Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, as a new generation is being created in Iraq and Afghanistan, Republicans are underfunding programs that are vital to our Nation's veterans.

The Bush administration has tried to increase the cost of health care for veterans which would have forced 1 million veterans from the system. Their budget slashed funding for staff needed to process disability claims and cut funding for prosthetic research and long-term care.

House Republicans passed a budget that underfunds veterans health care by $1 billion, and they rejected efforts by House Democrats to fully fund VA health care.

Their budget cuts do not stop there.

The Bush administration, in order to make room for tax cuts for the wealthiest 5 percent in our Nation, their plan for the 2006 budget includes a $900 million cut in funding for veterans health care. That would be catastrophic for the VA and for our Nation's veterans.

Last month, Secretary Principi and President Bush announced they had closed three VA hospitals, one in Mississippi, one in Pittsburgh, and one in my district in northeast Ohio in Brecksville. The Ohio facility serves 48,000 veterans and is a national leader in programs that treat substance abuse and mental illness. The Brecksville VA hospital is critical for ensuring the health and well-being of the thousands

of homeless veterans who rely on Brecksville and who now will be forced to find another way and go somewhere else.

For whatever reason, the administration chose the same month in which we honored our war heroes on the anniversary of D-Day and dedicated the World War II Memorial to close those three health care VA facilities.

Ohio is home to more than 1 million veterans. That number obviously is increasing with our commitments abroad. There are 61,000 active Reserve or National Guardsmen and -women from Ohio, 9,000 serving in Iraq and in Afghanistan. When these brave men and women serving our Nation come home to Ohio, they face, as a result of the administration's negligence and policies, they face cuts to health care benefits, cuts to VA hospital closures; and they face, in some cases, loss of their livelihoods.

Not since World War II has the U.S. made such heavy use of part-time soldiers.

Twenty-seven percent of self-employed Reservists said their businesses were irreparably damaged while deployed in Iraq. Other Reservists and Guardsmen and -women have taken pay cuts in order to fight for our Nation in Iraq. When they return home, many of these veterans will have to take out second mortgages to repair their businesses and to get back on their economic feet.

While they struggle to rebuild their source of income and economic support to their communities, they are forced to pay more for prescription drugs, and they are forced to travel further for their health care needs.

How do we look a veteran in the eye and ask a veteran to go to Canada to buy less expensive prescription drugs?

While our brave men and women serve our country, their benefits and their ability to support their families are being threatened by this administration's policies that hurt America's veterans. In only 3\1/2\ years, we have seen rising costs for prescription drugs from a $3 copay per drug per month to a $7 copay per drug per month, and now the Bush administration wants a $15 copay per drug per month. Mr. Speaker, 330,000 veterans have unprocessed claims and 100,000 veterans are waiting for appeals decisions. New enrollment fees and increased costs of prescription drugs will cost veterans $2 billion over the next 5 years. All of this has happened since President Bush took office.

The President opposes the renewal of ``imminent danger'' pay for families of active duty soldiers in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

The President opposes mandatory funding for veterans health care; and maybe most importantly, the President, in his campaign in 2000, told veterans that ``help is on the way.'' Three years later, this administration continues year after year after year to cut veterans benefits. We must do better than that.

Madam Speaker, President Bush again was in Ohio today in Cincinnati to again try to justify his economic program and his last 3 years of managing this economy. One out of six manufacturing jobs in Ohio has been lost since George Bush took office. We have lost 190 jobs every single day of the Bush administration.

He has two answers. His first answer is more tax cuts for the most privileged, for the largest corporations, for the wealthiest 5 percent of people in this country, hoping that those tax cuts will trickle down and create jobs. That has failed.

His second answer is more trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement. He wants to extend NAFTA to Central America into South America. Those trade agreements have hemorrhaged jobs; they have shipped jobs overseas. Instead, we need to extend unemployment benefits, reject the Bush plan, and go in a different direction. We need to extend unemployment benefits, pass legislation to reward and incentivize those companies that manufacture in this country, rather than big tax breaks to those companies that outsource jobs and ship jobs overseas.

Mr. Speaker, last week, on the floor of this Chamber, there were two interesting 1-hour presentations. The first hour came from the other side of the aisle, from the Republican side. Members from Texas and Illinois, Members from Arizona and West Virginia, Members from Florida, Indiana, from my State of Ohio all spoke on the floor and talked about the growing economy, how the American economy is back.

They talked about corporate profits being up. They talked about economic prosperity. They said that our economy was in fine, fine shape. In fact, they quoted President Bush's Secretary of Commerce who said, ``It is the best economic climate in my lifetime.'' That was the first hour.

The next hour a group of us from mostly Ohio, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), was joined by the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky). We, instead of sort of cheerleading this economic growth, we talked instead or related stories from people in our districts and letters we had received about people struggling with stagnating wages, with tuition increases. Ohio State's tuition will go up 13 percent this fall. Akron University's tuition went up 16 percent last fall. We talked about gas prices, people's difficulty of dealing with higher gas prices, of diminishing health care benefits, the employers cutting prescription drug benefits, all of that.

In my State of Ohio, we have lost one out of six manufacturing jobs since President Bush took office. Some 228,000 jobs overall have disappeared in my State since the President took the oath of office in 2001. In fact, because we have lost 2.5 million jobs since he took office, President Bush will be the first President since Herbert Hoover to have had a net loss of jobs.

Now, we can talk about how much corporate profits are up, and that is a good thing for sure. We can talk about some economic growth, and this is a good thing; but when we look at the economy and we look at the kinds of job loss and we think about what that job loss means, first of all, a steelworker in Canton, Ohio; an auto worker in Lorain, Ohio; a textile worker in North Carolina that loses a job that pays $10 or $12 or $15 or $20 an hour, depending on the plant and the location, what that means when that family loses that job, if perhaps the members of the family can find another job, that certainly will pay less, if they can find anything else, but think what that means to that family and those children and to the schools in that district where that plant closed down.

The city of Cleveland laid off 600 teachers starting this fall. Classrooms in Cleveland now will average 30 students per classroom. Layoffs in my home city of Lorain, several dozen teachers lost their jobs because we have lost industrial jobs. Police and fire are laid off, which is a greater hardship on those families and greater hardship on the communities that they face, which will then have slower police and fire response time.

The person that owns the diner, the waiters and waitresses in the diner

next to the plant that closes down, loses business, may go out of business. The real estate agent is faced with selling a whole bunch of homes that nobody wants to buy. Workers, all kinds of people are affected from this kind of job loss.

Now the White House, they have enlisted cheerleaders, Members of Congress, who come to this House floor and talk about this growing economy, talk about corporate profits going up and talk about how it is the best economy in memory of the Secretary of Commerce. In their play book, the White House apparently does not see this or does not care to see what happens to these families and what happens to these communities. The White House play book says between now and the election you have got to be optimistic, you have got to cheer lead, you have got to say the economy is better, you have got to make Americans think everything's great in this country; that we are going to continue to grow.

I do not question my Republican friends. I think they actually believe that. They believe that because 5 percent of the people in this country have gotten big, big tax cuts, a person making $1 million got $123,000 tax cut from the President Bush, somebody makes a lot less makes almost nothing. The people that Members of Congress hang around with are doing well. They have good jobs. They get tax cuts. They are doing well. Their companies are doing well because they are the CEOs.

But when they are cheerleading about how great the economy is and accusing people like Senator Kerry of being doom and gloom, the fact is we have got to change the policy. We have got to change the direction of this economy. We have got to stop doing it the way we are doing it. We need to give tax relief to those companies that are hiring domestically and not exporting jobs overseas.

Mr. Speaker, last night on the floor of this Chamber there were two interesting 1-hour presentations, as many of you remember. One was several colleagues from the Republican side, if I recall from Texas, Illinois, Arizona, my State of Ohio, West Virginia, Florida, Indiana and a couple other States, who spoke about the rapid economic growth we are experiencing; how this is, as the Secretary of Commerce said, quoting now, ``It is the best economic climate in my lifetime,'' he said; that ``things were great on the job front; lots of new jobs created, lots of economic prosperity.''

Then there also was a group of people, mostly from my State of Ohio, that told stories of letters we have received from constituents, people saying that their college tuition has gone up sharply, 13 percent at Ohio State, for example; they have lost their drug coverage; their programs for education in their communities have been cut, both by local governments and also State governments, and, thirdly, in some cases the Federal Government.

There was major job loss. Companies like Timken in Ohio, for instance, have lost one out of six manufacturing jobs. But what was curious about the difference in the view of the country is that it is pretty clear my Republican friends kind of all meet in a huddle like a football game and they are all coming out, I do not mean to mix metaphors, but coming out as cheerleaders because they have been sort of instructed by the White House that the only way to win this election is by saying over and over and over and over that this is the best economy we have had in years.

The problem is, and I do not think we are being nay-sayers, I am just passing on, we are all passing on what our constituents in Ohio and Illinois, like the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) and others, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) here and others are just passing on what our constituents are telling us, that we need to change the direction of this country.

If the cheerleaders on the other side of the aisle, the President's football squad, if you will, that comes out of the huddle, if they continue to talk about how great the economy is, it means that they are not willing to admit the mistakes of the last 3 years in how our economy and our country are going in the wrong direction.

The only way to correct things is to say, well, maybe we are going in the wrong direction and maybe we need to change course. But the President's answer in every single situation, for every bad piece of economic news the President says two things: we need to cut taxes for the 5 percent wealthiest Americans, maybe some of it will trickle down and create jobs. That clearly has not worked. We have lost 2.7 million jobs since he took office. President Bush will be the first President since President Hoover to have lost jobs during his time in office.

And his other answer is more trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement. He wants us to pass the Central American Free Trade Agreement; free trade agreements with Singapore, Chile, Morocco, Australia, the Free Trade Area of America, which will quadruple the number of low-income workers in the NAFTA trade block. He wants us to continue to do that when those policies clearly are shipping American jobs overseas.

Now, those policies, as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) said on the floor last night, those policies clearly help the President's political friends, they help his wealthy contributors; but they are not helping workers in this country.

I do not question the motives of my friends on the other side of the aisle, the cheerleading, for saying this economy is in such great shape. I think they really believe it because they spend their time with the 5 or 10 percent of the people in this country who are doing great, the 5 or 10 percent of the people who see profits going up. They are corporate executives, they are big stockholders, they are getting bigger dividends, they see the stock

market going up in some cases, not very regularly, and so they get tax cuts because they are in the upper 1 or 2 or 5 percent income brackets. So the economy is going well for them. But unfortunately, it is simply not going well for so many others in this country.

I am not here to criticize and to throw cold water on their birthday party, but what I am here for is to say let us change direction, because those economic plans and programs have clearly not worked. For 3 years, the President has gotten whatever he wanted from this Congress in terms of tax cuts, in terms of cutting spending on education and health care and veterans benefits, but the economy and the country are worse off than they were 3 years ago.

In my State, we have lost one out of six manufacturing jobs since George Bush took office. Let me explain sort of what happened. There is a company in Ohio called Timken, T-I-M-K-E-N. It is a major employer and has been a good company for northeast Ohio and Canton, Ohio. It is President Bush's favorite company everyone says. The CEO of Timken, fourth generation, very wealthy family, are some of George Bush's biggest contributors and fund-raisers. A year ago President Bush came to Timken and spoke to assembled workers and mostly management and applauded the company because the workers are 10 percent more productive, a year ago 10 percent more productive than they were the year before, and congratulations to them and to that company for that.

But then earlier this year, Timken put out a news release saying that they enjoyed record sales for the first quarter, all-time record sales for Timken, and they said that they had a 60-some percent increase in earnings per share from a year ago. A week later Timken announced, we are building another factory in China and we are closing our three factories in Canton where the corporate headquarters is and laying off 1,300 well-paid Ohioans.

So that is what we are seeing. We are seeing on this side of the aisle, my Republican friends sort of parroting what George Bush is saying, saying this economy is really great; and we are hearing people on this side tell stories, with facts backing it up, about how we need change because these policies are not working. Clearly the policies are working if you are in the upper 5 or 10 percent, because corporate profits are up, dividends are up, tax cuts are being enjoyed by the 1 or 2 or 5 percent wealthiest people.

But in the case of so many others, there are more people that are receiving, going to food pantries, there are more people who are seeing their college educations going through the roof, the increases in college tuition, there are more people who have seen their drug benefits pulled back or scaled down or eliminated; and it is time that we take a different direction.

In this country when you criticize, you need to say, what do you do in place? We should pass the Crane-Rangel bill, which will reward American companies that manufacture here rather than abroad; instead of giving tax cuts abroad, pass unemployment benefits, and pass a better prescription drug bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Michigan for his leadership on trade issues, and I want to echo the words of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) in his opposition to H.R. 4103.

H.R. 4103 represents another lost opportunity in terms of international trade, in terms of our dealings with Africa. We have failed Africa in this body on aid issues, we have failed Africa in this body on trade issues. This lost opportunity of H.R. 4103 is embodied in the fact that we could have lifted up standards for African workers and for American workers and for our trade agreements and trade relations. But what is embodied in H.R. 4103 runs through our entire trade policy.

The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) talked about loss of sovereignty in the developing world; that we have through various kinds of programs for all kinds of trade adjustments, all kinds of other issues, what has run through our programs is loss of sovereignty, the push to privatization in these countries. He mentioned privatization of their water system, that we have come in through structural adjustment and other programs, forcing cutting of health benefits, cutting of education benefits. We have lost opportunity in H.R. 4103 to allow and encourage and push in allowing unionization, allowing the ability to bargain collectively and to organize in the developing world.

Instead, we are, as the gentleman said, engaging in a corporate race to the bottom. We have done that with the North American Free Trade Agreement, we have done it with our trade agreements with Singapore and Chile. We did it 4 years ago with the first round of AGOA. We are doing it again today.

Instead, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) introduced 4 years ago what would be a prototype on trade agreements, to lift up standards, to encourage unionization, to have international labor organization standards, to have environmental standards, to have food safety standards, to guarantee sovereignty, to move away from the kinds of privatization and undercutting sovereignty that we have too often done through structural adjustment and other methods in the developing world.

This H.R. 4103, the acceleration of AGOA, only hurts the developing world, only hurts U.S. workers. Ultimately it helps in the corporate race to the bottom, it helps add to corporate coffers, corporate profits. It does nothing for workers in Africa or in the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to myself.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my colleagues, the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps),

who is a registered nurse and who has been a leader in this body in health care, and the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Pickering). Because of their leadership, we have the opportunity to pass legislation today that can prevent disability and save lives.

I would like to commend majority counsel Cheryl Jaeger for her good work and minority counsel John Ford for his good work on this bill.

Stroke, as we know, is the third leading cause of death in this country and a major cause of severe, long-term disability. Though stroke affects all kinds of Americans, stroke death rates are substantially higher for African Americans. An effective response to stroke, therefore, is an important opportunity to address the troubling health disparities that we see in this country all too often. In all, about 700,000 Americans will have a stroke this year. That is one every 45 seconds. A stroke will kill one American every 3 minutes.

Perhaps the most disheartening fact, however, is that this suffering is largely preventable. Early detection drastically reduces the harm from stroke. The risk of paralysis and other disabilities is reduced by 30 percent if stroke victims are detected within the first 3 hours. Unfortunately, only 10 percent of stroke victims are treated in this time period in part because only one of five Americans can readily identify the symptoms of a stroke.

In a health care symptom as sophisticated as ours, as high tech as ours, this is certainly simply not acceptable. The Stroke Treatment and Ongoing Protection Act will provide the public with the information necessary to recognize early signs of stroke and drastically reduce the chance of disability or death. The bill will educate medical personnel to help them improve their diagnosis and treatment of stroke victims, and it will help States develop a network to improve stroke prevention and treatment and rehabilitation.

EMTs, doctors and nurses have helped close to 5 million people survive a stroke. A strong network of advocates led by the American Heart Association has helped millions more take the steps necessary to reduce their risk of having a stroke. The Stroke Treatment and Ongoing Prevention Act would strengthen these efforts and help us fight this debilitating and deadly disease.

I urge my colleagues to support this important bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

I would like to commend my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal), and my colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), and other Members who helped put this resolution together.

One in six American men will develop prostate cancer in their lifetimes, one in six. Only skin cancer is more prevalent in our population. Approximately 30,000 men will die from prostate cancer this year. Early detection can obviously reduce that number. In fact, early detection is crucial in raising awareness about this disease as the best way to promote regular testing.

A friend of mine in Columbus recently learned that lesson. He had a regular test, early detection, successful surgery and back to his normal active life.

This resolution says Congress can play a unique role in raising public awareness about prostate cancer. We can and we should. There have been exciting developments recently in prostate cancer prevention. A class of drugs called statins hold promise for keeping this form of cancer at bay.

Each year, I join the gentleman from New York (Mr. King), my friend, on a letter signed by many Members on both sides of the aisle urging the Committee on Appropriations to provide ample funding for prostate cancer research. That is one piece of the puzzle; public awareness is the other.

We have a ready tool in the fight against prostate cancer. That tool is information.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this resolution and continue to help get the word out.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this month the President of the United States made another trip to my State of Ohio to argue for and try to justify his economic policy.

Ohio has lost one out of six manufacturing jobs since George Bush took office. Ohio has lost almost 200 jobs every single day of the Bush administration. Yet the President's answer invariably is more tax cuts for the wealthiest people, the most privileged people in the country, hoping that it trickles down and creates jobs. His other answer is more trade agreements, like the North American Free Trade Agreement, that continue to send jobs, continuing to hemorrhage jobs out of the country.

Mr. Speaker, instead of these failed economic policies that have cost Ohio more than 200,000 jobs, we need to extend unemployment benefits, pass Crane-Rangel that actually gives benefits and rewards those companies that manufacture in the United States rather than giving tax breaks to those companies that continue to ship jobs overseas.

Mr. Speaker, a group of Members from Congress from Ohio have come to the floor regularly over the last 3 years, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones), and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland); and we have since been joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), freshman from northeastern Ohio, to discuss what Bush economic policies have done to the middle class, how they have squeezed middle-class Americans with higher gas prices, higher health care costs, stagnant wages, and especially staggering job loss. Our State of Ohio has lost, since President Bush took office, one out of six manufacturing jobs, almost 200 jobs every single day of the Bush administration.

These failed economic policies are especially putting the squeeze on America's and Ohio's middle class. Middle-class families feel the brunt of this administration's economic policies. America's middle-class families are losing ground on jobs, losing ground on health care, losing ground on education. Yet the Bush administration's answer to every single economic problem, as we saw from listening to my friends paint their very rosy picture of the condition of the U.S. economy, at least the condition for the most affluent in the U.S. economy, the answer in every case for the President for every problem that we face is more tax cuts for the wealthiest people in our country, hoping that some of those benefits trickle down to the middle class and maybe create some jobs from time to time.

That clearly has not worked with the loss of plus 2\1/2\ million jobs since President Bush took office, the first President since Herbert Hoover to have a net job loss. And the President's other answer to these economic anxieties, to these economic problems, are more trade agreements like NAFTA, like the North American Free Trade Agreement. Singapore, Chile, Morocco, Australia, and now the Central American Free Trade Agreement, and later the Free Trade Area of the Americas, all of which have hemorrhaged jobs, all of which have sent jobs overseas.

As I said, Ohio has lost almost 200 jobs every single day of the Bush administration, and now leading U.S. corporations are beginning to send not just blue collar but white collar jobs, clerical jobs, administrative jobs, technical work, computer programming, even radiology and radiologist jobs overseas as well.

Government figures confirm that the North American Free Trade Agreement, very conservatively speaking from a conservative government, that NAFTA has cost Americans more than a half million jobs. If that is not enough, the President now has signed just last week the Central America Free Trade Agreement, which will ship more jobs out of Tennessee or out of Ohio or out of any of our States to Mexico, to China, and all over the world. Roughly 830,000 U.S. service sector jobs, telemarketers, accountants, software engineers, chief technology officers will move abroad by the end of 2005, according to a report released in May by Forrester Research. Forrester Research projected that 600,000 jobs would move overseas by the end of next year; 3.4 million jobs will leave the U.S. by 2015.

So instead of fighting for trade pacts that keep jobs in the United States, the President's plan is to repeat the failures of NAFTA and to use taxpayer dollars to outsource American jobs. Get that: to use taxpayer dollars, literally to use taxpayer dollars, to outsource jobs, to send jobs overseas. This is an administration that, when begged, literally begged, by 200 of us in this Congress, would not extend unemployment benefits to those 1 million Americans, 50,000 Americans in the gentleman from Ohio's (Mr. Ryan) and my home State to allow the extension of unemployment benefits for those Americans who lost their jobs, but continue to try to look for jobs.

Instead of fighting for corporate tax reform such as Crane-Rangel, the administration remains silent on responsible bipartisan legislation, the Crane-Rangel legislation that both parties support, 85 Republican sponsors, 90 Democratic sponsors, supported by the AFL-CIO and the National Association of Manufacturers, a jobs bill that will reward companies that produce domestically. Instead, the President wants to continue to give tax breaks to the largest companies, which happen to be his largest contributors, which so often send their jobs overseas.

Responsible leadership means not just being critical of the President in what he is doing but also offering what we should do instead of these failed trickle-down economic policies and failed trade agreement policies.

Four things to start off: a moratorium on job exporting trade pacts, meaning let us look at NAFTA, let us look at China trade, let us look at CAFTA, let us look at all these trade agreements before we pass another one to decide what works, what does not work, and make the changes we need to. Second, tough action against China and other trading partners who refuse to play by the rules.

When I came to Congress a dozen years ago, we had about a 400 million, million with an ``m,'' trade deficit with China. Today we have 120 billion, with a ``b,'' 3,000 times the trade deficit that we had with China just a dozen years ago.

Third, enactment of the Crane-Rangel corporate tax reform plan, which, as I said, uses the Tax Code to reward companies that produce domestically the manufacturing in our country instead of the Bush way of giving big tax cuts to the largest corporations, most of which outsource their jobs every single day.

And, fourth, an extension of unemployment insurance to help bridge the gap until better, good-paying jobs are created and people can once again support their families.

The President's plan includes none of these provisions, in large part because large American corporations that have funded the President's campaign, who are the President's strongest allies, from which most of the President's Cabinet has come out of, all of those companies are doing very well, their stockholders and their executives are doing very well under the Bush tax plans and outsourcing plans, but their workers are not and our country is not.

And, lastly, before yielding to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) to talk about education issues and what that has done to jobs in this country, the President's health care policies are also hitting America's middle class right in the pocketbook. Prescription drug costs increased 9 percent last year, five times the rate of inflation. Yet the President's drug bill, the Medicare bill, written by the drug industry, written by the insurance industry will increase drug company profits by $140 billion over the next 10 years and has protections in the bill for the drug industry so that they can continue to charge three times, four times, five times what drugs cost everywhere else around the world.

Mr. Speaker, one more point. Because I was critical of the President's plan on prescription drugs, I want to mention what we should do to get costs under control. First of all, we should

give clear authority to our own government to negotiate on behalf of 40 million Medicare beneficiaries lower drug prices. Every other country in the world does it that way. That is why Tamoxifen, a breast cancer drug, costs the Canadians one-eighth as much as it costs Americans, simply because the Canadians use their 30 million residents as a bargaining pool to negotiate better prices from the drug companies. The U.S. Government has refused to do that in large part because the drug industry gives so many campaign dollars to too many Members of this body, especially Republican leadership and especially the President's re-election campaign.

The second thing we should do is allow the reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada so if we really do believe in NAFTA and fair trade and free trade, American wholesalers, American drug stores like Drug Mart, should be allowed to go on the international market and buy those drugs from Canada at one third and one fourth the price.

Mr. Speaker, I also would mention some things about education, but we have an expert here. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), freshman congressman, will talk for some time about jobs in Ohio and education and some of the issues that he wants to discuss.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman. We have been joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones), and also the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

I want to call on the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Jones) next, because she is in the middle of a hearing in the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership on these issues on one of the most important committees in this Congress, the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from southern and eastern Ohio, whose district runs from Youngstown all along the river down to Portsmouth, who has been fighting for better health care since he has been a Member of Congress, for lower drug prices, for working to provide access to health care for veterans, health care benefits, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, President Bush's Secretary of Commerce recently said, ``This is the best economy of my lifetime.'' Again, I wonder, I know that President Bush and his top advisers have personal wealth and do not get out much, but it is pretty amazing.

Mr. Speaker, I do not hold any ill will personally toward any of these leaders in our country whose values and positions and policies are so different from what, obviously, the four of us believe this country should pursue; but when you hear the Secretary of Commerce say, ``This is the best economy in my lifetime,'' when you hear our colleague from southwest Ohio only 45 minutes or so ago talk about how the economy is roaring back; the gentleman from Texas, one from West Virginia, one from Arizona, one from Indiana talk about the record-setting economic growth, it really does remind me of kind of what happened at the Timken Company.

The Timken Company, as all of us remember, is President Bush's favorite Ohio company. The Timken family has given both President Bush and his father literally millions of dollars and raised millions of dollars. The President went to Timken a year ago and praised the workers for a literally 10 percent increase in productivity, praised this company for all that it has done in this community, deservedly. Then several months later, only about 6 weeks ago, sent out a news release saying that they had record sales their first quarter, then the company went on to say their earnings per share were 60 percent over last year's first quarter. Then, just 2 or 3 weeks ago, Timken announced that it was closing its three plants in Canton, Ohio, laying off 1,300 workers and moving its production to China.

It really is a scenario where I believe the people in the administration just do not see what is going on out there. I mean, Mr. Cheney, the Vice President, gets $3,000 a week in pay still from Halliburton, a company which he has been connected with on and off and continues to do favors for. Most of the administration officials got hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in tax cuts. Most of the Members of this body who believe this economy is humming are not talking to workers who still have their jobs, but who see

the gas prices going up, who see their kids' college tuition going up; as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) said, in Ohio State alone, a 13 percent tuition increase just this year alone, and schools all over the country are facing that; who see their local property taxes and State taxes going up; who see their wages stagnant and with not really much chance of increases, and face the anxiety of a potential job loss, potential plant closing, potential outsourcing of their white collar job.

And of course they feel anxiety. Even when there are a few jobs being created, President Bush will still be the only President who has had that job loss during his term since Herbert Hoover. But even if the news gets a little better with a few new service jobs that pay not great, but at least pay something, the anxiety people are facing is simply not seen by the members of this administration.

I think one of the reasons their policies are so off course and that President Bush's answer to every economic problem is more tax cuts for those of his social class and his contributors, and more kinds of trade agreements that continue to shift jobs overseas and continue to reward outsourcing. I think so much of it is based on the fact that he has not really seen and really understood that these are not, the Members of Congress or the administration, these are not problems that they really see very often in their daily lives. So they conduct these policies, they formulate these policies that work for some small number of people in this country.

Profits are up for the Timken Company; the problem is they are laying off 1,300 people. So some people at Timken are doing well, the ones that the President knows, but the people who are not doing well in the community, a community which has now lost the money for their schools and to fix their roads and all of that.

Let me yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) who has seen these issues from a slightly different perspective, another Great Lakes industrial State.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Illinois. I appreciate her description of the squeeze on the middle class, because I think when any of us goes out into our

districts and talks to people, not preselected crowds that when prominent politicians, particularly the President, when he went to Youngstown to the area of the gentlemen from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and (Mr. Strickland), and spoke to a group at the community health center and they were all doctors.

Invitation only, 150 people, something like that, and they all cheered at everything he said. But when they put themselves out in front of the public and they hear these stories, they hear about someone making $22,000 a year who has just had their meager health insurance scaled back even further; who is facing increased gasoline prices; who wants to send their kid to Akron University, which had a double-digit tuition increase each of the last 2 years, I believe, on the average; who faces increased child care costs; whose wages likely will not go up, they are just hoping they can keep their job for another year or 2 before it is outsourced, or before their plants close down. And then they read these stories in the paper, they read the Secretary of Commerce say it is the best economy of my lifetime, they hear our colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about the shining city on the hill and how great the economy is, and they just wonder if they live in the same country that their leaders are presiding over and that their leaders live in.

Mr. Speaker, they want Medicare they can depend on, they want decent public education, they want affordable prescription drugs, they want a fair tax system that does not give tax breaks to the wealthy and leave them wanting for pennies, if that; they want fair treatment.

They want fair treatment.

The gentlewoman from Illinois' (Ms. Schakowsky) statement about the President when he could not think of any mistakes that he made, several of us came to the House floor and talked about that a couple of nights, and not so much to be critical of the President, but to sort of think about mistakes this administration has made, because as you learn when you are a child you cannot really learn very much until you acknowledge the mistakes you make and then you correct them.

The President still has not come forward on Iraq, on this issue we talked about, on the prescription drug bill when they said it cost $400 billion over 10 years and then it later came out it was $534 billion and they knew that but the did not tell the American public

and they threatened someone's jobs if he told the media or told the Congress.

I think if we are going to move ahead, if we are going to solve this Nation's economic problems, the President, it would be so much better if he would say, hey, this was a mistake. Ronald Reagan did that. Ronald Reagan, when he was going a certain course in driving up the budget deficit, at a couple points he made a change and he did some different things and the country was probably better off for it.

This is really the first President in our lifetimes that I think has not been able to acknowledge a mistake and change course. I do not want him to go around doing mea culpa, mea culpa, but I do want him to acknowledge a mistake and do a correct and change course. He really has failed to do that.

Again, his answer to every economic problem no matter what the situation is more tax cuts to the wealthy and trickle down economics and more trade agreements. His answer to every situation remains unchanged and he will not change the direction of failed policies. That to me, it is not personal to George Bush, but it just makes me wonder the character and the motive sometimes, but not even so much that it is the judgment of the very stubborn people in the White House that think they have the answer because it fits their ideology and they will not change that direction when it is clear their economic policies have failed. It is clear their environmental policies, their health care policies, as the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) said, a million more people are uninsured every single year in this country since President Bush took office. Clearly these policies are not working. Would they not want to change these policies and go in a different direction?

That is a mistake that neither the Pentagon or the President has acknowledged, even though we know dozens if not more men and women were killed because they did not have body armor, because the Humvees were not up-armored with the kind of protection that we know how to put on and failed to do.

No one in the administration, in the Pentagon was punished for that failure, no one was reprimanded, no one lost their job. Yet dozens of young American men and women died because of it.

So imagine if the administration when we first were in Congress, and all four of us talked about this, as members of the Committee on Armed Services, as members of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, as members who were involved in a lot of Iraq things in the beginning, every one of us came to the floor as well as at least a couple of dozen other Members of Congress and hundreds of representatives of veterans' organizations and people advocating for soldiers, for their better treatment, if the administration had said earlier when we first started talking about this, right when the war started in March and April of 2003, if they had said, we have made a mistake. We have got to do something about this today, and if we do not do something, the people who are responsible will be punished, imagine how many more lives would have been saved, how many fewer soldiers would have been injured and lost their limbs and capacities.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friends for joining me.

It is the duty of us, as we talk about the middle class ways, and it is our duty to offer what we would do positively with what we have talked about in the past with Crane-Rangel and looking at these trade agreements again and extending unemployment compensation and doing the right things and changing the economic policy into the right direction in this country.

I thank my friends, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones) for joining us.

Mr. Speaker, President Bush came to northeast Ohio, Youngstown, last week to try to defend an economic program that simply is not working in any of the Great Lakes industrial States. Ohio has lost one out of six manufacturing jobs since President Bush took office. We have lost almost 200 jobs every single day of the Bush administration.

His answer to that is more tax cuts for the rich, hoping they trickle down and create some sort of economic activity, and more trade agreements like NAFTA that continue to ship jobs overseas. Those policies are not working.

What we should be doing is extending unemployment benefits to the 50,000 Ohio workers who have lost their benefits. We should reexamine these trade agreements. We should pass the bipartisan Crane-Rangel bill which gives companies incentives to manufacture in the United States, rather than giving tax breaks to the largest companies in the country which continue to outsource and continue to ship jobs overseas. That policy is not working.

We need a new direction in Ohio and across the country.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus). I know you really want to listen to one more speech because you have not heard enough speeches since you have been here.

It is a pleasure to be here. I particularly thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) for their good work; to Wren, to all of your supervisors, your new supervisor, Joy Malleen, and to all of you especially for your public service at a very young age.

The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) says this is an almost 200- year tradition of pages working in the greatest legislative body in the world, and this is an achievement you can look back on. It is an achievement especially because if you are like Omar Halabi in my district, if you are like most people here, I think, it was not by accident you ended up here. You are obviously achievers at home. Many of you went through a competitive process to get here. You obviously have shown self-discipline; you are self-starters. You already have the kinds of values and the kind of work ethic that will get you ahead as you go off to college, and you go off in to the military and you go off into the workforce.

I have watched Omar from Brecksville, Ohio, in my district and watched some others of you and talked to you, for some of you it is a semester, for others as Omar got to re-up as they say. I have gotten to see the personal growth and the kind of growing into the whole idea of public service.

My short remarks, I will just say that I hope when you go home, I heard the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) talking about young people not registering to vote in very high numbers. I hope you will go home, those of you that are 18 now or soon will be 18 or have plenty of friends that are 18, that you make it your mission to register your friends to vote, to get involved, whichever side you want to be on in the Presidential race this year, whichever side you want to be on on any number of political campaigns at home in community service and encourage people, as President Theodore Roosevelt, my favorite Republican said, ``Get in the arena. That is where you really make a difference.''

You have already been in the arena by working in this legislative body, by serving the Congress, by serving your country. You can accelerate that and go home and build on that and really be in the arena every day, back at school, back in the workplace, in the military, at home doing what you already know how to do. You have the leadership skills. You have the interpersonal skills. I hope that you will share those skills with people all over the 50 States of this country and get into the arena and do it.

Congratulations to all of you.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the

time of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. Speaker, this week America's seniors and disabled Americans can use the new prescription drug discount card created by last year's Republican Medicare law. This card program has not exactly been met with a resounding ``yes.'' Nation-wide fewer than 500,000 seniors out of 40 million actively chose to enroll in the card.

A little surprise when seniors in Ohio and throughout the country have found it confusing, have found it overwhelming, have found it way, way too bureaucratic, and have found it unreliable.

Under traditional Medicare, all of your benefits are available through one Medicare card that looks like this. But under the new program, seniors have to choose from a whole deck of cards. This card may be a discount for Fosamax. This card may be a discount for Zoloft. This card may be a discount for Vioxx. This card may be a discount for Lipitor. This card might be a 12 percent discount. This card might be a 16 percent discount. This card might be a 19 percent discount.

But even with that confusion, Mr. Speaker, it gets worse because one card might cover your blood pressure medicine but not your heart medicine; the discounts published in the brochure you read, the 12 percent, the 14 percent, the 16 percent, the discounts you might read could be out of date by the time you get to the drug store.

In other words, under this Rube Goldberg kind of plan, you pick one of these, in Ohio, 53 cards, you pick one of these cards, you pay $30, you are stuck with that card the whole year. Yet, the card maker, the card seller can change the discount, can change the drugs that are covered anytime during that 52 weeks. Mr. Speaker, that is not Medicare. This is Medicare. It is simple. It is reliable. It is universal.

The new program is having such problems that even one of its most widely accepted provisions is having trouble signing people up. The new law provides annual subsidies of up to $600, a good idea, on drug purchases for some, unfortunately too limited, number of low-income seniors.

But even that provision did not reach its target audience. Secretary Tommy Thompson says he is somewhat concerned that low-income seniors are not signing up. A lot of us are concerned in this House that they are not signing up.

The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), and I have introduced a bill that would automatically enroll all seniors in the new low-income subsidies program.

Like Medicare itself, our proposal is simple; it is universal and reliable. Unfortunately, because it violates the Republican privatization way of doing things, they do not want to do it. So instead of actually fixing the problem by saying all seniors who are eligible get the $600 automatically, the Bush administration's going to spend another $4 million to advertise to try to encourage people to sign up. They have already spent up to $80 million to tell seniors that this program is a good idea overall. Now they want to spend another $4 million doing something that we ought to do to reach out to those seniors that need the drug benefit.

Earlier last year when the HHS auditors said the Republican bill would cost $134 billion more than the White House said, the White House suppressed the estimate and gagged the auditor. When the initial reaction from seniors was less than enthusiastic, the Bush administration announced plans to spend, as I said earlier, $80 million of our taxpayer dollars to educate seniors on why this bill is not really this bad after all. When news coverage of the program was not favorable enough, the Bush administration was undaunted. They just rolled out their own news stories, at taxpayers' expense, complete with fake anchor, phony interviewer, bogus reporter. It is not about substance; it is about image.

I think we can show that we can do better. House Republican leadership should pass the Dingell bill this week. It would begin to enroll those people who are eligible for the $600 drug benefit, those lower-income seniors. We could pass it and get it over to the other body in plenty of time to have it on President Bush's desk by next week. I would love that to happen.

The choice, Mr. Speaker, again should be do we want one Medicare card that can give good drug discounts using the 40 million beneficiaries to negotiate a 40, 50, 60 percent discount for all seniors on this one card, or do we want to issue this privatized kind of Medicare with 53 cards, with 53 different plans, sold by private insurance, too confusing, too bureaucratic, and, frankly, a benefit that is barely worth it?

Mr. Speaker, President Bush came to northeast Ohio to Youngstown last week again to try to defend his economic program and argue that it is working for Ohio.

Ohio, since President Bush took office, has lost one out of six manufacturing jobs and has lost 165,000 manufacturing jobs overall. In fact, during the Bush administration, there have been 200 jobs lost in Ohio every single day of the Bush administration.

The President's answer: more tax cuts for the wealthy, hoping some of it will trickle down to the Ohio community that is not working, and more trade agreements, like NAFTA, that continue to ship jobs overseas.

Mr. Speaker, the answer is not the failed Bush economic policies, but instead, the Crane-Rangel bill, which will give incentives to those Ohio and American companies that do their manufacturing in this country instead of giving big companies incentives to ship jobs overseas.

Mr. Speaker, today is the first day America's seniors and disabled Americans can use the new prescription drug discount cards created by last year's Republican Medicare law. The discount card program has not exactly been a smashing success. Nationwide, less than half a million seniors actually chose to enroll in the drug discount card program out of 40 million.

Little surprise, really, since seniors in my State of Ohio and throughout the country have found it confusing, have found it overwhelmingly bureaucratic, and have found it unreliable. With good reason. Under traditional Medicare, all benefits are accessible through just one card, but under this Rube-Goldberg, new Republican program, seniors have to choose literally from a whole deck of cards.

In my State, there are as many as 53 different cards available. One might cover blood pressure medicines but not heart medicine. Another might cover arthritis medicine but not diabetes medicine. Worse yet, the card costs $30, and it must be kept for a whole year, but the discounts published in the brochure given out might be out of date even before an individual gets to the drugstore.

The Republican bill lets the drug companies change coverage and discounts as often as once a week without notifying the cardholder, who, as I say, has to keep the card for 12 months. That is not Medicare. Medicare, real traditional Medicare is simple, reliable and universal, not this confusing privatized Medicare that the Republicans have foisted on the American public.

The new program is having such problems that even one of its most widely accepted provisions is having trouble signing people up. The new law provides annual subsidies of up to $600 on drug purchases for some low-income seniors. But that provision is not reaching its targeted audience. Secretary Thompson says he is somewhat concerned that low- income seniors are not signing up.

A lot of us here in the House are concerned, too; and we have offered a solution. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark), the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), and I have introduced a bill that will automatically enroll all eligible seniors in the new law's low-income subsidies program. Like Medicare itself, our proposal is simple, it is universal, and it is reliable.

But instead of actually fixing the program as they could, fixing the problem, the Bush administration has decided to spend more tax dollars on advertising. The Republican Medicare bill has always been more about image than substance. This bill written by and for the drug companies, written by and for the insurance companies, this Medicare privatization bill written by and for the HMOs has made America's seniors even more confused, and it simply is not working.

When HHS auditors said the Republican bill would cost $134 billion more than the White House said, the Bush administration suppressed the estimate and gagged the auditor. When the initial reaction from seniors was less than enthusiastic, the Bush administration announced plans to spend $80 million of taxpayer dollars to educate America's seniors on why the bill is not really as bad as seniors think it is.

When news coverage of the program was not favorable enough, the Bush administration, undaunted, spent more money on advertising. They rolled out their own news stories complete with fake anchor, phony interview and bogus reporter. It is not about substance; it is about image.

Let us do it right. The House Republican leadership should take up the Dingell bill this week which will help low-income seniors get access to the $600 benefit. They should take up the Dingell bill this week, we could pass it and get it over to the other body in plenty of time to have it on the President's desk by next week. Just once, instead of our government always coming down on the side of the drug industry and on the side of the insurance companies, some of the President's biggest contributors, instead of the government always coming down on the side of the drug companies and the insurance companies and the HMOs, Congress just this once could do the right thing.