H 4530 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE May 3, 1995

year, Japan imported 1 U.S. car for

every 25 it exported; 60 percent of our

$66 billion deficit with Japan results

from imbalances in cars and autoparts.

American autoparts manufacturers

are not asking for special privileges,

just a fair opportunity to compete in

Japan. We have waited too long. The

Japanese must honor the practices of

free trade and agree to fairly import

U.S. auto parts.

When I meet with automakers and

autoworkers in the Second Congressional District of Indiana they tell me,

‘‘We make the best auto products in

the world, just give us a fair chance to

compete.’’ An agreement that allows

real access to the Japanese market for

autos and auto parts is a matter of

fairness for U.S. automotive firms and

workers.

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr.

WHY AMERICANS ARE ANGRY

fREGULA). Under the Speaker’s announced policy of January 4, 1995, the

gentleman from Vermont [Mr. SANDERS] is recognized for 60 minutes as the

designee of the minority leader.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, it is no

great secret that throughout the United States of America today there is a

great deal of anger, there is a great

deal of unrest. Fortunately not every

angry person goes about blowing up

buildings and killing hundreds of innocent people, but all over this country,

people are feeling an unease. Something bad is happening and they do not

quite understand what it is about.

What I would like to do this hour,

Mr. Speaker, with the help of some of

my colleagues, is to perhaps try to explain to the working people of America, to the middle-income people of

America, perhaps some of the reasons

why people are angry, why people are

frustrated, and then maybe make some

suggestions as to how we can develop

public policy which will improve life

for all of our people.

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by quoting

from an I think very important article

that appeared on the front page of the

New York Times on Monday, April 16,

just a couple of weeks ago. And what it

says is that the United States of America today has by far the most unequal

distribution of wealth in the entire industrialized world. And the article says

that:

Recent studies show that rather than being

an egalitarian society, the United States has

become the most economically stratified of

industrialized nations. Even class societies

like Britain, which inherited large differences in income and wealth over centuries, going back to their feudal past, now

have greater economic equality than in the

United States.

Then the article goes on to say:

Federal Reserve figures from 1989, the most

recent available, show that the wealthiest 1

percent of American households, with net

worth of at least $2.3 million each, own nearly 40 percent of the Nation’s wealth.

That in contrast to Britain where the

richest 1 percent only own 18 percent of

the wealth. So in other words, we are

now living in a country from which the

richest 1 percent own 40 percent of the

wealth, which is more wealth than the

bottom 90 percent. Rich are getting

richer, poor are getting poorer, the

middle class is shrinking, and I think

that explains or begins to explain why

it is that American people and especially working people, the middle-income people are feeling very, very anxious. Because the bottom line is, and

we do not talk about that too much

here, Democrats do not talk about it,

Republicans do not talk about it, Rush

Limbaugh somehow forgets to talk

about it, but the reality is that since

1973, four-fifths, 80 percent of the

American workers have experienced

falling or stagnant real incomes.

Now what does that mean? That

means in the last 22 years the American people are working very, very

hard, in many instances they are working longer hours, in fact a study came

out recently, if you can believe this,

that in order to compensate for the

falling wages American workers are

now receiving, workers are now working an extra 1 month a year. In my own

State of Vermont it is certainly not

uncommon for workers to be working

not one job, not two jobs, but on occasion three jobs.

Since 1973, for production workers,

there has been a 20-percent decline in

real wages. There has been an increase

in poverty. For low-wage workers,

workers who just have a high school

degree, who do not have any college,

the drop in entry-level jobs has been

precipitous. For young male workers

there has been a 30-percent decline in

entry-level wages for young men graduating high school going into the work

force; for young women the drop has

been 18 percent.

There was an interesting article

which I think typifies much of what is

happening in this country, that appeared in the Wall Street Journal some

months ago and they said the good

news is that in the Midwest, many of

the factories that has been closed in

the 1980’s are now reopening, workers

are now going back to work in the factories. That is the good news. The bad

news is that those workers, same workers are going back to the same factories at wages which are paying them

50 percent to 60 percent to 70 percent of

what they made 10 or 12 years before.

Mr. DEFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, will the

gentleman yield?

Mr. SANDERS. I am delighted to

yield to my good friend from Oregon,

one of the outstanding Congressmen in

this institution.

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the gentleman. I think what you brought up in

your introductory remarks here brings

you to three major issues, and I would

like to frame the debate that way as

we continue the discussion.

You pointed out the decline of incomes and the standard of living for

middle-income families and the disproportionate accrual of wealth to the

top 1 percent, generally those earning

over $250,000 a year. And what I think

people would be interested in is what is

the majority, the Republican majority’s response to that growing disparity of income. Do they have a plan to

deal with it. And of course the plan is

their tax bill. And the tables on the tax

bill are pretty interesting.

If we look at the tax bill which

passed the House of Representatives by

a fairly narrow margin, but with virtual unanimity on the Republican side

of the aisle, 71.4 percent of the benefits

of the capital gains tax break are going

to go to people who earn over $200,000 a

year. And if you go to the corporate tables, you find similar distributions.

That is the largest corporations in

America, and the multinational corporations will do well. Small businesses will get scant or no tax relief,

and even smaller incorporated firms. In

fact, we are repealing the corporate alternative minimum tax, something

that was put in place in 1986 with

agreement between President Reagan

and a Democratic Congress that it was

embarrassing that the largest, most

profitable corporations in America,

AT&T, $24.898 billion in profits 1982 to

1985, paid negative $635 million in

taxes. So we had to put in place a corporate alternative minimum tax. But

now we are being told the solution to

the growing disparity and the unemployment in America is to go back to

those tax policies of the 1980’s.

Mr. SANDERS. If the gentleman will

yield, what we are trying to explore is

in fact why Americans are angry, and

what I get upset about is people are

angry, they should be angry, but to a

large degree they do not know what

they are angry about.

b 1245

What the gentleman from Oregon has

just said is that in the early 1980’s

some of the largest corporations in

America, and in America most of the

stock is owned by the wealthiest people, what he said is that in the early

1980’s, major corporations earning billions in profit paid zero in Federal

taxes, less than the working stiff who

makes $20,000 a year, and because the

Congress, which had passed that legislation, was a little bit embarrassed

going back to their districts, they

passed a minimum corporate tax law

which said to these corporations that,

‘‘After all your lawyers and all of your

fancy accountants get through going

through the tax loopholes, you still are

going to have to pay at least something in taxes.’’

And what the gentleman has just described is that several weeks ago right

here on the floor of the House the Republican leadership voted to repeal

that minimum corporate tax, so we are

going to go back to those good old days

when major corporations paid zero in

taxes.

Mr. DEFAZIO. I would like to introduce another element. What I think angered people, when I went around to
May 3, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE H 4531

my 13 town hall meetings during the

break, was when I pointed out, when

they heard the idea of tax reform and

tax relief, a lot of middle-income families had a little bit of hope. When I

pointed out where the benefits are

going to go, to the largest, most profitable corporations, we were in fact

opening new loopholes for them, we

were not going to close loopholes on

multinational corporations which

could bring in $60 billion a year to U.S.

taxpayers, that we were going to provide the most benefits, 75 percent of

the benefits in the individual tax

breaks for capital gains to people who

earn over $200,000 a year, there was not

anybody who earned over $200,000 a

year in my audiences in any of my

town halls.

They were a little bit distraught, but

what we did not know then and what

we know now is that not only is this an

outrageous return to trickle-down economics, which nearly bankrupted the

country and began to bankrupt the

country in the 1980’s, did not provide

more jobs, provided a flurry of leveraged buyouts which actually were jobdestroying, but now the Republicans

are planning to pay for these tax

breaks by cutting Medicare. Now, is

that not extraordinary?

They are trying to back pedal as

quickly as they can. But the numbers

just happen to add up.

When you look at their proposed reductions in Medicare in their budget,

which they will unveil today at their

special retreat at IBM’s or Xerox’s

posh retreat center, and I wonder what

kind of benefit that is being provided

to the Republican Party and how that

relates to the tax loophole, but in any

case, when they go out to this corporate retreat center today and unveil

their budget there, they are going to

show they are going to pay for their

tax break by reducing Medicare for average Americans and retired Americans.

It is an absolutely outrageous attempt to pilfer the pockets of those

least able to pay, senior citizens and

people in the lower economic bracket,

to give tax breaks to people at the top.

But the sham is, well, we will all benefit because they will invest this

money wisely. We already went

through that once before. We found

that trickle-down did not benefit the

majority of the American people, but

created the extraordinary disparities

the gentleman is talking about.

We also, I think, are going to have

to, a little bit later, get into trade

here, because trade plays into this is a

very large part.

Mr. SANDERS. I am delighted that

we are being joined by one of the outstanding Congressmen, fighters for

working people; I yield to the gentleman from New York [Mr. OWENS].

Mr. OWENS. I thank the gentleman

for yielding.

I would like to congratulate him on

the special order and the focus you

started with, emphasizing what we

have been trying to emphasize all year

long, is that the American people are

angry. Large numbers of people are

angry. Large numbers of voters are

angry. Certainly, working-class people

are angry, certainly for good reason.

We have to focus on what it is they

should be angry about. They focus

their anger sometimes in the wrong direction, not understanding the forces

at work which make their lives miserable or make them see themselves as

sinking in quicksand in terms of their

lives are getting no better as they go

on working harder, but their wages are

less, their wages have not kept pace

with inflation, benefits like health care

which all the other industrialized nations enjoy and help to stretch your

wages because you do not have to pay

large amounts of money for health

care, are denied to the American workers. They get less fringe benefits, vacation time, family leave.

As you pointed out, countries that we

went to war with, and we are glad the

war is over and it is all peaceful, but

Germany now has a higher standard of

living than any nation in the world. I

am not criticizing them for creating a

higher standard of living for their

workers. But workers here have to understand, workers in the industrialized

world of 1995, it is possible to have decent salaries and also have 6 weeks’ vacation, also have family and medical

leave where you get paid, where you

take time off. It is possible in an industrialized society to have this and still

come out ahead of this Nation in terms

of balance of payments.

Because we are in relationship with

Germany, we owe them more money

than they owe us. The balance of payments is negative on our side, just as

in the case of Japan, you also have a

standard of living and much more security.

This fact, or that, has just been highlighted by a study, and thanks to the

New York Times, certainly emphasized

in the mass media of the gap between

the rich and the poor in this country

which you mentioned before, just has

to be looked at more closely.

I have the editorial from the New

York Times on the same day that the

major article appeared on April 17,

1995. That editorial, you know, says

quite a bit. We cannot say it anymore

clear than stated here. ‘‘The Rich Get

Richer Faster,’’ is the title of the editorial, and I want to read a few excerpts from the editorial:

The gap between rich and poor is vast in

the United States, and recent studies show it

growing faster than anywhere else in the

West. The trend is largely the result of technological forces at work around the world,

but the United States Government has done

little to ameliorate the problem. Indeed, if

the Republicans get their way on the budget,

the Government will make a troubling trend

measurably worse.

Now, this is the New York Times editorial page talking, not partisan Democrats.

Some inequality is necessary if society

wants to reward investors for taking risks

and individuals for working hard and well,

but excessive inequality can break the spirit

of those trapped in society’s cellar and exacerbate social tensions. Extensive inequality

can break the spirit of those trapped in society’s cellar and can exacerbate social tensions.

I am not going to excuse anybody for

the Oklahoma bombing, and I am not

going to say that any set of conditions

in society justified that kind of murderous act, but I am going to say that

when you have a mixture in this country of the culture of the gun where we

permit, and another way in which we

are different from all other western nations is, the other industrialized nations, is we permit the proliferation of

the guns in this society. We encourage

a culture of the gun, which leads to a

fascination with other, more complicated weapons. When you have an

atmosphere like that and you also have

the exacerbated tensions, the likelihood that individuals or small groups

will go off half-cocked and do outrageous things is greatly increased.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. SANDERS. Let me just go back

to another point. We are trying to understand why in America tens of millions of middle-income and working

people are living under such stress, and

we are trying to understand how it is

that every day on the talk shows and

here in Congress we hear people attacking minorities, attacking poor

people, men attacking women as the

cause of the problem, people attacking

gay people, attacking immigrants, and

yet it is amazing to me how little discussion there is on the issue that the

gentleman from New York and the gentleman from Oregon and I are talking

about, and that is the fact that the

wealthiest 1 percent are seeing enormous increases in their holdings in

America, that the wealthiest earners,

20 percent earners, now earn more

earned income than do the bottom 80

percent, that major corporation after

major corporation are throwing American workers out on the street, going

to Mexico where they are hiring people

at 75 cents an hour, going to China

where they are hiring desperate people

there for 20 cents an hour. How come

we are not allowed to focus our anger

on those people, just on the poor, but

not on the rich?

I did not read in the Constitution, I

did not read in the schoolbooks that we

are not allowed to talk about the

wealthy and the power that they have

over the lives of Americans. But somehow or another there seems to be a fear

in this institution, and certainly on

talk radio, that, gee whiz, we are not

allowed to talk about the wealthy and

the power that they have.

How come there is not discussion

that the chief executive officers in

America today of the Forbes 500 corporations are now earning 150 times

what their workers are making? Is that

justice? Is that fair? Is that what the

American system is supposed to be

about? Why are we not discussing and
H 4532 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE May 3, 1995

moving rapidly in raising the minimum wage? How is a worker supposed

to bring up a family on $4.25 an hour

minimum wage or even $5 an hour?

Mr. DEFAZIO. If the gentleman will

yield on that one, that is excellent.

The issue again, the response of the

Republican majority in this Chamber is

that they will not even allow hearings

or legislative consideration; far be it

from a Democratic vote on this floor,

on the issue of an increase in the minimum wage. They are so afraid of that

issue; they know that a large majority

of the American people do not believe

it is fair that a person who works hard,

40 hours a week faithfully, 50 weeks a

year or 52 weeks a year, is below the

poverty level. And if that person has

children, it is far below the poverty

level in this country and not able to

have any kind of a decent standard of

living.

Why cannot we have that discussion?

It seems like everything is slanted the

other way.

The tax policy, again, we have just

passed huge tax breaks which will accrue to a very small percentage of the

people, and they are going to be paid

for by cutting Medicare and cutting

welfare and other programs.

They will not allow us to have a debate and a vote on the issue of increasing the minimum wage and trade policy. They want to pin the failures of

the trade policy on the Clinton administration, who certainly pushed

through the NAFTA Agreement and

the GATT Agreement, but they pushed

them through with a majority of Republican votes and a minority of votes

on the Democratic side of the aisle, because many of us knew they were

wrong.

And one other point, lest people

think that somehow through NAFTA

and through shipping our jobs to Mexico, we have somehow at least improved the lot of the Mexican people,

the standard of living has dropped 50

percent for average workers in Mexico

in the last 6 months. They are threatened with 50 percent inflation, and

their wage increases by law will be limited to 10 percent this year.

Interest rates are 80 to 90 percent in

Mexico for people who can get credit

cards. That is not very many. Bank

failures, business failures are up. On

May Day they had the largest demonstration in the history of the country.

We have pushed Mexico to the brink

with exploitative trade policies, and we

are losing American jobs.

Where is this all headed? When will

we wake up? When will we come up

with a trade policy that is set up to increase the standard of living in this

country and in the countries of our

trading partners? When will we have a

tax policy that is set up for fairness,

that helps to bring the disparities

down? And when will we increase the

minimum wage?

With this majority, never.

Mr. SANDERS. The gentleman is

suggesting a very radical idea. He is

suggesting the trade policy in America,

and I think this year we have had $160

billion trade deficit.

Mr. DEFAZIO. $163 billion?

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you. We do

not hear much about that figure. He is

suggesting a terribly radical idea hardly heard on the floor of the House, and

that is that maybe trade policy should

work for the benefit of the average

American worker rather than the head

of the large corporations who are trying to take our jobs to Mexico and

China.

We are delighted now to welcome a

Congressman from upstate New York,

the gentleman from New York [Mr.

HINCHEY].

Mr. HINCHEY. I have enjoyed the

discussion, and thank you very much,

particularly the last part.

I think it is very important for us to

recognize that although most of the attention has been focused on the budget

deficit, and that is a serious problem,

it is one we have to deal with, but

there are least two other major deficits

we have to address.

And those two other deficits are

more directly linked to the economic

prosperity of the American people, particularly the average wageearner, the

average worker, the average family,

and those other two deficits are the

ones being discussed about a moment

ago by our colleague, the gentleman

from Oregon [Mr. DEFAZIO], the trade

deficit principally because that trade

deficit is responsible for loss of a substantial number of manufacturing jobs.

We have lost 1.4 million manufacturing

jobs in this country over the course of

the last decade and much of that can

be attributed to our lack of a trade policy that focuses on the needs of the

people in this country rather than

other interests that may be within this

country or abroad.

b 1300

And the other deficit is the investment deficit. We are failing to invest in

our own future, and the infrastructure

of this country, and simple things like

roads and bridges. Half of the bridges

in the United States are now below

standard. Our surface transportation

systems are in bad need of repair, in

many cases falling apart. We have not

had a major investment since the 1950’s

with the Interstate Highway System.

Major deficits in mass transit, major

deficit in educational investment,

major deficit in training, major deficit

in research and development, for the

creation of new jobs and new industries, and connected with these two is

the exportation of important American

technologies, technology that is developed in this country which could be

producing the jobs of the future, and

we are exporting those technologies.

We have exported the jobs, and now we

are exporting technologies to other

countries.

Mr. SANDERS. I know that when we

talk about the issue of jobs and the declining standard of living for the average American worker, what we are extremely mindful of is that for the

young workers, especially for those

who do not have a college education,

their future indeed is very bleak. And

one of the points that has to be made

when we try to understand anger in

America is that for tens of millions of

Americans the American dream is fading fast, the dream that, if I work very

hard, my kids are going to have a higher standard of living than I do.

Now I know that the gentleman from

New York [Mr. OWENS] has worked

hard on a jobs bill which attempts to

address some of the issue that the gentleman from New York [Mr. HINCHEY]

was talking about. Mr. OWENS, what

about a jobs bill?

Mr. OWENS. Well, we introduced a

jobs bill as a progressive caucus jobs

will as a result of our understanding

clearly what the message was on the

November 8 election. At the exit polls

they clearly pointed out that the No. 1

priority was jobs security. Those who

were working are worried about the

fact they are making less than they

were making before, they cannot keep

up with inflation. Many who were

working were worried about losing the

jobs they have already because of economic downsizing and streamlining,

and of course many others are unemployed and work because they have no

hope of getting a job. We keep sending

manufacturing jobs overseas, chasing

the cheapest labor in Bangladesh, out

of prisons of China of whatever.

So why not address this as Democrats, even if the Republicans refuse

to? They had in the Contract With

America something about the Job Creation, Wage Enhancement Act which

had not a single thing in it about job

creation. It was all about removing

regulations, and it was a back door

way to make an assault on the kinds of

regulations of the environment that

are very necessary to protect the

health and welfare of Americans.

Our jobs bill talks about creating

jobs. In fact, one of the major functions

of a modern government has to be the

creation of jobs. The economy, stupid,

has to be translated into jobs, stupid.

You can have a bustling economy. We

have a very prosperous economy. The

stock market is doing very well. But

jobs are not being created.

You know, in addition to economics,

we need a new science called

‘‘jobenomics.’’ How do you create jobs?

We propose an old-fashioned way to

create jobs. First of all you recognize

the fact that there is plenty of work to

be done, it just needs to have some way

to pay people to do necessary work. We

need public infrastructure to be sort of

rehabilitated. Physical infrastructure

in terms of bridges, and roads, and

schools across the country which need

to be repaired or rebuilt, all those

things need to be done, and we should
May 3, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE H 4533

channel the public dollars in that direction instead of wasting our public

dollars on obsolete weapons systems

and other kinds of things. We should be

moving it toward job creation in every

way possible.

Mr. SANDERS. In other words what

the gentleman is saying is what everybody knows to be true in virtually

every city, every town in America.

There is an enormous amount of work

that needs to be done. We need new environmentally sound sewer systems.

We need better landfills. We need to

clean up the pollution that exists all

around us. We need to rebuild our mass

transportation system. What an absurdity that when in terms of mass

rail, our railroads, we are already behind Europe and Japan. Amtrak has

laid off 5,000 workers rather than adding more workers to give us the best

rail system in the entire world.

So, as Progressives, let us summarize

some of what we are talking about. For

a start, No. 1, the American people are

angry and have a right to be angry, but

for many reasons that anger has been

deflected all over the place. Working

people are becoming poorer in America. The gap between the rich and the

poor is becoming wider. Twenty years

ago the United States led the world in

the wages and benefits we provide in

our workers. Today we are in 10th

place, behind many of the European

countries. The hours that those workers in Germany, in France work are

going down. They have more leisure

time. In America the hours that our

people are working are going up an

extra month a year.

I say, ‘‘Why shouldn’t we be angry?

You can’t be with your family, you

can’t be with your kids. You’re working an extra month a year in order to

make up for the decline in your wages.

You’re working overtime. You’re working two jobs.’’

So we believe it is appropriate to

raise the minimum wage. Workers

should not be working 40 hours a week

and falling further and further into

poverty. Forty percent of the people in

poverty are working full time. So we

are concerned about that.

The gentleman from Oregon [Mr.

DEFAZIO] has talked about trade policy. We talk about the Federal deficit.

It is important. What about our trade

policy? And Mr. DEFAZIO a number of

months ago introduced, I think an extremely important piece of legislation.

He introduced legislation to repeal the

United States connection with NAFTA,

to withdraw from NAFTA. I ask, ‘‘Mr.

DEFAZIO, why did you introduce that

legislation?’’

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the gentleman

for yielding.

Well, this was, of course, before the

massive collapse and massive bailout

by the U.S. Government adding insult

to industry. Not only had our predictions come true; that is, that we

began to enter into trade deficits with

Mexico, therefore exporting U.S. jobs

and capital to that country, that the

Mexican peso has been devalued, that

in fact the government had stolen another election and was continuing to

oppress its own people, but we added

insult to injury shortly after I introduced the bill, and we are now paying

$20 billion for that privilege.

Why? Because a few United States

corporations want to go down there to

take advantage of that cheap labor, a

fact, you know the average Mexican

wage has dropped 50 percent in the last

6 months. This looks great to a number

of large multinational corporations,

foreign corporations flooding into Mexico to use it as an export platform, but

with the $863 million dollars trade deficit that we ran with Mexico in one

month in February, that means that

we exported, according to our own

Commerce Department, 20,000 jobs in 1

month, 20,000 United States manufacturing wage jobs exported to Mexico in

1 month, and now we are paying $20 billion of taxpayers’ money to bail out

their government in order to keep this

sinking agreement afloat. It is a failure, and I would like the authors of

that to admit that it is a failure, the

Republican majority in this House, and

the Democratic administration downtown, and the people on Wall Street

who shoved it through. Admit, just

admit, it is a failure, or admit that it

is working the way you want it, which

I think is the real truth, which is it is

helping a few corporations, but it is

hurting American workers, it is hurting Mexican workers, it is lowering

standards of living on both sides of the

border. That, perhaps, was the real intent. Then I would at least say they are

honest, they got what they wanted.

One other quick point on trade. I

cannot let what is going on with Japan

go by. Here we are locked once again in

negotiations with Japan to get them to

allow our auto parts, which now a comparable quality American auto part

costs about half of a Japanese replacement part. We are trying to break into

their market, and the Japanese are

saying, as usual, no, and in fact they

are telling us that, if we use our sovereignty, if we, in fact, retaliate

against them because they are unfairly

keeping out comparable quality parts

at half the price from their market,

that they will go to the World Trade

Organization and get sanctions against

us, and guess what? All the analysts

say they will win because that is the

way GATT and the World Trade Organizations were set up. There is nothing

in there to go at the unfair trade practices of Japan or other countries that

hide them in secret, but only countries

like the United States, which have public laws, will be penalized.

So, you know, we are going in the

wrong direction, and we are driving

down standards of living in this country to benefit a few corporations and

our unfair trading partners abroad.

Mr. SANDERS. I find it interesting,

the contract of America, the Republican proposal, talks about a whole lot

of things, but it is amazing how it

manages to miss the most important

policy issues that affect the needs of

working people. I say, ‘‘I know, Mr.

HINCHEY, you have been working hard

here fighting for the right of working

people. What are some of the initiatives you would like to see taking

place?’’

Mr. HINCHEY. I would like to follow

up with what the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DEFAZIO] said about our

trade policies and just observe that we

are following a trade policy which essentially is described as free trade,

open markets, the global marketplace,

et cetera, et cetera, on and on, but

when you look closely at what is happening, you find that while we, this

country, is practicing those principles

to a large extent, we are not finding reciprocal practices in many other countries. The gentleman from Oregon [Mr.

DEFAZIO] points very correctly to the

situation with Japan where they are

very clever in the way that they hide

the—their techniques of freezing out

American goods and American products while we import as much as they

can manufacture into this country, and

we have been doing it for decades at

the cost of American jobs and at the

cost of the American standard of living.

What we want to do, what we are all

about here, four of us and many other

people who share our particular opinions, is simply this. We want attention

paid to the American economy. We

want jobs created here in the United

States, but not low wage jobs. We want

jobs created here in the United States

that are going to be paying good living

wages, and that is why we are for an increase in the minimum wage, and we

ought to make it clear that by enacting a minimum wage—and by the way,

if the minimum wage, which is now at

$4.25 an hour had kept pace with its

historical level, it would at this moment be more than $6 an hour, so we

are far behind where we ought to be.

Not only does the minimum wage, and

this is, I think, a very important point,

affect those people who are working at

the minimum wage, but when you push

up the minimum wage, you push up the

next lowest, and then the second lowest, and the third and the fourth, et

cetera. It has a ripple effect throughout the entire economy, increasing

wages and increasing incomes for all

Americans.

The Speaker of this House said just

recently that the price of labor in the

world is set in south China. If we ever

buy into that idea, if this House, if this

country, ever buys into the idea that

the price of labor in the United States

of America is set in south China, then

we are on the road to destruction. The

price of labor in the United States is no

more set in south China than the principles and policies of this democratic

republic are set in south China or everything else that we believe in is set

in south China. It is high time that we

divorced ourselves from these crazy notions that the American labor force has
H 4534 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE May 3, 1995

to compete with the least common denominator in slave labor countries

around the world and get back to the

idea that we can pay our people a good

decent living wage so they could provide for their families, send their kids

to school and improve their standard of

living.

Mr. SANDERS. The gentleman

makes an extremely important point.

When you hear somebody get up, and

give a speech, and say that we have got

to be competitive in the global economy, hang on to your wallets and start

worrying very much because what the

gentleman from New York [Mr.

HINCHEY] is saying is that in south

China the wages are approximately 20

cents an hour. Well, American workers,

are you ready to compete? Do you

think maybe we can get down to 18

cents an hour? We can get those jobs

back. What about 15 cents an hour? To

a large degree much of the discussion

of the global economy is just that.

b 1315

It is asking American workers to

lower their wages, give up their benefits, sacrifice our environmental standards in order to compete with desperate Third World countries where

people are working for starvation

wages. I think, as Mr. HINCHEY indicates, that should not be the paradigm

under which we operate. Rather, we

should be asking the question, why, in

this great country, do we not develop

policies which create decent paying

jobs for all of our workers, a national

health care system guaranteeing

health care to all of our people, a fair

tax system which takes the burden of

taxes off the middle class and asks the

wealthy to start paying their fair share

of taxes, educational opportunity for

all. Is that Utopia? I do not think so.

I want to ask Mr. OWENS a question:

Recently, all over America, in my district, you have middle class people,

husbands and wives, working 40, 50, 60

hours a week to afford to send their

kids to college, because they understand that without a college education

the kids are not going to make it to

the middle class. That is simply the

truth. Without a college education you

cannot make it to the middle class.

Mr. OWENS, the Republicans recently

have brought forth a proposal which

would cut back on college loans, college financial grants. What impact

does that have on the aspirations and

dreams of the people in your district?

Mr. OWENS. What the Republicans

are trying to do in their attempt to fulfill their contract against America, we

call it against America, they say with

America, in an attempt to do the

undoable and bring the budget down to

a level of balance by the year 2002, they

are going to try to take $12 billion out

of the student loan program.

Already we have year after year reduced the number of grants available.

The poorest young people going to college, we used to provide more grants.

But we have steadily reduced the number of grants, so it is very hard to qualify for a grant. You have to be very

poor, because the amount of Pell

grants available, the amount of money

available for Pell grants is very low.

We have deliberately emphasized student loan programs. Because after all,

you have time to pay for it after you

get out of college and get a decent job.

Most of our aid now is in the form of

student loans.

Now the Republicans are saying the

student loan program should not be

subsidized at all. What we do now is

while a young person is in college, the

interest on the loan is paid for by the

Government. That is our contribution

as taxpayers towards the student loan

program. The students get out, pick up

the loan, and they start paying the interest and principal until it is paid off.

But the interest during the time they

are in college is paid for by the Government, and if you take that away, that

raises the amount the students owe.

They are expecting to save $12 billion

out of the hides of the students when

we want to encourage more people to

go to college. That is the one answer to

our economy, to become more and

more sophisticated and educated.

Mr. SANDERS. If we could perhaps

wrap it up, I think, in conclusion, the

point that we are trying to make, we

as three or four members of the Progressive caucus, and there are 36 other

members, is that we think to a large

degree the Congress of the United

States is out of touch with the needs of

working people, middle income people,

and is here to a large degree to represent the interests of the wealthy and

the powerful. We think that much of

what is in the Contract With America

benefits the people who go to the $1,000

a plate fund-raising dinners. We think

there are sensible public policies we

can develop—we brought forth some of

them this afternoon—that in fact we

can raise the standard of living for

American people, give people hope for

the future, where today there is no

hope.

I want to thank both the gentleman

from New York, Mr. OWENS and Mr.

HINCHEY, for joining me. We will do

this again.

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

A message in writing from the Presifdent of the United States was communicated to the House by Mr. Edwin

Thomas, one of his secretaries.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under

BARBARIANS AT THE GATE

fthe Speaker’s announced policy of January 4, 1995, the gentleman from New

York [Mr. OWENS] is recognized for 60

minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we just returned from recess this week, and it is

a fairly slow week here in the Congress. But next week we will move into

the process of finalizing the budget for

the coming budget year, which begins

October 1. It is a situation which I am

quite concerned about.

There is a kind of calm around here

before the storm. As far as I am concerned, I feel a sense of dread before a

massacre takes place, because that is

what I feel is in store; a massacre of

very useful programs is about to occur

in this budget finalization process that

is going to start next week.

We already have a $17 billion rescission package. The majority party, the

Republicans in this House, have already reached into this year’s budget

and pulled back $17 billion, mostly

from very good programs. So $17 billion

is being cut out of the budget that is

now in process, now going on.

The budget year that will end on September 30, they are trying to take out

$17 billion. The Senate has passed their

version of the rescission package, and a

conference is about to occur. There is

nothing to feel optimistic about there.

They put back a few vital items. I

heard the Senate is going to restore

the Summer Youth Employment Program. The Summer Youth Employment

Program employs millions of young

people across the country every summer. That had been wiped out by the

Republican-controlled House rescission

budget. Now the Senate says they will

put it back, and I hope that they do restore that.

But I hope the President vetoes the

whole bill. I hope that he understands

there are numerous other cuts in that

same $17 billion package, for instance,

the cutting of the Department of Housing and Urban Development to the tune

of $7 billion. You cut $7 billion out of

the Department of Housing and Urban

Development, and most of the money

that is cut is for low income housing. I

hope that the President will veto the

whole package. But I dread what is

going to happen with that package,

that rescission package.

But beyond that, I dread the budget

finalization process, because what has

happened with the rescissions package

is a preview of coming attractions, a

preview of where this majority in this

House is going.

It is not exaggerating to say that we

are about to behold something similar

to a group of barbarians burning down

a city. It is not exaggerating, because

we are going to destroy, and maybe

this is a serious flaw, a serious weakness in the Constitution of the United

States, that a party in power for 2

years can wreck havoc. It can destroy

a great deal.

You can destroy the Department of

Education by just denying funding.

You can vote the funding out. It is difficult to vote down the authority for

the agency, but if you don’t fund it,

you can destroy it, or so cripple it,

until to matter who comes into power

the next year, they will have to try to

rebuild a crippled agency.

That has been the history of the Department of Education. It has always

been a crippled agency. It came into