[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1771-1775]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). Under the Speaker's 
guidelines, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) may control the 
time.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy. I 
do think the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) has sketched an 
interesting conundrum.
  I mentioned the concern I have over what happened in the last year, 
but he raises an interesting dimension if we reflect back at what 
happened with previous administrations and previous Congresses 10 years 
ago.
  Ten years ago, men and women in both parties, both the Republican and 
a Democratic administration, made hard choices to control spending, to 
not cut taxes even though it is fun, but the first President Bush 
worked with Congress, put forward a balanced program of some modest tax 
increase, some fiscal discipline in cutting. It was followed later by 
both Republicans and Democrats with the Clinton administration, so we 
got a balanced budget. We were able to turn things around. The economy 
was booming. Today we are turning our back on that story.
  At the same time, the first President Bush, when he was involved in 
the Middle East with Iraq, painfully, arduously, worked and put 
together an international coalition of almost 40 countries of allies 
and some unlikely supporters dealing with that activity; and today, we 
are looking at a situation where the United States is not anywhere near 
that position and, instead, is relying on some rather aggressive 
rhetoric rather than the hard work in the trenches that characterized 
what happened with the first President Bush and the first Gulf War.
  Let me, if I could, I would like to begin by recognizing some of my 
colleagues that are here. I know the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Woolsey) has had a special interest dealing with the effects on young 
people and education. We appreciate her leadership and would welcome 
comments that she would care to give at this point.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for including me in 
this, my friend from Oregon, and I would like to remind Americans that 
one way that we as Americans define ourselves as a Nation is through 
the Federal budget, and right now, we have to make decisions about our 
values and our priorities, and we have choices: on the one hand, an 
unjustified war with Iraq that could cost more than $200 billion, and I 
am sure it will, on top of an additional $670 billion tax cut that 
primarily benefits the wealthiest Americans, or an investment in our 
children, an investment in their future.
  We have to make these decisions. We cannot do it all because there is 
not enough money to cover both agendas without plunging the United 
States and those very same children deep into debt.
  As President Bush puts forward his plans in the State of the Union 
address tomorrow night, I urge him, I urge him to remember that our 
country's future depends on today's children. Of course, since 
September 11 we have had to reevaluate some of our spending priorities, 
but without investing in our children, we risk ills far worse than 
those from terrorists.
  That is why the wisest investment we can make in our Nation's 
security is strengthening our children's lives and those of their 
families, and we can do this. We can do this by preventing war, first 
off. We must provide for real international security that has 
alternatives to war as its cornerstone, and we can invest in renewable 
energies. This will not only make for a cleaner environment. It will 
also help us achieve independence from fossil fuels, particularly from 
foreign oil.
  Fossil fuels must become a source of the past. We must invest in 
sources of energy that will provide for the prosperity of our children, 
the protection of their environment and the security of their future. 
We must change our national energy policy by supporting conservation 
and renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass and fuel 
cells.
  We can invest in our future by increasing the child care option, and 
we must do that by ensuring that working families have access to 
quality child care.

                              {time}  2015

  Children must not be the first to suffer when budgets tighten. If 
children were our number one priority in this country, then programs to 
provide for their welfare would be the last programs to be slashed. 
Instead, we would be clamoring to help working parents by expanding 
child care and after-school programs. We would be creating a world-
class public education system.
  We can provide quality education. We can make sure that teachers are 
adequately compensated for their important role in our children's 
lives, because we have a responsibility to do that. And we have a 
responsibility to fully fund programs for disadvantaged children. We 
can invest in our future by making health care universally available. 
The United States is the only industrialized country in this world in 
which all citizens do not have access to medical coverage. Until we 
have universal coverage, more than 40 million Americans, nearly 15 
percent of the population, will go without. If we choose to make health 
care a priority, we will provide children, their parents, and America's 
seniors with universal coverage, including affordable prescription 
drugs.
  While putting a universal health care plan together, we can do 
something immediately, and that is to increase the number of children 
in the Medicaid and State Children's Insurance Program, to expand 
SCHIPs also to include parents of eligible children and low-income 
pregnant families. We must also seek to provide a prescription drug 
benefit under Medicare. But these priorities and others that help 
fulfill our commitment to our families, our seniors, our veterans will 
only happen when we demand that they take precedence.
  Excessive military spending in the past has not made us more secure. 
American political leaders must acknowledge the truth, that peace and 
security cannot be achieved through violence. We must never lose sight 
that real security is an educated, healthy society where everyone 
benefits from our Nation's abundant resources. And that is what I will 
remind President Bush as he outlines his agenda Tuesday

[[Page 1772]]

night. The future of our Nation belongs to our children.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman again for including me in this 
Special Order.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's tireless 
efforts on behalf of children in our society, and focusing our 
attention and making sure that people on this floor have this 
constantly brought to their attention. It is really deeply appreciated.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn to my colleague, 
the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), a gentleman who has been 
involved with some tough budget times as a local official and has been 
involved with a series of schemes here in Congress, and who has never 
been shy about sharing his opinions about what the appropriate approach 
should be from his perspective.
  I appreciate the gentleman being here this evening, and I am pleased 
to yield to him now.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Oregon for 
leading us in this Special Order tonight to discuss the real problems 
confronting our Nation, which will get, we all fear, short shrift 
tomorrow night.
  The State of the Union is not sound. Millions of Americans and their 
families are not secure in their homes, not because of some huge new 
crime wave, not because of the threat of Saddam Hussein or any external 
threat to our Nation, but because of the deep recession into which our 
country is falling.
  My State has the highest unemployment rate in the Union. We have been 
dueling with Washington State to be number one or number two for more 
than a year. There is chronic unemployment, but it is not isolated to 
our States, it is all across the Nation. We have the highest 
unemployment rate in more than a decade. We have the most chronic 
unemployment we have seen in a quarter of a century in terms of the 
length of time people are out of work before they can find gainful 
employment.
  Tens of thousands of Americans have already extended their so-called 
extended Federal benefits, and the President has refused to give an 
additional extension, although there is a huge surplus of taxes that 
have been paid by businesses and workers sitting in the Unemployment 
Trust Fund. The President wants to hold onto it to spend for other 
things, like tax breaks for the wealthy.
  Most folks may not have noticed, but the United States Government's 
Pension Benefit Guaranty Fund is broke. It spent its entire reserves in 
the last year, and there is a whole huge new wave of corporate 
bankruptcy coming, with people's pensions at risk, and there is no more 
money in that fund. But what does the President have to say about this? 
Well, precious little. He is going to spend the entire Social Security 
surplus this year on tax breaks and other functions that do not relate 
to Social Security.
  Our States are going bankrupt. They are cutting services; slashing 
services. Now, the President, I think, will give some nod tomorrow 
night with his purported economic stimulus plan, but if we look at the 
plan, the centerpiece is taking away that horrible burden of taxes on 
dividends on a select group of stocks that pay dividends with the idea 
of doing away with double taxation. Well, many of the corporations that 
pay dividends do not pay any Federal income taxes. They have found the 
loopholes; they are incorporated in Bermuda. All those things the 
President supports and will not do anything about. So there is no 
double taxation issue.
  Who does the money go to? For the average Oregonian, at $32,000 a 
year, they will get $40. Thank you, Mr. President. Now, the average 
millionaire will get $45,000. Now, there are no credible economists who 
say that this has anything to do with an economic stimulus, but this is 
the most expensive part of and the centerpiece of the President's so-
called economic stimulus plan to try to put people back to work. Even 
Alan Greenspan, who is perpetually apologizing for these types of 
policies, says he really does not think it will do anything to put 
people back to work or stimulate the economy, and it would be just as 
good to not do it at all.
  When the President was a candidate and we had a booming economy and a 
surplus, his answer as a candidate was tax cuts. Then when we had a 
slowing economy and a surplus, his answer was tax cuts. Now we have a 
devastated economy falling deeper and deeper into recession, and his 
answer is tax cuts, for a select few.
  There are better alternatives. Some of those will be discussed here 
on the floor tonight. I have discussed those at other times, and I do 
not have time to go into it now, but there are better alternatives to 
really invest in this country and its people and put people back to 
work.
  Finally, to the war. Osama bin Laden, who was going to be brought 
back dead or alive, is alive and is plotting further attacks on the 
United States. Afghanistan, which was going to be made into a country 
that would recover and not be made a safe haven for terrorists, has now 
begun to set up terrorist training camps again. The Axis of Evil, 
Korea, is building more nuclear weapons, they already have them, and 
more long-range missiles that can hit the United States. Iran is close 
to having nuclear weapons. And yet the President and his staff are 
focused on Saddam Hussein and the horrible threat he poses.
  Actually, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and all those people came into 
office with President Bush II wanting to refight the first war. This 
has nothing to do with 9-11 or any purported ties to terrorists. This 
is old business, an old agenda by old men, none of whom has ever fought 
in a war or ever worn a uniform and fought in anger.
  So I would hope that the President's State of the Union will not 
fulfill all of these dire predictions that I have mentioned, but I fear 
it will. Tax cuts for the wealthy and a war are a nostrum for what 
fails our Nation and the problems that are confronting us.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's passion and 
insights.
  Another colleague from the Pacific Northwest, the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott), has served on the Committee on Ways and 
Means arm-wrestling with these proposals for a number of years and has 
particular expertise dealing with health care and the economic 
revitalization through tax policy.
  If the gentleman would be interested in sharing a little of his 
insights with us in terms of what we can look forward to and what we 
should look forward to instead.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Well, I want to thank the gentleman from Oregon for 
yielding to me.
  I wish that tomorrow night we were going to have a speech like John 
Kennedy gave in 1961, when he came and said, we are going to go to the 
moon. He gave the American people a goal. He gave them hope. He gave 
them a vision of what they could be as a country. Unfortunately, I am 
sitting here preparing myself to come tomorrow and not hear any of 
that.
  I wish that the President were going to say tomorrow, when he stands 
up here behind me, that in 10 years the United States is going to be 
off their oil addiction; that they are going to break the oil addiction 
that is killing us. They are going to do the things necessary to get 
off an addiction. The United States is just like somebody who is on 
heroin or cocaine in terms of oil. We use oil in tremendous amounts, 
although we have scarcely any of it left in our own country. The 
President wants to drill everywhere in sight, but we still are not 
going to get enough oil from the United States. So we are forced to get 
our oil from Venezuela and from Nigeria and from the Middle East, and 
it is not necessary for this addiction to continue.
  If the President of the United States would set a goal tomorrow night 
for us to move to oil independence in the world and begin to push solar 
and wind and hydrogen cells as a way of solving our transportation 
problems and the energy needs of this society, we could do it. San 
Francisco has already started to move. They got burned by Enron,

[[Page 1773]]

so San Francisco said, this is never going to happen again to us, and 
they passed a $100 million bond issue, and they are putting solar 
panels on every public building in San Francisco.
  Now, if the President of the United States said that we are going to 
do it all over the country, we would absolutely change our relationship 
to the Middle East. This misbegotten proposal to go to war to get 20 
percent of the world's oil reserves from Iraq would be irrelevant. They 
could do it in San Francisco, yet our President cannot say let us do it 
in the whole country.
  California, every single day, has fallout of the sky seven times the 
energy they use in California. All they have to do is catch it and turn 
it into electrical energy, and they can do what needs to be done. Now, 
that is true in many parts of the United States. Even in my State of 
Washington there are areas where this makes good sense.
  Now, let us talk about hydrogen cells. People say we are talking 
about something that is way, way, way out there somewhere. Most people 
do not realize Honda and Toyota delivered to the Los Angeles mayor 
hydrogen cell cars within the last 2 months and said, we want you to 
use these over here and see how they work and what the problems are. 
The Japanese are, once again, miles ahead of us. They did it with 
little cars, then they did it with hybrids, and now they are doing it 
with hydrogen cells. But our President says, no, we have to stick with 
that oil, and we have to put it in the gasoline engines, and we have to 
do the same old thing.
  Now, as a psychiatrist, one of the things I learned was that people 
who do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, 
that is really a sign of sickness. We have been doing this for 100 
years. We have been putting gasoline in cars and sending up clouds of 
pollution, which is the second thing the President could be dealing 
with. If he gave us this goal of energy independence, he would stop the 
process of us polluting the air and destroying the ozone and global 
warming.
  All you have to see is pictures of glaciers all over this country and 
north of this country that have been melted by the global warming. It 
is absolutely without question going on. Yet our President says, no, we 
cannot have anything to do with that Kyoto Accord, because that would 
mean we would have to stop using our oil. But I wish the President were 
coming tomorrow to say to us that we are going to get off that because 
we are going to do something about the energy and how we are killing 
the environment.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. Speaker, I heard a story on NPR recently which disturbed me, 
having been a child psychiatrist for a number of years. Every child 
born in this century has a 100 percent chance of getting skin cancer if 
they are not protected because of the destruction of the ozone level; 
they are being subjected to rays of the sun that is going to make them 
develop skin cancer.
  The President of the United States could do all of this if he could 
simply say we are not going to go to war to get 20 percent of the 
world's oil reserves; we are going to go in another direction. We are 
going to change the direction of this country. Unfortunately, the 
President of the United States is going to stand up on the podium and 
beat the war drum for an hour and tell us we must go after Saddam 
Hussein, and he has never made it clear what we are going for, but it 
is really about oil.
  What makes me sad about what is going to happen tomorrow night is 
that the American people are going to listen to the speech and think 
that their only solution is to take Saddam Hussein out; and if we do 
that, we are going to be really safe. All of the security will be 
settled; we will be safe forever.
  Mr. Speaker, does anybody really think that the American public is 
going to believe that? I do not. I wish the President would come 
tomorrow and talk about energy independence.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I think it is interesting to consider 
what would have happened if such a challenge had been made last year, 
energy independence, for instance, instead of spending up to $230 
billion on national missile defense. We have already put an $8 billion 
downpayment this year. We are starting work in Alaska which, 
ironically, is something that is not going to make this country safe 
from terrorist attacks. If people in North Korea actually have a 
nuclear device, we are as vulnerable to somebody bringing a motor boat 
into the Puget Sound, into San Francisco Bay, into New York Harbor.
  Instead of moving forward with a challenge like the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott) talked about, instead this last year has 
been characterized by a systematic assault on the environment.
  There was a classic cartoon by Gary Trudeau in ``Doonesbury'' in the 
Sunday paper which appeared around the country. The text of it that 
builds the momentum is ``For instance, Mr. President, we've produced 
new rules to speed up logging in national forests, rolled back 
protections of 58 million acres from roads and developments, eased 
pollution controls for power plants and factories, rejected new fuel-
efficiency standards, sped up permit-granting for power companies, 
lifted a ban on snowmobiles in parks, proposed 51,000 new natural gas 
wells, removed limits on coal producers for dumping mountaintop fill in 
streams, reduced EPA fines of polluters by 64 percent, opened up Padre 
Island to drilling, halted funding for several Superfund sites, 
replaced scientists who don't support our views, rejected the Kyoto 
Global Warming treaty, and much, much more!'' Gary is not making this 
up. This is all part of the environmental legacy of this administration 
in the course of the last year.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens), the 
only librarian in Congress and a member of the Committee on Education 
and the Workforce who has been dealing with questions of poverty, 
education, and how we get our communities rolling again.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I make an appeal to the President that he 
lead us in the most profound and comprehensive way and give us hope in 
his State of the Union address.
  At the beginning of this 108th Congress, it is important that we take 
note of a very important report recently released by the Federal 
Reserve. The study focuses on consumer finances, and is issued once 
every 3 years. Among the definitive items in this comprehensive 
statement is a report that the median net worth for our white 
population rose by 20 percent to $120,900 while the median net worth 
for minorities fell over the last 3-year period by 4.5 percent to 
$17,000. Consider the contrast of $120,900 versus $17,000. It is a 
portrait of two economies. It is a portrait of two societies. In the 
midst of a period of great prosperity, at least 2 of those years we 
were in a period of great prosperity, just before the economic slow 
down, minorities were existing with a standard of living close to that 
of the third world.
  In the year 2003 this is the state of the Union for a population that 
can be no less than one-half of the total. I have not been able to 
review the report closely and find out what their definition of 
minority is, but I will do that. But I am certain if minority means all 
of the groupings that I know as minority, we are talking about more 
than half the population. I intend to review the report in more detail 
and see what this category of minority means.
  While we casually speak of the expenditure of as much as $200 billion 
for a possible war against Iraq, a large portion of our population is 
sinking deeper into poverty. A war against poverty should be our first 
priority because this economy, which is sinking into a recession, will 
cause more hardships if we do not address the war against poverty.
  In the State of the Union we hope to hear that there is support for 
an increase in the minimum wage. We have been hearing about that for 
several years, and it is still locked into $5.15. Even if we go to work 
every day 40 hours a week, Americans will not get out of poverty on 
that kind of minimum wage.

[[Page 1774]]

  I hope the State of the Union will talk about job training and 
employment for mothers being pushed off welfare. It is premature to 
claim that we have solved the welfare problem by giving people jobs 
with dignity instead of a handout. There are no jobs with dignity that 
also pay decent wages out there, otherwise we would not have a 4.5 
percent decline among poor people in terms of net worth.
  For workers who have never been on welfare, we want to provide jobs 
and job training, and we need revenue sharing for cities and States 
because large numbers of municipal and State workers who have decent 
jobs now are in danger of being laid off and losing their jobs, and 
that is a further decline into poverty. We need funding for necessary 
capital projects like school construction which provide real jobs, good 
jobs, and keep our population working.
  We hope and we pray that the vital standard of living issues that we 
are talking about here will be addressed in the State of the Union 
address. It is not the war against Iraq that should have priority; it 
is the war against poverty and the war to maintain a decent standard of 
living for all of our population that ought to be given a priority in 
the State of the Union address.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments 
and focusing on what we could be doing, what we should be doing, as 
opposed to what it appears that the President is focusing on, an 
economic stimulus package that will create less than 200,000 jobs, 
which is only 10 percent of the jobs we have already lost in the last 
year, that will provide the top 1 percent of the taxpayers with 40 
percent of the benefits, and will increase the deficit by more than 
$900 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield next to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), who 
is an experienced legislator with an impressive victory which brought 
him to this Chamber, and a Member who has impressed not only his 
constituents in Ohio, but also Members here in Washington with the way 
the gentleman has hit the ground running.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be here and honored to 
be here with such a fine group of gentlemen who have spoken so 
eloquently on the issues that need to be addressed in this country.
  Let me touch base on what the gentleman from Washington stated about 
having a goal and a vision. That is what we all look for when we listen 
to the State of the Union, and I hope tomorrow we have an opportunity 
to hear the President share his vision for some energy independence in 
this country.
  Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise to represent the people of the 17th 
Congressional District in Ohio, the good folks back at home, who I 
think want solutions, not just rhetoric. Whether it is talking about 
prescription drugs and seniors really having a need, where they are 
moving in with their children, their grandchildren, they are making the 
choice between food and drugs in the 17th District in Ohio, but even 
industries in the 17th District of Ohio want a meaningful prescription 
drug plan. We can do this, and I believe we should do this.
  The gentleman from New York touched upon education and the Leave No 
Child Behind Act was supposed to be the answer to all of our problems; 
but now it seems that the only thing that has been left behind is the 
money to actually fund the program. I think when we are talking about 
economic development and salvaging our economy, the best investment we 
can make is into education.
  American workers all over the country, but especially in the 17th 
Congressional District are also suffering, whether it is unemployment 
benefits or whatnot, and the President has an economic stimulus package 
that really is not going to stimulate the economy. That again has been 
touched upon here tonight. A stimulus package, money invested into a 
stimulus package, should first stimulate; and second, the money should 
be spent in the first year.
  The President's proposal spends only 15 percent of the money in the 
first year. That is not a stimulus package; that is a tax reform 
package. And I think we need to begin to determine if we want to 
stimulate the economy, the best thing we can do is if we are going to 
give tax cuts, give them to low- and middle-income people who are 
actually going to go out and spend the money. The wealthy people will 
save their money. And with all of the talk of war, we can give them all 
of the money back they want, they are not going to invest it in an 
environment where we keep talking about war.
  Another investment which I think would stimulate the economy, which 
economists have said time and time again, is investments in the 
infrastructure. For every billion dollars we invest in infrastructure, 
we create 42,000 jobs. That is a real economic stimulus, and I hope the 
President will talk a little bit about the Democrats' stimulus package 
that we have offered.
  Finally, I would like to speak about homeland security and how it 
fits into a stimulus package. If we really want a secure homeland, we 
need to talk about providing police, providing fire protection, and 
hazardous material funding to those in the inner cities. Those people 
have a right as much as everyone else in this country to have a safe, 
secure homeland, and that is what some funding should be spent on.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that the President understands that our Nation 
really and truly can only be strong if the poorest and the most 
vulnerable and the workers of this country are strong. That is what we 
hope to hear tomorrow night.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman joining us 
and the gentleman's focus on the plight of prescription drug coverage 
for our senior citizens. It continues to be, I think, an outrage and a 
shame that poor American senior citizens pay the highest prescription 
drug prices in the world. It is in this context that we are moving 
forward dealing with the economy, with the weakest economic growth in 
50 years, over 2 million private sector jobs eliminated since this 
administration started, 2 million more employees out of work, the 
median household income being down, and the inequality gaps growing, 
and States facing huge deficits and having to cut programs. Then we are 
given an economic program on the Federal level which will actually 
reduce State revenues for the majority of States and not meaningfully 
deal with the problems that our States are facing.
  I am hopeful that this Congress at least will respond to the efforts 
of the Democratic minority here in the House to make sure that we fully 
fund our commitments to State and local governments, local governments 
being the first line of defense against terrorist acts here at home.

                              {time}  2045

  Promises to local governments have been left unfulfilled.
  I am pleased to turn to the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda), my 
colleague who has finished a distinguished career in the California 
State Assembly and who is now adding his voice here in our Nation's 
Capital dealing with the needs of the people of California and around 
the country.
  Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding, 
and I appreciate the introduction and the work that he is doing today 
and this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss the state of our Union, and let 
us talk plainly on what is going on today. Today 8.6 million Americans 
are looking for work, but unable to find it. In my district of Santa 
Clara County alone, over 80,000 Americans are unemployed. Since 
President Bush took office, 1.7 million jobs have been lost.
  Today too many of our Nation's schools are crumbling and are crowded. 
The average public school in America is 42 years old. In California 
alone, 87 percent of schools report a need to upgrade their buildings 
and other repairs that they need.
  Today 40 million Americans do not have health insurance; 7.2 million 
of them are children. While these numbers dropped in 1999 and the year 
2000, they rose by 1.4 million in 2001.
  Today serious crime is up 2.1 percent, the first increase in 10 
years.

[[Page 1775]]

  Today 1.3 million more Americans are below the poverty line, the 
first increase since 1993. Requests for emergency shelter have 
increased by 19 percent, the largest annual increase in the demand for 
homeless shelter since 1990.
  Mr. Speaker, it is thus no surprise that 67 percent of Americans are 
worried about the economy. While the war against terrorism remains a 
major priority, it cannot replace our commitment to meeting our 
Nation's other domestic priorities.
  Unfortunately, the Bush administration's economic stimulus plan does 
little to stimulate the economy now. Instead, it does too much to 
weaken our economic future, producing deficits of over $1 trillion. The 
centerpiece of the President's plan, the elimination of taxes on 
dividend income, will do little to help working families and small 
business, which are the backbone of the American economy. In contrast, 
Democrats have put forward an effective, fast-acting stimulus plan that 
would create 1 million jobs this year.
  Mr. Speaker, while the President continues to pitch his flawed 
economic plan and continues to downplay the state of our economy, 
Democrats will continue to focus on a swift economic recovery and fight 
to put education and health care ahead of unfair large, huge tax cuts.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate 
his focusing on the program that has been advanced by the Democrats in 
the House of Representatives. It is an immediate economic stimulus plan 
that will create 1 million jobs this year. It would put money and 
purchasing power in the hands of consumers, provide relief to 3 million 
laid-off workers. The House Democratic plan proposes a $300 tax rebate 
now for every working taxpayer, tax breaks to help small businesses and 
encourage business investment, and a 26-week extension of unemployment 
insurance. It would provide money to the States to deal with their 
fiscal crises, dealing with homeland security, transportation, and 
health care costs. All told, this Democratic plan which would put more 
on the table this year would cost far less than that of the President. 
We look forward to being able to carry this debate forward in the 
aftermath of this important week here in Washington, D.C.
  I appreciate the courtesy, Mr. Speaker, of being able to be here on 
the floor this evening.

                          ____________________