[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13850-13855]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           AMERICAN JOBS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to 
discuss employment, or lack of employment here in the United States.
  We just listened to a discussion about the problem, and certainly 
immigration is a piece of the problem. But in the whole totality of the 
extraordinary unemployment in the United States, it is but one piece. 
The solutions to the crisis that faces America and Americans is way 
beyond just the immigration policy.
  I would hope that my colleagues from the Republican side would work 
towards a comprehensive immigration reform program, one that certainly 
will deal with the border and security on the border, although I think 
much of what was said earlier is overblown.
  And dealing with deportations, I would point out that the current 
Obama administration has deported more people in the last year than in 
the entire 8 years of the Bush administration.
  Much needs to be done. A comprehensive immigration policy needs to be 
put in place. But if it were in place today, the unemployment in this 
Nation would not be solved by that alone.
  There is a solution that's at hand. There's an opportunity for this 
Congress to act immediately to bring back American jobs, to put 
Americans back to work. It's the American Jobs Act.
  A week ago, a little more than a week ago now, the President stood 
before a joint session of Congress here in this Chamber filled with 
Democrats, Republicans, Senators and Members of Congress, and he 
presented to us a comprehensive program to put Americans back to work. 
I want to discuss that tonight and also pick up the issue that he 
raised yesterday about how we do that, how we put Americans back to 
work and, in the next several years, bring the deficit under control 
and put America's financing back in shape.
  It's the American Jobs Act, a very comprehensive proposal, a very 
bold proposal, and one that would actually, not by his estimate but by 
the estimate of independent economists, employ some 1\1/2\ to 2 million 
Americans immediately. And I'd like to tell you how that might come 
about if this House were to pass the legislation.

                              {time}  2010

  We know that for America to succeed both in the short term and the 
long term, it's not only about going back to work, it's also about 
critical investments.
  Over the weekend, back in my district in California, the East Bay 
area of San Francisco Bay and up into the Central Valley, I had the 
opportunity to talk to teachers, teachers who were very concerned that 
given the financial situation in California, that they were going to be 
laid off, and generally it's the new, the young teacher that has only 
been there a little while that's given the pink slip and sent on down 
the road.
  This is a personal issue in my family. My daughter and son-in-law are 
teachers, and their class size has already grown from 20, 21 to 34, 35 
in the second-grade class. A very difficult teaching situation. Yet, 
more layoffs are likely to occur.
  One of the fundamental investments that needs to be made in any 
society that wants to grow, that wants to prosper, that wants to have 
social justice is the education of the young, and in the case of the 
United States, with the extraordinary number of unemployed, some 12 
million to 14 million, and underemployed, perhaps another 10 million, 
it's the reeducation of those that have already been in the workforce. 
So a key investment is education. In the American Jobs Act, the 
President has proposed a very strong, vibrant, and necessary program to 
keep teachers in the classroom and to bring teachers back into the 
classroom. He's proposed that we fund 280,000 teaching positions across 
this Nation. Now, that's a huge number of teachers, many of whom have 
already been laid off and did not arrive for this fall school year. We 
can put them back into a classroom as soon as this Congress and the 
Senate passes the American Jobs Act. It's about $30 billion, $35 
billion to do this.
  Is it money well spent? Well, if you want to consider investments in 
the most critical of all the things that a Nation does, it's the 
education of their children. This is an enormous and the important 
factor in building the future of America and simultaneously putting 
people back to work.
  When these teachers go back to work, that cycles money into the 
community. So the grocery store, the arts store, programs that require 
books and pamphlets and so forth, all of those things will begin to be 
circulating in our community.
  So this is one of the key programs that the President has proposed, 
the American Jobs Act--fixing our schools, putting teachers back to 
work. And that is a critical investment.
  If I might just put up another way of describing this.
  If you really care about America, and you want to have a better 
America, then we simply have to invest in America. There are numerous 
ways we can do it. We talked about the education programs, and that's 
certainly one.
  This is another one here that relates to education. I don't know if 
you can see this, but that's a young technician in a laboratory, 
perhaps in a hospital or quite possibly in a program, a new business 
like I saw in Davis, California. It's a biotechnology firm that 
actually produces herbicides and pesticides that are taken out--well, 
first discovered in the environment. These may be bugs, these are a 
fungus, these are bacteria that exist naturally in our environment that 
in one way or another kill bugs or kill unwanted plants.
  So they're discovering these, they are then understanding the 
chemical, the biological nature of it, and then mass producing these 
biological pesticides and herbicides.
  Two things they need. They will eventually go out with an IPO so 
they'll need capital, and that's another piece of what the President is 
proposing. But they also need technicians in the laboratory. In going 
through this particular lab, I said, How is your employment? The owner 
of it said, Well, we're at 90 employees now. We're 2 years, 3 years 
old, and we need to grow, but I can't find the technicians.
  In the President's program there is a specific reeducation program 
that's available for young men and older men and women that want to 
learn a new technology, a new trade, and that's the technicians here, 
so that they can fill those four immediate openings that exist in 
Davis, California, for lab technicians.
  Similarly, the community colleges will be able to receive the Pell 
Grants and the grants and loans for the first time ever to provide 
money so that these people can go to work.
  There is yet one other program, and we'll get to the construction 
here in a little while as we go through this.
  One of the key aspects of the President's jobs program is the fact 
that we have about 3 million, almost 4 million men and women who have 
served in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters. Many of those are still 
there but most have come home.
  When they leave the military, they have one of the highest 
unemployment rates of any group in the United States. This is simply 
wrong. These are men and women that have served this Nation heroically 
and in considerable danger, and in many, many cases having suffered 
grievous injuries.
  We need to pay special attention to them and recognize that they have 
acquired some very, very important

[[Page 13851]]

skills. They know how to work, they know how to show up on time. They 
know how to take instructions. What they don't know is how to be a lab 
technician, and they don't know that there are job opportunities out 
there.
  So the President has proposed a special program to encourage American 
employers, for example the biotech firm that I discussed earlier, to 
reach out to veterans. There is a $5,600 tax credit. This is not a 
deduction. This is right-off-the-bottom-line taxes, $5,600 for any 
company that has less than $50 million of payroll to hire a veteran 
returning from the wars. It's incredibly important and the right thing 
for America to do.
  The other thing, and this is even, I think, more--well, just as 
important and perhaps more important. This $9,600 tax credit--again, 
this is a reduction in an employer's taxes of $9,600 for each wounded 
veteran, disabled veteran that has returned from the wars. We only need 
to look at the photos that are too often in our newspapers about post-
traumatic stress syndrome, about the men and women who have suffered 
grievous injuries of one sort or another. But if an employer is willing 
to reach out, they will be able to receive a $9,600 tax credit for 
those wounded warriors.
  These are America's heroes. These are the men and women who should be 
first in our thoughts and first in line.
  This can be combined with the educational programs that I discussed 
earlier so that as these veterans come back, they have the opportunity 
to learn a new skill, perhaps as a lab technician, and carry on and 
work through with a good career ahead of them that has enormous upside 
potential.

                              {time}  2020

  Once you're in these high-tech businesses and the laboratory is 
there, the opportunity to go on and get additional education and 
additional pay and benefits is clearly before you.
  So this is one of the other aspects of the American Jobs Act. It's 
good for employers. They need an employee they can deduct off their 
taxes. It's $5,600 by hiring a veteran or $9,600 for hiring a disabled 
veteran. It's a very good, a very, very solid program in the American 
Jobs Act.
  It doesn't stop there. Let me bring up one other item that I think we 
should really be focusing on.
  I said earlier I'd come back to this issue of the construction worker 
over here. The unemployment in construction is probably well over 30 
percent. In some parts--and I know this is in California--it's in the 
range of 50 percent. So the men and women who are in the construction 
industry have suffered enormous unemployment, in part because of the 
housing market, in part because of the cutback in State and local 
government expenditures.
  But in the President's American Jobs Act, there is a critical 
investment for this Nation, and that is the investment in the 
infrastructure. A big word. Most of us now know it. Infrastructure are 
roads, airports, water systems, sanitation systems, and even the modern 
communication systems, not of telecommuting, but of various kinds of 
microwave systems and other fiber optic systems. All of those are 
modern infrastructure.
  Now, across America, we have allowed our infrastructure to 
deteriorate. Our bridges are in bad shape. More than 60 percent of the 
bridges in America need to be repaired and made stronger. There are 
earthquake standards that are not met. Virginia wasn't thinking too 
much about those until about a month ago, and then suddenly Virginia 
began to think about earthquake standards. I will tell you that this 
building--this Capitol--was built a century or more ago, and they 
weren't thinking about earthquakes at that time.
  All across this Nation, the infrastructure needs to be modernized; it 
needs to be brought back up to speed. So the President has proposed a 
$50 billion sum of money immediately available for the infrastructure 
of the Nation--bridges, roads, airports, the infrastructure of the 
modern communication systems. All of that is immediately available and, 
in addition to that, a very innovative--and I think a very important--
idea called an ``infrastructure bank.''
  An infrastructure bank has been talked about for a long time. Europe 
has had one for more than two decades. What it is is an initial 
investment by the government and then an additional investment by 
public pension funds, by individuals. That infrastructure bank operates 
just as a commercial bank does. It's not a bunch of pork barrel 
projects by me or any of my colleagues but, rather, projects that are 
brought that are cash flow. They are able to repay the loans, repay the 
loan guarantees, and perhaps, depending upon the structure of the 
proposal, are able to get a grant of some sort. That could turn into 
another $50 billion very, very quickly.
  I know that, out in California, CalPERS--the big public pension 
fund--has already said they're going to commit $800 million to 
infrastructure in the State of California. With an infrastructure bank 
in place, such as the President has proposed, they may put in $2 
billion, $3 billion, $4 billion. They certainly have the money.
  Now, in this House, my colleague from Connecticut, Rosa DeLauro, has 
pushed the infrastructure bank for several years, but has gotten no 
traction from our Republican friends. At the same time, several 
Republicans have signed onto that infrastructure bill, so it is 
bipartisan and bicameral, as the Senate has a similar bill on that 
side.
  This is something we can do immediately. This is not new science. 
This is not a new program. It's a program that has been around a long 
time, that is not yet in law but that has been fully vetted; and it can 
happen very quickly as soon as the American Jobs Act is passed. If that 
happens, we'll be looking at at least $50 billion for infrastructure 
projects and quite possibly much more than that if the infrastructure 
bank comes along.
  Let me take up one other aspect of this program. There is not a 
community in America that has all of its public schools as neat, as 
well painted and as well conditioned as a community would want. In 
fact, in many of our communities, our schools are an embarrassment. 
They're rundown. The paint is chipping off the walls. The playgrounds 
are in disarray. The toilets don't work. The lab is a 1950 laboratory. 
There are no Internet communications within the school.
  The President has proposed about a $25 billion to $30 billion program 
to renovate America's schools, to take those schools that are rundown 
whether they are in rural areas or in urban areas. Schools that are 
rundown, schools that are in need of rehabilitation, remodeling and 
upgrading would be in line, and it's calculated that there are 35,000 
schools that could benefit from this program.
  Now, who's going to do the work? These are new jobs--these are new 
job opportunities--and much of this work is not of a very high skill 
but, rather, of a skill that could be met by many of the unemployed. So 
this is cleanup. It's painting. It's the other kinds of work that may 
not require the highest of skill levels, but that is one of the 
additional programs that's available and is a key infrastructure 
program. So, as we go through these various elements that the President 
has proposed in the American Jobs Act, we will find the opportunity to 
put Americans back to work.
  I notice that my colleague from New York has joined us; and we'll 
begin, once again, the east coast/west coast.
  Earlier on, I talked about the education program. I talked about the 
veterans programs that the President has proposed, and I'd gotten into 
the infrastructure. We have yet to hit the unemployment and some other 
areas, but take us wherever you want, Congressman Paul Tonko from the 
State of New York, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. We 
haven't talked about Making It in America yet, which is one of your 
favorite themes. So please, Mr. Tonko, share with us your thoughts.
  Mr. TONKO. Absolutely.
  Representative Garamendi, thank you. Thank you for leading us again 
in another very thoughtful hour of discussion about the importance of 
deciphering the facts out there that will

[[Page 13852]]

springboard the comeback--the economic recovery--of this Nation, and it 
must be done with the deepest and most profound sense of academics. The 
American public is counting on Congress working with the President to 
make jobs more abundant in our society.
  You talked about skills and the development of skills. Recently, 
during our district work period, I traveled to Schoharie County in my 
district and saw the benefits of the investment of automation in 
manufacturing. I was reminded by Wynn Kintz of Kintz Plastics that it's 
important for us to develop the skills that are required today in 
manufacturing. He's involved with a CAT center--a center for advanced 
technology--in the Capital Region. He works with RPI and other 
institutions. He works with the private sector community in that 
compact that really puts together the vision and the need, the compact 
that expresses the need for manufacturing.
  Now, there are those who would suggest that manufacturing is dead, 
that we've seen our heyday, that it's over, that it's history. Well, 
when you talk to America's manufacturers, they will tell you that they 
need to develop the human infrastructure, that they need today's skills 
to meet today's competition. They will tell you about doing it smarter 
so as to be that sharpest competitor on the global scene, and they will 
talk about innovation.
  Just how does innovation happen?
  It's taking ideas and moving them along, investing in R&D, building a 
prototype, developing that impact in manufacturing, and making certain 
that we are at the cutting edge, that we're investing with America's 
brainpower--its know-how--that we're pulling together the intellectual 
capacity and making it work; but when we introduce innovation, we need 
people with the skill set to run these automated mechanisms in the 
manufacturing line.

                              {time}  2030

  So it is absolutely essential, it's so vitally important to develop 
the skill set, the know-how in order to put people to work and make us 
competitive. It's happening as we speak.
  Mr. Kintz advised me that across this country, from my end of the 
country to your end, Representative Garamendi, we need skilled labor of 
the newest kind.
  I can tell you, there are many people who have been displaced from 
the workforce through no fault of their own. Their job may have been 
shipped offshore. They have a high work ethic, they have tremendous 
skill, but now it needs to be honed into present-day application, 
training, retraining, enabling us to advance innovation, advance 
manufacturing. These are important aspects to the work that needs to be 
done.
  In the Make It In America efforts where we enable people to dream the 
American Dream, where we cultivate that climate where you can tether to 
the American Dream, we can introduce the source of policies that it 
takes to advance Make It In America.
  The President has done that with his American Jobs Act. We, as 
Democrats in the House of Representatives, have made it our mantra over 
and over again stating ``make it in America,'' and that takes on 
tremendous meaning. It takes on a variation of meanings. You can make 
it in America, produce it in America. You can make it in America. You 
can survive and grow economically in America.
  There's all sorts of making it in America themes that are interpreted 
through that statement. And it does incorporate sound trade policy. It 
incorporates an investment through incentives that provide the tax 
initiatives that will enable people to be strong. It takes that energy 
core ingredient, gives us the opportunities to be innovative in the 
energy costs, which could shave a tremendous amount of price off the 
final product: labor, investing in the human infrastructure, education 
from pre-K, from pre-K all the way to advanced degrees.
  We need to invest in education, higher education and research. 
Without cultivating ideas, without inspiring that sort of genius that 
comes up with very clever concepts, we are nowhere as a society.
  Finally, the infrastructure, putting together the sorts of efforts 
that will enable us here at home to ship our products, to have the 
infrastructure not only of the ordinary, traditional type, but to 
invest in broadband so that communications could be state-of-the-art, 
so that we invest in a grid system that enables us to reach through the 
arteries and veins of the network, the transmission and distribution 
networking, making certain it's state-of-the-art.
  We saw what happened, did we not, in August of 2003 when a failure in 
Ohio put out the lights on Broadway in New York City and impacted my 
district in upstate New York for weeks upon weeks.
  These are the factors, these are the motivating disciplines within 
our efforts to enable us to boldly say that's a Make It In America 
initiative. We're going to make it happen. We're working really hard. 
We're proud of the efforts made by the White House. It's a plan. It's a 
vision, laser sharp in its focus, on putting people back to work, 
restoring the dignity of work.
  We've talked about it, gathering around the table, the dinner table 
at home. It's so very valuable when we can talk about having people 
bring home that paycheck. People have been denied that opportunity in 
far too many homes--14 million Americans, unemployed. They ought not 
wait 14 months for Congress to work with this President to get 
something done.
  I'm just happy to join you on the floor of the House of 
Representatives and thank you for the leadership that you exert on this 
issue.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. You also, Mr. Tonko. You have been here night after 
night with the same theme, the Make It In America theme. You went 
through these so very, very well, a trade policy that really positions 
America to once again be the manufacturer for the world.
  Tax policy, we've done a lot on tax policy already. Let me just 
mention two things. One we did last year. Unfortunately, none of our 
Republican colleagues were with us on that, but at that time the 
Democrats had the majority. We eliminated about $12 billion of tax 
breaks that American corporations received. Our tax money was given to 
those American corporations for shipping jobs offshore. What? You mean 
they got a subsidy for shipping jobs offshore? They did. We ended it. 
So those are the kinds of tax policies we're talking about.
  Now the President has proposed a continuation of another tax policy 
that we put in place last year. He wants to continue it as part of the 
American Jobs Act, and that is to give a business the opportunity to 
expense in 1 year, in 1 year, the cost of capital equipment so that 
it's not depreciated over 7 years. That's an enormous advantage for a 
business to make the capital investment.
  Now, there is one thing that I would add to that. The President said 
it, but it wasn't specific to this, and that is that that capital 
equipment, that that lathe, that that welding machine, that that saw, 
whatever it happens to be, or the cultivator, the tractor out in farm 
areas, that that be an American-made piece of equipment, that the 
equipment be made in America. Because, once again, we're using our tax 
money to subsidize the capital equipment when I want my tax money to be 
used for American-made equipment.
  And, in fact, guess what? I've got a piece of legislation--I got so 
excited, you will have to forgive me, but I have a piece of legislation 
that does just that. It couples up with what the President's been 
talking about. He talked about American made, that we buy American. 
Well, H.R. 637 says for that construction, for that infrastructure, 
airports, highway, high-speed rail, trains, et cetera, that they are 
made in America. These are opportunities for all parts of America, and 
it works. It works.
  Mr. TONKO. Let me share a perspective with you, Representative 
Garamendi. And I know we've talked about this, but we'll share it for 
the sake of those viewing the discussion this evening on the House 
floor.

[[Page 13853]]

  My district has been severely impacted by the ravages of the waters 
of Irene and then with the one-two punch, if you will, when the 
Tropical Storm Lee wreaked devastating damage upon the upstate New York 
area, certainly in Pennsylvania and in Massachusetts, in Vermont, in 
Connecticut, to name a few, and then even into the Southeast with the 
Carolinas.
  But if ever you wanted to see a snapshot of change from just hours' 
worth, people were disconnected from their neighborhood, farmers who 
had to pour milk into the waters, the ravaging waters, because they had 
no connection to the outside world, roads wiped away by the force of 
water, bridges discontinued, rail systems knocked out, rail stopped 
until they could reconstruct that rail line. That pointed out with such 
significant measure, in such significant measure, in very bold terms, 
the value of infrastructure.
  This screeching halt to a regional economy came about through the 
forces of Mother Nature, and it just brought into clear vision for me 
just what this infrastructure debate is and how folks can ignore the 
value of infrastructure on this House floor and want to do political 
games on an idea that really talks about shipping freight across this 
country, shipping the essential materials for our manufacturing lines 
across this country. Infrastructure is that major artery. It's the 
lifeblood flow into our communities that enables the economic comeback 
to truly be that noble, bold approach, infrastructure, and to put 
together in the American Jobs Act an infrastructure bank bill that 
allows us to place $10 billion that will leverage, we believe, $100 
billion that then enables all sorts of constructs to occur and puts 
together a working plan for America's skilled labor. It is a powerful 
expression of job creation, job retention.
  It's what really is the pulse of America. It is that heartbeat of 
activity to our roads and bridges and rail system and airports that 
really tells the true story.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. We can rebuild America, and we're certainly going to 
have to rebuild your part of America. You and your constituents in 
upper New York and in Vermont were devastated by Hurricane Irene, 
floods that had not been seen, perhaps, in the entire modern history of 
those areas. So that needs to be rebuilt.
  But you are quite correct about the rest of the Nation. San Francisco 
Bay Bridge went down in the 1989 earthquake, the Loma Prieta 
earthquake, and devastated the economy of San Francisco. Freeways 
collapsed.
  So we know that we need to build to a higher standard and we know we 
need to repair. These are American jobs that are readily available 
today. And when we couple it with the American-produced cement and 
steel and equipment that's American made, we will generate a new 
resurgence of America's manufacturing industry. It can be done. All we 
need is a vote of this House. All we need is a vote on the President's 
American Jobs Act.

                              {time}  2040

  It's all there. The Buy America, Make It in America is there. The 
construction jobs are there; the education is there; 1.5 million to 2 
million Americans going back to work the day or shortly after the 
President signs that legislation. This is really an opportunity. And to 
sit here and to waste time, it just seems to me to be a tragedy.
  We need help in Vermont. We need help in New York. Your people do. 
They have been devastated. And yet that bill hasn't even passed this 
House to provide the money for it. We have to do it. It's up to us. 
This is our task.
  Mr. TONKO. It is. I think it highlights exactly the concern that many 
of us have in terms of the response to what is--what has pretty much 
rendered some areas of our country to be acknowledged almost as a war-
torn area where craters have been created by the force of water, where 
roads are no longer in play, where businesses have been shut down, 
where homes have been lost totally to the waters, to the rivers that 
flow in their communities. And when you look at that devastation, you 
would think that the first thing we would do is respond in earnest and 
quickly and with a depth of acknowledgment that appropriates resources 
to get things going again.
  Well, our farmers need assistance, and they're not getting it through 
the response here with the concurrent resolution. It's a trade almost 
that we are asked to make about offsets that we can find. These are 
people that are looking for their children's school clothes in the 
rubble. They're searching for pictures of grandparents to have 
something to cling to in the aftermath of that devastation.
  They are wondering if they will ever open their business again, and 
we're not responding fully. We're looking for ways to cut so as to 
slide dollars over. Are you going to cut that youngster who now has no 
home? Are you going to cut her education? Are you going to cut his 
health care? Are you going to disavow any need for public safety?
  These are the efforts, these are the challenges that when America 
reviews the process, it gets cynical, and I understand the cynicism. 
There's a lot of concern about stepping up to the plate and showcasing 
for America what effective government is all about. This is what my 
district is looking for right now. And when they hear about this 
expression of offsets, I know people in my district, I have known them 
for years, they are like extended family after 3\1/2\ decades of 
representing them at some level of government.
  And I know their philosophy may not be my political philosophy, but 
they are angered about the talk of offsets, as they have to look for 
new homes and look for shelter and for food and clothing. They are 
angry to hear about this offset. They are angry to hear about the total 
disavowing of ag assistance when now they have to rebuild their fields, 
clear it of debris, and re-create the watershed areas that they need. 
These are urgent measures, and they are not going to be tolerating any 
sort of political gamesmanship.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. If I might just add, I was the insurance commissioner 
in California twice, first in the early 1990s, and then again from 2003 
to 2007 or 2008. During that period of time, we had many emergencies in 
California. We had fires and earthquakes, and always we could count on 
the Federal Government immediately providing assistance. Sometimes 
fast, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, of dollars made available 
immediately to rebuild. And it was never, never a question of having to 
take money away from an existing program so that aid could be brought 
to California.
  When the hurricane went through New Orleans, nobody said, well, we're 
going to take care of New Orleans and we're going to cut education or 
we're going to cut research. They simply put the money together during 
the Republican, the Bush period, to rebuild New Orleans. And that was a 
multi-billion-dollar project.
  Now here we are with these disasters in the Northeast. And our 
Republicans are demanding an offset, that is, in order to provide money 
to rebuild the Northeast, we're going to have to cut out the research 
for advanced auto technology. This is the future of the American auto 
industry. This is how to build a better electric motor for a car, a 
better battery so that we can make those things in America rather than 
importing them from China or Korea or Japan.
  The opportunity for America's auto industry to advance with more 
fuel-efficient cars, all of that will be pushed aside for the first 
time in anybody's memory here. And some people have been here 50 years. 
Never before was an offset required, particularly one that would harm 
the future of the American automobile industry.
  So we are going, This doesn't make any sense. Let the compassion and 
the generosity of America express itself, as it has done so many, many 
times. And simply say, okay, we are going to appropriate the money. 
We'll dig deeper. We'll appropriate the money. We'll rebuild. And in 
rebuilding, much of it will be made in America.
  Mr. TONKO. I think if I might, Representative Garamendi, that's where 
I can acknowledge that my district regardless of political persuasion, 
regardless of philosophy, people have been

[[Page 13854]]

impacted by those statements. They are just trying to process that sort 
of thinking that would just call to a grinding halt any response that 
is going to be sufficient simply because it is ruled by some sort of 
new restrictive qualities.
  Well, these are people in pain. These are people who are hurting 
through no fault of their own. They have been impacted by the forces of 
Mother Nature. We have seen it, as you have rightfully said, from coast 
to coast. There have been tragedies out there and disasters and 
challenges galore through the ages of our history. And we have always 
responded in that American pioneer sort of way, to be there, roll in 
the assistance and take care of it. When one amongst us is hurt, 
everyone feels the pain.
  So this is really tragic, and it then challenges our bigger picture 
here. If we can't be responsive in moments like that, how do you 
convince some in the House that the urgency to invest in an innovation 
economy, to invest in a global race on clean energy and innovation, how 
do you encourage them to understand the urgency for that moment, 
because if we are just living for the moment and not looking forward, 
if we don't have the vision as is suggested, we shall perish. That is 
just what we need right now.
  We won the global race on space because with passionate resolve we 
determined that we were going to land the person on the Moon before any 
other nation; and we did it. We unleashed untold levels of technology 
that impacted every sector of the economy and every dynamic that 
defines our quality of life. From health care to communication to 
energy generation to education and beyond, all of that was impacted by 
the pioneer spirit of the global race on space.
  We are at that same sort of defining moment. Are we going to shine? 
Is this going to be a shining moment for America? Are we going to allow 
the challenge to pass us by? Is that American in spirit? I would 
suggest not.
  The moment today requires the sort of belief in our Nation's ability, 
and the leadership that should be expressed in the Halls of government 
here in Washington is silenced by that sort of thinking. And so we can, 
we must, we need to go forward with the soundness of investment in an 
innovation economy. When we talk about growing jobs and investing in 
the American worker, think of it, the linchpin to energy independence, 
battery manufacturing, advanced battery manufacturing.

                              {time}  2050

  I see it happening in my district. But it started with R&D. It starts 
with an investment of ideas, moving them along and building the 
prototype.
  You mentioned earlier that my district was the host territory to the 
Industrial Revolution. That didn't just happen. There were people with 
boldness that said, let's create a port called New York City, and let 
it connect the great ocean to the Great Lakes. Because of my location, 
my geography, upstate New York became that link to a great ocean, to 
the Great Lakes. It inspired the birth of a necklace of communities 
called mill towns that then rose to be the epicenters of invention and 
innovation. That pioneer spirit is alive today in my State, in your 
State, and in the 48 other States. We should be proud of that. We 
should nurture it. We should make certain that it speaks forcefully to 
job creation. That's the plan of the President's American Jobs Act, and 
it's the vision of Make It in America that you and I so often speak to 
during these Special Orders on the House floor.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. We can. Yes, we can. We can rebuild America. We really 
can do it. You gave a wonderful example of the way in which the great 
Industrial Revolution in this country took place, government doing its 
piece and the private sector doing that piece, government setting the 
stage with infrastructure and then the private sector coming along 
building the mill towns, building the factories, and the government 
aiding in the research all along the way.
  There's a very interesting story about the telegraph. It would not 
have happened had not that idea been brought to the Congress and then 
the Congress funding the initial implementation of the telegraph. So 
we've seen over the history of America the role of government. The 
President has laid out in the American Jobs Act a very powerful message 
about the role of government, together with the free enterprise 
entrepreneurial system, building once again the America that we want.
  We have maybe another 15 minutes, I think, here, and I want to take 
this to another part of what the President talked about yesterday. 
There are two Americas. We are two very different Americas. There is 
the very wealthy America, and then there is the rest of America. I put 
this up because I was listening, as I was traveling to one of my 
meetings in the district over the weekend, to a radio talk show. It was 
KGO radio in San Francisco. They had a talk show on in support of food 
banks. They were taking the entire day and assisting in raising money. 
This is one of the most-listened-to stations on the entire West Coast. 
They go from Vancouver all the way down to San Diego with their radio 
signal, and it was a whole day dedicated to food banks and raising 
money for food banks.
  The story line was very simple. Food banks are being inundated by men 
and women that can no longer buy food. They are unemployed. They are 
simply to a point where they cannot any longer. The stories were heart-
wrenching. Men and women, families that had worked their entire life, 
that had always been able to come home with food and a paycheck and 
been able to pay the rent or pay the mortgage had lost their job, and 
they didn't know what to do. They were embarrassed to go to the food 
bank. They thought it was begging. That's not the case.
  Nonetheless, the stories tore me apart and caused me to come back and 
find out about child poverty in this Nation, the richest nation in the 
world. No other nation, no matter what you think of China, no matter 
what you think about India and how they have grown or any part of the 
European Union, no other nation in the world has the wealth of America, 
and no other industrialized country in the world has the same 
extraordinary child poverty. What are we? What are we in America if we 
don't care for our children?
  Look at this. Nearly 25 percent, some were 23, 24 percent, one in 
four children in this Nation live in poverty, and they're hungry. They 
are hungry. This has to be addressed. The President's jobs program puts 
men and women back to work so that they can care for their children.
  There is another story behind this, and that is that the rate of 
poverty in America is the highest it has been since 1962, during the 
Kennedy period. In the Johnson period, 1963, '64, '65, America started 
a war on poverty, and the poverty rate in this Nation fell 
precipitously. Senior poverty with Medicare and Medicaid; men and women 
in their senior years were taken out of poverty because they could 
afford health care. They had health care available to them. And other 
programs were institutionalized. Here we are, 40-some years later, the 
highest incident of poverty in America since prior to the war on 
poverty in the 1960s. We have to address this.
  Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, it is often said that a nation 
can be measured by the work it does for those in the dawn of life, and 
the quality of life for those children living in poverty understandably 
is reduced. And so the challenge to all of us in this country, what 
ought to move that moral compass of America, is the reflection on that 
statement that you just made.
  If we're content with that statistic, if we're content with the 
direction in which that statistic is moving, then it is a puzzling 
statement. It ought to haunt us as a society. And as we weaken and as 
we grow more and more into the ranks of poverty, the entire Nation, all 
income strata, are challenged by that. We are all weakened by that 
statistic because as we empower each and every American, we, as a 
nation, collectively grow stronger. The impact is not only just living 
in poverty, it is more incidents of disease, risks to

[[Page 13855]]

health care and poorer education. We need to strengthen the homes. You 
don't do it with policies that obviously have created this growing 
divide. That gap is growing between the comfortable and uncomfortable, 
and it's why there has to be this revisitation, if you will, of tax 
policy.
  Now there are those who say, well, if you adjust this, it's class 
warfare. It's not class warfare. If everything were at its even level 
and you adjusted it, you could call it class warfare. This is an 
exercise in justice, social and economic justice. And it also can be 
argued that if we had those higher tax rates and we had a series of 
years of economic growth in the Clinton years, then how do you 
rationalize the tax rates having been higher back then? It certainly 
could be argued that it didn't ward off economic growth, economic 
strengthening of our Nation.
  So there is a call here, a clarion call, a wake-up call to visit 
policy that will undo this social and economic injustice. It hurts all 
of us, and it can't continue. I know that in the stats that you shared 
there is another one, another statistic that is troublesome. We have 
now dropped below $50,000 as the median household income. I believe we 
are in the range of $48,000 to $49,000, maybe perhaps just slightly 
more than $49,000. That is troublesome. As that median continues to 
dip, that is a hurtful acknowledgment that there are failed policies 
out there that need to be turned around.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me put a couple of more facts on the table and 
then let's talk about the policy changes that can redirect that. This 
is the last 40 years, 1979 to 2006, prior to the Great Recession. 
During that period of time, there was a shift of wealth and of income, 
wealth and of income, from the middle class and the low-income to the 
very wealthy. This lays it out. Again, this is prior to the Great 
Recession. If we look at it in the Great Recession, these statistics 
are even more startling.

                              {time}  2100

  For the low end, the poorest, 11 percent growth. And then you move up 
to the second group, 18 percent, 21 percent, 32 percent. For the top 
percentage, the top 20 percent, a 256 increase in income and wealth.
  Looking at the statistics, a wage earner in a factory versus the CEO, 
it used to be 1 to 40, now it's 1 to 300. We've seen an enormous shift 
in wealth from the working middle class families to the very, very 
wealthy. If you overlay this with the 2007, 2008, 2009, and where we 
are today in 2011, it would be even more startling because now these 
are running negative, as you said just a moment ago. For the middle 
class, that's here and down, not the top 20 percent, but down here, 
this is the top 1 percent.
  Mr. TONKO. So pre-recession, we were 32 percent at the best, anywhere 
from 11 percent to 32 percent growth, versus 256 percent growth for 
that top 1 percent perched at the top of the economic ladder, the 
income strata.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. We use Donald Trump as the example here, but there are 
probably 400 to 500,000 that fall into this category; extraordinary 
wealth.
  Now, we've been talking all night about the American Jobs Act, so I'm 
going to put this back up for us to ponder for a moment: the American 
Jobs Act. Total cost of the American Jobs Act: $450 million. The 
President yesterday said it can be paid for, and he laid out a way to 
pay for it and, simultaneously, over the next decade, bring down the 
American deficit--solve the deficit and pay for the Jobs Act. And he 
said that there are three ways to do it:
  First, those who have much must participate. They must share in 
bringing America back. So he has suggested that the highest income, 
that 1 percent, those who make over $1 million, that they participate, 
that they no longer would be able to have a tax rate lower than their 
assistants. That's the Buffett Rule. That's a big piece of it, about 
$800 billion over the next decade.
  He also said that corporations that pay no income tax today--
corporations like General Motors, corporations like Verizon, some of 
America's biggest corporations pay zero income tax. Last year, General 
Electric paid zero and got about $5 billion back in rebates. Something 
is seriously wrong, the President says. That cannot happen anymore. 
Everybody has to participate.
  He also said that other tax breaks for the oil companies should end. 
So putting together these tax increases on those who have much, the 
superwealthy in America, the hedge fund manager that pays 15 percent on 
his income where you and I and others may pay 30 percent, something's 
wrong here. So that's what he is recommending.
  We need to move very vigorously forward on the American Jobs Act, put 
people back to work, and simultaneously solve the overall budget 
deficit by not only new taxes, but also with additional cuts. That's 
the President's proposal.
  Mr. TONKO. I would add to that that the jobs piece is so significant. 
Because we can talk about tax reform, but unless you have a job and an 
income, then it renders itself somewhat meaningless.
  I would also add, Representative Garamendi, the concern that as more 
and more pressure has befallen the 50 States, we've seen cuts to 
programs and resources. These services don't go away, and so the 
payment comes down to the local level with property tax payments that 
are now snuffing out the American Dream for America's working families, 
for the middle class. So not only is the tax policy suffocating for 
middle class Americans, but the counter effect of property taxes 
growing in order to continue services means that more and more 
pressure--income tax, property tax pressure, school tax pressure--is 
befalling the middle class. When people want to walk away from this 
agenda to make progressive reforms to tax policy, it scares me because 
this is our moment, our tipping point to turn things around.
  I know that you want to close. I thank you for the outstanding 
leadership in bringing us together, Representative Garamendi. It is 
always a pleasure to join with you. We will continue to forcefully 
speak to the reforms we need.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. The East-West show will continue, and the Make It in 
America agenda will be the American agenda because Americans want to 
make things in this country. They want to rebuild the manufacturing 
industry. The President has given us a way to do that with the American 
Jobs Act. Trade policy, tax policy, energy, labor, Make It in America. 
Make the jobs in America. Rebuild America's manufacturing base. Rebuild 
the American middle class. We will do it. And if we pass the American 
Jobs Act, it can happen very quickly.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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