Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, my heart goes out to the gentleman from Pennsylvania who is not allowed to put up an amendment. He is the only one I have ever heard of talk about exhaustees on the other side.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

(Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the gentleman from California that under the Republican bill, that if you had exhausted your benefits under your bill, you would have gotten absolutely nothing.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).

(Mr. FATTAH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my distinguished colleague from the State of Washington, and she had this list, and she said that the Republican bill helped 134,000 members or something in the State. I have my list here, which is the list of all those people we do not help, and the question is why can we not do that? I mean the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn) and I have 31,500 people that this bill does nothing for. They are the people who exhausted their benefits. I know she cares about them. I am absolutely sure she does, and I care about them, but we are told that we cannot do anything about it because the Senate has acted unanimously.

I am sorry, but I have been in legislatures, State legislatures, the House and Senate, and I have been here in the House, and I have been doing this for 30 years, and I have seen things go through legislatures in an hour through both houses, no problem, if you want to do something. Of course if you do not want to do something, then you say, oh, the heavy burdens of the legislative process, the Senate has acted, the House has acted, oh, we cannot get it done, the President must have it on his desk tomorrow at 11 o'clock, that is the time his press conference is, I think, so he can sign it at the press conference tomorrow to put it out.

Now for those 31,000 people in the State of Washington that the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn) and I care about, we are just saying to them we do not have time because the press release is already printed. I am sorry, folks. It might take an extra 3 or 4 hours to get the House and Senate to get it done, but have no fear, 31,000 people, the President has you on his mind,

deeply on his mind. He went to Chicago to make the speech about how big and how heavy his heart was about your problems. He is proposing to put $674 billion into the economy, not to you of course, no, unless you have capital gains that you might benefit a little bit from his bill, but it is really for the rich people on the top. They are going to get 75 percent of it, and then they will think up some way to put you to work. So hold on and we will pass this tax bill and then in April of 2004 when they got this money back, then they are going to invest it and make you a job. So if you can hold your breath for a year for that tax break to take hold, why, things are going to be all right.

And the worst thing about this whole process, why it is an empty promise the President is making, is that in today's newspaper there is an article entitled War's Cost May Dwarf Stimulus Effect, from the Washington Post, January 8. This article says that as long as this country is threatening the whole world with the war in the Middle East that what is going to happen is that we are going to suck all the juice out of the stimulus package by the war.

The gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn) and I represent an air company that makes airplanes. Last year they made 400 and some odd planes. Do my colleagues know what their orders are for this year? Two hundred twenty-one. Now, why are airlines not buying airplanes? Well, it probably has something to do with the fact that people are not flying. They are not getting on planes and flying all over the world like they used to. So this war on terrorism that is scaring the living daylights out of the travelers is knocking the jobs out. We have lost 30,000 jobs at Boeing this last couple of years. And the President says, yes, but we are going to Iraq and we are going to have a war there and that is going to fix it all, and then after that Iraq war everybody will feel comfortable again and we will go back to living the way we have always lived.

Nonsense. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott) was right. We are going to be back here in 3 months with this very same bill or something just like it because you are not going to get a stimulus in 90 days and you certainly would not want to have this linger on into the next election period. You had better have something on the table for them. Maybe you will wait until this time next year to put a little something more on the table, but by then there will be a million more. The long- term unemployment in the State of Washington has risen by 35 percent in the last 2 years, 35 percent. I admit we are the point persons, Washington and Oregon, for the unemployment problem in this country; so we have got it a little worse than the rest of you, but if you think it is not going to affect you, that somehow you are going to slide by this thing, you are wrong, and to say here today that we have not got an extra hour to add an amendment to take care of a million people and then ship it back over to the Senate and say would they please accept the House amendment, I have done it. I am sure I have done it 500 times in the last 30 years, to send an amendment over and it gets accepted and that is the end of it. You know you could do it. You do not want to do it. You do not want to do it. You do not care about those million people. No matter what you say or how you wave your arms and whatever you want to say, the Republican Party does not care about those million unemployed because you have the Presidency, you have the Senate, and you have the House, and if you cannot do it, you have two choices, I guess. You could be stupid and not know how to do it. That is one possibility. I do not think that is true. The alternative is you do not want to do it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

[From the Washington Post, Jan. 8, 2003]

War's Cost May Dwarf Stimulus Effect

(By Jonathan Weisman)

Mindful of his pending reelection bid and his father's

political mistakes, President Bush is plowing ahead with an

ambitious 10-year, $674 billion economic stimulus plan even

as U.S. troops pour into the Persian Gulf region preparing

for war.

The president's determination to push more tax cuts as the

nation prepares for war has struck some economists as folly,

since the economic shock of war would likely dwarf the impact

of Bush's stimulus plan. Moreover, no tax policy at the

moment could actually address what many economists believe to

be the greatest drag on the nation's economy: the uncertainty

of war.

``Clearing away the clouds over Iraq would open the paths

for expansion, regardless of what the Bush administration is

proposing,'' said Robert DiClemente, a managing director at

Salomon Smith Barney who has studied the potential impact of

an Iraq war on the U.S. economy.'' That is undoubtedly the

biggest obstacle to expansion right now.''

Bush was explicit about his two-track policymaking

yesterday, beginning his speech in Chicago by addressing the

threats of terrorism, Iraq and North Korea. He then added,

``Even as we confront these dangers, you need to know I know

we have needs here at home, especially the need for a

vigorous and growing economy.''

But it is becoming increasingly difficult to address those

domestic needs without first confronting the problems abroad,

economists said. The goal of the president's plan is to

inject $102 billion into the economy this year, by

accelerating planned income tax cuts, excluding investment

dividends from taxation, boosting the child tax credit and

speeding tax relief to married couples. The elimination of

dividend taxes alone could boost the stock market by 10

percent, according to White House allies.

But all of that could be undone by a war in the oil-rich

Persian Gulf region, especially if the war were protracted

and led to terrorist attacks and the use of weapons of mass

destruction. Last month, Yale University economist William D.

Nordhaus published an analysis that dramatized the

uncertainties the United States faces. The cost to the

Treasury of a war with Iraq could be as low as $100 billion

over the next decade or as high as $1.6 trillion, he

concluded. Most likely, the economy would take a $391 billion

hit in the next two years, Nordhaus predicted, which would

dwarf the cash infusion the president is offering.

``If energy prices spike up, it wouldn't take much to

offset all of this stimulus,'' said William G. Gale, a tax

economist at the Brookings Institution.

A recent analysis by experts convened by the Center for

Strategic and International Studies predicted that any war

would knock down stock prices by as much as 25 percent, more

than undoing the anticipated benefit of the dividend tax

elimination.

Recovery would depend on how a war with Iraq unfolded. If

the war ended swiftly, stocks and the economy as a whole

would recover quickly and grow at a rate faster than they

would if there were no war, thanks to the lifting of

uncertainty, falling oil prices, higher government spending

and rising consumer confidence. In that event, the Bush plan

could end up harming the economy by fueling inflation or

pushing interest rates higher, said Laurence Meyer, a former

Federal Reserve Board governor who convened the CSIS

conference.

But if the war lasted six to 12 weeks, stock prices would

continue to fall, interest rates would rise and economic

growth would slow by 1\3/4\ percent, the CSIS analysis said.

A worst-case scenario--in which the war dragged on for 90 to

180 days, oil supplies were significantly disrupted, and

serious terrorists attacks ensued--would push the economy

back into recession, regardless of economic policymaking.

In that case, the economic response would probably be far

different from the one Bush is proposing now, Meyer said.

That range of potential outcomes makes policymaking at this

point ``treacherous,'' he said.

``The best policy right now is to wait, to see what happens

ahead, and to plan in the background some contingency plans,

just in case we have an adverse outcome,'' Meyer said.

Not everyone is so cautious. DiClemente said the Bush

proposal could provide a buffer for the shocks that would

come from a war. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist

with the National Center for Policy Analysis, noted that a

war with Iraq could be long over by the time Congress passed

a stimulus plan. In that case, he said, Bush might as well

get the ball rolling now.

But, for the president's critics, the timing and boldness

of the Bush plan present an irresistible target.

``Whenever the president talks about war, he talks about a

spirit of shared sacrifice,'' Gale said. ``But for rich

people, shared sacrifice appears to be accepting tax cuts,

and for the poor, it seems to be accepting cuts in social

spending. There seems to be a disconnect bordering on the

dishonest.''

Fumed Rep. Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), the ranking Democrat

on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, ``Never in

a time of war have we reduced the tax burden on the most

privileged.''

Even some of Bush's allies in past tax fights expressed

exasperation yesterday, given the gathering clouds of war.

``I understand you can't just put everything on the back

burner and ignore it,'' said Sen. John Breaux (D-La.), a key

ally in the battle over the president's 2001 tax cut. ``But

what you can do is take modest steps, and $670 billion is

more than modest.''

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the gentleman from Colorado that according to the U.S. Department of Labor, for every job opening, there are 2.7 applicants. So if the problem is immigration, I do not know quite how we are going to fix this. We already have too many people looking for jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania tell those 44,000 people in Pennsylvania to hold on, hold on.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kleczka).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kleczka).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I think all that needs to be said has been said already, but I would only emphasize the fact that what we are hearing today is what we heard from the Supreme Court of the United States at the time of the election of the President. The Supreme Court said, we do not have time to count the votes. We have to declare a winner here.

In this instance, we are telling a million people out there that we do not have time to do anything about extending their benefits. If they happened to run out of them last year, well, that is just tough luck. I guess they can wait for the economy to pick up, and we wish them well.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal).

(Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to commit.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

Yes, in its present form.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that you have a calendar which says we will be here until 8 or 9 o'clock tonight, so there is plenty of time to make this small change, and any argument that we do not have time is simply a bogus argument.

Now, the fact is that as my colleague from Maryland has said, this is unfinished business from before. I have tried two different ways and the majority is intent on killing any attempt to modify what they have agreed to with the Senate. Now, I guess from now on we will just wait for the Senate to tell us what we need to do because the House clearly has no power to ever confront the Senate and tell the Senate that they have made not quite the right bill.

This is a historic moment. I do not ever remember being in the House of Representatives any place where they conceded to the Senate that whatever the Senate says is what we have to do.

We could do this by 3 o'clock very easily and cover a million people. Now, for anybody to say that because they have already exhausted, because of that technicality on the 28th of December they should not get any more, I find that incredible that you would say that to somebody who is unemployed, that the law we wrote did not work so you do not get any money. Explain that to your kids when you are sitting there at the dinner table. We do not have any food, kids, because the law that the Congress wrote did not work right so I did not get a check this month. I paid for it, I paid into the benefits, and we do not get them.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.