[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4062-4063]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     NEED FOR CONCERN OVER JOB LOSS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Issa). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, as has been noted here on the floor 
earlier by my colleague the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), the 
President came to Ohio yesterday. It was his 15th visit since being 
elected, or since ascending to the presidency.

[[Page 4063]]

  The fact is that he should come to Ohio, because Ohio is a suffering 
State. Ohio has lost approximately 300,000 jobs since the President has 
been in office. About 160,000 of those jobs have been good paying 
manufacturing jobs, living wage jobs, jobs with good benefits. And, 
quite frankly, there is no recovery in Ohio as I stand here in this 
Chamber today. The recovery may be happening on Wall Street, it may be 
happening in other States, but the recovery has not yet come to Ohio. 
So I think the President should be concerned.
  Just yesterday in this Chamber, a group of high school students from 
my district, from Jefferson County, were visiting here in the Nation's 
Capital, and during the question and answer session that I had with 
them in this Chamber, a high school student asked me what I could say 
to those who had worked at Weirton Steel, those who had retired, had 
been a part of this community and of this company, and are now being 
told that their health benefits are no longer there for them, that 
their pensions are being reduced.
  Quite frankly, it is difficult to answer a question like that coming 
from one of my constituents, because the sad, sad fact is, there are 
good citizens, law-abiding, patriotic Americans, who have worked all 
their lives and are now finding themselves in the most difficult 
circumstances. They may be in their mid-fifties, with major health 
problems, only to find that they are no longer covered with health 
insurance.
  So we need to focus on Ohio, and the President needs to be thinking 
about job creation. But that is why I am so disappointed in the 
President's recently published economic report to the Nation. In that 
report there is this sentence: ``If a good or a service can be produced 
at lower cost in another country, it makes sense to import that product 
rather than to produce it domestically.''
  Now, the fact is that nearly every job in this country can probably 
be performed at lower cost in another country. The fact is that the 
Chinese and the Indians, the Vietnamese, those from Australia, they are 
doing the producing and they are taking jobs from this country. As is 
the case in Mexico that I visited a couple months ago, paying $38 a 
week, an American company paying $38 a week for 9\1/2\ hour days, well, 
of course they can produce it at lower cost there. But the last thing 
we need is for the President to indicate that this is a good thing.
  That economic report was issued under President Bush's signature, so 
he is responsible for that conclusion, that statement, ``if a good or a 
service can be produced at a lower cost in another country, it makes 
sense to produce it there, rather than to produce it domestically.''
  But what do you say, what do you say, Mr. President, to the 
unemployed steelworkers, to those along the Ohio River, on both the 
West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio portions of that river, whose jobs 
depend on producing china and pottery, these jobs that are being 
threatened by imports from China, when your administration is wanting 
to reduce or eliminate the current tariffs of 28 percent? What do you 
say to them?
  Of course you can make a plate cheaper in China, if you are going to 
pay pennies an hour or dollars a week, but that does not make it right. 
We need a President who is willing to stand up for American jobs, 
American workers, American communities and American industries.

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