[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3751-3752]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   EXTENDING OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 20, 2004, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, my friend, the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Pallone), just talked about the new economic statistics, 
that some 21,000 jobs were created last month in this country. The 
President had predicted 250,000 jobs. The Wall Street Journal had 
predicted 150,000, something like that; 21,000 were actually created. 
Of those 21,000, actually every one of those jobs was a government job, 
many of them in education, productive, important jobs; but actually 
there was no private sector job creation, period. There was actually a 
loss of private sector jobs.
  This is where it really matters to people. There were 760,000 
American workers whose unemployment benefits have expired in December, 
January, and February. That is 760,000 workers whose unemployment has 
expired who cannot find jobs. That is 760,000 families, many of whom 
have children, who have lost their unemployment compensation, have no 
income, cannot find jobs.
  My friend on the other side of the aisle, the President and the 
Republican leadership, even though a lot of Republicans want to support 
it but the President and the Republican leadership will not bring it 
up, have said no to extending unemployment compensation for those 
760,000 workers, those 760,000 families.
  Last week, I visited a group of about 50 or 60 machine-shop operators 
in Akron in my district, in the city of Akron, Ohio. Right before I 
spoke, a man walked forward and put just a plastic bag full of 
brochures like this in front of me, and what they are is a bag of about 
five times this size.

                              {time}  1245

  He had gotten several hundred of these every month. These are auction 
notices he receives in his company, his machine shop, where he employs 
10, 15 workers, something like that. Most of the companies represented 
there last week when I talked to them, were small manufacturers, 10, 
20, 50, 100, maybe one company was 150. Most of

[[Page 3752]]

them were very small manufacturers. But they said they were getting 
these auction notices from companies all over the United States, and 
they are basically fire sales, get out of business sales.
  This is an auction notice from Houston, Texas. Large capacity 
fabricating and machine shop closing. They are selling their capital 
equipment to anyone who will buy it. This is from a company in 
Springfield, Ohio. Surplus to the ongoing operation of this small 
manufacturing company. They are selling their surplus equipment. They 
do not have customers so they are laying off workers. This is another 
one. Plant closed, everything sells. This is another one. This one is 
from Cincinnati, Ohio, another company which says excess equipment due 
to corporate outsourcing.
  This one is from Medina, Ohio, just south of my district. Fax 
facility closed. All must go. This is from Anderson, Indiana. Assets no 
longer required in the continuing operations because of foreign 
competition and outsourcing. This is one from Portland, Maine. This is 
from Newfoundland, New Jersey. This is one from Warrington, 
Pennsylvania, a company going out of business. Willoughby, Ohio. Kent, 
Ohio.
  Companies all over this country, Mr. Speaker, are going out of 
business, laying off 10 and 20 and 50 and 100 workers. Manufacturing 
jobs. One out of six manufacturers jobs in my State has been lost since 
George Bush became president. His answer to every single bad piece of 
economic news is more tax cuts for the richest people in our country 
and more trade agreements like NAFTA that will ship jobs overseas; that 
will hemorrhage jobs to Mexico and China.
  Here is the result of the President's economic policy. It is plant 
closing after machine shop closing after down-scaling and downsizing 
because of outsourcing, because of foreign competition, because of the 
fact that this President has no manufacturing policy whatsoever. One 
out of six manufacturing jobs in my State of Ohio has simply gone away 
in the last 3 years.
  As the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) said, George Bush will 
be the fist President since Herbert Hoover to have lost jobs during his 
time in office to the tune of about 3 million jobs, it looks like.
  Going back to those 760,000 workers who have seen their unemployment 
expire. While Members of Congress get paid $3,000 a week, $3,000 a 
week, this body has absolutely failed, just failed, just ignored, just 
brazenly, callously been disdainful of those workers who have lost 
their jobs, cannot find work, and had their unemployment benefits 
expire.
  This is not welfare, this is unemployment. It is called unemployment 
insurance. It is insurance in case you are laid off. These are 760,000 
workers whose unemployment has expired. This Congress is too callous 
and too hardhearted to help those 760,000 families while our economic 
policies continue to fail.

                          ____________________