[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15306-15308]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     PUTTING AMERICANS BACK TO WORK

  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. For our hardworking stenographers, it's late into the 
evening, and we thank you for all the work that you do recording our 
words, many of which are worth listening to and having written down and 
some of which are probably not.
  I want to thank my colleagues from across the aisle for bringing the 
issue of securing our borders to our attention tonight and along with 
it the issue of immigration. I would just like to remind them that the 
current administration has done more in the last 2\1/2\ years to secure 
our borders than in the previous 8 years of the George W. Bush 
administration, putting more Border Patrol to work--significantly 
more--and also putting on the borders members of the National Guard. It 
remains a difficult and in very many places a very dangerous situation. 
Nonetheless, a great deal is being done.
  I would also like to remind my colleagues from the Republican side 
that they control this House. When a certain piece of legislation came 
here with regard to appropriations, they actually proposed to cut the 
men and women that are there to protect the border. So I'm not quite 
sure I understood all of tonight's debate from their side. And also I 
would remind them that if immigration is such a big issue, they should 
bring a comprehensive immigration bill to this floor so that we have a 
rational immigration policy in the United States.
  I guess it's easier to talk than it is to take action.
  What I would like to spend tonight talking about is putting Americans 
back to work. Let's go back to work. This is one great country. We're 
America. We're the people that make things. We're the people that can 
do things. We're the people that want to go back to work. And this 
government wants to put people back to work.
  About a month ago the President proposed the American Jobs Act, a 
very comprehensive program that would put Americans back to work. I 
want to spend this evening talking about the critical and the most 
important elements of that legislation that he has proposed. 
Unfortunately, our friends in the Senate--well, maybe they're not 
America's friends--they killed the American Jobs Act. When it came up 
for a vote this week, they chose to not allow it to come to a vote. 
They did one of their little filibuster routines over there, with every 
Republican voting against putting Americans back to work.
  Now, I don't know exactly what they have in mind. I guess they would 
like the economy to stumble along with millions of Americans out of 
work. They couldn't possibly want that. They couldn't possibly want a 
situation where men and women are desperate for a job when there's an 
opportunity--and I'll explain in a few moments how many people will be 
able to go back to work if this American Jobs Act were actually to 
become law. But they voted not even to allow it to come to a vote. They 
did one of their little filibuster threats and every Republican lined 
up sufficient in number to block the bill from moving forward.
  I must say two of my Democratic colleagues over there also voted on 
the wrong side of putting Americans back to work. But I'll let them 
explain that to their constituents.

                              {time}  1950

  So what is the American Jobs Act? Well, let's start with the 
foundation. The foundation of any economy is the infrastructure. It is 
that part of the structure of an economy that is the foundation. It is 
the transportation system. Infrastructure is the sanitation and the 
water systems and the modern communication systems.
  In the President's American Jobs Act is $50 billion, in addition to 
what we're already spending, to build the bridges, to repair the roads, 
to add to the transportation systems--the light rail, the heavy rail, 
the Amtrak systems--to move Americans, and also to move modern 
communication systems. Fifty billion dollars.
  What does that mean to my State of California? Well, it's $4 billion 
right off the top. It's 51,500 jobs that could begin the day after this 
House and the Senate sends to the President the American Jobs Act--$50 
billion, 51,500 jobs for California, building the foundation of 
economic growth.
  In addition to that, the President proposed a $10 billion 
capitalization of an infrastructure bank in which pension funds from 
around the Nation could then invest in that infrastructure bank--more 
money for those projects that are not earmarks, not political, but 
rather jobs and programs that are actually needed in communities, that 
have the ability to repay the loans that the infrastructure bank would 
make.
  Let me just put up a couple of things here that really build an 
economy, and we will soon come to this issue of making it in America. 
But before I do, I just want to point out that these are the key 
elements in creating an economy.
  We talked a moment ago about the infrastructure. It's down here at 
the bottom, not for any reason other than that's the foundation. So the 
infrastructure. The other thing that's in the American Jobs Act deals 
with this: education. Now, education is the most fundamental investment 
that any society must make if it's going to have future economic growth 
and social justice.
  So what has the President proposed in the American Jobs Act for 
education? How about putting 280,000 teachers back to work the day 
after this bill passes this Congress and the Senate and is signed by 
the President; 280,000 teachers in the classrooms teaching our 
children, preparing them to compete in the world's economy; 280,000 
teachers. For California, $3.6 billion and 37,000 teachers in the 
classroom immediately.
  Now, my daughter is a teacher; my son-in-law is a teacher. Their 
class size went from 22 or 24 to 35, a very difficult situation for any 
teacher in the second grade to be able to adequately prepare those 
children. However, my daughter is a great teacher and she's hanging in 
there, but this is tough. This is a very, very difficult situation. 
What would it mean to her if there's one additional second grade 
teacher in her school? It would mean her classroom size would come down 
and her ability to bring those kids along faster would very, very much 
be in play. 280,000 teachers. So that's the education piece of it.
  Let's talk for a moment about the classroom itself. We know here in 
Congress, all 435 of us, we go back to our districts and we see our 
schools. The parents out there, they know their schools need to be 
renovated. They know that many of the bathrooms aren't working. They 
know the playgrounds are in disrepair. They know the paint is peeling 
and the roofs are leaking. In the President's bill, 35,000 schools 
across this Nation are going to be renovated--35,000 schools. In 
California, that amounts to 2,800 schools being rehabilitated and 
36,000 jobs.
  This is a big deal. If a kid takes pride in his school, he's going to 
be a better student. If a kid sees his school and it's in disrepair, 
bathrooms are not working, he could just lose interest. So let's give 
them a good environment in which to learn. And so the President has 
proposed $25 billion, 35,000 schools across this Nation. This is a big 
deal for education: teachers, better schools, renovation.
  And for community colleges, there's also money in here for community 
colleges, $5 billion to upgrade the plant, the laboratories, the 
science facilities for community colleges across this Nation.
  Let's go back to work. Let's put America back to work. Let's pass the

[[Page 15307]]

American Jobs Act. The Senate, you haven't helped. In this House, in 
the House of Representatives, the Republican leadership refuses to even 
bring this bill up for a vote, even bring it to a hearing in any of the 
committees. They simply say ``no.'' So what's their solution? What's 
their solution for putting Americans back to work? Well, thus far it's 
been to cut budgets, to lay people off all across this Nation.
  How is this going to get paid for? It's fully paid for. This is not 
going to be borrowed money. This is not going out and borrowing money 
to create jobs here in the United States, fundamental investments that 
we need to grow the economy. This American Jobs Act, just under $500 
billion, is fully paid for. It's paid for by fairness. Finally, some 
fairness in our tax policies. No longer are the superrich in this 
Nation going to be able to skip out of their share of carrying the 
burden of America. No longer are we going to see situations in which 
the top 1 percent of America continue to acquire more and more wealth 
at the expense of the rest of this Nation.
  The President and the Senate Democrats--and I credit them with this, 
positively credit them with this--have said, let's allow the 
millionaires to share in putting Americans back to work. They certainly 
have benefited significantly over these years. They will have their 
opportunity to pay their fair share and put Americans back to work.
  Now, on tax policy, there's another thing here. Some are going to pay 
more. Those millionaires who have more than $1 million of annual 
income, yes, they will pay more. However, the working men and women of 
America, the 160 million working men and women in America are going to 
get a tax break. They're going to see one half of their payroll tax 
reduced, about $1,500 per person. This is a big deal. To have an extra 
$1,500 in your pocket, you'll be able to pay your mortgage, buy food 
for your kids, be able to go out, and maybe replace that refrigerator 
that's broken. 160 million Americans are going to get a tax break when 
their payroll tax is reduced.
  Now, what about the businesses in America? We hear a lot of talk from 
our Republican friends about protecting small business. The American 
Jobs Act provides 98 percent of the businesses of America with a 50 
percent reduction in their payroll tax, a 50 percent reduction in their 
payroll tax. What's more, in California, 710,000 businesses will see a 
50 percent reduction in their payroll tax. That's a big deal. That's 
money that those businesses can then use to hire new workers.
  And if they hire a new worker, guess what? The President has proposed 
that if they hire a long-term unemployed worker, they will have a 
$4,000 tax credit, a tax credit. That is money right off the bottom 
line that they don't have to pay to the government, a reduction in 
their taxes. And if they go out and they hire an injured veteran coming 
home from the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, they will get another tax 
credit. And if they hire a long-term unemployed person, similarly, very 
strong incentives in this legislation for employers to hire the 
unemployed, to hire our heroes who are returning from the wars--some 
injured--giving an additional incentive to hire those people. And let's 
understand that they do come back with skills, not just skills in war, 
but skills in communication, skills in repairing machinery. These are 
vital skills that most businesses in the United States need.
  So when we look at the American Jobs Act that the President brought 
here to this House with the speech, standing right there, a speech to 
the joint session, he said, Pass this law.

                              {time}  2000

  Let's go back to work. Let's go back to work, America. We are a 
strong, vibrant Nation. We're a Nation of workers. We're not a Nation 
of slackers. We're a Nation that wants to work. And what we need is a 
government that's willing to help American go back to work. And that's 
what the President has proposed in the American Jobs Act.
  So where is the American Jobs Act? It died in the Senate early this 
week.
  Did it die? I don't think so. Americans are rising up across this 
Nation. They are in the streets. We often talked about the ``Arab 
Street'' and the ``Arab Spring.''
  Well, this is the ``Autumn in America,'' and Americans are back in 
the street and they are demanding jobs. They're demanding fairness in 
their tax policy. They're demanding that Wall Street bankers get with 
the program of putting Americans back to work. Stop playing your games 
and all of your derivatives. Stop all of those computerized trading 
games and make the loans, make the loans to American businesses. That's 
what the people in the streets are saying. They want fairness in this 
system. They want a job. They want to be able to get an education, and 
they want this government to do the kinds of things that the President 
has proposed in the American Jobs Act: education, teachers in the 
classroom, renovating the schools, building the infrastructure, putting 
this Nation back on its feet. That's what we can do, and that's what we 
must do.
  Let's take a look at the other things that are necessary if America 
is going to make it. If America's going to make it, we must, once 
again, make it in America. Make it in America. This Nation is still, 
even though we have lost more than half of our manufacturing jobs in 
the last 25 years--that's right. In this Nation of manufacturers, in 
this Nation where we once built the armaments of the world, where we 
once built the cars of the world, where we once built the great 
earthmovers, in this Nation that once was the strongest manufacturing 
Nation in the world, we have lost half of the manufacturing jobs.
  How did that happen? It happened with tax laws that encouraged 
American corporations to go global, to offshore American jobs and get a 
tax break.
  You heard me right. American tax policy, until last December, gave 
American corporations a tax break for every job they shipped offshore. 
Before the Democrats lost the House of Representatives in January of 
this year, we passed a law that repealed those tax benefits. More than 
$12 billion returned to the United States Treasury, taken out of the 
hands of American corporations that were shifting jobs overseas--$12 
billion. Not one, not one Republican voted to end that tax break.
  Let's understand. There's a very different way in which we look at 
how to make it in America. End the tax breaks that allow corporations 
to shift jobs offshore.
  Trade policy. My view, today is a sad day in American trade policy. 
Today this House, and yesterday the Senate, passed three trade bills. 
They were called ``free trade.'' They were certainly not fair trade, in 
my estimation. Those trade bills are going to cause a loss of American 
jobs no matter how you look it, and I'll tell you what the proof is.
  No sooner had those three trade bills passed out of this House than a 
fourth bill came up. You know what the fourth bill was? It's called the 
Trade Adjustment Act, providing a substantial amount of money, billions 
of dollars for those workers that lose their jobs as a result of the 
three trade bills that passed this House today.
  Do you get it? What's going on here?
  You're telling me these are going to create jobs, and then you turn 
around not more than 50 seconds later and pass a bill that provides 
unemployment benefits and educational benefits for the very same 
workers that lose their jobs as a result of those fair trade acts? 
Excuse me--free trade, not fair trade.
  Anyway, trade's an important issue. This Nation has opened its doors 
to the world. You send your stuff here and we'll buy it. And the doors 
around the world only opened a little tiny bit. It's not fair.
  Nonetheless, the President will sign it and we'll go on our way.
  We talked about tax policy.
  Let me talk about one more thing here that's really important. Here 
we go. I think I'll leave that up there. Again, it's tax policy. I 
suspect most of you have been offered an opportunity to buy 
photovoltaic solar systems for your roof, generate your own 
electricity. And I suspect many Americans

[[Page 15308]]

have seen the big wind turbines and these wind farms going round and 
round generating electricity.
  This is really important energy policy for this Nation. It is 
extremely important that we move to these renewable energy sources. 
However, it is part of the American energy policy to encourage 
investments in solar and wind and biofuels and other kinds of renewable 
energy, and we do that in a variety of ways. We do that by loan 
guarantees. We do that with direct subsidies. We do that with tax 
credits. All of those are our tax money being used to encourage the 
appropriate and correct energy policy.
  However, there's one thing missing. Where are those pieces of 
equipment made? Where is our tax money going? Where is it going? Is it 
going to American-made solar panels, American-made wind turbines, or is 
it going to solar panels that are made in China or Germany, Korea? 
Where are those solar panels made, and where is that gigantic wind 
turbine made with blades that are 300 feet across? Are those made in 
America? Our tax money is being used to buy it.
  This is my legislation, House Resolution 487. It says this: If you're 
going to use our American tax money, your tax money, my tax money, the 
American tax money, if you're going to use that tax money to subsidize 
the purchase of a solar panel, a wind turbine, a bio-electric system, 
then that tax money's going to be used to buy American-made equipment. 
We're going to make it in America when we use our tax money to buy 
American-made equipment. That's what this bill does. And I think we 
ought to be passing this, along with the American Jobs Act.
  If we're going to go out and spend $50 billion on infrastructure, 
then it ought to be American-made concrete. That ought to be American-
made steel on those bridges. It ought to be American-made, and we can 
make it in America if we have the right policies in place.
  A couple of more things.
  Any of you buy gasoline? Any Americans out there buying diesel fuel 
for their trucks or their pickups or cars? When you do, you're paying a 
tax. It's the excise tax on fuel. A little over, what is it, about 16 
cents, 18 cents for gasoline and 24.5 cents, 25 cents for diesel fuel. 
So every gallon you're paying a tax.
  Where's that tax money go? It goes to build your highways, to repair 
your highways. It goes to build your bridges. It goes to buy trains, 
locomotives for Amtrak. It goes to buy light rails for San Diego, heavy 
rail or transit systems for Washington, DC.

                              {time}  2010

  That's where the money goes. And we need it. We need that money to be 
spent on our basic transportation systems, whether they are the rails, 
the concrete for the highways or the steel for the bridges, or for the 
buses and trains that we travel in. However, is that money being used 
to purchase American-made concrete and American-made steel for the 
bridges? Is it used to buy American-made buses, American-made trains, 
locomotives and light rail systems? Not always. But if my legislation, 
H.R. 613, becomes law, it will be American made; and, once again, we 
will make it in America because we're using our tax money to buy 
American-made equipment.
  We can put Americans back to work, and we must put Americans back to 
work. We can do these things. We can use our government in coordination 
and cooperation with the private sector to build this Nation once 
again, to build the infrastructure of this Nation, to educate our 
children, to do the research that's necessary for tomorrow's 
innovation. We can do this. We can use our tax money wisely to buy 
American-made equipment, American-made buses and steel. We can do it.
  But we need good laws to do it. We need wise laws to do it. We need 
to not just abandon the American worker and say there's nothing that 
can be done, government has to get out of the way, just back up and let 
it go. It doesn't happen that way. We wish it did, but it doesn't 
happen that way. There are no economists out there that are saying, 
continue to cut government spending and somehow there will be jobs 
created. If you cut that spending now, then you're going to lay people 
off.
  Surely we have to deal with the deficit, and that's going to take 5 
to 10 years to do that. So what we need to do now, in a balanced way, 
with the American Jobs Act, is to put people back to work, to let those 
who have prospered so much, those who have made out so well in this 
economy, the top 1 percent, those whose annual income is $1 million or 
more, in fairness, in equity, in what is right for this Nation, let 
them share the burden. Let them help the 99 percent that have been 
struggling these many, many years. Let them help with their taxes. They 
can afford it. They're not going to go belly up, they're not going to 
be hurting, and they're not going to be out in the street homeless. 
They're going to continue to do very, very well.
  Fairness demands, as the President has proposed and as the Democrats 
in the Senate have proposed, that the millionaires, those whose annual 
adjusted gross income is more than $1 million, that they pay a little 
extra, that they contribute to the future of this Nation. And in doing 
so, the American Jobs Act that the President has proposed could become 
law, not increasing the deficit, but, in fact, reducing the deficit by 
giving Americans the work, by restarting the great engine of the 
American economy and by making it in America once again. That's where 
our future lies, and that's where we must go.
  So, as we go about the debates this week, as we talk about those 
things that are before us, let us think about making it in America, let 
us find ways to use the wisdom of 535 Members of Congress and the 
Senate and the administration to reflect the wisdom of the American 
public. Use our tax money here at home. Put Americans back to work, 
educate, create a fair and equitable tax system. We can do it. We have 
no choice but to do it.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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