Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I hail from the Great State of Ohio, where we have lost 300,000 jobs since George Bush has been President, 2,000 a week, 260 a day. In Youngstown, the biggest city in my district, we have an unemployment rate of 16 percent. In the city of Warren, the second largest city in my district, we have an unemployment rate of 14 percent. This President's economic policies are clearly not working in the industrial Midwest.

Now, the gentleman from Texas who was up a few moments before me was talking about all of the benefits of free trade, and he said that it increased wages in this country, he said it increased the standard of living in this country, and he said that it lowered prices for consumers in this country. I do not think we can challenge the fact that free trade has clearly lowered prices or kept prices from getting out of control and from skyrocketing. I do not know if they clearly show the level of savings. I think the savings by offshore cheap labor has been a boom for the corporations but not necessarily a boom all the way across the board for consumers.

But what I want to talk about tonight is just a few issues that I think the American people are beginning to recognize and understand.

First, on the issue of unemployment benefits.

We have human beings, we have workers who work throughout the United States of America who are running out of unemployment benefits, who are going to have nothing left, and we want to talk about the intellectual battles of free trade while United States citizens are going to fall through the cracks.

This administration's priorities have been tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts to the top 1 percent. They are a one-trick pony, this administration is and this Congress is. A one-trick pony. Tax cuts are the answers for any social ill that we have here, and it is not working.

Second, the debate between free trade and fair trade, I think, has been obscured. You are either for free trade, or you are against it, and you are for putting up protections and not agreeing to any trade whatsoever. When I talk about fair trade, I think we need to look at the issue on the whole, and we need to say to each other what the benefits of trading are and what are the downsides of free trade are.

The downsides are obvious. We are displacing workers. We have unemployment rates going through the roof. We are losing good-paying jobs for menial-wage jobs, and we are competing with a labor force that is getting paid nickels an hour, no health care benefits, no environmental relations, no OSHA, and we are asking American workers to

compete with that. We cannot even get international labor organization standards put into our free trade agreements which just say no child labor, no slave labor in these other countries. We cannot even get those into the agreements we sign.

We are not asking for everything. We are asking for basic human rights in the trade agreements that we sign.

When a lot of us talk about fair trade in this country, at least, at the minimum, have a social safety net that addresses unemployment benefits, that addresses health care insurance for people. How much anxiety would be relieved if you did lose your job if you knew you were going to have health care provided for you and your family.

Every time free trade agreements have come before this House and before this country, the commitment was always made that we had to invest in education. Meanwhile, in Ohio, the No Child Left Behind provisions are underfunded by $1.5 billion, with a ``B'', a year. That is $1.5 billion. So if we want to grab the last 25 percent of the kids and pull them across the finish line, which is what No Child Left Behind is supposed to do, and we are going to have all these Federal mandates, the Federal government must make a decision. Are we going to give tax cuts to the top 1 percent or are we going to invest that money in the No Child Left Behind so that every single child in this country will have an opportunity to compete on an already uneven playing field in the global economy?

Investments in research and development through the Veterans Administration are being cut. The facts are that we have told our kids that they must make investments in themselves and in their education through going to college, and yet we see the Pell Grant not keeping up with inflation and we see children not having the opportunity to live and work in a country where there is a reasonable wage and an opportunity for upward mobility.

We are trying to argue comparative advantage, a doctrine that was established in the early 1800s. We need to change our policy. I never thought that we would be asking for Newt Gingrich to come back and bring some reasonableness to this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.

Obesity will soon take over smoking as the number one cause of death in America; and in 2020, one of every five health care dollars will be spent fighting obesity. This is a good bill, but we can do much more.

We teach our kids in our schools to eat healthy, but then we have vending machines full of junk food all over the schools. And I think one of the issues we need to address is to give the Secretary of the Agriculture the ability to regulate food in the food service areas and outside.

If we tell our kids that they have to eat at a certain standard, a certain level in the food service area, we should also be able to regulate that outside. We feed our kids, basically, garbage.

We wonder why they misbehave in class and we wonder why they cannot sit still, and then we put them on Ritalin to get them back under control.

This is a fiscally responsible way to go about it. It will save us money in the long run. It will save our health care system money, and quite frankly, our kids deserve better. We cannot be sending them mixed signals saying, Eat well, but only during lunchtime, and after lunchtime they can drink as much Coke and eat as much junk food as they possibly want.

Mr. Speaker, ``This economy of ours is strengthening, and that's positive,'' is what President Bush has said.

``Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade, and that is a good thing.''

The President says the economy is strengthening, that we are creating the jobs. This is the newspaper headline today from the Youngstown Vindicator. In the City of Youngstown Ohio, the unemployment rate is 16.6 percent. In the City of Warren, the unemployment rate is 14 percent.

This President's economic policies are not working, yet we get rhetoric from this President. The economy is actually getting worse, not better, it is not strengthening, it is struggling.

Just yesterday, we had a field hearing for the No Child Left Behind funding issue. A recent study came out and said the State of Ohio needs an additional $1.5 billion a year in order to get every single child in our State across the finish line and proficient in all the needed areas; $1.5 billion a year to do this.

The President goes on about tax cuts and how these tax cuts are stimulating the economy, which they are not. He is cutting necessary funds for education, Pell Grants, public health, worker retraining, all of the areas that we need funded in order for us to move our economy forward and make the proper investments. Instead of economic politics, we get election year politics.

One of the issues one finds mind-boggling, quite frankly, in a recent article that says ``Bush all hat and no cattle when it comes to small business,'' this President has told us that he is for small business and that these tax cuts are going to help small business. We already talked about how that is not true.

I want to share with the American people some of the cuts that this administration is making in small business assistance. The President's budget entirely eliminates the Micro Loan Program funded within the SBA; reduces government guarantees from 75 percent to 50 percent on the SBA 7(a) loan program; reduces funding for Small Business Development Centers; and slashes the Manufacturing Extension Partnership from $106 million to a paltry $39 million.

Where is this manufacturing czar that we have been promised from Labor Day? I have shared that before. On Labor Day, the President of the United States came to the State of Ohio, and he goes to Richfield, Ohio, one of the wealthiest suburbs in the State. He passes up Cleveland, he passes up Youngstown, he passes up Akron, Steubenville, Toledo, Lima, all the areas that have suffered a complete erosion of manufacturing jobs, where the unemployment rate is 14 to 17 percent.

We are getting no money or very little money for our No Child Left Behind program. And all these investments the President said he wants to make, we are getting a bunch of hot air from this administration.

Quite frankly, something needs to be done, because we get the rhetoric that says his economic policies are working. We are trying to get talked into an economic recovery that is jobless.

All you have to do, Mr. President, is come to Youngstown, Ohio and you will find out your economic policies are not working.

Mr. Speaker, when President Bush campaigned for his election in 2000, he was very persuasive, and he is a very persuasive President, and he persuaded the American people that he was a compassionate conservative and most of us thought he would be. Then he used his persuasion techniques to convince the American people that Saddam Hussein, a bum dictator in the Middle East who was busy writing novels, not worried about weapons of mass destruction, was an imminent threat to the United States of America.

But today, Mr. Speaker, the President is trying to use his persuasion techniques on an issue that will be very difficult. President Bush is now saying that outsourcing United States jobs is good for the United States of America. This takes the cake. Many of these articles have been cited here tonight: L.A. Times, ``Bush Supports Shift in Jobs Overseas''; Seattle Times, ``Sending Jobs Overseas Helps the United States''; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1 hour from my district in Youngstown, Ohio, ``Bush Economic Report Praises Outsourcing Jobs''; Orlando Sentinel, ``Bush Says Sending Jobs Abroad Can Be Beneficial.''

Mr. Speaker, give me a break. This President said in his State of the Union address, ``Much of our job growth will be found in high-skilled fields like health care.'' President Bush's economic adviser said, ``We will outsource jobs to lower-wage countries as a way to help control the upward spiral of health care costs in the United States of America.''

How can we believe for one second that losing United States jobs, losing high-wage, high-paying manufacturing jobs, medical jobs, science jobs in the United States of America is somehow good for this country?

Mr. Speaker, I ask the President to please be straight with the American people. In Ohio, we have an unemployment rate of almost 6 percent; 264,000 jobs have been lost in the State of Ohio. On Labor Day, the President came to Ohio. He passed up Youngstown and he passed up Toledo and he passed up Steubenville and Akron, and he passed up Lima, and he went to Richfield, one of the wealthiest suburbs in Ohio for Labor Day. He passed up all of the cities that have seen manufacturing erode and all of the manufacturing jobs shipped overseas, and now he is trying to convince us that losing all of these jobs is good.

Mr. President, look in the eyes, as I have to do every weekend when I go home, and as many Members of Congress have to do when they go home, look in the eyes of these workers and tell them that their losing their job is somehow good for the United States, them losing their job is somehow patriotic.

When we talked about all of these free trade agreements, and I remember hearing it during NAFTA and the debates during the 1990s, and now the President wants to pass the Central American Free Trade Agreement all the way down to South America, the promise always was that we were going to invest money into education, we were going to invest into the American people. As we have to compete globally, we have to invest. And now we have a President who has done nothing on Pell grants, nothing on No Child Left Behind, underfunded by billions of dollars, putting more regulations on our young people and our teachers, school boards and superintendents, not making the proper investment. Mr. President, be straight with the American people.

We cannot believe, and we will not believe, and I look forward to the President and this administration trying to convince the American people that losing jobs in the United States of America is good. This is going to be a great election year where we have one candidate saying that outsourcing of United States jobs is a good thing, and another candidate that is saying outsourcing of American jobs is a bad thing.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to make a big claim here tonight. I am going to say that I believe the American people will side with the candidate that says keeping jobs here in the United States is what is best for America.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, in a moment of full disclosure I am a Catholic. I am a Christian. And I have heard the name of Christ used here several times today. And if we look at one of the stories that one of the gentlemen used a little bit earlier, he talked about the story and the parable of the good Samaritan.

The Samaritans were an immigrant group who had distinct views that were

different from the Jews of their time. And there was enormous hatred between the Samaritans and the Jews. And Jesus' parable of the Samaritan was to illustrate, he made the Samaritan a hero to reach out and help a Jew, two groups that hated each other.

As we are having this discussion today, we should not try to twist the story. We should understand that this is about people wanting to help each other. I am a bit confused, though. I had listened to one gentleman who said this money could not be used to proselytize. Then the chairman of the committee said that some of the mission statements of these groups is to minister the good news of Christianity, which is great. We all support it. The Catholic schools I went to for 12 years supported that, but they did it with private money. You cannot use public money to support a religious institution. It is wrong, and it should not be allowed.

My great grandfather who was a little Italian guy, who lived in Niles, Ohio, during the Depression, he would walk down to the bottom of this hill during the Depression, and he would walk to a couple of the steel mills. If you would go out early enough, one of the foremen would come out, and they would say they have three or four slots, and there would be 80 or 90 people there waiting to see if they would get picked that day. But the foremen were all Irish.

So they would come out and my little grandfather was sitting there hoping that his name would be called. And the Irish foreman would pick the Irishmen, always, every day. And my grandfather would probably swear in Italian and work his way back up the hill and try it again the next day. But as wrong as that was, it was okay because it was private money. It was a private business making this decision.

Now we are saying that a Protestant taxpayer will give money to the Federal Government, the Federal Government will get that money and will give it to Catholic charities. Catholic charities will take that Federal tax money that was paid by a Protestant to the Federal Government, and they will hire people to administer their programs. Then the Catholic charities will be able to say we will not hire you because of one reason: you are Protestant.

Look at all these religions. They all share the same values, they are all supportive, and they all want people to be compassionate to one another. They all support social justice, but in this instance your values do not matter. It is what God you pray to or how you view Christianity. It is wrong, and it is confusing. And I do not think the Federal Government should be in this line of work.

The chairman of the committee also stated that you will be able to use this money and they will be able to work a part of the day doing one thing and then a part of the day possibly teaching Sunday school. What could they teach in Sunday school? They are not teaching the theory of relativity. They are teaching religion. You have Federal dollars going to support someone to teach Sunday school religion in the United States of America. We are in Iraq right now trying to teach our values and the separation of church and state. It is wrong, and it should not happen.

And the bottom line is this is a political institution. And this political institution will make political decisions. And money will end up in religious groups that look like us and act like us and have only our beliefs. Not our values, but our beliefs. Then, ladies and gentlemen, we have state-sponsored religion right here in the United States of America.

It is a blow to the Constitution, it is a blow to democracy, and it is a blow to those of us who love freedom, especially religious freedom.

Mr. Speaker, I have noticed as I sat here tonight and throughout this debate some contradictions in the arguments from the other side which has not been unusual in my short time here. We hear a lot about privatization. We hear a lot about how the free markets need to work. But I am a little confused when we want to free- trade pharmaceuticals. The same day we were sitting here passing free trade agreements with Singapore and Chile, we refused to free trade pharmaceuticals with Canada, to lower the prices here. The same day. Actually, it was early into the next morning. I am wondering where all the capitalists and free traders were for that vote. Now, we have pharmacy benefit managers who for the private insurance companies will be allowed to negotiate down the drug prices. But we are tying the hands of the Secretary of Health and Human Services and explicitly say he is not allowed to negotiate lower drug prices.

These are complete contradictions in the argument. We hear about smaller government and free trade is great and we need the private markets to work, we need to be able to allow the free markets to work, and they are not working because they are not allowed to work if somehow they are going to improve this program and allow the government to be able to run a program that will benefit all of the seniors who will be eligible. People think they are going to wake up and get a Christmas gift this year, and they are going to find out in the end they are going to get coal in their stockings.

Mr. Speaker, the tax cut that went to the top 1 percent, we withstood that. The trade deals that send our jobs to Mexico, the loss of manufacturing jobs, we have talked about that. The vetoing or threatening of vetoing the Buy American legislation for the defense appropriations bill, we have thought that took the cake, but now the administration took out the antiprofiteering provision for the $87 billion supplemental. Give me a break.

It is obvious now to the American people that this administration and this Congress is bought and paid for by the top 1 percent of the people in this country. They get all the money they want for the deals in Iraq. They get their tax breaks back. They donate it to the President and they get the legislation they want.

It is time for the American people to stand up and pay attention to what is going on and take the country back.

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to join several of my colleagues who have already spoken tonight, including the gentleman from the great State of Ohio (Mr. Strickland), and join him in talking about the plight of veterans in our country.

As Veterans Day is coming up next week, I thought it would be an opportune time to talk for a few minutes about what is going on in this country with our veterans.

We have Veterans Day, but really every day should be Veterans Day, but we designate a specific day as we do Christmas and birthdays to remind us as we go throughout the year that we have to continue the fight for our veterans. Unfortunately, the servicemen and women and veterans today are fighting on two fronts. They are fighting on the front in the Middle East and, unfortunately, they are fighting on the front back at home.

Back at home the veterans are not having too much success, and I would like to use one example of concurrent receipt. And for those people watching tonight who do not know what concurrent receipt is, it is basically a disabled veterans tax. If a disabled veteran gets a retirement from the military, not the disability benefits but a retirement pay check, the Federal Government will deduct from your disability benefits and you will only receive your military retirement. Some vets are losing 18, 20, $25,000. You steal the benefits from their retirement, and you supposedly substitute that from what they should be receiving for their disability. So these are people who got hurt, who have earned in many ways the benefits that they are getting, but now they are not receiving them.

So someone came up with a plan. And what they are going to do is they are going to phase out this disabled veterans tax over the next 10 years. So someone who fought in World War II, in the 1940s and may be 80, 81 years old today, this plan says that you will not get your full disability for 10 years. So we are asking veterans who are 81 years old, actually, we are telling them, that they will not be able to receive their benefits until they are 91 years old. Talk about an outrage. Talk about an outrage.

The American Legion National Commander said, It is a matter of priorities in Washington, D.C. Four hundred thirty five thousand military retirees altogether, 135,000 disabled retirees will not qualify for full relief until 2014. Good luck.

In Ohio, my home State, full concurrent receipt would benefit if they did it right. If we paid the bill, if we paid these disabled veterans what we owe them, it would benefit 9,617 disabled vets.

Under the Republican plan, only 2,249 will be receiving the benefits, which leaves 7,368 disabled vets in the great State of Ohio left out in the cold.

Now, as the American Legion Commander said, Washington, D.C. is about

priorities. There is a lot of money down here to do different things, and it is about priorities. So I think it is all together appropriate to talk about what the priorities of this administration and the priorities of this Congress are.

Corporate tax rates are the lowest they have been since the 1930s. If you are a corporation today in America, you are getting just about everything you want. We have enough money down here for a tax cut for the top 1 percent. The top 400 families in this country get an average tax return of $8,500,000.

We have passed free trade agreements that have eroded our manufacturing base. We have a farm bill that has more pork in it than a Christmas ham. We threaten vetoes of Buy American provisions, Buy American provisions in the Defense appropriations bill. This administration has threatened to veto the bill if it has Buy American provisions in it. We have enough money to rebuild Iraq's schools and hospitals and universal health care; and then what takes the cake is they have enough time and energy to remove the anti-profiteering provision of the Iraq supplemental. It is time for people in this country to be outraged. If we cannot take care of our veterans, who can we take care of?

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pride to honor the words of Daniel Colvin, a gifted poet from Youngstown, Ohio whom I am proud to claim as my constituent. Daniel is doing his part, by means of meter and rhyme, to advance the noblest goal for which we all strive-- peace in our time.

Daniel is a freshman at Kent State University, majoring in architecture and plans to incorporate writing into his future--a future which is no doubt bright. His poem, Armed with a Conscience, was inspired by the attack on September 11, and the subsequent War on Terrorism. Mr. Colvin has expressed hope that his poem ``will strike the consciences of all of mankind and help lead us to a world of peace.''

I am pleased and proud to share with my colleagues and the Nation, Armed With a Conscience, by Daniel Colvin:

I wake up in a pool of cold sweat

My heart drumming in my throat

My eyes were wide from the fear of a threat

Such fear that I cannot emote.

The dream that I had was unbearably sad

It hurts to even think about it

A nightmare so real, you could never have had

Well, you could have; but I doubt it.

I was in the army being all I could be

Being trained by the best in the field

They had taught me all that a soldier should be

How to kill without being killed.

I, the quick learner that I had always been

Had gone through the training with ease

I had always fit in with the strongest of men

But found nothing in common with these.

Some of them crazy, and some without care

Some who had dreamed to be soldiers

Some loyal to their country, and some of them scared

Some just had chips on their shoulders.

I was the strong silent type, I guess

I had always been social before

But trust me, you'll laugh and talk a lot less

When you're 18 and drafted to war.

I had been taught not to murder a soul

But in war, what else could I do?

I remembered how world peace had been my goal

But in battle, I would have to fight too.

So across the cold, muddy battlefield I crawled

Armed with my rifle in hand

I saw hatred and death and I was appalled

All this over money or land.

Dead bodies and body parts scattered on the ground

My gun still fully loaded

Explosions and shouting consumed sight and sound

Everything near me exploded.

I got up and ran to hide in the brush

But a foreign soldier was there

He had been hiding and trying to hush

So I caught him a bit unaware.

Still he had time to cock up his gun

I would have killed him, but couldn't

I had time to take off and run

I would have ran, but I wouldn't.

Instead, we stood aiming at each others' hearts

To me, it was nothing but nonsense

Staring in his eyes, I could tell he had smarts

But he also had a conscience.

In that moment, I knew that he was like me

He did not truly want to kill

Even the way he squeezed his gun tightly

Said that he was there against his own will.

So what do you do on the battle field

When you cross a man like yourself?

You don't want to kill, but you cannot yield

Nor ask anybody for help.

Shaking like crazy, we both started to sweat

My heart dropped; his skipped beats

Staring and letting our eyes make the threat

When inside we were fearing defeat.

I wanted to end the suspense and forget it

I started to pull the trigger

Then my conscience said, ``You're gonna regret it

Your purpose in life is much bigger.''

I let go of my gun, but before it fell

I felt lead pierce through my chest

The other man's conscience hadn't worked so well

So he did what he thought was best.

I fell backward all the way to the ground

Smacking the back of my head

My fellow soldier came and shot the man down

And the last thing I saw was him dead.

So that's why I woke up in such a fright

Fearing the thought of war

I was thinking of the man in my dream last night

And grew sadder than ever before.

The sad part is not the fact that he shot me

That's not it, it really isn't

But since his conscience didn't teach him what mine taught me

I woke up and he didn't.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the extraordinary contribution of John Logue, Ph.D, a constituent of mine from Kent, Ohio and one of this year's Ford Foundation honorees. Every year the Ford Foundation bestows the Leadership for a Changing World Award on a handful of citizens working to bring positive social change to their communities and beyond. Dr. Logue goes above and beyond this requirement.

In founding the Ohio Employee Ownership Center, he has led more than 60 firms to employee ownership. After studying cooperative corporations abroad, Dr. Logue was inspired by the idea that just as with governments, democratic companies outperform autocracies. His involvement with the Ecumenical Coalition to protect the steel industry in Youngstown, Ohio inspired him to start the OEOC in 1987.

With the help of his staff, Dr. Logue provides over 4,000 hours of leadership training each year and has helped 483 companies explore the possibility of employee ownership. In essence, the OEOC has helped create more than 12,825 new business owners who have built approximately a half-billion dollars in assets. During a time when factories are closing and thousands of Ohioans are without jobs, employee owned companies have remained strong--not one in Ohio has moved to a lower-wage state or country.

A distinguished professor of comparative politics at Kent State University and a widely recognized authority on Scandinavian Government, John Logue has demonstrated the level of ingenuity and leadership critical to our country in such trying economic times. I congratulate Dr. Logue on this award and his ongoing commitment to improving business and employment opportunities for all of Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, we lost another one. WCI Steel, Incorporated, in Warren, Ohio, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy just yesterday, one of the last major steel mills in the old ``steel valley'' that ran through Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. 1,740 workers are just going to hope they get a paycheck on Thursday. They have been bleeding cash for the last 3 years. Losses in 10 of its last 11 quarters produced $163.6 million in red ink.

The ultimate irony, this happened just a few days within the anniversary of 1977 when the closing of Youngstown Sheet and Tube's Campbell Works that wiped out nearly 5,000 jobs in one day.

This has been going on since 1977. It is time for this country to adopt a manufacturing policy that is going to start creating jobs back in the good old U.S. of A, not tax cuts for the top 1 percent but targeted tax cuts to allow investment here in the United States of America.

It is not going to happen with smoke and mirrors. It is not going to happen with the press conference. We are getting our clock cleaned by China, and it is time the United States wakes up just before it is too late.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a privileged motion.

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

Today I am offering a motion to instruct conferees on the child tax credit. I thank all Members of Congress, especially the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), for initially offering her leadership on this motion.

Mr. Speaker, the tax bill that was passed by Congress neglected 12 million children in America's low-income working families by cutting them out of the child tax credit plan.

My motion to instruct does a few things. It instructs the conferees to agree to the Senate language that provides for tax credit checks to be mailed immediately to low-income families. It also provides that the tax credit be extended to personnel in combat zones in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere; and the conferees could easily accomplish these changes and bring up a final bill within 2 days which is what the motion calls for.

In Ohio, the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight states that over 25,000 working families were cut out of this provision. These are families who work hard. They do pay taxes. Unlike what many Members have said during the debate in the last few months, these individuals may not pay income tax, but they pay property tax, sales tax, they pay user fees, they pay tolls to get on the roads; and so they do contribute to the economy. They do pay taxes.

I was having an interesting conversation with a Republican friend who was listening to this debate happen because this is not the first time we have had this debate in the Chamber, and he said they do not pay taxes. I said they do pay taxes. They pay sales tax and property tax. He said give them a rebate on their property tax. My question to him is what is the difference?

Mr. Speaker, these people need help, and we have not done enough for them in this Chamber. We have an opportunity with this bill to make and have real impact on low-income families.

One last example that this bill, this motion, would help those military families that we talk so much about. One example that we have, an E-5 or E-6 sergeant, 6 years of service, two children, making $29,000 a year. If he does not serve in combat, both of his children qualify for the credit. They get the thousand-dollar credit. If he is in combat for 6 months, his or her credit drops to $450. I do not think there is a

person in this Chamber who would say we are doing enough to help our military personnel in combat.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple points that I would like to make in addition to thanking the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) for his comments and his leadership on this particular bill.

The child tax credit of which we are talking about adding on to, the additional funding that it would take only accounts for 1 percent of the final bill that we passed, 1 percent out of a $350 billion bill. This would have been $3.5 billion. And when you take a step back and you look at the overall picture, you will see that this type of investment of only 1 percent of the entire bill would have much more value to the economy, would put more back per person that would receive the money than the money that we were giving in the same amount, actually much, much more, to the top 1 or 2 percent.

These people are actually going to go out and spend the money. They are going to go out to the store, as Mr. Strickland stated, and they are going to spend it because they do not have a lot. But if you give $93,000 back to someone who makes a million dollars, they are not going to buy anything new that they do not already have.

So I think it is important when we talk about this also to talk about the portion that is an economic stimulus part of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time and the right to close.

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

I would like to say we will be asking for your help and your support to encourage the leaders in the United States Senate to also help us with this particular provision. I think it is a good piece of legislation. I think there are thousands and thousands and thousands of young kids throughout the United States of America today, Mr. Speaker, who this would benefit.

It would be a direct impact into our economy. We still need a boost. There are still not jobs being created. It is still a jobless recovery. And this is an opportunity for all the campaign speeches about being compassionate. I cannot think of a better opportunity for the President of the United States to use his power, for the leaders in this Congress to use their power, for the leaders in the other body to use their power to make sure that this motion passes and that we inject some more money back into the economy and start giving it to people who will go out and spend it.

I believe there is a real slant in the policies that are coming out of not only this Chamber, but the other Chamber, and also coming out of the administration.

One example that I would like to use, not necessarily affecting this particular piece of legislation, but one similar, the earned income tax credit. One, the audits of working poor in 2001

from the IRS increased by 48.6 percent. Those applying for the earned income tax credit had a 1 in 47 chance of getting audited. Those making more than $100,000 a year had a 1 in 208 chance of getting audited. I think this is indicative and illustrates the point that the policies we are getting out of this Chamber and out of this Congress and from the President are clearly slanted towards the top 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 percent and against those people who are working poor or living in poverty.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, subject to rule XXII clause 7(c), I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on H.R. 1308, the Child Tax Credit bill. The form of the motion is as follows:

Mr. Speaker, I move that the managers on the part of the

House in the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two

Houses on the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R.

1308 be instructed as follows:

1. The House conferees shall be instructed to include in

the conference report the provision of the Senate amendment

(not included in the House amendment) that provides immediate

payments to taxpayers receiving an additional credit by

reason of the bill in the same manner as other taxpayers were

entitled to immediate payments under the Jobs and Growth Tax

Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003.

2. The House conferees shall be instructed to include in

the conference report the provision of the Senate amendment

(not included in the House amendment) that provides families

of military personnel serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other

combat zones a child credit based on the earnings of the

individuals serving in the combat zone.

3. The House conferees shall be instructed to include in

the conference report all of the other provisions of the

Senate amendment and shall not report back a conference

report that includes additional tax benefits not offset by

other provisions.

4. To the maximum extent possible within the scope of

conference, the House conferees shall be instructed to

include in the conference report other tax benefits for

military personnel and the families of the astronauts who

died in the Columbia disaster.

5. The House conferees shall, as soon as practicable after

the adoption of this motion, meet in open session with the

Senate conferees and the House conferees shall file a

conference report consistent with the preceding provisions of

this instruction, not later than the second legislative day

after adoption of this motion.

Mr. Speaker, I would just take 1 minute here to make a few comments. I cannot believe that in the United States Congress we have done all we could possibly do for the working poor in this country. Shut out the lights, close the doors, we have done all we can because we have given a tax cut. I think it is nonsense.

Two quick points. One, the gentleman from Arizona has brought up about the earned income tax credit. A great program, no doubt about it. This is the same program that has a better chance of getting audited if you apply for that program by the IRS than if you make $1 million a year. This government is slanted against the poor and for the rich. Those are the stubborn facts that make it very difficult.

The second part is I have only been here 9 months. There is one thing I have learned. If you do not have a lobby, if you cannot raise millions of dollars for the majority party, your agenda does not make it to this floor. If you are the pharmaceutical companies, if you are the insurance companies, your agenda is here. If you are the working poor, you get forgotten, you have got enough, we have done all we can do. If you do not live in a gated community, you have been ignored by this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of hundreds of thousands of steelworkers, not only in the great State of Ohio, but across this country, many from my district. These times for the steelworkers have been made even worse by an administration that has really stacked the deck against them. We have suffered the worst job loss record since the Great Depression. Nine million Americans are unable to find a job, 3 million have lost their jobs since President Bush has taken office, and 195,000 of those live in the great State of Ohio.

In particular, the steelworkers, many men and women across the industrial Midwest who have given their lives, in many instances their limbs, to feed their families and make sure their kids can have a better life than they had. Twenty-six steel companies have gone bankrupt.

I found it very interesting the other day that the President of the United States made his way into Ohio in an election year to talk about manufacturing, and he made his way through the gated communities of the State of Ohio. As his motorcade rode through, he landed in Richfield, Ohio, one of the wealthiest suburbs in the State, to talk about the decline in manufacturing. He did not go to Youngstown, he did not go to Cleveland, he did not go to Toledo, he did not go to Mansfield. He went to the suburbs.

It is time we have a manufacturing policy in this country again. We sign trade agreements that continue to send our jobs, once to Mexico, and now they are leaving Mexico and they are going to China.

One quick story. Before the break, at the end of July, we passed two trade agreements, two new ones, two new NAFTAs, one with Chile, one with Singapore. We want to export more. No labor standards, no environmental standards.

We had many Members of this Chamber come before us and indicate how great these free trade agreements are, how they were going to make America stronger, that we have free trade, we have this free exchange of goods, it is great for everybody, it lowers the price for the consumers.

Later that night, early into the next morning, we tried to pass a drug reimportation bill. We basically wanted to free-trade pharmaceuticals to drive

the price down. The same people who were advocating the free trade of textiles and cars and steel and everything else were the same people that were saying we cannot be free-trading pharmaceuticals.

The only direct link for that position is where are you getting your campaign contributions. If you are for free trade of textiles, you can raise a lot of money. If you are for protectionism for pharmaceuticals, you can raise a lot of money.

Which brings us to the issue of health care. There are 41 million uninsured in this country. Eighty-two percent of the 41 million are from working families, industrial unions, people who go to work and work hard every day. And on every contract that they try to negotiate is the issue of health care costs, premiums, copays, prescription drugs going up by 15 percent, skyrocketing. Premiums increased by 12.7 percent in 2002 compared with 0.8 percent in 1996.

Mr. Speaker, we are not going to win this battle with money. It is going to take us uniting together, like we did in the past century, voter by voter by voter, if we want a policy in this country that advocates for the poor, that advocates for the middle class and that tells the pharmaceutical companies that have been the most profitable industry in this country in the last 10 years, that you cannot get money from the government to begin your research and development, public money, and then stick it to the consumer on the back end with inflated drug prices.

We need the unions of this country, the steelworkers of this country to unite again in an energized effort to take this country back so it is not who has the money gets the proper legislation; it ends up with who got the votes gets what this country not only needs, but really deserves.