[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20903-20904]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ONGOING JOB CRISIS

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, 18 months ago, a group of 450 economists, 
including 10 Nobel laureates, made it clear that because the White 
House put the narrow interests of a few ahead of our Nation's economy, 
its jobs plan

[[Page 20904]]

would fail. It would fail to create jobs, it would fail to lift wages, 
and it would fail to bring down our deficit.
  The warning was clear. Now the record is undeniable. In the last 3 
years, we have lost 1.6 million private sector jobs. The last time the 
economy took this long to replace jobs lost in a recession was the 
Great Depression. Mr. President, 2.7 million manufacturing jobs have 
been lost, and many sent overseas on a one-way ticket. Unemployment has 
increased 40 percent, and today 8 million Americans are out of work. 
And 1.7 million have been out of work for 6 months or longer.
  That is horrible news for a couple that is hoping to retire, a family 
that is trying to put a child through college, or anyone who has been 
living from paycheck to paycheck.
  But this situation touches all Americans, including those who have 
jobs today. That is because the weakness in the job market has 
undermined wage and salary growth. Real household income has dropped 
3.4 percent since 2001. Adding to the squeeze, college tuition is up, 
gas prices have risen to all-time highs, and the cost of health care 
has risen by 45 percent since 2001.
  Middle-class families are beginning to believe that the deck is 
stacked against them, and for good reason. The CBO recently confirmed 
what many of us have been saying for the past few years: The 
President's economic plan rewards wealth and punishes work by shifting 
the tax burden onto the shoulders of middle-class families. Even with 
middle-class families bearing more than their fair share of the tax 
burden, the country is looking at years and years of record deficits 
and debt.
  This past weekend, I traveled around South Dakota, meeting with 
people and going door to door. More than any time in my memory, people 
tell me they need two or three jobs--not to get ahead, not to save for 
a house or their child's education, but simply to make their monthly 
bills. Many good manufacturing jobs have left the State, and it is 
getting more difficult to find full-time jobs that pay a wage good 
enough to raise a family.
  Recently, I received a letter from a young woman in Lake Andes. She 
has done everything right. She went to college, got a master's degree, 
and got advanced skills that could help move our economy forward. But 
because there are so few good jobs, she has been out of work now for 
months. Just to get by, she has applied for lower skilled work. But 
often she is passed over for those jobs because employers worry that 
she is overqualified. What does it say about our economy that someone 
with real skills, willing to work hard, cannot get a job?
  Out in our small towns and farming and ranching communities, the 
story can even get worse. I have been visiting these communities for 
more than 25 years. There is nothing more gratifying to me than to see 
a family farmer or rancher raise their children, teach them how to 
farm, and then pass their land down to them. That is why we led the 
fight to create an exemption in the estate tax to allow families to 
pass from one generation to the next the farms they have lived on for 
generations before. But too many family farms are getting swallowed up.
  More often, children are forced to leave the communities they know 
and the families they love to find work in other places. They don't 
want to leave, but they cannot find work good enough to allow them to 
raise a family. So the way of life their families have enjoyed for 
generations is being lost. These families have been struggling for 
years, watching all they have worked for slip away from them. Yet when 
they look to Washington, they do not see their Government fighting for 
them, or even hearing them at times. The administration continues to 
say the economy has turned a corner. When these families look ahead, 
they don't see a corner, they see a cliff, and they are worried they 
are going to fall off.
  Americans do not want to wait until after the election to do 
something. They need help now. I am glad we extended the middle-class 
tax cuts. Middle-class families need relief. Previous tax cuts were 
unfairly skewed to the very wealthiest of Americans. This was the right 
thing to do. It will probably help those people who are struggling, but 
there is much more that we need to do.
  First, we need to pass a real jobs bill, one that puts top priority 
on creating jobs at home, closes corporate tax loopholes, and ends the 
incentives that encourage companies to ship American jobs overseas.
  Second, we need to extend the unemployment benefits. Every week, 
another 85,000 Americans exhaust their unemployment benefits. They 
should not be punished because the economic policies that are in place 
have created the longest jobs slump since the Great Depression.
  Third, it is time to raise the minimum wage. Today, the minimum wage 
is $5.15 an hour, and it is worth less than $3 when using 1968 wage 
indicators. Americans who work at the minimum wage for 40 hours a week, 
52 weeks a year, still fall $5,000 short of the poverty line. No 
American who works full time, 52 weeks a year, should live in poverty. 
In the time we have left this year, we should increase the minimum wage 
to $7. It will not lift every working family out of poverty, but it 
will move millions of minimum wage workers closer to the life of 
security and dignity they deserve.
  Fourth, we need to pass a Transportation bill that would provide 
needed infrastructure improvements across the Nation.
  Fifth, we need to help workers whose jobs have been outsourced 
overseas to get back on their feet.
  Finally, we need to pass the renewable fuels standard. In South 
Dakota alone, a renewable fuels standard would create 10,000 jobs and 
revitalize the rural economy. By reducing reliance on foreign oil, 
families would be less vulnerable to high energy costs.
  It looks as though this Congress will end having failed to take 
strong action on behalf of American working families. Unfortunately, 
the leadership has stood in the way of commonsense proposals that would 
create jobs and improve the lives of working people.
  Republican opposition to legislation designed to create jobs and help 
workers would be troubling at any time, but considered together, at a 
time when working families continue to feel the effects of a 3-year-
long jobs slump, their stubborn opposition demonstrates a troubling 
indifference to the needs of American middle-class families.
  Americans still dream of a better life. They still dream of a better 
future for themselves and their families. We have a responsibility to 
give Americans a chance to make that dream real. But it is time we tell 
Americans who are struggling that help is on the way. We are not 
helpless. We can create jobs, lift wages, and stop the outsourcing of 
the American workplace. All it takes is leadership.
  Americans have been looking to Congress to provide the new direction 
of economic leadership they need. We have 1 more week before the Senate 
recesses. The American people are demanding action, and we have an 
obligation to deliver it.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Will the Senator allow me to make an 
announcement?
  Mr. REID. Yes.

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