Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the Special Order time of the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner).

Mr. Speaker, last year President Bush signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement, a one-sided plan to benefit the largest corporations in the world at the expense of American workers and farmers, and the expense of Central American workers, farmers, and small businesses.

Every trade agreement negotiated by this administration has been ratified by Congress within 65 days of the President's signing it. CAFTA has languished in Congress for nearly 1 year without a vote because this wrong-headed trade agreement offends both Republicans and Democrats.

Just look at what has happened with our trade policy in the last decade. In 1992, the year I was elected to Congress, we in this country had a $38 billion trade deficit. Today, 12 years later, our trade deficit is $618 billion. From $38 billion, a dozen years later to $618 billion. It is clear our trade policy simply is not working.

Opponents to CAFTA know that simply it is an extension of the North

American Free Trade Agreement, which clearly did not work for our country. It is the same old story. With every trade agreement, the President promises more jobs for Americans, growth in manufacturing, more exports, raising the standard of living in the developing world, better wages for workers in the developing world. Every time it comes out differently.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and then expecting a different outcome.

Why will this trade agreement not work? Look at the average wages in the CAFTA countries. In United States the average wage is $38,000. El Salvador is $4,800. Honduras is $2,600. Nicaragua is $2,300. The average Nicaraguan worker is not going to buy cars made in Ohio. The Guatemalan worker is not going to be able to buy steel from West Virginia. The Honduran worker is not going to be able to buy software from Seattle or prime cuts of beef from Nebraska or textiles or apparel from North Carolina or South Carolina or Georgia.

This trade agreement is about giving big business what it wants: access to cheap labor. They cannot buy our goods; but American business can move its production, its companies, outsource them to Central America, and it costs us jobs. That is why, Mr. Speaker, there is such strong bipartisan opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

The administration is pulling out all stops because they know they are going to lose this vote. The administration has attempted to link CAFTA with helping democracy in the developing world and fighting the war on terror. Ten years of NAFTA has done nothing to improve border security between Mexico and our country. So that argument does not sell. Then last week the U.S. Chamber of Commerce flew on a Chamber of Commerce junket the six presidents from the CAFTA countries around our Nation, hoping they might be able to sell Americans and the U.S. press and Members of Congress on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, but again they failed. In fact, the Costa Rican president, after traveling the United States, announced his country simply would not ratify CAFTA unless an independent commission could determine that agreement will not hurt the poor and working families in his country.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the most powerful Republican in the House, majority leader, said there would be a vote on CAFTA within a year of the President's signing, that is, by Memorial Day, coming next week. As we can see by this calendar, we are barely a week away from that deadline, but still no vote in sight because there is simply not enough support for CAFTA. It is dead on arrival in this House.

Last month, two dozen Democrats and Republicans in Congress joined 150 business and labor groups saying no on CAFTA. Last week more than 400 union workers and Members of Congress gathered in front of the Capitol again saying no on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, because Republicans and Democrats, business and labor groups know what the administration refuses to admit, and that is that CAFTA is about one thing: it is about access to cheap labor and exploiting workers in the six CAFTA countries.

Congress must throw out this dysfunctional cousin of NAFTA and negotiate a trade agreement that will lift up workers in Central America while promoting prosperity here at home.

If we throw this agreement CAFTA out, and then negotiate a new central American Free Trade Agreement that really works for workers in both countries, we will know our trade policy is succeeding. Only when workers in the poor countries can afford to not just make American products, but also to buy American products, will we know that our trade policy has, in fact, succeeded.

Mr. Speaker, 1 year ago, in late May, 2004 President Bush signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement, a trade agreement that extends the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, to 5 Central American countries and the Caribbean country of the Dominican Republic. That trade agreement, coupled with the President's next trade agreement, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, will double the population of the North American Free Trade Agreement, double the size of NAFTA, and quadruple the number of low income workers, poverty wage workers that now live in NAFTA countries.

Normally, when a trade agreement is signed by President Bush, that trade agreement comes in front of Congress almost immediately. Since President Bush has taken office there have been 4, Morocco, Australia, Chile and Singapore. Each of those agreements has been voted on within about 2 months of the President's signature.

However, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, some call it the Central American Free Labor Agreement, because it really is all about low income workers, not about selling American products to Central America. The Central American Free Trade Agreement has not been sent to Congress; has not been voted on, even though President Bush signed it 11 and a half months ago, even longer ago than that actually, 11 months and 20 some days. And the reason is simple that it has not come in front of the Congress, because of the immense opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

As my colleagues will notice, our trade policy in this country simply is not working. If you look at what has happened to our trade deficit, that is the amount of exports that we sell to other countries versus the amount of imports we buy from other nations, you can see we had a negative flow in 1992, the year that I happened to run for Congress, of $38 billion. That was the year before NAFTA.

NAFTA was passed in 1993. Then Congress passed a trade agreement with Chile, several other trade agreements. And you can see what has happened with this wrong-headed trade policy. This trade deficit, our trade deficit with the rest of the world was $38 billion in 1992. Last year, 2004, our trade deficit was $620 billion, $618 billion, precisely, from $38 billion to $618 billion.

By any stretch of the imagination, it is hard to argue that our trade policy is working. And that is why the opposition has been bipartisan to CAFTA, to the Central American Free Labor, the Central American Free Trade Agreement. That is why the opposition has been bipartisan. That is why the opposition has been overwhelming.

Last month 2 dozen Democrats and Republicans in Congress joined more than 150 business groups and labor organizations, sending the message, vote no on this Central American Free Trade Agreement. Last week more than 400 union workers and Members of Congress gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol again delivering that message, vote no on the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Now, those of us opposed to CAFTA, which clearly is a majority in this Congress, or we already would have voted on it. Those of us opposed to CAFTA say we are not opposed to trade. We want to see fair trade agreements instead of free trade agreements, because we know what free trade agreements do. We know what this trade deficit does to our country. It means, according to the first President Bush, according to his economists, it means literally 12,000 lost jobs per $1 billion of trade deficit. That means a million lost jobs. It means more than that. A million lost manufacturing jobs in this country.

In my State alone we have lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs, not entirely because of trade agreements, but that is a big component of it. So we know what these trade agreements do to individuals when they lose their jobs, what it does to family members when they lose their jobs, what it does to communities when a community has a plant closing, what it does to the school districts and the schools as they

lose funding because these workers have lost their jobs and because this plant has closed, what it does to our country as a whole when we have this kind of trade deficit. We understand that. That is why those of us opposed to the Central American Free Trade Agreement want to throw out this dysfunctional cousin of NAFTA and want to negotiate a trade agreement that will lift workers up in Central America, while promoting prosperity here at home.

There is no reason that our trade agreements need to look like this, need to have a result like this. Instead, Congress can move forward in passing a fair trade agreement.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the Majority Leader, the most powerful Republican in the U.S. Congress, and the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) both promised to vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement by the end of May.

Now, if you will look at this chart you will see that the end of May happens to be the 1-year anniversary of when CAFTA was sent to Congress. So, Mr. Speaker, we should vote no on the Central American Free Trade Agreement; bury this trade agreement, and pass a trade agreement that is good for American workers and American communities.

Mr. Speaker, nearly a year ago, President Bush signed the Central America Free Trade Agreement, a one-sided plan to benefit multinational corporations at the expense of American workers, U.S. workers, and Central American workers, businesses, small farmers, a whole bunch of us in all those countries, both in Central America and here.

Every trade agreement negotiated by the Bush administration, every trade agreement passed by this Congress since George Bush took office, Singapore, Chile, Morocco and Australia, every one of those trade agreements was voted upon in Congress within a couple of months of the time President Bush signed the agreement. CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, some call it the Central American Free Labor Agreement, and you will understand that in a moment, has languished in Congress for nearly 1 year without a vote because this wrong-headed trade agreement offends both Republicans and Democrats.

Just look at what has happened with our trade policy in the last decade. In 1992, the first year I was elected to Congress, we had a trade deficit in this country of only $38 billion. That was in 1992. Last year our trade deficit was $618 billion. It went from $38 billion, and a dozen years later $618 billion. It is hard to argue that our trade policy is working with that kind of gargantuan swelling budget deficit.

Opponents to the Central American Free Trade Agreement know in fact it is simply an extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which clearly did not work for our country. It is the same old story. Every time there is a trade agreement, the President says it will mean more jobs for our Nation. The President says it will mean more manufacturing in the United States. The President says it will mean better wages for workers in the developing world, and as their standard of living goes up they buy more things from the United States.

Yet, with every trade agreement, from NAFTA through China, through every other trade agreement, those promises from the President fall by the wayside in favor of big business interests that simply send U.S. jobs overseas and export cheap labor abroad. According to President Bush, Senior, every billion dollars in trade, surplus or deficit, translates into 12,000 jobs.

So if you have a $2 billion trade surplus, you have a net increase in your country of $2 billion, times 12,000 jobs. You have a 24,000 job surplus increase if you have a $2 billion trade surplus.

But instead, we had a $38 billion trade deficit 12 years ago. Today we have a $618 billion trade deficit. So according to the way that President Bush Sr. figured out what these trade agreements mean, that means a job loss of 7.3 million jobs to our Nation.

You can see pretty much what that meant because many of those jobs, a large number of those jobs, are manufacturing jobs. Look at the red. The red here means greater than 20 percent manufacturing job loss in our Nation in only the last 6-or-so years. You can look at almost all the Northeast, much of the Midwest, all the textile manufacturing from the South, steel and auto manufacturing here, and steel in these areas, textiles in these areas, in State after State after State. You see this kind of manufacturing job loss.

So we are going to do more of these trade agreements so we see more manufacturing job loss? That is what the Central American Free Trade Agreement is all about. In the face of growing bipartisan opposition, and make no mistake about it, the Central America free labor agreement, Central American Free Trade Agreement, call it what you want, that agreement is dead on arrival when it comes to this Congress because large numbers of Democrats and Republicans oppose this agreement.

That is why the President, unlike all of the other trade agreements which were voted on almost immediately upon the President's signature, that is why this trade agreement has been languishing for 1 year. For 11 months and 20-some days, it has not been voted on. But this year the administration is trying every trick in the book to pass the Central American Free Labor Agreement.

For instance, the administration is linking CAFTA to helping democracy in the developing world. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of State Zoellick, both said the Central American Free Trade Agreement will help in the war on terror. Figure that out.

Ten years of NAFTA, 10 years of the North American Free Trade Agreement, has done nothing to improve border security between the United States and Mexico. That argument simply does not sell. The North American Free Trade Agreement did nothing for border security. We saw this kind of job loss since NAFTA, this kind of trade deficit since NAFTA, from $38 billion 12 years ago to a $618 billion trade deficit last year.

So the President's people tried to argue, tried to link the passage of CAFTA to making the world safe against terrorism. That did not work, so now just last week the United States Chamber of Commerce flew on a junket the six presidents from Central America and the Dominican Republic around our Nation hoping they might be able to sell the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Again they failed.

But they sent these six presidents to Cincinnati, to Los Angeles, to Albuquerque, back to Washington where they had a Chamber of Commerce reception at their very fancy headquarters, but that did not work because those six Central American presidents are not strong believers in CAFTA themselves.

The Costa Rican president, for instance, announced his country would not ratify CAFTA unless an independent commission determines that the agreement will not hurt the working poor of his country.

Understand what CAFTA is all about. The average income for an American is about $38,000. The average income for a Honduran or a Nicaraguan is less than one-tenth that. So think about that. A $38,000 average income for an American. And on that income many Americans can buy a washer and a dryer, and can begin to purchase a home, perhaps. Many Americans can buy a car and begin to put away in some cases a little money for a child for college or at least borrow some money and get them to college.

But on $2,000 or $3,000 an average wage in Honduras or Nicaragua, they are not going to buy cars made in Ohio and washing machines made in the U.S. or steel from West Virginia or software from Seattle. They are not going to be able to buy prime beef from Nebraska. They are not going to be able to buy textiles or apparel from Georgia. The fact is that this trade agreement is not about the U.S. selling products to Central America. It is about U.S. companies looking for cheap labor and outsourcing those jobs to Latin America. That is why we have this kind of

manufacturing job crisis. That is why we have this trade deficit that went from $38 billion 12 years ago to $618 billion today.

Get a look at these manufacturing job losses: 210,000 jobs lost in Michigan; 216,000 jobs lost in Ohio; 228,000 jobs lost, and these are just manufacturing jobs, not to mention what happens when a manufacturing job is lost. If a manufacturing job is lost in Lorain, Ohio, that means not just that man or woman loses a job. It means that family can no longer send their kids to college. It means that family can barely get along. They might lose their house. It means that town has lost a factory, which means higher school taxes; it means a layoff of police and fire. It means that education suffers. This kind of job loss, 200,000-plus in Ohio; 200,000-plus in Michigan; 200,000-plus in Illinois; 228,000-plus in North Carolina; 50,000 in Mississippi; 75,000 in Alabama; 100,000 in Georgia, that in most cases is about one in five manufacturing jobs in the State.

These numbers may not mean anything to Members of Congress; they are just numbers. But think about the families that lose these jobs. Think about the breadwinner coming home and saying to his wife, we lost this job, how do we clothe our kids? How do we pay for medical care, and what are we doing about the police and fire in our neighborhoods because this plant is shutting down? That is what this trade agreement is about. They are about workers in our country, and they are about workers in the developing world in Latin America.

About 5 years ago at my own expense, I flew to McAllen, Texas. I wanted to see the face of NAFTA. I knew all of the statistics about NAFTA. I knew the lost manufacturing jobs and what it did to my community in O'Leary, Ohio; but I wanted to see what it did in Mexico. So I rented a car in McAllen, Texas, and went across the border to Reynosa, Mexico, just to look at the face of free trade and what NAFTA had done along the U.S.-Mexican border.

I went to a home, and this was a shack maybe 30 feet by 20 feet, dirt floors, no electricity, no running water. This dirt floor turned to mud when it rained. The husband and wife both worked at General Electric Mexico 3 miles from the United States. If you walked back behind their home in this colonia, you would see other shacks that looked a lot like theirs. But as you walked through the neighborhood, as the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) knows, and he lives on a border State, you can tell where these workers work because their homes are constructed out of packing material, wooden crates and packing materials from the companies at which they worked, or from boxes to the suppliers for which they work.

I saw a ditch with two by fours running across it. Who knows what was running through the ditch, human waste, industrial waste. Children were playing in this ditch because children will play wherever children play. The American Medical Association said this area along the U.S.- Mexican border is the most toxic place in the western hemisphere, and yet these workers are working at General Electric Mexico 3 miles from the United States each making 90 cents an hour.

Nearby their home, I visited a General Motors plant. General Motors Mexico looks not much different from a General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, or a Ford plant in Avon Lake, or a Chrysler plant in Twinsburg, Ohio. The workers are working hard, the plant is clean, the plant is modern. This plant in Mexico is more modern than many in the United States, but there is one difference between the plant in Mexico and the plant in the United States, and that is the plant in the Mexico does not have a parking lot because the workers cannot afford to buy the cars they make.

You can fly halfway around the world to Malaysia and to a Motorola plant and the workers cannot afford to buy the cell phones they make, or fly back halfway across the world to Costa Rica and go to a Disney plant and the workers cannot afford to buy the Disney toys for their children, or fly to China and go to a Nike plant and the workers cannot afford to buy the shoes they make.

Mr. Speaker, that is what makes our country great is because of trade unions. Because of a free democracy in this country, Americans share in the wealth. If you work for General Motors, a local hardware store, if you are a teacher, a nurse, you are creating value and creating wealth for your employer. If you are a private sector employee, you are creating wealth for the company. You share some of that wealth. You get health benefits and a decent wage. You can buy a house and a car.

If you work in a service job, you are creating value for those people whom you serve, and you get some wealth. You share in some of the wealth of the value that you create. That is why our system works. That is why these trade agreements do not work, because when we move these manufacturing jobs, the 216,000 in Ohio, a heck of a lot of those ended up in Mexico, and darn near all of them ended up as part of our trade deficit to China or Mexico or to somewhere else across the world.

Whenever those jobs are lost, they are typically jobs that are transferred; but those jobs do not create wealth for the people that get them in the developing world because they simply are not paid enough. If they are Ford workers in Mexico, they are not paid enough to buy the cars that they made. That is why these trade agreements do not work.

The most powerful Republican Member of the House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader, joined by the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), said there would be a vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement by Memorial Day. That marks the 1-year anniversary.

Remember at the beginning of my remarks I said all four trade agreements that this Congress has voted on since President Bush has been President, the trade agreements for Australia, Chile, Morocco and Singapore, all four were voted on within 60 days after the President signed them.

This trade agreement, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, has not been voted on for 11\1/2\ months. Members can see the CAFTA countdown, and in only a week and a half the Central American Free Trade Agreement will celebrate its 1-year anniversary. That tells me they simply do not have the votes to pass the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

So at the same time the self-imposed deadline from the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), means they may call a vote before the end of the month. We are hearing they are going to delay it.

I ask, Mr. Speaker, as we can see by this calendar, a week away from the deadline with no vote in sight, what this should tell my fellow Members of Congress is that come May 27, we should scrap the Central American Free Trade Agreement, not that we should never do a trade agreement, not that we are against any kind of trade. We should scrap this trade agreement and renegotiate another trade agreement that will work for the American people.

Last month two dozen Republicans and Democrats in Congress joined more than 150 business groups and labor organizations in this city saying vote ``no'' on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Last week more than 400 union workers and Members of Congress gathered in front of the Capitol saying vote ``no'' on the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Why, because Republicans and Democrats, business and labor groups, know what the administration refuses to admit, and that is CAFTA is not about selling products abroad or exporting American goods because that simply has not worked. CAFTA is about one thing: it is about access to cheap labor and the outsourcing that goes with it.

Congress must throw out this dysfunctional cousin of NAFTA on this deadline this month, must throw out this dysfunctional cousin of NAFTA and negotiate a trade agreement that will lift workers up in Central America while promoting prosperity here in our country.

Instead of a loss for American workers and the kind of job loss we have seen in State after State after State, instead of a continuing to increase trade deficit, from $38 billion to over $100 billion to over $200 billion, to over

$300 billion, to over $400 billion, last year in 2003 over $500 billion, now a $600 billion trade deficit in this country, instead of these continued trade deficits, continued manufacturing job loss, Congress should throw out this dysfunctional cousin of NAFTA and negotiate a trade agreement that will lift up workers in Central America while promoting prosperity here at home.

Come May 28, we should bury the Central American Free Trade Agreement. We should renegotiate a new CAFTA so that we can negotiate and trade more with our neighbors on terms that will help lift up workers in all six of the NAFTA countries and in the United States.

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

As the gentleman was talking, I am thinking about what he said a few nights ago. There is no protection for the environment, for workers, but there is very good protection in this bill for a group that is very powerful in this body and that is the prescription drug industry. My colleague spoke last week about what the drug industry did in Central America, what the United States Trade Rep did on behalf of the drug industry that gave them a whole lot more rights than workers get, a whole lot more protections than the environment get.

Would my colleague talk a little bit about that?

Taking back my time for a moment, as we talked about a week or so ago, while the six presidents were flying around the United States on a junket paid for by the Chamber of Commerce and then met with President Bush and all, they mentioned a lot of things about CAFTA but they never mentioned the kind of opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement, not just from American workers but from workers in every one of those countries. There were demonstrations and protests of thousands of people in virtually every capital city in the six countries. To the point that the president of Costa Rica, as I said in my earlier remarks, the president of Costa Rica now is saying he does not want to see this ratified until he sees some real guarantees in this agreement that the poor in his country, and in his country there are a large number of very poor people, and the workers in his country will not be left out of the agreement. So far, they are left out and he is dissatisfied by that.

But I think when those presidents have come home, both when they left, they saw these kinds of demonstrations, huge opposition among the people of those countries, and that huge opposition has continued. This Congress should simply not believe when these six presidents are walking around after their Chamber of Commerce tour, when they came to our offices and argued for this Central American free labor agreement, my colleagues need to understand that just because those six presidents were for it does not mean their countrymen and countrywomen were.

Taking back my time, it is no surprise, or no coincidence, that as this trade deficit has increased from $38 billion the year I first ran for Congress 12\1/2\ years ago to last year's deficit of $618 billion, that is the same trajectory where we have seen health benefits cut, where we have seen workers in our country losing their pensions. When we lose these manufacturing jobs, every time a Ford worker loses his job or her job in Avon Lake or in Cleveland, that is often one fewer person in Ohio with health benefits, one less person that has a pension. These trade agreements clearly have pulled down the standard of living for way too many of my colleague's constituents and way too many of mine, way too many people in North Carolina where textiles and the apparel job loss have devastated their part of the country.

I want to make a prediction. My colleague made a statement a minute ago that in one of the Central American countries with whom we have negotiated this deal that legislation was passed in the middle of the night. I will make a prediction. Based on a lot of facts, the facts that every major piece of legislation, or virtually every major piece of legislation this Congress has considered the last 2 years, the debate started about this time of night, maybe even a little later, started about midnight, started around 1 o'clock, the debates on these very important issues, Head Start, money for veterans' benefits, money for education, $87 billion for Iraq, the major tax cuts, Medicare and the trade promotion authority. The last big trade agreement this Congress voted for, we voted in the middle of the night. The roll call was left open. It is normally only 15 minutes. The roll call was left open for well over an hour as the majority leader, Tom DeLay, strong- armed, cajoled, offered with a carrot, threatened with a stick, until he got two North Carolina Congressmen to change their votes. We have seen that over and over. My prediction is that when the Central American Free Trade Agreement, if it comes to this Congress in the next 6 weeks, even though it is already past this deadline, this self- imposed deadline, this 1-year anniversary of the signing of CAFTA, whenever it comes, either by the end of this month or the end of next month, you can bet that that is going to be a middle-of-the-night vote where there is incredible political pressure, where there are threats, where there are transfers in some cases, promises on one bill, on the Medicare bill, promises of campaign cash on the House floor as claimed by one of my colleagues, a Republican from Michigan, where there are all kinds of goodies offered to this Member of Congress or that Member of Congress to get a vote. I am just terrified that even though the American people clearly do not like the Central American Free Trade Agreement, even though the American people recognize the kind of job loss that our State of Ohio and so many other States, especially the States in red, have been hit the hardest, with all this job loss, with all this opposition from the American people and from Members of Congress that the administration will do what it did with trade promotion authority and offer all kinds of things to these Members of Congress to get them to change their vote and vote the opposite of what they have promised and vote the opposite of what their constituents asked them to.

Mr. Speaker, I will close as I just listen to my friend talk about seeing this country as he has seen it up close, and we all have seen it. Again, these are all numbers, 200,000, 200,000, 57,000, trade deficits of billions and tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars; they are all numbers. But I think almost every Member of Congress, those of us that really get out in our communities, and that is most of us on both sides of the aisle, really have seen the kind of pain that people suffer when someone loses a job after being in a plant for 30 years and loses their pension or loses their health benefits, and they are 58 years old and they cannot get Medicare yet. Or they are 35 years old and they cannot send their kid to school, they had been saving a little bit of money: all that that means for those children, for those families, for those school districts that have lost that revenue when a plant closes, for those communities that can no longer protect their citizens with adequate police and fire protection. These are real people, these are real jobs, real communities, real people, real dreams, real lives.

When I think about our trade policy and what we have done, and our trade policy has always been for years to outsource jobs, to lose our manufacturing jobs, shut these plants down, encourage these companies to hire cheap labor in the developing world, do not really give those people any chance, because they are not paying them enough money. My definition of successful trade policy is that when the workers in poor countries cannot just make American products, make products that they export back into the United States, but that those workers can actually buy products made in the United States, then we will see a trade policy which lifts those workers up so they have a decent standard of living in Guatemala or in India or in Mexico, and, at the same time, lifts our workers up so we can continue our strong food safety standards, environmental standards, worker rights, and wages in our country.

Slightly over that.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) for his leadership on this whole array of issues. I would summarize by echoing what he said, that as the CAFTA countdown, as CAFTA is buried at the end of this month, the 1-year anniversary of CAFTA, it is important as we defeat CAFTA that we look at all of those issues that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) talked about, and especially that we think about a new trade agreement with Central American countries that lifts workers in both, in all seven of our countries, lifts workers' standards, lifts environmental standards, helps workers and families and communities in all of the Central American Free Trade Agreement countries, and in our country. It can be a win-win for all of us, instead of the kind of downward slide that we have seen in our trade policy.

Mr. Speaker, nearly a year ago, President Bush signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement, a one-sided plan to benefit multinational corporations at the expense of the United States and Central American workers, small farmers, and small business people. Every trade agreement negotiated by this administration has been ratified by Congress within 60 days of its signing.

But CAFTA has languished in Congress for nearly 1 year. Why? Because this wrong-headed trade agreement offends both Republicans and Democrats. Just look at what has happened with our trade policy. In 1992, the year I first ran for Congress, was elected later that year, that year our trade deficit, meaning the amount of dollars we imported versus exported, our trade deficit was $38 billion in 1992. Last year in 2004, it was $618 billion. It is hard to argue our trade policy is working when the deficit goes from $38 billion to $618 billion in just 12 years.

Opponents to the Central American Free Trade Agreement know it is an extension of NAFTA, which clearly did not work for our country. It is the same old story. Every time there is a trade agreement, the President says it will mean more jobs for Americans, more manufacturing done in the United States, it will mean more economic prosperity and profits for U.S. companies. It will mean a rising standard of living in the developing world; it will mean more involvement, a higher standard of living in the developing world, and more workers working.

But it never works that way. So now they are trying this year because our trade policy clearly is not working, those promises every year, every trade agreement, never pan out.

This year the administration is tying the Central American Free Trade Agreement, saying it is not just going to ensure growth, it is going to help democracy in the developing world. Both Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have said CAFTA will help in the war on terror, but 10 years of the North American Free Trade Agreement has done nothing to improve border security between Mexico and the United States, so that argument simply does not sell.

So they tried something else. Last week the U.S. Chamber of Commerce flew six Central American presidents around our country hoping they might be able to sell CAFTA. They went to Albuquerque, they went to Los Angeles, they went to Cincinnati, Ohio, in my State, trying to convince the media, trying to convince the public, trying to convince Members of Congress that CAFTA was a good idea.

Again they failed. The Costa Rican president after the trip announced his country would not ratify CAFTA unless an independent commission could determine the agreement will not hurt the working poor in his country.

The most powerful Republican in the House, Majority Leader Tom DeLay, even promised a vote on CAFTA by Memorial Day to try to drum up support in Congress. As you can see by this calendar, we are barely a week away from that deadline, the deadline to vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, set by Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the most powerful Republican in this Chamber. Echoed by the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Bill Thomas, they said there would be a vote by the end of this month. That is the 1-year anniversary of CAFTA. Remember, every other trade agreement was voted on within 2 months. This one has been a year. As you can see by the calendar, it has simply not happened. That is again because of the failures of NAFTA.

Last month, two dozen Democrats and Republicans in Congress joined more than 150 business groups and labor organizations saying vote ``no'' on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Last week, more than 400 union workers and Members of Congress gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol delivered the same message, vote ``no'' on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, because Republicans and Democrats, labor and business, know what the administration refuses to admit, that CAFTA is about one thing. It is not about more manufacturing in the United States. It is not about creating jobs in the United States. It is one thing only. It is access to cheap Central American labor.

That is why CAFTA, like NAFTA, is not a trade agreement, it is an outsourcing agreement. It will move more American jobs offshore. It will mean more profits for large businesses and more hurt for small businesses, more hurt for small farmers. Congress must throw out this dysfunctional cousin of NAFTA and negotiate a trade agreement that will lift up workers in Central America.

When students such as those I met with today at Longfellow Elementary School in Lorain, Ohio, are guaranteed good-paying jobs when they graduate from high school, then we will know finally our trade policy is working.

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed hearing my friend, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), and his comments about Medicare.

I know that my Republican friends care about health care. But unfortunately, they care more about the drug companies and the insurance companies than they do in providing low-cost prescription drugs and health insurance to the 50 million Americans who do not have health insurance.

I did not come forward today to talk about Medicare, particularly, except to note that when Congress passed the Medicare bill last year, a bill that a couple of years ago was not received by the public very well in part because they did not tell us the truth about the cost of the bill, it ended up costing almost $1 trillion when they told Congress it would only cost $400 billion.

But more than that, this bill provided literally 180 additional billion dollars to the drug industry profits and had direct subsidies of about $60 billion to the insurance industry.

So I wish, while my Republican friends, I do believe they care about the poor, they care about working people, they care about health insurance, unfortunately their caring so much more about the drug industry, the insurance industry, it sort of gets in the way of too often doing the right thing.

I come forward this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, to talk a little bit about the Central American Free Trade Agreement which, frankly, will likely be defeated in this Congress bipartisanly. This is not a partisan issue. It is an issue of justice, an issue of jobs, and an issue of where our country and our economy goes.

Two weeks ago, more than 150 Republicans and Democrats, Senate and House Members, pro-business, pro-labor groups gathered on Capitol Hill to speak out against the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Republican House and Senate Members and Democratic House and Senate Members joined with these outside groups, this group of unlikely bed fellows perhaps, to speak with one voice of the unified message to vote against the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

CAFTA expands on the failed trade policies of the North American Free Trade Agreement and expands on those policies by enlarging NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, to six Central American countries, including the Dominican Republic.

When I ran for Congress in 1992, I do not want to bore my colleagues with numbers, when I ran for Congress in 1992, the United States had a trade deficit of $38 billion. We thought that was way too big. That meant we were buying, importing $38 billion more worth of goods than we were exporting; $38 billion trade deficit we had in 1992.

Last year after NAFTA, after PNTR with China, after several other trade agreements over the last decade-plus, our trade deficit is $618 billion, from 38 to 618 billion.

Now, you can see the trade deficit with Mexico as an example, prior to NAFTA, the year I came to Congress, in 1992, we actually had a trade surplus with the Republic of Mexico. We actually sold them more than we bought from them. Look what happened after NAFTA. Look at these numbers. This is zero right here. We had a trade surplus in those 4 years prior to NAFTA. Then all of the sudden 10 billion, almost 20 billion, 25 billion, over 30 billion, almost 40, over 40, approaching a $50 billion trade deficit with Mexico.

Now, George Bush, Sr., who originally negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement, he said that $1 billion in imports or exports represented about 12,000 jobs. That meant if you have a $3 billion trade surplus then that is three times 12,000. You would have 36,000 more jobs in your country. If you have a $3 billion trade deficit, you would have 36,000 fewer jobs in your country.

Look at this. We went from a $38 billion trade deficit overall to $618 billion. You do not need to do the math except you just sort of estimate and you see what these trade agreements have meant to the American people, to our economy, to our manufacturing base.

In my State of Ohio we have lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs. One out of 5 manufacturing jobs in my State has disappeared in the last 4\1/2\ years since President Bush took office. Those manufacturing jobs have been lost for a lot of reasons. The most important reason is NAFTA and PNTR and these trade agreements.

Unfortunately, these trade pacts like NAFTA and like CAFTA enable companies to exploit cheap labor in other countries and then import back to the United States under favorable terms. The Central American Free Trade Agreement should probably be named the Central American Free Labor Agreement because that is really what it is all about.

About 5 or 6 years after NAFTA passed, in the mid-to late 1990s, at my own expense I flew to McAllen, Texas, rented a car and went across the border to Reynosa, Mexico because I wanted to see what NAFTA looked like, what these free trade agreements looked like. I wanted to put a face on these numbers. These numbers are persuasive. They certainly convinced me and I think convinced many that these trade agreements are bad ideas. But I wanted to see real faces and real people and put real names next to those faces and people so I really could understand what this global economy looked like.

I went to the home of two people who worked for General Electric Mexico. They lived in an area about 30 feet by 30 feet, maybe smaller than that, probably more like 20 feet by 20 feet. No running water. No electricity. Dirt floor. When it rained hard, their floor turned to mud. Both of these people worked at General Electric Mexico. They lived 3 miles from the United States of America.

Now, if you walk outside their little shack into their colonia, their neighborhood, 3 miles from the United States, you will notice as you look around a couple of things. The first thing you will notice is there is a ditch nearby with who-knows-what human and industrial waste running through this ditch, maybe 4 feet wide. Children playing in this ditch because children will play wherever children play.

The American Medical Association said this area along the Mexican- U.S. border was the most toxic area in the Western Hemisphere. So no telling what kinds of diseases these children could get from playing in this ditch.

If you walk through the neighborhood more, you will notice that all of these shacks were built out of packing materials, boxes and wooden crates and wooden platforms, coming from the companies from where they worked. So you could tell where these workers worked just by walking through the neighborhoods and looking at the shacks, shacks literally constructed out of packing materials for these companies they worked for.

The point of the story is when I went to a General Motors plant nearby and what I noticed was this General Motors plant looked just like a General Motors plant in Lawrencetown, Ohio, and just like a Ford plant in Avon Lake, Ohio, or just like a Chrysler plant in Twinsburg, Ohio. It was modern. It was new, newer than the plants in my State. The floors were clean. The workers were working hard. The latest technology.

There was one difference between the General Motors plant in Mexico and the auto plant in Ohio. And the different was the auto plant in Mexico did not have a parking lot because the workers were not paid enough to buy the cars which they make.

You can go half way around the world to Malaysia to a Motorola plant. The workers do not make enough to buy the cells phones which they manufacture. You can go back halfway around the world to Costa Rica, one of the countries in the Central American Free Labor Agreement, and the workers at a Disney plant do not make enough to buy the toys that they manufacture.

You can go back halfway around the world to China and go to a Nike plant

and the workers do not make enough to buy the shoes that they manufacture.

That is what is great about our country. In our country because of labor unions, because of labor laws, because of our democracy workers share in the wealth that they are creating. If you work at General Motors or you work at a hardware store or wherever you work, if you help your employer make a profit and create wealth at that company or create value as a nurse at a hospital or a teacher in a high school, you share in the wealth or share in the good that you do. You get a share of those profits, a share of that wealth. That is how our country works.

Unfortunately, it does not work that way in Mexico. And as you will see, frankly, it does not work that way in the other countries that are part of the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

The average worker in the United States makes $38,000. That is enough to buy shoes, maybe to send your kids to college. It is enough to live in a decent place. It is enough to own a car. It is enough to go to the grocery store. It is enough to buy some things. But if you look at the rest of the countries in the Central American Free Trade Agreement, Costa Rica, the average income is $9,100. In the Dominican Republic it is $6,000; El Salvador, $4,800; Guatemala, $4,100; and in Honduras and Nicaragua it is less than 10 percent of the income that Americans make: $2,600 in Honduras; $2,300 in Nicaragua.

The combined purchasing power of these six countries, the combined purchasing power of the Central American countries is equal to that of Columbus, Ohio, or Orlando, Florida.

When you think about the combined purchasing power and you look what these people in those countries earn, you know they do not make enough to buy a car manufactured in Ohio. They do not make enough to buy prime rib coming from cattle in Nebraska or Colorado. They do not make enough to buy software from the State of Washington. They do not make enough to buy steel from West Virginia. They do not make enough to buy clothes from North Carolina or South Carolina or Georgia.

The fact is this Central American Free Labor Agreement is not about U.S. companies and U.S. farmers exporting their products to Central America. That will not happen because the Central American people are not paid enough to buy American products.

What this agreement is all about is simply outsourcing of jobs; is American manufacturers moving production to Central America and setting up plants and paying workers wages that barely keep them alive and then selling those products back to the United States at tremendous profits.

I have visited a factory in Nicaragua where the workers are making 23 cents per pair of jeans that they sew. They get 23 cents for a pair of jeans they sew, and that pair of jeans is sold at Wal-Mart in the United States for $25 or $30. So the company is getting rich. The workers stay poor. And unfortunately, that is what is going to happen and get worse if CAFTA passes.

If you want more proof already than this, the trade deficit, the amount of money that people are making, the fact that they simply cannot buy American products, let us look at the politics of it for a moment.

The President of the United States has sent five trade agreements to Congress. The first four trade agreements, the trade agreement with Morocco, one with Chile, one with Singapore, and one with Australia, all passed the Congress overwhelmingly in fewer than 60 days, in less than 2 months. This time the President sent this trade agreement to us is almost a year ago, 348 days ago to be exact.

Now, the reason the President sent this a year ago and Congress has not moved on it is simply because the American people understand what these trade agreements do to our country. Not just what they do to a family that loses a job. But what that means to that family, what that means to that school district, what that means to police and fire protection is that they do not have the kind of tax revenues when a plant closes down in a community and moves to China or moves out of town. All of that the American people understand it.

It is finally after all of these trade agreements, the Congress of the United States has finally figured it out. That is why we have not voted on the Central American Free Labor Agreement yet, simply because the American people understand this trade agreement is not working. It has not worked in the past. These trade agreements will not work in the future.

The President has tried to get it to pass in Congress, and Congress simply does not have the votes to pass it.

Earlier this spring, the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the most powerful Republican in the Congress, has announced that we would vote on Central American Free Trade Agreement by the end of the month, by May 27 before Congress leaves for Memorial Day weekend.

That will mark literally the 1 year deadline, the 1 year anniversary, since CAFTA was signed by the President. That means with CAFTA, if CAFTA's not voted on by then, it is dead in the water. The issue is dead on arrival. It is clear the American people have said no and the U.S. Congress has said no.

Once this 1-year anniversary passes, a lot of us who are opposed to this agreement say the President, I think the 1 year really means, okay, it has failed, it is time to go back to the drawing board and write a Central American Free Trade Agreement that we can pass.

Clearly, there is a desperation among those people who have pushed Central American Free Trade Agreement in this Congress, that they have not been able to convince the American people that it is a good idea. So they are trying one last-ditch effort and that happened this week.

This week the Presidents of the Central American countries and the Dominican Republic and six countries under CAFTA are touring the United States. The six Presidents of these countries are on a United States Chamber of Commerce junket pushing CAFTA. They went to Miami, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, to my State to Cincinnati, and they are attempting to convince the American people and the press that CAFTA is good for their country, good for their people and good for our country and good for our people.

Like our own President, like in this country, these six Presidents have tried to convince everybody that CAFTA will lift up low income workers and that CAFTA will create jobs here in the United States. What they do not say is they do not talk about the combined purchasing power of CAFTA Nations equal to that of Columbus, Ohio, or Orlando, Florida, or Memphis, Tennessee. They do not mention that.

They do not mention the fact, as I said earlier, that the workers in Central America cannot buy cars in Ohio or software from Washington State or steel made in Pennsylvania.

What we do not hear from them is that CAFTA does nothing to ensure the enforcement of internationally recognized labor standards in their countries, and with all due respect to the Central American leaders, what they are not saying and what millions of us know already is that millions of their workers, like 10s of millions of American workers, do not support this agreement. The Presidents may support them, but the workers in their countries and our country do not support this agreement.

What they will not tell reporters, what they did not tell reporters in their Chamber of Commerce junket around the United States is that 8,000 Guatemalan workers protested against CAFTA 2 months ago. Two of them were killed by government security forces.

They do not tell us that 10s of thousands of El Salvadorans protested CAFTA two-and-a-half year ago.

They do not tell us about the 18,000 letters sent by Honduran workers to the Honduran legislature, decrying the dysfunctional cousin of

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to announce and commend the 2005 winners of the Pulitzer Prize and take particular notice that four of this year's winners are graduates of Ohio's public State universities.

Walter Bogdanich, with the New York Times, won the Pulitzer for National Reporting, getting a master's degree in journalism from Ohio State.

Julia Keller, with the Chicago Tribune, won the Pulitzer for Feature Writing after earning a doctoral degree in English from Ohio State.

Nick Anderson, with the Louisville Courier-Journal, won the Pulitzer for Editorial Cartooning after graduating from Ohio State with a degree in political science.

And of course I am most proud of my wife, Connie Schultz, of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland who won the Pulitzer for Commentary. She graduated from Kent State with a degree in journalism and was editor of the Daily Kent Stater.

The Pulitzer defines excellence in journalism, and it is personally gratifying to me that Ohio's public universities helped these talented individuals achieve this extraordinary honor.

Mr. Speaker, this evening I am joined by fellow House Members, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan), a freshman, and other House Members who will join us shortly as we talk a little bit about the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Some call it the Central American Free Labor Agreement, as we will soon see.

As you can see by this calendar, we are barely 2 weeks away from the deadline set by the House majority leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives, for a vote. They plan a vote in this Chamber on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. This deadline coincides with the 1-year anniversary of when President Bush signed the agreement.

That does not seem like news, except for this: every trade agreement signed by the Bush administration in his 4\1/2\ years in office, every single trade agreement signed by the Bush administration has been voted on within 60 days of its signing. The President signs the agreement with Australia, with Singapore, with Chile, with Morocco; and this Congress votes on it right away, in large part because there is not huge opposition to the trade agreements.

This time, we are now at 347 days since Congress, since the President signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement. That is how long CAFTA has languished in Congress without a vote. Why? Because Democrats and Republicans alike, people on this side of the aisle, people on that side of the aisle, understand that the Central American Free Trade Agreement is dead on arrival in the House of Representatives.

Last month, two dozen Democrats and Republicans in Congress joined more than 150 business groups and labor organizations echoing a united message: vote ``no'' on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Yesterday, just outside this building across the street, more than 400 union workers and Members of Congress again gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol to deliver a united message; vote ``no'' on the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

So Republican leaders in this House and the Bush administration understood they had a problem. On this day it will be 12 months, 1 year, since the President sent CAFTA to Congress. There is not the support in this country or this Congress for this trade agreement because people understand what it does to our Nation, what it does to our workers, what it does to our food safety, what it does to the environment.

So what did the Republican leaders and President Bush do? They brought the six presidents of these five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic, they brought these six presidents to the United States. In fact, the six presidents are touring our Nation on a United States Chamber of Commerce junket going around the country trying to convince the American people, the press, and the American Congress to vote for the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

They traveled to Miami. They went to Los Angeles, they went to Albuquerque, they came to my State of Ohio attempting to convince Americans this is a good idea.

The Bush administration has not been able to sell it. Business in this country has not been able to sell it. The free trade ideologues in this Congress who need your vote for every trade agreement, they have not been able to sell it.

So what is next? They bring the six presidents from Central America to come in. Unfortunately, these presidents are not telling the whole story. Like our own President, they tried to convince us that CAFTA will lift up low-income workers and that CAFTA will create jobs here at home.

First of all, there is no truth to that. We have heard that on every trade agreement. But what they do not say

about CAFTA, what they have not said is that the combined purchasing power of the CAFTA nations, the combined purchasing power is equal to that of Columbus, Ohio, or equal to that of Orlando, Florida, or equal to that of Memphis, Tennessee. They do not discuss the fact that people in Central America, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, these six countries, they do not discuss the fact that they are not making enough money to buy cars made in Ohio; they are not making enough money to buy software made in Washington State or steel made in Pennsylvania, or textiles or apparel made in North Carolina or South Carolina or Georgia, or planes made in Washington State. Why? Because look at the average wage in these countries.

The average wage in the United States is $38,000. People who are making $38,000, the average wage, can usually own a car, oftentimes own a small home, at least rent an apartment, sometimes own a home. People making $38,000 a year are buying shoes. They are paying into Medicare. They are buying clothes. They are consumers. They are buying products. But look at the rest of the countries in the Central American Free Trade Agreement: Costa Rica, $9,000; Dominican Republic, average salary $6,000 a year; El Salvador, $4,800; Guatemala, $4,100; Honduras, $2,600; Nicaragua $2,300. They are not going to buy cars made in Ohio. They are not going to buy steel made in West Virginia. They are not going to buy software from Seattle. They are not going to buy textiles from North Carolina. What is this all about?

What this is about is for U.S. companies to offsource, outsource offshore, send offshore jobs to these low-income countries. They will set up factories in Nicaragua, so they will pay Nicaraguan pennies on the dollar to manufacture products to sell back into the United States. It will not raise their standard of living in Nicaragua; it will certainly hurt our standard of living in this country.

But let me for a moment share again, when these six presidents toured the United States, what they said and what they did not say. What they did not say, with all due respect to these Central American leaders, they did not tell us that NAFTA-CAFTA does nothing to ensure enforcement of labor provisions in their own country. They have not told reporters or the Congress or the public that more than 8,000 Guatemalan workers protested against CAFTA last month; two of them were killed by the police in Guatemala. They did not mention that tens of thousands of El Salvadorans who protested the Central American Free Trade Agreement a year-and-a-half ago. They do not mention the 18,000 letters sent last year by Honduran workers to the Honduran Congress protesting, decrying this dysfunctional cousin of NAFTA. They did not tell us about the 10,000 people who protested CAFTA in Nicaragua in 2003. They did not tell us about the 30,000 CAFTA protestors in Costa Rica just this past fall. Hundreds of thousands of workers in these six countries have protested in 50 demonstrations in the last 3 years saying that CAFTA is not good for those countries.

Before yielding to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), I want to sort of finish this story of the six presidents. The six presidents last night assembled in Washington in the midst of their travels around the United States to sell the American people on a bad trade agreement between us and them. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hosted a reception for these visiting dignitaries rewarding them for their lobbying efforts. You can walk around the Capitol today and the last couple of days and you would see these presidents going from office to office to office trying to convince American Members of Congress that they should pass this trade agreement. But they were rewarded for their efforts at a very lavish reception at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last night.

You can see these presidents raise their glasses, toasting these U.S., these large corporations in the country, thanking them for this tour; you can see these corporate CEOs raising their glasses, toasting these presidents of the six countries, thanking them for fighting for this trade agreement which will, more than anything, help these large businesses. I wondered if these CEOs and I wondered if these six presidents reflected on what happens to small businesses in Ohio and Michigan, those that do not want another failed trade agreement. I wondered if they thought about the family farms in North Carolina and Louisiana holding on for dear life. I wondered if they thought about those workers in Nicaragua and Costa Rica and Guatemala and El Salvador and Honduras and the Dominican Republic. I wondered if they thought about that when they were toasting, the CEOs were toasting the six presidents and the six presidents were toasting the CEOs. My guess is they did not.

Tonight, we are here in this Special Order to talk about CAFTA facts and the fact that CAFTA is dead on arrival and the fact, as I mentioned earlier, that we are now down to 16 days. It will be 1 year, and this deadline is approaching, 16 days until CAFTA is absolutely buried.

I yield to my friend from my neighboring district in Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio. Think about what he just said. This agreement has made it even harder for the poorest people in this hemisphere; again, look at the income here. The United States average income, $38,000. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) mentioned Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras especially; their income is less than 10 percent of ours, literally, and they are forcing, because U.S. drug companies have convinced the United States Trade Representative's Office, appointed by the Bush administration, convinced them to squeeze the poorest people in the world even harder on paying for prescription drugs. I mean, it is just, when we talk about values, when we talk about morality, to do that to the poorest of the poor that need HIV drugs, that need malaria drugs, that need tuberculosis drugs, that need antibiotics, and they are going to end up paying more money because, in fact, the United States Trade Representative said to the government of one country, If you do not change your laws, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) talked about this and has talked about it before, if you do not change your laws, we are not going to allow you into the Central America Free Trade Agreement.

It is not like the drug industry does not have way too much power with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and with Republican leadership and in the White House here in this country, where people are paying two and three and four times what they ought to be paying for prescription drugs; now we are seeing that drug industry exert its power, helped by the U.S. Government, in the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Exactly right. I thank the gentleman.

As I said, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan) has joined us. We are also joined by the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), who has worked on trade agreements for years; and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), my colleague on the other side of the State bordering my district to the west, who has been involved in trade agreements probably longer and more aggressively and more assertively than I think any Member of this body; the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan), a freshman who has taken this issue and run with it. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan), for his good work and his interest, both in protecting American jobs and his interest in fair play in Central America so workers there have their living standards raised rather than continue to stagnate, which is what these trade agreements have done.

We are also joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

I yield next to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) who, as I said, has been working on trade issues for her entire 23 years in this Congress.

I thank my friend from Toledo, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur). And the gentlewoman is exactly right. I have a chart just with the Mexico trade deficit. The gentlewoman talked about Canada, the U.S., all of this. And you can see, we went from a trade surplus when NAFTA was signed to this, over $40 billion.

And I look at the year that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and I were elected to Congress in 1992. The United States, and I do not want to bore people with numbers, but in 1992, the year we first ran, the United States had a $38 billion trade deficit with the world. That meant we bought $38 billion more than we exported. Last year we had a trade deficit of $620 billion.

Every trade agreement, as the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) says, they promise the same thing. They say more growth in the United States, more jobs, more manufacturing, more exports to the United States if you pass this trade agreement. Every time Congress passes one, it gets worse. The trade deficit keeps growing. The job loss keeps increasing.

The definition of insanity is when you do the same thing over and over and over again and you expect a different outcome. They are asking us to do the same thing. So we can see these same numbers come with Central America by increasing, increasing, increasing, increasing deficits every year.

I would yield to my friend, the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky). I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership, especially on trade issues and jobs issues and health issues.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur). As we continue this conversation, when I listen to the gentlewomen talk about this, we all talked about the trade deficit, that it went from $38 billion to $620 billion, the trade deficit with Mexico going from a trade surplus to a trade deficit. Those are just numbers, and they make sense but they are just numbers.

When you hear the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) ask about those families in Galesburg, these are not numbers. These are families that lose their job in Lorraine, Ohio, or in Portsmouth, Ohio, or in Chicago or Toledo. They lose their jobs. What it does to their families, often they lose their pensions with some of these companies. The schools have significantly fewer dollars to run. The police and fire departments are understaffed. All the kinds of things that are more likely, alcoholism, all that happens with the families in our country.

Then you talk about those families in, I have seen them in Mexico; I have seen them in Nicaragua; I have seen them several other places; these families that are working, often 8 to 10 hours a day, often 6 days a week making clothes for us.

I was with a family in Nicaragua. They get paid 23 cents for every pair of jeans they sew. The mother gets paid 23 cents for every jeans she sews that end up at Wal-Mart getting sold for between $25 and $30. I was at her home in Tipitapa, a little sprawling bedroom community as you would say in this country, but it is a series of shacks made out of packing materials form the plants they work for.

She was standing in this community home one day. I was talking to her, and she was holding her 3-year-old daughter who had hair down to about her shoulders, jet black hair, except that the bottom inch or two of her hair was sort of discolored. I asked somebody what that was about, and they said, probably this girl does not get enough protein because the parents cannot afford milk. The parents do not buy meat except for very special occasions because she is getting paid 23 cents for every pair of jeans.

So this trading system that these trade agreements bring us bring horrific poverty to the developing world where these people are working harder than maybe any of us, working 60 hours a week, not to mention how hard they have to work at home to do everything, getting to and from work on a bus that takes an hour and a half each way, and all the other things that happen to them.

Then you think of the pain it inflicts on our communities, our schools, our health care system, our police, our fire departments, the safety in our communities, on our families, on our self-respect. All of that.

We can talk numbers, and we can prove our case with these numbers, but all you have to do is look at people at both ends of the trade agreement and where they sit and how their lives go and what we are doing to them. And that is the story in so many ways.

Mr. Speaker, as I hear you talk and I think about what has happened with workers around the world, one of the great things about our economy, one of the great things about our country is if you work somewhere, if you work for General Motors or if you work for the local hardware store, if you are a teacher or if you are a nurse, you create value. You create either a profit for your company, wealth for your company. You create value if you are not working for a for-profit company.

Under our system, in part because of labor unions, in part because we have a democratic system, and in part because of our history and our traditions, you share in the wealth you create.

The lesson of these trade agreements you can go anywhere that we have these trade agreements. You can go to Mexico, Nicaragua and China, and you will notice that workers do not share in the wealth they create.

I heard the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) talk about this years ago. The best example was you go to a General Motors plant in Mexico, and it looks just like a General Motors plant in Ohio except it is often newer. The technology is up to date. It is modern. The floors are clean. The workers are working hard. The difference between a Mexican auto plant and the American auto plant, the Mexican auto plant does not have a parking lot because the workers cannot afford to buy the cars they make.

You can go halfway around the world to Malaysia and go to a Motorola plant, and the workers cannot afford to buy the cell phones that they make. You can go back to this hemisphere, to Costa Rica, and go to a Disney plant. The workers cannot afford to buy the Disney toys for their children that they make. You can go back halfway around the world to China and go to a Nike plant, and the workers cannot afford to buy the shoes that they make.

That is what these trade agreements have failed to do. So when a Nike worker in Oregon loses her job and a Nike job in China is created, that means that Nike worker in Oregon is no longer paying into Medicare, no longer paying into Social Security, no longer able to buy Nike, no longer able to buy a car, no longer able to do whatever. So the world has one fewer consumer. The world really is poorer. Nike is a little bit richer, but the world overall is poorer.

In China there is no real wealth created because they are not able to buy anything other than subsistence living and the community in Oregon, in Medford or whatever town, has less wealth.

My definition of successful trade is when the world's poorest workers can buy American products rather than just make products for Americans. Then we will know that our trade policies finally are working.

Once this deadline has expired, the President normally takes 2 months to pass a trade agreement. This one has taken 11.5 months. Republican leadership, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the most powerful Republican in the House, has said that we will vote on it by May 27. That will be roughly 1 year.

We need to go back, as the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) said, and start again. I want a great trade agreement with Central America because I think we can write one that will lift their workers up so they will want to buy our products as we buy their products. We can do that. We need to start again.

So once the CAFTA countdown, we are at 16 days, something like that

now, once that is past the end of this month, let us just go back to the drawing board and write a CAFTA that, number one, we can be proud of; number two, that will lift up workers in those countries and will help invigorate the middle class in this country. It is very possible to do that. It is just we do not have the will to do it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan), and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) earlier. I appreciate that human spiritual component.

I would close in an optimistic tone. The gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) talked about what happens with labor unions and human rights in Central America and in South America and in Mexico. Just hold up for a model what happened in Central and Eastern Europe in the last 20 years. The thrust of their equal rights movement came out of the labor movement, and flowing out of that labor movement came a much better way of life, came freedom, better economic security, more wealth for workers, all that we should be striving for. That is why labor standards for these workers in these trade agreements is so important.

As the CAFTA countdown comes, we are down to the last 16 days, it is pretty clear NAFTA will be dead on arrival. It is time at the end of May when we come back in June to start with a new trade agreement that will lift workers up and make us both spiritually and intellectually and in every other way proud of what we do.

Mr. Speaker, today more than 400 union workers and Members of Congress gathered in front of the United States Capitol delivering a united message: vote ``no'' on the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

This week, the presidents of Central America and the Dominican Republic are touring the Nation on a United States Chamber of Commerce- funded junket, pushing the Central American

Free Trade Agreement. They are traveling to Miami and Los Angeles. They are going to Albuquerque and to my State, Cincinnati, Ohio, attempting to convince the American people and the American press that CAFTA is good for their countries and for their people.

Unfortunately, these leaders are not telling the whole story. Like our own President, they try to convince us that CAFTA will lift up low- income workers in Central America and that CAFTA will create jobs here in the United States. What they have not said is that CAFTA does nothing to ensure enforcement of labor provisions in their own countries. What they have not said is that the combined purchasing power of the CAFTA nations, the combined purchasing power of the CAFTA nations, is equal to that of Columbus, Ohio; or Memphis, Tennessee; or Orlando, Florida. In other words, people in Guatemala and Honduras and Nicaragua and El Salvador and Costa Rica cannot afford to buy the steel produced in Pennsylvania. They cannot afford to buy cars made in Ohio. They cannot afford to buy textiles and apparel from North Carolina and South Carolina and Georgia. They cannot afford to buy software from Northern California or Oregon or the State of Washington.

With all due respect, Mr. Speaker, to the Central American leaders, what they are not saying and what millions of us know already is that millions of their workers in Central America, like tens of millions of American workers, do not support the Central American Free Trade Agreement. What their leaders will not tell the American people, what their leaders will not share with reporters covering their junket, is that 8,000 Guatemalan workers protested against CAFTA in March. Two of them lost their lives when government forces attacked the crowds.

We have not heard Central American leaders mention the literally tens of thousands of El Salvadorans who protested CAFTA in 2002. They do not mention the 18,000 letters sent last year by Honduran workers to their Honduran Congress decrying this dysfunctional cousin of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Central American leaders do not mention the 10,000 people who protested CAFTA 1\1/2\ years ago in Nicaragua. They do not tell us about the 30,000 CAFTA protestors in Costa Rica just last fall. Hundreds of thousands of workers have protested CAFTA in more than 45 demonstrations in these six Central American countries.

Opposition to CAFTA here in the United States has been equally stalwart. More than a year has passed since President Bush signed CAFTA. Every other trade agreement the President has brought to Congress has been voted on within 6 or 7 weeks. This has been 11\1/2\ months since the President signed it because there is so much opposition from American workers, from American educators, from American social service organizations, from Americans of both parties. Instead of supporting the President on CAFTA, overwhelming numbers of Republicans and Democrats in this body and across the country have come out against the agreement.

Last month, two dozen Democrats and Republicans in Congress joined more than 150 business groups and labor organizations echoing a united message: vote ``no'' on the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Under NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the U.S. has lost more than 1 million jobs. Under NAFTA the promise of a thriving middle class in Mexico was never realized. Under NAFTA, just like every other trade agreement, the administration, the corporate leaders make the same promises. They promise more manufacturing jobs in the United States. They promise growth in industry in the United States. They promise more exports from the United States. But it never happens that way.

The definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over and over again and expecting a different result. We have heard these same promises about CAFTA, about NAFTA, about trade with China, about the World Trade Organization. We have heard these same promises over and over and over again, and the American people understand the promises simply do not work.

Now the President and his big business allies are hoping that bringing these Central American leaders on their Chamber of Commerce junket can help deliver support for an agreement that, frankly, as we look across this Chamber, is dead on arrival. Right now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is hosting a reception for the visiting dignitaries, these six presidents, rewarding them for their lobbying efforts this week. Right now the leaders of these countries are raising their toasts to their corporate sponsors.

Mr. Speaker, there can be no more delay. We must throw out this failed agreement and renegotiate the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Mr. Speaker, today marks the national commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Six million Jews were murdered as a result of state-sponsored, systematic persecution.

The Holocaust is not just a story of destruction and loss; it is a story of an apathetic world and a few individuals of extraordinary courage. It is a remarkable story of the human spirit that thrived before the Holocaust, struggled during its darkest hours, and ultimately prevailed as survivors rebuilt their lives.

Holocaust Remembrance Day is a vehicle for honoring the victims of the Holocaust and reminding us all of what can happen to civilized people when bigotry, hatred and indifference reign.

This year's observance marks the 60th Anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. On VE Day, those living in Allied Countries celebrated the end of the war. Those imprisoned in concentration camps had lost too much and seen too much evil to celebrate.

The history of the Holocaust offers an opportunity to reflect on the moral responsibilities of individuals, societies, and governments. We should always remember the terrible events of the Holocaust and remain vigilant against hatred, persecution, and tyranny.

We must actively rededicate ourselves to the principles of individual freedom in a just society.

The Jewish Holocaust revealed to the world the horrors man can perpetrate if racial and religious hatred are allowed to fester in the heart of society.

As we remember those who were killed because of racial and religious hatred, we must act to stop these crimes against humanity today.

Civilians in Sudan are being systematically murdered, raped and brutalized by the government and other forces. And yet, the world has not acted. Last July, the House recognized these atrocities but has done little to intervene. The United States and the international community have an obligation to end this humanitarian crisis.

While we reflect on the Holocaust and its victims, and honor the survivors, rescuers and liberators, we should strive to overcome intolerance and indifference through learning, understanding, and remembrance.

Mr. Speaker, on the floor of the House a couple of days ago, the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle) said the Nation's Governors support cuts in Medicaid funding. In fact, the Nation's Governors wrote a letter to all of us as House Members opposing those cuts.

Then 2 days ago, 348 House Members instructed House negotiators to keep Medicaid cuts out of the final budget resolution. The gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle), one of the House negotiators, joined the chorus and actually instructed himself to say no to the Medicaid cuts. Apparently, the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle) changed his mind; he flip flopped and ignored our, his, all of our instructions, because he agreed to a budget resolution that includes at least $10 billion, maybe as much as $14 billion, in Medicaid cuts, significantly more than the President and a whole lot more than the Senate made a decision about.

Now it is time for the other 347 Members in this body to decide if they too will reverse their positions and flip flop and endorse the Medicaid cuts. After all, Mr. Speaker, no one really likes a flip flopper.

Now, the budget, Mr. Speaker, is a moral document which illustrates our values and demonstrates our priorities. Tonight, this House is about to cut medical services for 50 million of the most vulnerable Americans, at the same time giving multinational corporations and billionaires another $106 billion in tax cuts. How can any Member of this body go home and tell our constituents, I took health care away from impoverished children and home care away from impoverished seniors, but do not worry, I gave Ken Lay another tax cut.

Mr. Speaker, we should begin this process by voting overwhelmingly to protect Medicaid, as we did 2 days ago.

Madam Speaker, 44 Members on the Republican side defied their party, not because some deep-pocketed lobbyist asked them to, but because fighting for people in desperate need was and is the right thing to do.

Medicaid health and long-term coverage is already limited to the impoverished elderly in nursing homes, the lowest-income children, and other vulnerable populations. My friend, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) expressed shock that Medicaid costs have actually grown. I think he must know that private insurance growth in this country is greater than 12 percent, Medicare costs are going up around 7 or 8 percent. Medicaid costs are going up only about 6 percent, half the pace of private insurance. There is no cost-effective alternative to Medicaid. Medicaid is the cost-effective alternative.

Medicaid cuts would not only jeopardize 5 million elderly Americans who would lack access to nursing home care without it, these cuts would place every nursing home resident, on Medicaid or not, in this country at risk. Each year nursing homes serve 2.5 million Americans. Medicaid covers 70 percent of these Americans.

The very health and safety of nursing home residents hinges on adequate Medicaid reimbursement. As it stands, Medicaid funding is insufficient to cover both those Americans who need nursing home services and those who need home and community-based care. If the Federal Government makes further cuts in Medicaid, we must take responsibility in abandoning people who have no where else to turn.

Two-thirds of people in nursing homes have no living spouse or relative. The fact is we, the Medicaid program, the Federal Government, are all the family who cares for them that they have.

I hope that before any Member of this body votes against this motion, you might just imagine trading places with an elderly American in a nursing home. Put yourself in their shoes; then decide whether starving Medicaid is responsible for reprehensible.

Mr. Speaker, in recent weeks half a dozen Ohio newspapers have used the following terms to describe recent ethics problems proliferating through the United States Congress: acts of hypocrisy; national moral lapse; disgrace; dirty moves; ethically corrupt; unethical behavior; multi-indictment-producing investigation; illegal political fundraising; campaign money spigot; the very appearance of evil; and, finally, Mr. Speaker, sugar daddy.

Mr. Speaker, the people of this Nation deserve better from the People's house.

Mr. Speaker, last week more than 150 Republicans and Democrats, Senators and House Members, business groups and labor organizations gathered on Capitol Hill to speak out against the Central American Free Trade Agreement. This group of unlikely bedfellows, if you will, spoke with one voice to deliver a unified message, no to

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin tonight by again talking about the Central American Free Trade Agreement. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that in spite of what supporters of CAFTA say, the buying power of countries in Central America simply will not have an impact on American exports.

Central America represents only $62 billion in generating economic power. That means that people in Central America will not be able to buy cars from Ohio, or steel from West Virginia, they will not be able to buy software from Seattle or textiles or apparel from North Carolina.

The fact is that CAFTA will only mean more outsourcing of American jobs, more loss of American jobs, more loss of American manufacturing and does nothing to raise the living standards of Central Americans.