[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 22651-22652]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). Pursuant to the order 
of the House of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) 
is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the state 
of our ailing economy. The administration recently announced that it is 
requesting $87 billion from Congress to fund the war and rebuild 
Afghanistan and Iraq's infrastructure and the economy. This is in 
addition to the $79 billion that Congress made available for these 
efforts last spring.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not have any problem with fighting the war against 
terrorism, whether it is in Iraq or in Afghanistan, but I am wondering 
where the funding is to rebuild our own economy.
  Just put this $87 billion in context for those in the Chamber and for 
our constituents at home, $87 billion is more than our government 
spends on any domestic agency, with the exception of the Department of 
Defense and the Department of Health and Human Services. With this 
request, we will spend more rebuilding Iraq than we will spend 
rebuilding crumbling American roads and bridges. We will spend more in 
Iraq than we spend on rebuilding outdated schools where our children 
are educated. In fact, we will spend more rebuilding Iraq than 
President Lyndon Johnson spent to fund the entire Federal Government in 
his first year in office, and that was the first year of our Great 
Society. My colleagues on the Republican side talk about how bad it 
was; well, we are actually spending more in Iraq than we were in the 
first year of the Great Society.
  While this administration is focused like a laser beam on Iraq, and I 
agree with some of that, we are falling asleep at the wheel while 
driving our economy. Quite frankly, our economy is swerving and is 
heading for a wreck. If you have lost your job or cashed your last 
unemployment check, you already know you are in a wreck.
  Mr. Speaker, we have presided over the largest fiscal reversal in 
history by turning a $5.6 trillion surplus into a $3.3 trillion 
deficit. Under this administration's economic leadership, 3.2 million 
Americans have lost their jobs,

[[Page 22652]]

and these jobs will not return, if you read the business sections of 
our major dailies. The gross domestic product growth has averaged 1.6 
percent, and real business investment has fallen to 10.4 percent.
  Now, if we show these figures to the administration, we will hear 
their cries of recession and economic swings. Well, this country has 
weathered recessions before, but these figures do not represent just 
any recession. These figures represent the worst economic conditions 
since the Great Depression. That is right, the worst economic 
conditions since the Great Depression.
  This administration has the worst economic record since Herbert 
Hoover presided over the Great Depression. And as much as this 
administration hates to admit it, tax cuts are not the answer to every 
economic problem. Oh, they promised us that cutting taxes would ease 
the burden on businesses and pave the way for job creation. Well, since 
the President took office, we have had three major tax cuts and lost 
3.2 million jobs. That is over a million jobs lost for each tax cut. 
And this Congress, by the way, enacted those tax cuts.
  This country has already lost 437,000 jobs this year, raising our 
unemployment levels to 6.1 percent. Factory employment in this country 
has declined in every single month for the last 3 years. In fact, of 
the 3.2 million jobs lost under this administration, 2.7 of them are 
manufacturing jobs. And over 150,000 of those manufacturing jobs come 
from my home State of Texas.
  Mr. Speaker, I have the distinct honor of representing the 29th 
District of Texas, and it is the third most blue-collar district in the 
country, according to the last census. These good-paying jobs belonged 
to my constituents and provided them with a livable wage and a good 
chance to achieve the American dream. In 1950, manufacturing jobs 
represented one-third of our country's labor market. Today they 
represent one-tenth. Part of this country's economic problem is it does 
not make anything anymore. It is great to be the information economy, 
but it is not great if you do not have anything to have any information 
about. Our push for free trade has pushed our products and our jobs 
right out of this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud to represent the Port of Houston, the second 
largest port in our country. The port has been an economic boon for 
both the city of Houston and Texas and our region. But for the sake of 
our country, I just wish those ships going out of the port were as full 
as when they come in.
  Mr. Speaker, our country is in a dire economic situation. It does not 
take too much to go out and listen to our constituents to know that. 
Like my colleagues, I listened intently when the President recently 
talked about the need for unity and sacrifice, and I think he is right. 
But our country's economy and unemployed workers have sacrificed 
enough. It is high time that this administration made some sacrifices 
and the tough decisions necessary to start putting this country and all 
of our people first.

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