[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12354-12355]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           RATE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH OR LACK THEREOF IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, last night on the floor of this 
Chamber there were two interesting 1-hour presentations, as many of you 
remember. One was several colleagues from the Republican side, if I 
recall from Texas, Illinois, Arizona, my State of Ohio, West Virginia, 
Florida, Indiana and a

[[Page 12355]]

couple other States, who spoke about the rapid economic growth we are 
experiencing; how this is, as the Secretary of Commerce said, quoting 
now, ``It is the best economic climate in my lifetime,'' he said; that 
``things were great on the job front; lots of new jobs created, lots of 
economic prosperity.''
  Then there also was a group of people, mostly from my State of Ohio, 
that told stories of letters we have received from constituents, people 
saying that their college tuition has gone up sharply, 13 percent at 
Ohio State, for example; they have lost their drug coverage; their 
programs for education in their communities have been cut, both by 
local governments and also State governments, and, thirdly, in some 
cases the Federal Government.

                              {time}  1745

  There was major job loss. Companies like Timken in Ohio, for 
instance, have lost one out of six manufacturing jobs. But what was 
curious about the difference in the view of the country is that it is 
pretty clear my Republican friends kind of all meet in a huddle like a 
football game and they are all coming out, I do not mean to mix 
metaphors, but coming out as cheerleaders because they have been sort 
of instructed by the White House that the only way to win this election 
is by saying over and over and over and over that this is the best 
economy we have had in years.
  The problem is, and I do not think we are being nay-sayers, I am just 
passing on, we are all passing on what our constituents in Ohio and 
Illinois, like the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) and 
others, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) and the gentleman 
from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) here and others are just passing on what our 
constituents are telling us, that we need to change the direction of 
this country.
  If the cheerleaders on the other side of the aisle, the President's 
football squad, if you will, that comes out of the huddle, if they 
continue to talk about how great the economy is, it means that they are 
not willing to admit the mistakes of the last 3 years in how our 
economy and our country are going in the wrong direction.
  The only way to correct things is to say, well, maybe we are going in 
the wrong direction and maybe we need to change course. But the 
President's answer in every single situation, for every bad piece of 
economic news the President says two things: we need to cut taxes for 
the 5 percent wealthiest Americans, maybe some of it will trickle down 
and create jobs. That clearly has not worked. We have lost 2.7 million 
jobs since he took office. President Bush will be the first President 
since President Hoover to have lost jobs during his time in office.
  And his other answer is more trade agreements like the North American 
Free Trade Agreement. He wants us to pass the Central American Free 
Trade Agreement; free trade agreements with Singapore, Chile, Morocco, 
Australia, the Free Trade Area of America, which will quadruple the 
number of low-income workers in the NAFTA trade block. He wants us to 
continue to do that when those policies clearly are shipping American 
jobs overseas.
  Now, those policies, as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) said on 
the floor last night, those policies clearly help the President's 
political friends, they help his wealthy contributors; but they are not 
helping workers in this country.
  I do not question the motives of my friends on the other side of the 
aisle, the cheerleading, for saying this economy is in such great 
shape. I think they really believe it because they spend their time 
with the 5 or 10 percent of the people in this country who are doing 
great, the 5 or 10 percent of the people who see profits going up. They 
are corporate executives, they are big stockholders, they are getting 
bigger dividends, they see the stock market going up in some cases, not 
very regularly, and so they get tax cuts because they are in the upper 
1 or 2 or 5 percent income brackets. So the economy is going well for 
them. But unfortunately, it is simply not going well for so many others 
in this country.
  I am not here to criticize and to throw cold water on their birthday 
party, but what I am here for is to say let us change direction, 
because those economic plans and programs have clearly not worked. For 
3 years, the President has gotten whatever he wanted from this Congress 
in terms of tax cuts, in terms of cutting spending on education and 
health care and veterans benefits, but the economy and the country are 
worse off than they were 3 years ago.
  In my State, we have lost one out of six manufacturing jobs since 
George Bush took office. Let me explain sort of what happened. There is 
a company in Ohio called Timken, T-I-M-K-E-N. It is a major employer 
and has been a good company for northeast Ohio and Canton, Ohio. It is 
President Bush's favorite company everyone says. The CEO of Timken, 
fourth generation, very wealthy family, are some of George Bush's 
biggest contributors and fund-raisers. A year ago President Bush came 
to Timken and spoke to assembled workers and mostly management and 
applauded the company because the workers are 10 percent more 
productive, a year ago 10 percent more productive than they were the 
year before, and congratulations to them and to that company for that.
  But then earlier this year, Timken put out a news release saying that 
they enjoyed record sales for the first quarter, all-time record sales 
for Timken, and they said that they had a 60-some percent increase in 
earnings per share from a year ago. A week later Timken announced, we 
are building another factory in China and we are closing our three 
factories in Canton where the corporate headquarters is and laying off 
1,300 well-paid Ohioans.
  So that is what we are seeing. We are seeing on this side of the 
aisle, my Republican friends sort of parroting what George Bush is 
saying, saying this economy is really great; and we are hearing people 
on this side tell stories, with facts backing it up, about how we need 
change because these policies are not working. Clearly the policies are 
working if you are in the upper 5 or 10 percent, because corporate 
profits are up, dividends are up, tax cuts are being enjoyed by the 1 
or 2 or 5 percent wealthiest people.
  But in the case of so many others, there are more people that are 
receiving, going to food pantries, there are more people who are seeing 
their college educations going through the roof, the increases in 
college tuition, there are more people who have seen their drug 
benefits pulled back or scaled down or eliminated; and it is time that 
we take a different direction.
  In this country when you criticize, you need to say, what do you do 
in place? We should pass the Crane-Rangel bill, which will reward 
American companies that manufacture here rather than abroad; instead of 
giving tax cuts abroad, pass unemployment benefits, and pass a better 
prescription drug bill.

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