[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 25242]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          ECONOMY IS IMPROVING

  (Mr. FOLEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be back in Washington 
here on a Monday and obviously reflect on the past week, and hope that 
we have seen some brighter economic news emerging: The Dow Jones 
Industrial Average, the NASDAQ, unemployment numbers dropping slightly. 
Even though we are still concerned about unemployment, we are making 
progress.
  Some of the other intrinsic things that we can judge the economy by 
are starting to show real signs of progress. Numbers of companies 
reporting record earnings, improved performance, back order of supplies 
in inventory diminishing, which is all pointing us in the right 
direction that this President and Congress has delivered an economic 
package, a tax incentive package that is starting to stimulate, albeit 
slowly, the economy back into a performing economic model.
  We have more to do, and the Committee on Ways and Means will start 
debating next week opportunities to create jobs here in this country by 
providing the economic and tax incentives for corporations to remain 
here in the United States, producing jobs, providing incomes and 
hopefully financial stability for Americans everywhere. So we will be 
reporting that bill out next week, bringing it to the floor hopefully 
with the cooperation of both the Democrats and Republicans to assure 
that we have the kind of economic job producing model that will create 
the incentives for our citizens to once again return to the active 
workforce and create the kind of economies that are so vitally 
important to this Nation.
  So I want to salute our committee, particularly the Committee on Ways 
and Means, for undertaking what will be a very difficult task. There 
are a lot of people who would be opposed to any tax relief whatsoever, 
but if they look at the significance and substance of this bill, they 
will see this is, in fact, earmarking to create jobs, manufacturing 
jobs to States like North Carolina and Georgia and Pennsylvania and, of 
course, the high-tech corridor in California.
  So all of these things are important, the debate is important, and so 
I join with my colleagues in saluting in particular this President, 
saluting our efforts in Iraq. Our prayers are with our troops there as 
we continue to liberate Iraqis from the grips of Saddam Hussein. It has 
been difficult. We have had loss of lives, but at the same time, if we 
look at the progress we have made, we will see that we are starting to 
find great solutions to the problem in Iraq.

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