[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16475-16480]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Guinta). 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. Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity 
to take this hour together with my colleagues to discuss jobs in 
America. I think we know from our recent visits back to our districts 
that there's a great deal of pain in America. Americans want to go to 
work, and yet the jobs are not available.
  Our President has proposed the American Jobs Act, a program that 
would put perhaps 1.9 million Americans to work as soon as the Congress 
of the United States were to pass that legislation. And so that's the 
subject matter of this hour, how to get Americans back to work and how 
to pay for it.
  I'm going to start with the pay-for, a word that's used around here 
but perhaps not readily understood by Americans. Pay-for is how are we 
going to pay for the Federal programs.
  Let's start with an analysis of the distribution of income in 
America. There's been more and more discussion about this in recent 
weeks, and appropriately so because what has happened over the last 25-
30 years is a skewing, a wide separation of wealth in the United States 
to a point where it is now perhaps the widest separation between the 
very wealthy and the middle and poor people in America that has ever 
occurred in our history. Here's a pretty good description of it. If you 
take the top 1 percent, we've seen an enormous growth in their income, 
about 350 percent.

                              {time}  1450

  If you take the middle, the other 99 percent of the American 
population, you see very, very modest growth. And in the case of the 
poor, you've actually seen a decline in their income over the last two 
decades. And that's what's happened, this enormous separation between 
the very wealthy and the middle class, the working men and women of 
America. It's not that the real rich don't work; just not that many of 
them. But they sure have got a big share of the money.
  Let's take, for example, the top executives of the oil industry. If 
we were to take the top executives of the big five oil companies and 
compare them to a firefighter, a firefighter averages about $47,000 a 
year. An executive, a CEO of an oil company, would have 307 times that 
amount of income. And if you take a teacher at say $53,000 a year, the 
CEO would have 273 times the amount of income of a teacher. So what 
you're seeing here in just the oil industry--and this is repeated 
certainly in the banking and the Wall Street industries, the financial 
industries--you see this enormous separation. Thirty, 40 years ago, 
this was in the range of 40 times, maybe 50 times. But now we're 
talking 300 to, in the lower 300s, a separation of the super wealthy 
and the working middle class, the men and women that are out there 
constructing schools, making our schools or teaching our kids or 
protecting us, police and firefighters.
  I put those graphs up because it provides us with a solution. Before 
I get to the solution, let's just take one more look at the way this 
income distribution is occurring here in the United States. The rising 
inequality since the 1970s saw a very sharp break in the prosperity 
from an earlier era. From 1946 to 1976, the top 1 percent actually had 
a very small portion of the total wealth. From 1976 to 1990, we've seen 
enormous growth in the average income--not the wealth but the average 
income--of the top 1 percent so that now it dwarfs the rest of the 
population. So this is why you see Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Oakland, 
and the other cities talking about the 99ers, the 99 percent. The 99 
percent are the rest of us, and the 1 percent are the CEOs, the Wall 
Street barons and those that have made enormous amounts of income over 
the last 20 years.
  In the last decade, that's become even more apparent with the Bush 
tax cuts that occurred in 2001 and 2003. They basically significantly 
lowered the tax rate for the super wealthy and allowed them to keep 
even more of the extraordinary growth in their salaries and their 
income.
  So how does that relate to American jobs? Well, very, very directly. 
The American jobs program that the President put forth called the 
American Jobs Act would provide very substantial opportunities for 
employment. And what I'd like to talk about is small businesses here. 
The small businesses of America are given a very substantial tax break 
in two different ways if they are to hire new people. For example, 
small businesses with less than $5 million of payroll are able to not 
pay their payroll tax, in other words, keep that money and go out and 
hire people. In addition to that, with Veterans Day coming up in just 1 
week, we ought to be thinking about the veterans. We know that we have 
more than 1.5 million Americans that have been overseas fighting in 
Iraq, Afghanistan, and a few other places around the world. As those 
veterans come back, they have become the highest proportion of 
unemployed in America.
  It would seem to me that since we are asking so much of those men and 
women that have served in our Armed Forces, particularly those that 
have served in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, we ought to be looking to 
their interest very directly and making certain that our programs are 
focused on them. Well, this is not lost on our President. In the 
American Jobs Act, he deals very directly with this by providing 
employers with a very powerful incentive to hire veterans. So with 
Veterans Day coming up, let's take a look at that. Let's take a look at 
what the President is proposing for the 877,000 unemployed veterans, 
the men and women that were out there fighting for this country, 
protecting us and doing what has been asked of them in an extraordinary 
way. More than 6,000 of them have given their lives, and over 40,000 
have been seriously wounded. Of that 40,000, a very large proportion 
are permanently, permanently damaged in many difficult and 
extraordinary ways. And 877,000 of them are unemployed. And the 
President, looking at the necessity of building jobs in America, said, 
let's take care of those people.
  So what he has proposed, and I think this is a terrific idea, is that 
small businesses, in fact, any business that is out to hire a veteran 
will be given an immediate $5,600 tax credit so that the

[[Page 16476]]

taxes owed by that business or that employer would automatically be 
reduced for every veteran hired by $5,600. Hire an unemployed veteran, 
and you can reduce your taxes by $5,600. Even more so, if that veteran 
happens to be among those that have been wounded--and as I said, that 
is over 40,000--if you were to hire one of those wounded veterans, one 
of the seriously wounded that is connected with their service 
disability, the tax credit increases to $9,600. That's a very, very 
powerful incentive for businesses to hire our veterans. So with 
Veterans Day 1 week away, it's incumbent upon the 435 of us here in the 
United States Congress to not just talk the talk, but begin to vote to 
provide the veterans with the services that they need.
  Now why did I start off with this graph? Why did I start off with 
this, showing the income disparity in the United States? Because this 
is how we should be paying for it--those Americans that have done 
extraordinarily well. And we're not talking about just extraordinarily 
well; we're talking about extraordinarily extraordinarily well. They 
have seen their income rise to a point of astronomical figures in some 
cases. And certainly it's seen on Wall Street. It's time for them to 
push aside the George W. Bush tax cuts. These tax cuts allowed them to 
keep a very large portion of their income. Taxes went down on income 
over $250,000 for joint filers, it went down from 39 percent to 35 
percent. And do keep in mind all of the tax writeoffs that they're able 
to take advantage of that most Americans can't get. But nonetheless, 
since they've had 11 good years, 11 good years where they have received 
a significant tax cut, I think it's time for them to share and help our 
veterans get a job.
  And so the President has proposed, as part of his American Jobs Act, 
which is fully paid for, that those men and women whose annual adjusted 
gross income after deductions--adjusted gross income after deductions--
is $1 million or more, we're not talking about mom and pop on Main 
Street here, we're talking about those folks on Wall Street and those 
CEOs from the energy industry and the oil companies, those folks, it's 
time for them to come back and help America. It's time for them to stop 
shipping jobs offshore, stop playing all the Wall Street gambling games 
that got us in such trouble, and it's time for them to share in a fair 
way to pay for an American Jobs Act that would put veterans back to 
work by providing businesses in the United States with a tax credit 
when they hire one of those 877,000 unemployed veterans that have been 
out there keeping this country safe.
  So if you earn more than $1 million adjusted gross income after all 
of your deductions, yes, 5.6 percent of that income over and above 
would be surcharged, and it would go back up to just about 40 percent.

                              {time}  1500

  Is that going to hurt anybody? No. Is it going to help somebody? Oh, 
yes. Oh, yes, it's going to help Americans go back to work. And it's 
not just in the area of veterans, although we certainly ought to be 
focusing on this. My plea to my Republican colleagues here on the floor 
is, let's not just talk about veterans and how we honor them next week. 
Let's vote this week while we are here to put the American Jobs Act out 
of this House, or at least put this part of the American Jobs Act out 
of the House and pay for it with a surcharge on those very fortunate 
Americans who have worked hard, been lucky, or whatever. Allow them the 
opportunity to pay for putting our veterans back to work. So let's get 
with it.
  Now I know you're going to go back to your districts, and you're 
going to go to the veterans parades and you're going to talk all the 
talk. But here's where the walk occurs: in this House, in this week, we 
have the opportunity--in fact, we have the obligation--to really help 
our veterans, to really help them by putting them back to work; and 
this is one way to do it.
  Let me talk for a moment about another way of doing it, and I think 
I'll deal with this one. Not only are there 877,000 veterans 
unemployed, but well over 9 million, 12 million Americans, and another 
12 million that are underemployed. The President, in his jobs act, says 
for small businesses, if you hire an unemployed person who's been 
unemployed for 6 months or more, you can have a $4,000 tax credit. So 
veterans, $5,600; a wounded veteran--one of our returning heroes--
$9,600; and for a long-term unemployed American, hire somebody and you 
can reduce your tax burden by $4,000. That's a pretty good deal.
  In addition to that, if you're a small business with a payroll of 
less than $5 million, you can write off, not pay the payroll tax at 
all. For individual families, the President has proposed--and we all 
talk about the need for individual families to have additional money in 
their pocket, so the American Jobs Act said, for individual families, 
tell you what, half of the payroll tax that you're presently paying--
about 6 percent--you don't have to pay it; you can keep that money. 
It's over $1,500 a year in the pockets of average Americans out there.
  So the President has put together a program here, the American Jobs 
Act, to deal with unemployed--some 6 million have been unemployed more 
than 6 months; hire them, get a $4,000 tax credit. Hire an unemployed 
veteran and you can get a $5,600 tax credit. Or if that veteran happens 
to be one of the wounded warriors, one of America's true heroes, it's 
$9,600.
  So it's time for us to act. It's time for the American public to tell 
Congress we can't wait. We can't wait. We can't take any more of this 
unemployment. Pass a real jobs program.
  I know my colleague here, a few moments ago, was talking about the 15 
bills that went over to the Senate. If you take a look at those bills, 
not one of them was a real jobs bill. What they did was basically gut 
the environmental regulations of this Nation so that our children can 
have a little more arsenic, a little more mercury, a little more 
pollution, and a little more polluted water. That's not a jobs bill. 
There is no economist in this Nation that will tell you that by gutting 
the environmental regulations you're going to produce jobs. What you're 
going to produce is sickness, ill health, cancer, and the rest. So 
those are not real jobs bills at all. The real jobs bill is the 
American Jobs Act, and we're going to be talking about that with my 
colleague from Ohio in just a few moments.
  I want to share with you a piece of legislation that I've introduced. 
All of us are paying taxes--or at least I think most every American 
pays some sort of tax, a payroll tax or perhaps an income tax. That tax 
money is used for a variety of things. It's used for our military; it's 
used for our Social Security and Medicare and the like. It's also used 
to subsidize a variety of programs. Today at a press conference, we 
talked about the $12 billion a year of subsidies that we pay to the oil 
companies. That's right, you and I pay our tax money to the oil 
companies so they can have a little more. Keep in mind that this year 
their profits are up 100 percent. In the last decade, they've had $1 
trillion of profit. They don't need our tax money. But there is a 
program for clean solar and wind. Those kind of programs are our tax 
money being used to subsidize green energy.
  We also use our tax money to build highways, bridges, trains, light 
rail systems. This bill, H.R. 613, simply says that if our tax money--
in this case, the gasoline tax money--is going to be used, it must be 
used to buy American-made equipment, so that that Amtrak train out 
there is made in America. We're paying for it. It's our tax money; it 
ought to be American made. This is part of the Make It In America 
agenda. If you want to put a solar panel on your roof and you want the 
Federal tax credit, terrific, buy American-made solar panels. If you 
don't like American-made solar panels, use your own money, buy whatever 
you want; but don't use our tax money to buy a Chinese panel. Help 
American jobs; make it in America.
  The same way with these wind turbines we're seeing all around the 
United States. It's our tax money that's subsidizing that, and that's 
good. What's not good is if that wind

[[Page 16477]]

turbine is made in China or Europe. American made. You want the tax 
credit, buy American made credit.
  Now joining us from the great State of Ohio is Congresswoman Betty 
Sutton. I know that you've been involved in this for a long time, the 
Make It In America agenda.
  I yield to the gentlewoman to share with us her thoughts.
  Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman for his leadership. Representative 
Garamendi has been a strong voice for the people of this country, 
standing up for the middle class, and it is my privilege to join you 
down here on behalf of the hardworking people of Ohio.
  I think that we begin by noting that we think that the true measure 
of America's economic success is the well-being of American families, 
not just the stock market or corporate profits. Now, I know that you've 
already talked about this, but it's just so important that we focus on 
the fact that the promise of America must be for all Americans, not 
just the wealthy few.
  So we come to this floor and we once again look at a couple of 
things. One of them--we've heard it many times, but it bears 
repeating--you know, even some of those who have done so well in 
America now are calling on us to have them do well by America. We've 
heard Warren Buffett say--here's a chart that shows that his income was 
$46 billion, his tax rate is 17.7 percent. His secretary's income is 
$60,000 and his secretary's tax rate is 30 percent. And to quote Warren 
Buffett, he says: ``My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a 
billionaire-friendly Congress.'' So even he is calling on Congress, and 
we join him in that call because it's so important that we focus on 
what is the backbone of this country. What makes this country so great 
is the strength of its middle class, and we know that it has been 
squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.
  We are now in a place where one in four homeowners are under water. 
That means owing more on their mortgage than their house is even worth. 
We know that college tuition and fees increased about 300 percent over 
the last 20 years, and graduates are now leaving school with an average 
debt of $24,000. Taxes for the richest 400 Americans were sliced in 
half as their income quadrupled and now are paying only 17 percent.
  Now, this is a complicated problem, and it's a serious problem; but 
the good news is that it doesn't have to be this way. We all know that 
the key, the solution to strengthening this great country and restoring 
the promise of the middle class lies in getting people back to work.
  So I'm very happy to hear you talking about your bill that deals with 
making sure that we're buying American--iron, steel and manufacturing 
goods--when we move into new industries in the future. And I have a 
number of bills that require the use of iron and steel and manufactured 
goods made in America when we build our infrastructure, which, of 
course, is one of the key components, that building of our Nation's 
infrastructure that our President is trying to make happen with the 
American Jobs Act.

                              {time}  1510

  Why do we need to do that? Obviously we need to put people back to 
work, but we also have this: We have more than 2,700 miles of our roads 
in need of repair. That's greater than the distance between Washington, 
D.C., and San Francisco, California. Now, that's from the Research and 
Innovative Technology Administration at the U.S. Department of 
Transportation. So we know that the need is extraordinary.
  What would this mean for our workers? Under the American Jobs Act, 
building new jobs for nearly 2 million unemployed construction workers. 
Can you imagine?
  We know that when we strengthen our infrastructure, we strengthen our 
middle class and we strengthen our Nation as a whole and its place in 
the world.
  So, with that, thank you again, Representative Garamendi, for being 
down here fighting the fight, because we can do things differently and 
get different results, results that work, not just for the privileged 
few, not just for the billionaires and millionaires, but for people out 
there who want nothing more than a chance, a fair chance at the 
American Dream.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. How correct you are. Thank you very much, Ms. Sutton, 
and thank you for bringing up the issue of infrastructure. 
Infrastructure's a problem all across this Nation.
  I spoke earlier about the use of our tax dollars to support 
infrastructure so that we buy American, so that we can make it in 
America. And those are middle class jobs. Once we start making things 
in America, we start making middle class jobs.
  The American Jobs Act has the potential of putting 2 million 
Americans back to work, many of them construction. Those are not just 
temporary things that are going to be built. Those are permanent 
foundations upon which the economy will grow in the future. So it's a 
sanitation system; it's a water system; it's a highway. That is a solid 
investment that gives the American economy a foundation upon which it 
can build, and immediate jobs.
  What does it take?
  Ms. SUTTON. You mentioned our water and our sewer infrastructure, 
which is important, critically important. And as we build that out, I 
have a bill that's called Stop American Jobs from Going Down the Drain 
Act, and what that would do is it would require that when we build that 
water----
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Reclaiming my time, you have a bill that does what?
  Ms. SUTTON. It's called Stop American Jobs from Going Down the Drain 
Act.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I thought I heard you correctly.
  Ms. SUTTON. That's correct. And it's very simple because it deals 
with our water and our sewer infrastructure, which is in desperate need 
of rebuilding in this country. And as we rebuild it, we can even 
multiply the jobs out if, as this bill requires, we use American iron, 
steel, and manufactured goods, because then the ripple effects of 
putting those folks who work in those industries, our ironworkers, our 
steelworkers, those who work in manufacturing, they also will have the 
benefit of us building out, in addition to our construction workers.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I want to come back to your Don't Let American Jobs Go 
Down the Drain Act. I love that title. But even more so, I like what it 
tries to accomplish. I'm going to come back to it.
  Our colleague from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) has also joined us here 
today.
  If you could share with us your thoughts. You're not too far from 
Ohio. You must have similar issues in that great Midwest.
  I yield to the gentlewoman.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Everybody has the same issues: the underground 
systems, the water systems, the overhead systems, the bridges. I wonder 
sometimes about those who don't support the American Jobs Act. Don't 
they drive over bridges? Don't their families drive over bridges?
  We have 400 unsafe, structurally unsafe bridges in the State of 
Illinois, and so aside from the jobs that it would create, the safety 
issues that would be addressed.
  I wanted to just debunk a myth that is so persistent and that some of 
our colleagues on the Republican side want to repeat over and over 
again, and that is that the stimulus bill did nothing, created no jobs. 
And of course that's just not true. No matter how many times they say 
it, it is not true. Between 1.9 million and 3 million jobs were created 
or saved.
  But I also know it's not true because many of those same people, when 
the ribbons get cut on those projects, actually appear at the ribbon 
cuttings. As we speak right now, there are people who are collecting 
those photos and videos and news accounts of those people who say the 
stimulus program created no jobs so that we can compile those kind of 
things and show the hypocrisy that you have when the project opens, 
there they are, smiling and cutting the ribbon, because it's not true. 
It did create jobs.

[[Page 16478]]

  I wanted to point out that at the very beginning of our country, 
George Washington asked Alexander Hamilton to come up with a 
manufacturing strategy. Hamilton was the Secretary of the Treasury, and 
he came up with an 11-point manufacturing strategy because, at that 
point, almost everything had to be imported mainly from England, from 
whom our colonies had just broken and now our new country was trying to 
create its independence.
  Really what Alexander Hamilton did was kick off the American 
industrial revolution, and there are a number of principles which I 
think are very applicable today. They call stimulus--he doesn't use 
that word, but he talks about pecuniary bounties, which essentially is 
to support industries, to give money to create jobs. This has been 
found to be one of the most efficacious means of encouraging 
manufacturers; and it is, in some views, the best, though it hasn't 
been the practice, he says, of the United States, and that we should do 
that.
  He also says, the encouragement of new inventions and discoveries at 
home, and the introduction into the United States such as may have been 
made in other countries, particularly those which relate to machinery.
  So we had a comprehensive industrial manufacturing policy which 
involved the public sector making contributions, investing and making 
sure that not only did we have a vibrant industrial economy, but we had 
people that would work in those things.
  By the way, when George Washington found out that he had been elected 
President, he looked for an American-made suit and finally found 
someone in Connecticut that was actually making those, the fabric; 
because, while we had the raw materials, they were made into clothing 
mostly in England, and he was darned if he was going to be wearing an 
imported-from-England suit to the inauguration as President.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I'm absolutely fascinated. I'd heard some of this 
before, but I'm so happy you brought that to our attention. So since 
the very first day of this country, we've had a policy in the United 
States of encouraging manufacturing, making it in America.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. That's exactly right.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. George Washington's inaugural suit, I'm going to use 
that. That is a wonderful, wonderful story.
  I understand the canal system, that was a way of transportation. 
Infrastructure also came about at that time. I know here in the Potomac 
River canal, George Washington started that at about the same time, and 
then the Erie Canal. All of these were transportation systems that were 
right back at the very beginning of our country.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. These are called public works projects for a reason. 
They're done by the public sector. They are good for our country. They 
are good for our economy. They put people to work. And that's exactly 
what we ought to be doing, and that's what the American Jobs Act is 
for.
  Let me just emphasize one other piece of it, and that is the piece of 
fixing our schools. Again, not only does this create jobs and not only 
does this do it summer, winter, spring, and fall because you don't have 
to wait for construction season, but it's also good for our children 
who are sitting in schoolrooms around the country that are really 
toxic, where there's asbestos contamination and that are dangerous or 
inadequate in the sense of being unwired for the kinds of technologies 
that we need for the future in order for them to be able to get good 
jobs, not only now but when they become adults and go into the 
workforce.
  This is such a no-brainer to me. If we are serious about wanting to 
educate or children as well as put people to work, as well as create a 
healthy environment for them, this is such a sensible proposal, a part 
of the American Jobs Act.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. As I recall, there are 35,000 schools that could be 
renovated--classrooms, playgrounds, roofs, painting, bathrooms, 
laboratories--35,000 schools across this Nation.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And electrical connections for the Internet.

                              {time}  1520

  Mr. GARAMENDI. I bet some of those are in Ohio.
  Ms. SUTTON. Absolutely. Ohio is in need, and I think it's important 
that we look at not just the cost that we're experiencing today from 
the failure to put people to work doing this work that needs to be done 
in our schools, building our Nation's infrastructure, which needs 
serious attention, according to all of the estimates and all of the 
surveys out there. The fact of the matter is, it's important to look at 
the long-term effects, too. Because those schools, if we fail to invest 
in education, whether it's in the physical facilities or education in 
general--which is another place that some of our colleagues across the 
aisle want to cut back.
  The American Jobs Act is going to put more teachers in the schools. 
One of the things that we do is we choke off our future because other 
countries, make no mistake, they're investing in education because they 
know that that creates a better future, not just for the children and 
the students themselves, but for their Nation and the strength of their 
Nation.
  They're also investing in their infrastructure for the same reason, 
because having an up-to-date, a state-of-the-art infrastructure is 
going to strengthen their competitiveness. It's going to strengthen 
their place in the world.
  And while others are doing that, here we are with all of this work 
that needs to be done that would add to the value of our Nation which 
is so great in the first instance. But there is no substitute for 
creating real value.
  In this last recession, we saw the very risky proposition of people 
on Wall Street moving money around, not creating any real value. You 
would think that more would have learned the lesson, because we need to 
have strong infrastructure. When you put people to work building 
things, you're creating real value. When you put people to work in 
manufacturing and you take something of lesser value and you turn it 
into something of greater value, that cannot be replaced with the 
smoke-and-mirrors trading that we saw going on before the recession.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. You're quite correct about smoke and mirrors.
  When you brought up education, in the American Jobs Act, the 
President has proposed a better deal for America. And part of it is 
this education piece. It's right here.
  In the American Jobs Act--fully paid for; we're not adding a nickel 
to the deficit--fully paid for is a huge and important education piece. 
We talked about the renovation of schools. Just the environment in 
which kids will learn. If you have a good learning environment, it's 
clean, it's healthy, well lit, the electrical system is working, you 
have air conditioning and the rest, kids are going to learn much, much 
faster in a better situation.
  But you also need a teacher. Now, I know in California, I know from 
my daughter and son-in-law, both of whom are teachers, the layoffs that 
have occurred in their school and the increase in their class size. My 
daughter went from 22 or 23 to 32 or 33 students in her class because 
of layoffs. The President in his American Jobs Act has proposed that 
280,000 teachers across this Nation go back into the classroom, that 
they don't have a pink slip, that they're not unemployed. That they're 
actually teaching our kids.
  And as you said, the most important investment a society makes is in 
the education of their children. Infrastructure, critically important. 
Security, national security, military, critically important. But if you 
don't have a well-educated workforce, all the rest will fail.
  So let's put those teachers back in the classroom. Let's use a fair 
tax policy: Those that have done so extraordinarily well in the last 
two decades, the top 1 percent, let them help the rest of the 99 
percent by paying 5\1/2\ percent more on income over and above a 
million dollars. It works. It's fair. And 280,000 teachers will be back 
in the classroom in my own State. Some 30,000 teachers will be back in 
the classroom. And there will be police and firemen in the street to 
help protect

[[Page 16479]]

us. What's wrong with that? Why are we not doing it?
  In the Senate last week and again this week, a Republican filibuster 
was used to stop the progress of the American Jobs Act, and here in the 
House of Representatives, it's not even heard before committee. The 
Republican leadership will not even allow it to be heard.
  So let's get on with it. Let's put Americans back to work.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.
  Ms. SUTTON. Thank you so much, Representative Garamendi.
  It seems there are some here in this body, and, with all due respect, 
there are a lot of folks who come to Congress and they're fairly well-
heeled themselves. It seems that some who are here, they seem fixated 
on protecting those tax breaks that ship jobs overseas. They seem very 
concerned about that top 1 percent, the billionaires and the 
millionaires.
  It seems as if they almost believe that we can fix this country's 
economy without making most Americans better off, which is a backwards 
proposition. It's almost like they think that the top 1 percent is who 
built this country, and that that's where all of our policies should be 
aimed.
  But I disagree and I know, Representative Garamendi, that you do as 
well. We understand that when we have people working, building 
infrastructure and making things and manufacturing, that that has a way 
of rippling out, right? And then we have those taxpayers who of course 
are energizing our economy. And then we have the revenue that comes 
into our communities that can put our firefighters and our police 
officers and our teachers into a salary that they have earned and they 
deserve for doing the important work that they do.
  But instead of doing that, instead of making the choice that those at 
the top should pay a fair share, they want to take more out of those 
firefighters and teachers and police officers and nurses.
  Right now as we speak, we're a week away from a referendum in the 
State of Ohio. If that issue, Issue 2, is voted down, it will be a 
really big moment because what that would do is it would repeal a bill 
that was passed by the State legislature there. And that bill is aimed 
at attacking our firefighters, our police officers, our teachers, and 
our nurses by reducing their collective bargaining rights, their 
ability to even have a voice at the table, to be part of the solution, 
which they always are because they know what's going on in America.
  They didn't go into those jobs because they thought that they would 
make tons of money. They went into those jobs because they had a 
commitment to service, to teach our kids, to run into our homes when 
they're burning to try and save us, to go out on our streets and make 
them safe. And yet they're the ones that some are looking at to get 
money back?
  It wasn't our teachers or our firefighters or our police officers, it 
wasn't the seniors on Social Security or Medicare, it wasn't the 
students and their Pell Grants that drove our economy off the cliff. It 
was Wall Street that drove our economy off the cliff. And it's time 
that they pay a fair share so middle class America can start to breathe 
a little easier again knowing that they'll have opportunities in this 
country.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I am so proud of what you and others are doing in 
Ohio, fighting back against an extraordinarily unfair law that takes 
away the ability of people to come together and collectively voice 
their concerns. That's what it's all about.
  You can say it's unions, and yes, but it's also the ability of people 
to say, Wait a minute--we're all working here at this school. We're the 
workers. We're the teachers, and we should have a voice in what is 
going on here. Not just in our pay and in our benefits, but also in the 
way this is working.

                              {time}  1530

  So you're fighting back, and you're making progress. Hopefully, that 
proposition will pass, and we'll begin to set a new model.
  Ms. SUTTON. Representative Garamendi, I couldn't agree more with the 
idea that this is the voice of the people, that this is a referendum. 
They said to the Republican Governor and the legislature there, You've 
gone too far. Our firefighters and our police officers and our 
teachers, they're not our enemies. They're our heroes; they're the 
people who we look up to, who do good work on behalf of all of us, not 
just those who are the privileged few. And this is where we make our 
stand: on this referendum.
  It's so important that the American people look at what's going on, 
frankly, in Ohio, and that we have a strong voice. Just to make sure 
that we have a correct record, a ``no'' vote on that issue is going to 
repeal that bad bill. We'll see what the people in Ohio do, but I am 
confident that we're speaking up together for one another and for 
police and firefighters and teachers.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. We need to also understand where the power has 
shifted. The power has shifted here.
  This is the average pay of the CEOs of the five biggest oil 
companies--$14.5 million. That's 307 times the pay of a firefighter, 
273 times the pay of a teacher, 263 times the pay of an average police 
officer, and 218 times the average pay of a nurse.
  So what we have seen--and part of this has to do with collective 
bargaining--is that the power has shifted to the CEOs, to the 
extraordinary wealthy, and that it has resulted in this situation: 
where the middle class and the poor in America have seen virtually no 
change in their incomes over the last 20, 25 years. They've been 
flatlined--basically the same level of income. They're just making it.
  This particular line is the next highest 20 percent. The only reason 
they've seen their incomes grow is that both husband and wife are now 
working. Back there, back in the seventies, mostly just one or the 
other was working; but now both are working.
  But look here: this is the top 1 percent. Here are the 99ers. Here is 
the 99 percent down here at the bottom and the 1 percent up here. What 
we're saying is let's put Americans back to work with the American Jobs 
Act, and let's have a Fair Tax, not the George W. Bush tax cuts that 
gave this group even greater wealth, a greater annual income by cutting 
their taxes, but rather to restore that tax rate and allow that money 
to be used to hire the unemployed veteran.
  There are 877,000 unemployed veterans. These are the men and women 
who fought for us in Iraq. These are the men and women who fought for 
us in Afghanistan. These are the men and women who came back without 
their legs, with their minds jumbled because of an IED--877,000 of 
them. Give them a chance by this group that has been so extraordinarily 
successful, in part, because of their own work and, in part, because of 
the tax cuts that they've enjoyed for the last 11 years.
  Ms. SUTTON. The gentleman makes such an important point.
  Here we are. We're coming up on Veterans Day. It is not enough to 
just go out to ceremonies on Veterans Day and express our appreciation, 
although that should happen. We should be expressing our appreciation 
to veterans, not just through those ceremonies but through our 
policies. We have all of these veterans out there who are returning 
from the current wars, and we have other veterans out there looking for 
opportunities. The American Jobs Act will help us to create those 
opportunities that they so richly deserve.
  Let's be clear: the people who are fighting our wars, they are part 
of the 99 percent. Very few are part of the 1 percent. So it's really, 
really important that we do focus on giving them the opportunities, the 
American Dream, the fact that if you work hard and if you try hard and 
if you play by the rules that you'll be able to make it in America. 
That is part of what they were fighting for.
  So I could not agree more. We've got to focus on getting help to our 
veterans.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Exactly.
  As we begin to wrap up our hour here, Veterans Day is one week away. 
There are 435 of us here in this House who are representing the 
American

[[Page 16480]]

people, and we have an opportunity. All of us will be out there on 
November 11. We'll be doing our parades, and we'll be giving our 
speeches about how wonderful the veterans have been in America; 877,000 
of them have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan and have served this 
country in an extraordinary way. They're unemployed. They need a job.
  The American Jobs Act will provide every employer in the United 
States with a $5,600 tax reduction, not a tax credit, that is, their 
taxes will be reduced by $5,600 for every unemployed veteran they hire. 
If they hire a veteran who has been wounded, one of the returning 
American heroes, it's a $9,600 reduction in that employer's tax.
  Why are we not doing this? It's fully paid for. It's paid for with a 
small tax increase by those who have been so extraordinarily successful 
in the last decade. Why are we not helping our veterans find a job?
  Because, in this House, the Speaker and the Republican Party refuse 
to address this issue. No hearings have taken place on the American 
Jobs Act that the President has put before this Congress. You can talk 
the talk. You can talk the talk forever. You can go home and you can 
talk the talk; or you can be here this week, and you can give our 
veterans a real opportunity. It's not just those who have returned from 
the war. There are veterans out there who fought in the previous wars, 
who served this country in Vietnam and in the first gulf war. They're 
unemployed or they are retired and they're receiving Social Security.
  So, here on this floor, proposals have been put forth; and in the 
supercommittee, again proposals have been put forth to reduce the 
Social Security benefits, to reduce the foundation for retirement in 
this Nation so that the 1 percent don't have to pay their fair share of 
the taxes. Something is desperately wrong. Those seniors and those 
veterans are dependent upon Medicare for their health when we consider 
that it was Medicare that took more than 50 percent of the seniors out 
of poverty in the 1960s and gave them the health care that they needed 
to stay alive. Yet the proposal put forth on this floor that was voted 
on three times by our Republican colleagues would destroy Medicare and 
put every senior at risk, and those who are 55 and younger would never 
receive Medicare. They'd be thrown to the mercy of the private 
insurance companies.
  Why would we ever allow that to happen? Because apparently some want 
to continue the tax breaks for the superwealthy.
  But here we are one week away from Veterans Day--and a lot of talk. I 
want some action. America can't wait. These 877,000 veterans can't wait 
for a job. In Ohio and in California and in every other State in this 
Nation, this is the reality faced by veterans. This House has an 
obligation, this Speaker has an obligation to put the legislation 
before this House and to let us speak, to let us represent the people 
who elected us.
  Ms. Sutton, thank you so very much for joining us. You've been a 
wonderful Representative of Ohio. I've watched you fight day after day 
to put legislation in place so that your men and women in your district 
can go back to work. Please wrap it up. Share with us your thoughts.
  Ms. SUTTON. It is my honor and my privilege to stand up for the 
people of Ohio and for the veterans you were just speaking of.
  I just have to say, those veterans, those men and women who were on 
the battlefield, they weren't just fighting for Wall Street; they were 
fighting for the United States of America and all that it stands for. 
They weren't just fighting for the top 1 percent; they were fighting 
for all of us. Now they're coming back, and we have an obligation. We 
have a promise that we have made to them, part of which would be 
fulfilled if we could get the American Jobs Act passed. So it is 
incumbent upon us to beat back.

                              {time}  1540

  We hear a lot of rhetorical terms. In the last election we heard over 
and over again, Oh, we could create jobs if we could get government off 
the backs of the job creators.
  Well, look, the refrain, people don't want government on their back, 
I agree they don't want government on their back. But you know what? 
They do want government on their side. And that is not what they have 
been getting and that is why we have to be here, to stand up for the 
middle class, to stand up for those veterans, for those seniors, for 
those college students, for those workers, for those firefighters and 
those police officers, those teachers and those nurses who have 
suffered far less growth as, we know, Wall Street continues to flourish 
with record CEO bonuses and all of those profits. We just want people 
to pay a fair share, and we want the American people to have a fair 
shake.
  Thank you for your leadership. You have been tremendous.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. And thank you so very much for so ably representing 
Ohio and your constituents.
  We've got work to do. We've got veterans to care for, and they need 
help. Americans want jobs, and the American Jobs Act is there. If we 
were to bring that up today or tomorrow instead of the foolish little 
bills that have been going on around here for the last month and a 
half, Americans could go back to work, and it would be fully paid for 
with a fair tax. We have work to do.
  I ask the Speaker of the House and my Republican colleagues to give 
Americans a chance to go back to work. Put the American Jobs Act up for 
a vote; put that tax up for a vote, and let's pass it. I think we'd 
vote it out of here in half a moment if we had a chance. But right now 
we don't even have that chance.
  With that and hope for the future and thanksgiving for those men and 
women that have been out there protecting this Nation, the veterans, 
young and old, able and disabled, we thank them.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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