[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11246-11253]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   THE FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Ohio

[[Page 11247]]

(Mr. Ryan) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  I want to take this opportunity here on the House floor to spend a 
few minutes talking about some friends of mine who are celebrating 
their 40th wedding anniversary, and I wanted to take a second here to 
say what good friends they are, what great Americans they are, and what 
great people they are.


                         Happy 40th Anniversary

  Bill and Margie Skeleski will be celebrating their 40th wedding 
anniversary this week. They have been not only tremendous supporters of 
me, but they have been great people in the community, and I wanted to 
take this opportunity to wish them a happy anniversary and many, many 
more years.
  You have never been to a holiday breakfast unless you have been to 
the Skeleskis' house, but I must say there are eggs and quiche and 
sausage and all kinds of different desserts, and not a day goes by when 
I don't see Margie Skeleski somewhere and she wants to bake me a cherry 
pie. So I want to thank her for all of her generosity.
  She and her husband are just two of the sweetest, kindest, nicest 
people in our community, and they treasure all of the things that, I 
think, we as Americans need to spend a little more time thinking about, 
which are the importance of family, the importance of community, the 
importance of church and faith, and the importance, really, quite 
frankly, of a nice piece of pie. They all come together, and they have 
been just tremendous influences on my life, so I wanted to say thank 
you and congratulations to all of them and to their family as they 
celebrate this very special day.


                            Congratulations

  I would also like to take this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to extend a 
hearty congratulations to the president of Youngstown State University, 
Dr. David Sweet and his wife, Pat, who are both leaving Youngstown 
State University after a long tenure.
  Dr. Sweet and his wife came to Youngstown State University when it 
was a sleepy university somewhere in the center of the city of 
Youngstown. They came in with a vision for the community, and they came 
in with a vision of the university. I think history will judge him as 
one of the leaders on how a university can have a transformational 
effect on a community.
  Youngstown State University and the city of Youngstown both have been 
recognized for the partnerships that they have created, but Dr. Sweet, 
on every account that we would measure his success or failure as a 
president, has clearly succeeded. Enrollment is up by 25 percent. 
Minority enrollment is up. The university has created the first 
science, technology, engineering, and math college. Of all of the 
universities in Ohio, he took Youngstown State University and used it 
as an engine for not only economic growth and research, but also for 
helping to redefine the city of Youngstown. In so many ways, he 
provided leadership for our university and for our community.
  I wanted here, on the floor of the House of Representatives, to 
recognize his leadership, his team--Hunter Morrison, Dr. George McCloud 
and all of the leaders that he had in his administration--and their 
ability to take this university, to really transform it and, in turn, 
to transform our community.
  I wanted to say thank you, Mr. Speaker, to Dr. Sweet and to his wife, 
Pat, for their passion, for their contributions that they made to our 
community and to Youngstown State University. We stand on their 
shoulders as we continue this work, but clearly, we would not have been 
here today to make the kind strides that the university is making, 
doing the kind of research, hosting international energy seminars and 
forums and really transforming the role of that university. I want to 
say thank you. We clearly wouldn't be in the position we are in today 
if it weren't for the leadership of Dr. Sweet and Pat Sweet. With that, 
I say thank you.

                              {time}  2030


                              The Economy

  Also, Mr. Speaker, we'd like to take this opportunity to spend a 
little time--and I will be joined by some of my colleagues here in the 
next few minutes--to talk about what has been going in our country 
economically and really what the plan is and what the plan has been for 
President Obama, the Democratic Congress, and pushing forward an agenda 
that I think, without dispute, has taken our country from going off a 
cliff, which is where we were just a couple of years ago, a year and a 
half ago, where the stock market was at 6,000-plus; where the economy 
was bleeding 750,000 jobs, almost 800,000 jobs a month; and where there 
was a complete collapse of the global economic system.
  Because, quite frankly, there has been a debate going on in America 
that those of us--and my side, for sure--have been losing. The debate 
since 1980 has been how do we cut taxes for the wealthiest people in 
the country; how do we therefore raise the tax burden on the middle 
class; how do we cut government at every single turn; how do we 
deregulate and completely try to remove government out of every aspect 
of the financial markets and the role of regulating businesses; and, 
quite frankly, our friends on the other side, Mr. Speaker, won that 
debate.
  Through the 1980s, up until the current President, really with a good 
fight put on by President Clinton--and he made great strides in his own 
way--but we have been fighting the system. But over the course of the 
last couple of years we have seen exactly what happens when this 
philosophy, economic and political philosophy are implemented.
  It is Milton Friedman and the supply-side economists and the 
Republican Party versus the Keynesian demand-side Democrats on our 
side. And our Republican friends in the earliest parts of this decade, 
up until 2006 and then 2008, controlled every lever of government; 
controlled the House, controlled the Senate, controlled the White 
House, implemented their economic policies across the board. And in 
Ohio, the Republicans controlled every Statewide office, including the 
governorship for 16 years, and the State legislature for longer.
  Controlled everything and implemented their policies--their energy 
policy, their foreign policy, their economic policy. They deregulated 
Wall Street. They continued this path, this role of appointing industry 
lackeys to critical oversight positions on Wall Street, critical 
oversight positions in the oil and gas industry. Even big donors to 
oversee FEMA. And over the course of the last few years, we have seen 
how this philosophy, when implemented, works. And it works for those 
multinational corporations, it works for Wall Street, it works for the 
oil industry. But, quite frankly, it doesn't work for anybody else.
  So we saw when an industry lackey is appointed to head FEMA, we saw 
what happened with Katrina. You did a good job, Brownie, is what came 
of that. We see when the Minerals Management Agency is littered with 
industry people, we see that a lot of the approvals of drilling and the 
lack of preparation for contingency plans for emergencies was 
nonexistent because our friends on the other side said we don't need 
any government; we don't need any regulation of the oil industry. We 
don't need any regulation. We can just put anybody into FEMA. And we 
saw what happened.
  But, really, the most significant event has been what happened on 
Wall Street, when we completely ignored deregulated Wall Street, said, 
Let business police themselves, ignoring decades and decades and 
decades of history where we know, when unchecked, businesses get 
greedy. It is human nature to get greedy. It is human nature not to be 
connected to what happens three or four moves down the line with the 
decision that you're making today. And so Wall Street was deregulated. 
Warnings were ignored. We saw the worst financial crisis since the 
Great Depression hit the United States of America and almost bring down 
the entire global economy.
  And so having that philosophy implemented on all accounts--energy, 
Wall Street, globalization, cut taxes for the

[[Page 11248]]

wealthiest, push the tax burden off on the middle class, borrow money 
and spend money and still cut taxes and run up huge deficits. In fact, 
it's important to note who left the huge deficits. Reagan left a $1.4 
trillion deficit. Herbert Walker Bush, $3 trillion. President Bill 
Clinton had a $5 trillion, almost $6 trillion surplus. George W. Bush 
left us a $11.5 trillion deficit in this country, with no end in sight.
  And, then, not only left us that huge deficit, then we have a 
situation where the whole economy collapsed. The stock market tanked. 
Banks were going belly up. Unemployment was going through the roof. And 
then the first January that Barack Obama took office, we were losing 
almost 800,000 jobs in that month. So being left with this horrendous 
mess and the implementation of an economic and political philosophy 
that decimates government, runs up huge deficits, and here we are left 
to deal with it.
  So we did take some bold steps with the stimulus package, with TARP, 
which was actually under George W. Bush. But we took some bold steps. 
And they all weren't very politically popular in many instances. And we 
would go home every weekend and have to explain to our constituents 
about why we were doing this stuff. But we are now seeing that the 
national economy is turning around. We have seen the stock market go up 
from a little over 6,000 to 10,000-plus. Up to 11, back down. We have 
had some issues with the oil spill, with what's going on in Greece; but 
the stock market was back up to 11,000. We are starting the recovery. 
We have seen, with the issue of jobs, some level of success. Last week, 
we saw industrial production increased 8.1 percent during the past 11 
months--the largest 11-month gain since 1997.
  Now, I'm not here to say that I'm seeing the world through rose-
colored glasses. I'm not saying that we're even out of the woods yet. 
But what I am saying is the policies that we have implemented have 
clearly turned the country back in the right direction. It is moving us 
towards a more secure future for the business community and for those 
people who are out in our community looking for work. Unemployment is 
still too high. We still have work to do with police and fire and 
helping the States--and teachers, to make sure they don't get laid off.
  But before I kick it to my friend from Connecticut, I want to say 
that you can't help but look at where we were and to remember where we 
were and to say that we have at least shifted directions and at least 
changed things to at least move us in a more positive step where we can 
secure the future for our children; where we can secure a good economy 
for businesses and workers. And that's really what's important here. 
And that's why we have made some of these very, very difficult 
situations.
  With that, I yield to my friend from Connecticut, Mr. Murphy.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Thanks to my friend from Ohio for setting 
the playing field for us this evening. I think back to when I was 
making up my mind about running for Congress some 4, 5 years ago, and I 
was in Connecticut--Cheshire, where I live today--sitting and watching 
a Federal Government that seemed intent on using the power that it has 
accumulated here in Congress and in the administration to essentially 
turn over government to their friends. Now, whether their friends were 
in the oil industry or their friends were in the health insurance 
industry or the pharmaceutical industry or the defense contracting 
industry, whatever it was, it seemed as if the reason that some people 
had run for office, the reason that some people had sought positions in 
the Bush administration was to hand over the reins of government to 
corporate interests; to people that, frankly, didn't have the public 
interest at heart.
  And I think back to the reasons that I decided to run for Congress, 
and at the foundation of it was a real belief that we had essentially 
begun to privatize all sectors of the United States economy and the 
United States Government and that taxpayer dollars were more often 
being used not to accrue to the public benefit but to accrue to the 
benefit of a small group of people who happened to hold and wield 
influence here in Washington.
  And so I think about what would have happened back in January and 
February of last year as we were setting the economic strategy toward 
recovery. I think about what would have happened if the folks who had 
been running Congress and running the administration in prior years 
were in charge of this economic recovery. I think about the bill we 
passed. I think about the fact that one-third of the stimulus bill 
passed in the winter of last year went to tax cuts--went to tax cuts 
not for the top 1, 2, 3 percent of income earners in this Nation; not 
tax cuts for the Fortune 100, 200, 300, but tax cuts for individuals, 
for middle-income folks out there, the people that I represent in 
Connecticut.
  Now, they're not enormous tax breaks. Folks weren't getting thousands 
of dollars back, but they were getting a couple hundred--$300, $400, 
$500--back in taxes. Small business tax breaks in that stimulus bill to 
allow for more incentives for small businesses to expand and invest in 
capital to maybe allow them to take some of their losses a little bit 
earlier than they might have otherwise been able to do in order to make 
the books balance for that one or two really tough years that they 
needed to survive.
  I think about what would have happened if the Republicans had written 
that stimulus bill and where those tax breaks would have gone. Because 
I know the statistics from the Bush tax breaks. Not to say there 
weren't some deserving people who benefited from that tax break, but I 
know that the average millionaire in my district from the last round of 
Bush tax cuts got $43,000 back. I know that the average-income family 
in New Britain, Connecticut got $19 back from that tax break. Now 
things cost a little bit more in Connecticut, but that's just about 
enough money to buy a pepperoni pizza in New Britain. That's nothing. I 
know that if the Republicans had been writing that stimulus bill that 
we would have likely seen more of the same, that we have would have 
likely seen the economic recovery and the economic stimulus bill that 
they would have written as an excuse to hand out more tax breaks and 
more favors to folks that didn't need any more.
  And so the reason, Mr. Ryan, that you talk about this recovery as it 
is in action, the reason that we see retail sales picking up, the 
reason that we see 10 percent growth in our economy in the last 6 
months is in part because we invested our recovery strategy in the 
right people; we invested our recovery strategy in low-income and 
middle-income families who needed a little bit extra money back on 
their taxes so that they can pay their bills, that they could stop from 
going into bankruptcy themselves, and that maybe they could put a 
little bit of their money back into the economy. We invest it in small 
businesses because we know that 90 percent of the jobs in this or any 
other recovery are going to come from small businesses. And we invest 
in future businesses as well.
  We've got a company in my district called Apollo Solar. I've got to 
tell you, this is going to be the next big thing. They are making some 
really important technology that will allow individual homeowners to 
put solar panels on their roof, generate a whole bunch of power, and 
then sell it back to the grid for a profit. This is going to be in 
every home in the Nation, we hope, in a matter of to 10 to 15 years. 
And the stimulus bill decided to put money into Apollo Solar so that 
they can not only add jobs, but point the way forward for the future of 
the American economy. Money in the pockets of middle-class families. 
Money in the bank accounts of small businesses. An opportunity to point 
this economy forward to the next wave of jobs that we're going to enjoy 
in this country in the form of renewable-energy jobs.
  Mr. Ryan, you're exactly right. I still have unacceptably high levels 
of unemployment in the places that I represent. I've still got way too 
many people that are laid off. And it's no small consolation--no 
consolation at all to them when I, or anybody else, tries to

[[Page 11249]]

explain that jobs are always a lagging indicator and listen, we've got 
to have big jumps in the production in this country and jumps in retail 
sales and jumps in orders for factories before all of those employers 
start adding jobs.

                              {time}  2045

  But I think people are coming to understand that the recovery is on 
its way. They hear the stories. They hear the stories from Main Street, 
as I did in New Milford, Connecticut, a few weeks ago where almost 
every retail establishment on Main Street in New Milford reported that 
May and June have been among their best retail months in 2 to 3 years. 
Factory after factory that I go to are reporting that for the first 
time they've seen orders make significant upward increases in the past 
several months. They feel that good news.
  Now they know that those retail establishments and those factories 
need to get a couple more months of good news before they start 
actually adding jobs back. And they know that the first thing they're 
going to do is take the workers that they had furloughed for a day or 
two every week and put them back full time. But the trend is going in 
the right direction, and I think it's going in the right direction 
because the stimulus, written by the Democrats, championed by President 
Obama, was put in the right place. It gave to Main Street. It gave to 
middle-class families. It gave to small businesses which--we're only 
guessing here. I'm only guessing--but I think that if President Bush 
was still here or the Republicans were still in charge of Congress, 
that that stimulus and the people and the corporations and the 
institutions that it invested in would have been a very different set 
of people and businesses than we see today having been invested in.
  Mr. Welch, I would be happy to turn it over to you. I'm glad to see 
you and Mr. Boccieri joining us on the floor this evening.
  Mr. WELCH. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure listening to you 
and Mr. Ryan.
  We have to acknowledge something, those of us who supported the 
stimulus as something that was necessary because of the collapse in the 
economy, those of us who decided to assent to the request by President 
Bush to stabilize the financial system and to do something we didn't 
really want to do but felt it was necessary to do. And that is that 
despite the gross domestic product increasing, despite the positive 
signs that have been cited by you and Mr. Ryan, this is still a 
depression for any American who doesn't have his or her job. And when 
you have 10 percent unemployment, which I think is the real measure of 
the strength of this economy, you know we have an economy that 
continues to struggle. And we have to do a number of things. Yes, we 
did have to have a stimulus, and it was focused where it would do the 
most good. We did have to stabilize the financial system, but that's 
going to add a burden until that is repaid.
  But one of the things we have to do is understand what is the proper 
role of the private sector and what's the proper role of government. 
This has been an ongoing debate. In the United States, people who have 
been frustrated that the government has gotten it wrong have come to a 
conclusion that it can never get it right. People who have had faith in 
the private sector have had a view that they can never get it wrong. 
And, in fact, some of both is the case. Unless we have a cop on the 
beat, a government that's willing to make rules that give everybody a 
shot who play by the rules and work hard, and whose goal in doing it, 
running a business, is to provide good service, to provide a good 
product at a fair price, then we won't have the economy that we need.
  Now I want to just give a couple of examples. The financial crisis 
was brought on by the recklessness, largely, of Wall Street banks. Let 
me give an example. The famous one, of course, is Goldman Sachs. 
Goldman Sachs made a lot of money on subprime mortgages, a lot of money 
on buying and selling commodities. They went from an investment bank 
that made most of its money by lending money to businesses and to 
people who had ideas about how to create jobs and create companies and 
create wealth, they transformed from doing that to buying and selling 
derivatives, currencies, commodities, and banking money on trading. 
Nothing wrong with that, but it's not banking. It's not putting money 
into the financial sector.
  When they had a client, a hedge fund billionaire, who called them up 
and said, Hey, I've got an idea. I think that this explosion in real 
estate values is going to collapse. I want you to put together a 
package of subprime mortgages that you believe will fail, that I 
believe will fail, so that I can then sell those and bet against them, 
Goldman Sachs said, fine. It's a client. They are paying money. They 
paid big fees, and they had a request. Nothing illegal about it. 
Nothing useful about it, but nothing illegal about it. Goldman Sachs 
helped put that package together, and then they turned around and sold 
this package that was guaranteed--it was designed to fail, literally 
designed to fail.
  They then went to the rolodex and called up other clients, like 
pension funds. Those are people like firefighters, like police 
officers, like teachers, and they said, Hey, we have a deal for you: 
AAA-rated, high-yielding subprime asset pool--can't go wrong. So 
Goldman Sachs literally provided a service to one client. That service 
was developing a product to fail. Then they called up their other 
clients and sold it to them where it was guaranteed to succeed. Not 
guaranteed. But obviously Goldman traded on its reputation. And the 
people they called, these pension funds--if Goldman was for it, it must 
be vetted, it must be good, it must be secure.
  And what happened? Mr. Paulson, the hedge fund billionaire, made $1 
billion more. And those pension funds, those municipalities, those 
other people who relied on the good reputation of Goldman Sachs lost $1 
billion. It destroyed wealth. And what does that do to the American 
people? Legitimately and understandably, it erodes their confidence.
  So in my view, we have a lot of reason to be justifiably furious at 
Wall Street practices where they strayed from what would be done on 
Main Street. And I ask as I'm speaking, Any one of you, in your State 
of Ohio, in your State, Mr. Murphy, of Connecticut, or anyone out there 
from Montana to North Dakota, your local banker, can you imagine your 
local banker literally having one neighbor say, I want you to design 
something to fail, and then selling it to another neighbor where they 
knew they would lose? It wouldn't happen. But that was legal on Wall 
Street. It's wrong. It never should have happened.
  Now there's a governmental role here where the government failed. The 
Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve. This explosion 
in asset values and real estate values and subprime mortgages, where 
people were permitted who had no income, who had no job, who had no 
proof of assets, no proof of ability to pay were given loans for 
$400,000, $500,000 or $600,000. The regulators had a responsibility to 
apply the law of financial gravity and not permit that to occur. So 
this is a situation where people who point the finger of responsibility 
at government not standing up for right, but those same people can't 
say that all we should do is destroy regulation altogether and let the 
private sector do what it wants, because it has led, in this case, to 
excess, to explosion, or destruction, of value. And a lot of individual 
people have suffered as a result of the loss of their hard-earned 
income. So there's a role. There is a role and has to be a role for 
government to be the cop on the beat and to help folks who are working 
hard and playing by the rules and trying to reinvest in their own 
community to be successful.
  I would be glad at this time to yield to my good friend from Ohio 
(Mr. Boccieri).
  Mr. BOCCIERI. Thank you. It's an honor to join my colleagues here on 
the House floor to talk about how we got here, where we're going, and 
what we're doing to put our country back on track. You know, you bring 
up a great

[[Page 11250]]

point. We hear from the other side that the greatest tools that the 
government has is to largely unregulate big business, big corporations, 
and provide tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Virtually every 
problem that America is facing, that's the solution that's put on the 
table.
  Now I argue that, look, our philosophy, our broad political 
philosophy in this political body--at least I know from our side of the 
aisle--is that the government needs to set the out-of-bounds markers, 
we need to set the goal posts, let the free market operate in between, 
but be a good referee. Be a good referee. Throw the flag when you have 
big corporations that want to bet on the price of oil going up on Wall 
Street. Throw the flag when you want to bet against people failing to 
pay their mortgage. Failing to pay their mortgage--that's what was 
happening on Wall Street. That's like betting against America.
  I think we can do better. We don't want to take the stripes off the 
referee. We want to make sure that the playing field is even and fair 
for all Americans, and that's why we're being charged with action. 
Because I think all of us here tonight believe that leadership is not 
just about position, a political position, but it's about action. 
Leadership is about action. And we run for office not just to win 
elections but to get things done. And we want to put America back to 
work by investing in America and by investing in our greatest asset--
that is our people.
  So a lot of talk has been made about the stimulus and the economic 
recovery. I mean, the charts don't lie, folks. When we walked on the 
job here in the office of the House of Representatives, I'm in my first 
term, and just in May of 2009, what was handed to us from the previous 
administration were two unfunded, undeclared wars that cost $1 
trillion. We had an economy that was in free fall. We didn't know where 
we were going to land. Exploding deficits from the war and tax cuts to 
the wealthiest Americans. We had unregulated greed on Wall Street, a 
banking system in chaos. I mean, it required swift action, not just a 
political position but swift action.
  In May of 2009, we had lost 345,000 jobs. One year later, after some 
of the economic policies that we put in place here in the Congress 
under Democratic leadership, we've turned that 180 degrees and actually 
had a net job gain of 431,000 jobs by May of 2010. So the facts don't 
lie.
  Another thing that really disturbs me about our friends on the other 
side of the aisle is the whole notion that Democrats are not tough on 
deficits. And that is a complete falsehood when you look at this chart 
right here. This chart right here shows that deficits have been handed 
on by the last three Republican Presidents. We look at President 
Reagan, a $1.4 trillion deficit left to the American taxpayer. We look 
at President George Bush. We see that he left a $3.3 trillion deficit, 
and that didn't begin to turn until President Clinton turned those 
deficits into a $5.6 trillion surplus. And what was left to us when we 
came in the door in the 111th Congress was nearly a $12 trillion 
deficit by two undeclared, unfunded wars, two tax cuts to the 
wealthiest Americans who could afford to pay and pay their fair share, 
and a prescription drug plan that left huge holes, doughnut holes for 
our seniors who couldn't afford to pay the prescription drugs. These 
are the facts. And like Joe Friday used to say, ``Only the facts, 
please, ma'am.'' Right now we're trying to set the facts straight, and 
my colleagues are appropriate in pointing out these deficiencies in the 
arguments by our colleagues on the other side.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman would yield, I think it's 
important for us to pull specific examples. I represent a district just 
to the east of Congressman Boccieri. It is very similar in nature to 
Mr. Murphy's district, manufacturing, traditional manufacturing. We've 
actually seen in the last couple of months a couple of point decrease 
in the unemployment rate. It is still way too high, but this stimulus 
plan is coming down the pike.
  It has helped in so many different ways, on so many different road 
projects, in different infrastructure projects. We got $100 million in 
title 1 money for our schools which prevented tens, if not hundreds, of 
teachers from being laid off. We've got grants for police and fire, 
cops. There are 20-some cops on the beat because of the COPS grant in 
the city of Akron. Now if we didn't have the stimulus package, if we 
weren't investing Community Development Block Grant money, if we 
weren't putting money into roads and bridges and infrastructure, if we 
weren't making sure there was State support for our schools and 
education funds, we would have lost thousands of teachers, police, 
fire, and construction workers who would have never went back to work.
  Now we're not saying that we've got all the answers, and we've got a 
corner on the marketplace of success. But we've clearly--because years 
and years and years of economic philosophy prior to 1980 said, When the 
economy goes into a big downturn, someone has got to step up and fill 
the hole to prime the pump. We have had projects. We have a General 
Motors facility in Lordstown, Ohio, that just put on a third shift, and 
all of their suppliers are going to benefit from that. If the 
Republicans were in charge, that whole company would have been sold off 
piecemeal. We used $20 million in stimulus money that leveraged $650 
million for a French company to expand 350 jobs, 500 construction jobs. 
This is all happening because we had a stimulus bill, and I don't blame 
anybody in this Chamber, Mr. Boccieri, for not believing me that the 
stimulus package has had some success.

                              {time}  2100

  But how about Bill Gates? Would anybody in here believe Bill Gates 
when he says, ``The incredible measures,'' the Recovery Act and TARP, 
``needed to be taken to make sure there wasn't a collapse, both in 
terms of stabilizing the financial system and then priming the pump of 
the economy, because it had been slowed down so much. Now, we're seeing 
the benefits that those things have been done.'' That's Bill Gates 
saying it.
  And you can go right down the list, Warren Buffett and others, who 
have said the stimulus package has worked. And my concern, quite 
frankly, is that we've got to do more before we get completely out of 
the woods on this economy. But look at the job numbers. Look at the 
deficit numbers.
  And I want to make one final statement here, because Mr. Boccieri 
brought it up, about deficits. You grow your way out of deficits. If 
you don't have people working, you're not going to reduce the deficit. 
You can't cut your way out of some of this stuff. You've got to grow 
your way. And what we have is a pro-growth agenda. Tax cuts for 
businesses, lowest taxes for people in America since 1950. So tax cuts 
for the middle class, invest in infrastructure, invest in energy, get 
people working again. If we want to see the deficits go down, we've got 
to get people back to work. And that's what this whole agenda has been 
about, and it's working.
  You look at what President Bush left us with and look where we are at 
now. As jobs go up, the deficit projections go down.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Let me point out this chart. We are 
talking about the fact that facts don't lie. Here it is. This isn't 
fuzzy numbers. This chart isn't rigged. This is just telling it like it 
is. You're looking in this chart at the last year of the Bush 
administration and the first year of the Obama administration. The 
trend is unmistakable. As the Bush administration ground to a halt, the 
economy went into the tank, cratering to the point where in January of 
2009, the last month of the Bush administration and first month of the 
Obama administration, this economy lost nearly 800,000 jobs, as Mr. 
Welch and I were sworn in for our second term, Mr. Boccieri for his 
first term.
  But the trend coming out of January is just as unmistakable. Every 
month, almost without exception, less and less jobs being lost, to the 
point where in the last 3 months we have added jobs. We've added 
700,000 jobs just in the last

[[Page 11251]]

2 months. Now, that still leaves way, way too many people out of work. 
We still have miles to go.
  But you want to talk about what policies didn't work and what 
policies have worked? The numbers don't lie. I want to add just one 
more thing to the table here. We can talk about the jobs that have been 
created through the stimulus bill, the jobs that have been saved 
through the policies of this administration, but there are other maybe 
not as well covered but just as important successes that are happening 
right underneath our feet.
  Last week on page 4 or 5 or 6 of a lot of your local papers you might 
have noticed a story that the Chinese Government has announced that it 
is going to dramatically change the way that it runs its currency, that 
it is going to start allowing its currency to float in a way that it 
has never before.
  That is something the Democrats in this Congress, led by Mr. Ryan, 
frankly, have been working on for a very, very long time. The Chinese 
have been essentially manipulating their currency so that they, on day 
one, can underprice American manufacturers sometimes by 30, 40, 50 
percent just on the basis of how they manipulate the value of their 
currency. We have lost millions of manufacturing jobs in this country, 
and much of it has gone to China. Much of that is because of the funny 
business going on with their currency.
  Now, they could get away with that under the Bush administration 
because that administration asked no questions when it came to trade 
policy. They rushed into trade agreement after trade agreement, asking 
little, if any, questions about what we could do when we sat across the 
table with our trade partners to try to force them to change their 
policies so that they couldn't immediately unfairly underbid American 
labor and American factories and American manufacturers.
  Well, the Chinese can't get away with that under the Obama 
administration any longer. The Chinese can't get away with that with a 
Democratic Congress. We're not going to give a free pass to China and 
other Asian nations, to India and our European partners to allow them 
to either subsidize their industries with government dollars, to 
manipulate their currencies, or to run roughshod over labor and 
environmental policies so as to underprice and outbid American 
manufacturers.
  The Chinese saw the writing on the wall. Now, they've got a long way 
to go to get this thing right, but the fact that they've finally 
figured out that they can no longer manipulate their currency so as to 
unfairly compete with American manufacturers shows that a new sheriff 
is in town. As Mr. Boccieri would say, there is a new referee here. And 
the whole world understands that, that when the referee is finally 
holding domestic corporations accountable for their actions, that's a 
good thing. But when the referee is also on the international playing 
field ready to hold our trading partners accountable for their unfair 
trading practices, that's transformative as well.
  So the story about how we get from a point in January of 2009 when we 
were at an absolute disastrous point in our economy to where today we 
are headed unmistakably in the right direction has a lot of stories to 
it, Mr. Welch. It's about job creation in the stimulus bill, but it's 
also about starting to stick up for American manufacturing, which we 
are finally doing in this Congress.
  Mr. WELCH. Thank you, Mr. Murphy.
  You know, when you are talking about the Chinese yuan and currency 
manipulation, that's far removed from most people on Main Street, but 
it has a real impact, especially on our manufacturing economy. And I am 
among many in this Chamber who believe that, for America to have strong 
long-term economic growth, we have to revive, not abandon, 
manufacturing. And in the stimulus there were commitments made to do it 
in the energy sector. And we know, I think if we are a confident 
Nation, we are not going to pretend that the energy policy that we have 
now, relying on a 19th century fuel where we have to send almost $900 
billion of our money abroad to bring oil in, that if we take on the 
challenge of the new energy economy, we can create jobs.
  And on the stimulus, you know, nothing worked, including the 
stimulus, for anybody who is still out of work. But there are very 
solid, very simple, straightforward examples of how it did make a 
difference for many people, and I want to tell one about Barre, 
Vermont, a small, hardworking, very proud town with a tradition of work 
in the granite quarries. And we are losing jobs and have been losing 
them for years to Chinese imports.
  But we have a company called Sprague Electric. It's a small company 
that's been there for years, and it was really having a hard time 
staying ahead with the collapse in the economy. Their product was 
something that was used in Tasers. But the engineers there developed a 
product called a capacitator that could be used in electric vehicles, 
and of course that's all part of what we want in our new energy 
economy.
  They had an immense amount of interest in this. They were getting 
interest from car manufacturers. And they had to decide whether to 
build a plant or expand their plant in Barre, Vermont, or to do it in 
China to take advantage of the lower labor rates. And these folks 
wanted to stay in Barre if they could, but the law of economics means 
they've got to be able to sustain themselves.
  They were within 2 days of going ahead and making a commitment to 
develop this plant in China when the stimulus bill was passed, and it 
had in there the opportunity for companies to apply to get energy 
grants. They applied, and they put their decision to move to China on 
hold. They got the grant, several million dollars. And only a few 
months ago, the Republican Governor of Vermont and the Democratic 
Congressman from Vermont joined the people of Sprague Electric at a 
groundbreaking, where they were opening up the construction of a brand 
new factory with great jobs for the people in Barre, Vermont. That's 
real, and it took some governmental involvement.
  And that's an investment of taxpayer money that's going to come back 
with taxpayer revenues, but real strength in that community where 
they're going to have a great new factory with great new jobs 
developing a product that's going to have ripple effects across 
Vermont.
  I yield to my good friend, Mr. Boccieri.
  Mr. BOCCIERI. Thank you. I thank the gentlemen here today for talking 
about how we can get our economy back on track and put America back to 
work.
  We're beginning to see the signs of economic recovery. Ten successive 
months of manufacturing growth has led to an upturn in manufacturing 
and our output in Ohio and many Midwestern States.
  We've seen the housing sector improve. The housing sector of the 
economy is very important to our economy because every recession since 
the Great Depression, the housing sector has led us out of any 
downturns in the economy we've ever had. And, in fact, when you think 
about all that goes into building a new home with steel and wood and 
carpeting and drapes--you build a third car garage, you've got to put a 
car in it--the appliances, I mean, there is a lot of economic output, 
especially with those household products like washers and dryers and 
the like that require a great deal of manufacturing output.

                              {time}  2110

  So we're beginning to see upturns in the economy because of that.
  Now look, we lost a lot of jobs, millions of jobs under previous 
economic policies. It's going to take us a while to get back and grow 
the economy and get back to the confidence levels that we all share 
that we're in a stronger position, but we're on the right track. We're 
on the right track, and according to folks who study the economy daily, 
like Fortune magazine, in April they said the economy has made a sharp 
U-turn in the past couple of months and better days for the American 
businesses and workers are around the corner.

[[Page 11252]]

  Newsweek said, America is coming back stronger, better and faster 
than nearly anyone had expected and faster than most of its 
international rivals. Recovery came quickly because the public and 
private sectors reacted with great speed.
  From the far left to the far right, economists were saying that we 
had to do something. We had to do something. And there's only three 
tools that the American Government has to jump-start or kick the 
economy.
  We can work to manage interest rates with the Federal Reserve. We saw 
that interest rates are at near-record lows, zero percent in some 
cases.
  We saw that the other policy that we have at our fingertips is to 
utilize tax policies. Largest tax break in American history to small 
businesses and to American middle class families. In fact, USA Today 
said tax bills are the lowest in 2009 since 1950 thanks to tax policies 
that were enacted through the stimulus and other measures that helped 
with respect in 2009.
  The other policy that we have is to inject huge amounts of capital 
out into the marketplace, and I think it's the right policy to help 
those factory workers that were struggling to meet their payments and 
their bills and to put bread on the table, with helping them with an 
unemployment check or a little bit of COBRA assistance so they could 
carry their health care insurance from month to month while they were 
looking for a job. I think that was the right investment in 2009. I 
think that was an investment in the American people, with jobs training 
and skill training, investing in our workforce. Those are real tangible 
things that we can take, and that's why we're getting reports like 
this.
  As a note, we've seen some positive job gains in the 16th 
Congressional District. Medline Industries just added 35 jobs and will 
be creating quite a few more in the next 3 years with them doing 
business. They manufacture and distribute medical products.
  We saw Nationwide Insurance add 600 jobs in Ohio, and many of them 
are in my congressional district.
  Rolls Royce, an international company that makes fuel cells that are 
going to add to our electric vehicles, they're using these things in 
NASA right now. They just announced they're moving their fuel cell 
research headquarters from Singapore to Stark County, Ohio. I know 
they're going to be working with my colleague in the 17th District, 
working on some research and development; and we want to enhance them. 
We're going to add and retain nearly 90 jobs in my congressional 
district.
  We see ABS company got a National Science Foundation grant, absorbent 
materials company in Worcester, Ohio. They have this grant. They're 
doing leading-edge research, and they're helping further development of 
creating high-tech jobs here in the 16th Congressional District.
  We also saw Barbasol add dozens of jobs in Ashland County in my 
congressional district.
  These are real signs in a real congressional district of how some of 
the policies that we've enacted are helping to grow our economy. So I 
join my colleagues in saying that leadership is about action, not just 
taking a political position because you want to win the next election.
  The ``just say no'' crowd here in Washington is not lending itself to 
the recovery of our country. We need their help. We need their help. We 
need all Americans working together to put our country back on track. 
We need the Republicans' help to put the country back on track. We've 
seen tough times before, but we've always pulled together as a Nation 
and made it through our toughest times.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. You mentioned that we need Republicans 
here and you mentioned that there's support for the Democratic policies 
and Obama's policies across the board. Let me just add two quotes to 
that that you mentioned.
  First, from Phil Swagel, who was assistant Treasury Secretary for 
Economic Policy under George Bush. This is one of Bush's top economic 
strategists who said, their economic policies--I think referring to the 
Democrats and Obama--their economic policies including the stimulus 
have helped move the economy in the right direction.
  Mark Zandi, who is the chief economist at Moody's, a former adviser 
to a number of Republican candidates, says, It feels like the light 
switch went on in many businesses this spring. When you take it all 
together the response to the recession was massive, it was 
unprecedented, and it was ultimately successful.
  You've got a broad spectrum of agreement, as you mentioned, from 
conservative economists to progressive economists, who say that the 
policies that the President and Congress have put into place have put 
us on the right track.
  Mr. Altmire.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman from Connecticut and I wanted to 
reiterate: in the district I represent just across the border from Mr. 
Ryan's district and very close to Mr. Boccieri's district, the similar 
experiences that they talk about are happening in western Pennsylvania 
as well, and we did have a choice to make in the late winter, early 
spring of 2009, when we as Members of this House had to make a decision 
on what to do when we as a Nation were literally looking off the cliff 
into the abyss with an economy that was on the verge of collapse in a 
very literal sense.
  We could have done nothing. We could have done more of the same. 
Those were certainly two of our options, and there were people on the 
other side of the aisle who wanted to take that approach, to continue 
to pursue the policies that led us being in that position in the first 
place; but we chose not to do that. We chose to take action in a very 
forceful and a very proactive way. And now, we're nearly a year and a 
half later and where are we? It's fair for the American people to ask, 
well, what's been the benefit of this?
  This was a huge bill. This was a monumental vote, and it was a vote 
that many of us took with the knowledge that there were things in the 
bill that we could support. There were a lot of things that we knew 
moving forward were going to have a tremendous impact on the Nation and 
in our districts; and as we've seen from some of the charts that we're 
holding today, a year and a half later we've seen an incredible 
difference in our economy, both as a Nation and in our districts.
  Six of the last 7 months we've had positive job growth; and, yes, 
we're at the time of the decade once a decade where you hire census 
workers to go out, and some folks on the other side are going to say, 
well, those numbers are inflated by census numbers. Yes, there are 
census numbers included in that, but private sector job growth has gone 
up over that same period of time up by the hundreds of thousands in the 
previous 2 months, and we expect a strong number again for the month of 
June.
  Also, at the end of June we're going to have our fourth straight 
quarter, a full year of positive GDP growth, and this is to be compared 
with where we were at the beginning of 2009 when we had a negative six 
GDP number, and by the end of 2009, the end of that very same calendar 
year, the end of the year that we passed the Recovery Act, we had plus 
six GDP growth, almost plus six. And it was the largest calendar year 
increase in more than 30 years in the gross domestic product from 
negative six to nearly plus six.
  We saw the jobs go from negative 700,000 a month on average every 
month leading up to the time we passed that stimulus, the Recovery Act 
bill, to at the end of the year starting to see the numbers turn 
around. And again, where we are today, six out of the past seven 
months, positive job growth 5 months in a row. We expect that to 
continue.
  The stock market that bottomed out at 6,500 almost precisely at the 
time the Recovery Act began to take effect is now up over 10,000.
  These things didn't happen by accident. And we talk about 
manufacturing. In the district that I represent in western Pennsylvania 
as in the Ohio districts and I presume Mr. Murphy's

[[Page 11253]]

district in Connecticut as well, we have a legacy of manufacturing and 
we have a lot of folks who, because of the recovery, are doing better 
today than they were a year ago, much better.
  The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boccieri) listed some companies. I have 
some in my district. I can think of Ellwood Forge and Ellwood Quality 
Steel. Both are doing a lot better this year than they did last year, 
not only because their companies are doing better but because as a 
country we're doing better. That's what it means when manufacturers see 
an increase in orders. It means that we're stimulating our economy, 
we're growing, we're moving again, and that's what that symbolizes. 
That's the first thing that turns around is that manufacturing sector, 
and in western Pennsylvania we're seeing that impact very directly.
  We've seen it in some of the infrastructure projects in all of our 
districts across the country to have something of lasting significance 
that's going to be there in the decades after we've recovered.
  Now, is everything in the economy where we want it to be? No, of 
course not. It hasn't fully recovered. We're not out of the woods yet. 
We're not completely out of the hole that it took us decades to dig, 
but we're getting better. Again, GDP growth is strong, stock market has 
recovered to some extent, jobs are much better, and we're moving in the 
right direction. And that would not have happened were it not for the 
actions that this Congress took.

                              {time}  2120

  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Before I yield to the gentleman from New York, I 
think it's important again to reiterate, these are two separate 
philosophies. We did not have one vote in the House of Representatives 
from the Republican side. They, in many instances, continue to argue 
for cutting taxes for the top 1 percent--hopefully that will trickle 
down to the middle class, hopefully that will trickle down to 
manufacturing. And we saw from the 1980s on, people took that money and 
they invested it in China, manufacturing in Mexico and China and other 
places. What we're saying is, reinvest back in the United States--
transportation, energy, infrastructure. Rebuild the country. A pro-
growth agenda from Democrats--cutting taxes for businesses, cutting 
taxes for the middle class, and jump-starting the economy, making sure 
that we have fair regulation, referees on the field, and making sure we 
don't let corporations run the country, whether it's Wall Street and 
the financial markets, or whether it's the oil industry saying approve 
this permit even though I don't have a plan; in case we have a 
catastrophe, let it all go. We're the corporations, we run the show.
  We're reigning that back in, trying to jump-start small businesses 
with the fund we provided last week, $30 billion to loan $300 billion 
for community banks. Get the local banks loaning money again and stop 
relying on these globalized banks who are in it to make a profit and 
have no connection, no tie to the community.
  So I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Ryan.
  You know, the talk about the contrasts, the sharp contrasts between 
the party in control now in the House, with the Democrats advancing 
dollars that invest in small business, invest in innovation as an 
economy, clean energy. You think of all those strategies compared to 
the catering to Big Oil, big banks, Wall Street, making certain the 
biggest amongst us are taken care of. I contrast that with all of the 
work being done in my district, in the 21st Congressional District in 
New York, in the Capital Region, it has always had a spirit of pioneer. 
It's in our DNA. We have within the confines of that district an energy 
revolution of sorts, it's the birthplace of electricity. So we're 
continuing on with a global center for renewable energy at GE, 
nanoscience in the district, the semiconductor industry, 
superconductive cable, talking about advanced battery manufacturing.
  When we looked at the Recovery Act and how the President wanted to 
bring us into the new ages, allow for transitioning, a transformation 
of the energy economy, that's what this is all about. What we have had 
expressed in this Recovery Act are opportunities to grow new 
opportunities with advanced battery manufacturing. The battery looked 
at by GE, as they're soon to establish their plant, not only provides, 
in its concept of an alternative battery, not only for generation of 
electricity, not only for powering heavy vehicles, but also it is there 
for energy storage, so that with the transmittent energy of renewables, 
that transmittent nature, the opportunities to provide for storage 
there creates all new opportunities, the battery as a linchpin. The 
same is true with superconductive cable, where you can transmit far 
more electrons per inch of cable compared to the traditional cable, 
where renewables are being developed and new opportunities with 
nanoscience to create lighter blades, more efficient outcomes, more 
power per dollar invested. All of this is what holds great promise for 
our economy, for jobs, for small business innovation, for the emerging 
technologies. That's what this investment is all about.
  And finally, you see a commitment to small business, to the pioneer 
spirit, to the invention and creative genius that has always been part 
of the American culture. So I'm really proud of the efforts that we're 
making to grow back this economy, to grow back the investments in basic 
research and R&D. That's what this is all about with the Recovery Act.
  I think that people are now looking at this contrast, Representative 
Ryan, they're looking at the slow, steady progress, that climb upward 
from what was a precipitous drop in that left-handed side of the V 
formation. The precipitous drop in jobs, in the growth in unemployment, 
the lack of investment, the household income loss, now has taken a 
sharp u-turn, and we see the road to recovery, the progress because of 
the wisdom of the types of investments made in the Recovery Act 
promoted by the White House and very much supported by Speaker Pelosi 
here.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I totally agree with the gentleman. Here you have 
tax cuts for businesses, you have $30 billion for community banks to 
loan out up to $300 billion, you have tax cuts for individuals, you 
have the extension of unemployment benefits and health care through 
COBRA, you have infrastructure projects, billions of dollars, you have 
billions of dollars for Pell Grants so people can go to school. We've 
taken the banks out of the student loan business so people get a better 
deal when they take out a loan to go to school. And as you said, we're 
taking $1 billion a day that's leaving this country to go to oil-
producing countries and driving that back into the United States, the 
kind of technology that you have, the kind of nuclear technology and 
production that Mr. Altmire has in western Pennsylvania, fuel cells in 
Mr. Boccieri's district, manufacturing and engineering in my district, 
and all of the above in Mr. Murphy's district.
  Mr. TONKO. Well, simply said, the policies of the past gave us the 
catastrophe in the gulf; the policies of the present give us 
opportunities at home.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Murphy, would you like to wrap up? We've got 
about 1 minute left. Because I know you can, of all of us, you can put 
it all together in 1 minute.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. When it comes down to it, of all the 
things that drive the recovery in this economy, it's people spending 
again. And the fact is we'll go back to where we started. At the heart 
of our economic recovery legislation is putting power in the hands of 
average, everyday working-class families. That's what drives this 
economic recovery, and that's what the Democrats have invested in.

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