bang. We are going to increase the debt ceiling by 
$984 billion, almost $1 trillion, and also later today the Congress 
will vote to borrow over $300 billion to reduce the taxes, principally 
of a wealthy few in this country, under the premise that under trickle-
down economics, they will invest that money in such a way it will 
create jobs.
  Well, the last tax cut of $1.2 trillion cost the country 1.7 million 
jobs and caused us to borrow another $1 trillion, because we are now 
running deficits.
  We could make real investments and put people back to work, 
investments in roads, bridges, highways, mass transit, sewer, water 
systems, things that increase the productive capacity of the country 
and the wealth of the country.
  By the administration's own measures, if we diverted that money 
instead of borrowing it to give to wealthy people in the hope it might 
create the 1 million jobs the President hopes for, we could create 13 
million jobs directly in construction, with a huge spillover in 
economic activity across the country.
  There is a very viable alternative: do not borrow money to give to a 
few people. Never have we borrowed so much to give to so few.

                          ____________________