Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I again join the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) in urging Congress to authorize the U.S. to endorse and obtain observer status for Taiwan at the annual summit of the World Health Assembly, the meeting of the World Health Organization, set for next month, May of 2004, in Geneva. I would like to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Wexler) and especially the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) for their hard work and dedication to world public health. H.R. 4019 is another important step in fulfilling the commitment that we in this country made in the 1994 Taiwan policy review to more actively support Taiwan's membership in organizations such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization. We should continue to support Taiwan in international bodies. We should continue to advocate for Taiwan to be represented in the WHO. There are more reasons today to support this bill than there were last year even. Those reasons are SARS and the avian flu outbreaks. How much more limited would the effect of SARS worldwide have been if Taiwan's government had been fully engaged in the work of the World Health Organization? How much more quickly would the disaster have been contained if China had not covered up the outbreak and Taiwan could have stepped forward? Excluding the people of Taiwan from the WHO violates the basic premise of the WHO to enjoy the attainment of the highest standard of health ``is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.'' Last year the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS, caused 73 people in Taiwan to die. This year, avian influenza has reemerged in Asia, has been reported in China and Cambodia, Indonesia and Japan, Laos, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. SARS and the avian influenza continue to threaten Taiwan. The case has never been stronger for allowing the people of Taiwan access to the WHO. As globalization quickens, and as the spread of infectious disease accelerates, it is crucial that the people of Taiwan be given the opportunity to participate in international health organizations such as WHO. This bill authorizes Secretary of State Powell to endorse and help obtain observer status for Taiwan at the week-long health summit of the WHA, and authorizes the State Department to introduce a resolution on the floor of the WHA in support of Taiwan's participation in the organization. The bill directs the State Department to submit a plan to Congress on how to accomplish this objective. Taiwan has eradicated smallpox, cholera, polio, and achieved infant mortality rates on a par with Western, wealthy nations. These accomplishments warrant an invitation to participate in international policy health discussions, to sit at the table with scientists and physicians and other public health experts in all these countries. With a population of 23 million people, Taiwan is larger than 75 percent of the countries which actually belong to the WHO. Taiwan is prepared to contribute meaningfully to the global health efforts discussed at the WHA, but without observer status, its delegates cannot even enter the room. This bill would prevent the international community from missing out on the insight and experience Taiwanese health officials can offer. This bill is good for the 23 million people in Taiwan, and it is also good for the rest of the world because of the expertise that Taiwanese health officials bring to the table. I urge my colleagues to support access to the WHO for the 23 million people of democratic Taiwan and support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, the numbers are out again. Ohio and most of the rest of the country continue to lose manufacturing jobs. One out of six manufacturing jobs in my State has disappeared since President Bush took office. The President's solution and the solution for our government continue to be the same: more tax cuts and trickle- down economics tax cuts for the most privileged in our country with the hope that maybe some will trickle down and create jobs. That has not worked, or more trade agreements like NAFTA which ship jobs overseas, which does not work. The President refuses to extend unemployment compensation benefits to millions of Americans, literally over a million Americans who have had their unemployment benefits run out in the last 4 months; and the President refuses to extend those. Madam Speaker, we should extend unemployment benefits, we should pass employment agreements that create jobs, and instead of tax cuts for the wealthy, we should do focused tax cuts that reward those manufacturers that create jobs in this country.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues in recognizing the week of April 19 as National Primary Immune Deficiency Diseases Awareness Week. Primary immune deficiency diseases (PIDD) are genetic disorders in which part of the body's immune system is missing or does not function properly. The World Health Organization recognizes more than 150 primary immune diseases, which affect as many as 50,000 people in the United States. Fortunately, 70 percent of PIDD patients are able to maintain their health through regular infusions of a plasma product know as intravenuous immunoglobulin. IGIV helps bolster the immune system and provides critical protection against infection and disease. I am familiar with primary immune deficiencies because a family in my district, the Gargaszs, have a son Dylan who has a primary immune deficiency disease. Dylan was born looking healthy, but by his first month checkup he had a raging ear infection, followed by chronic infections throughout his first year of life. Additionally, Dylan was failing to thrive and grow like a normal child. Dylan spent at least one day a week in the doctor's office, and was hospitalized with pneumonia five times by 18 months old. Finally, at 18 months, Dylan's mother took him to Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, where an immunologist finally diagnosed him with a primary immune deficiency disease. Dylan started his IGIV therapy once a week, and now at 6 years old, is doing relatively well. His younger brother and mother are now being tested to see if they have a primary immune deficiency disease. Dylan is not unique with the difficulty and delay in diagnosis of his primary immune deficiency disease. Despite the recent progress in PIDD research, the average length of time between the onset of symptoms in a patient and a definitive diagnosis of PIDD is over 9 years. In the interim, those afflicted may suffer repeated and serious infections and possibly irreversible damage to internal organs. That is why it is critical that we raise awareness about these illnesses in the general public and the health care community. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Immune Deficiency Foundation for its leadership in this area and I am pleased to join them in recognizing the week of April 19 as National Primary Immune Deficiency Diseases Awareness Week. I encourage my colleagues to work with us to help improve the quality of life for PIDD patients and their families.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, a week ago this evening right around this time, President Bush held his third news conference in 3 years during prime time for the American people to examine his record and for them to watch the President answer for some of his policies, good and bad. The President, if you recall watching that news conference, was asked by a reporter if he would outline what his largest mistake or one of his biggest mistakes was as President. And the President literally could not think of a mistake that he had made. Well, tonight the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), and I are going to help the President a little bit, not to make the President look bad, that is not really our mission, but to help the President help the Nation understand what some of those mistakes are by pointing them out, perhaps forcing the President to think a little more about them, because I do not think he has given a lot of thought to his mistakes and some of the wrong directions and wrong courses that he has taken the country and ultimately to learn from those mistakes and then to correct those mistakes. I was speaking with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) a moment ago. He said when he was a child he was taught over and over, and probably everybody in this Chamber has been taught, that one of the first things you do is you learn from your mistakes. But obviously you need to recognize those mistakes. This chart here tonight just gives an idea of some of the issues that the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) and I and others this week will discuss about some of the President's mistakes with weapons of mass destruction, with Medicare, and veterans, tax cuts with small business, with manufacturing, with Head Start, the energy bill, flip-flopping on a whole host of issues, the environment, and many others that we will get to later. But I want to talk tonight about the President's inattention to manufacturing and to the economy. And to me, I do not think there is a person watching when the President kind of stood back almost in shock and said I just cannot think of any mistakes. I just cannot think of any mistakes. I think almost every American thought about our economy, how there are schools in decline, in part because of Federal inaction and Federal wrong action, about the environment, about the job situation, about their communities. And tonight I want to point out that the President's largest mistake on the economy may have been embodied in this economic report of the President, something that the President's chief economic advisor put out not too long ago signed by the President on page 4. In this economic report, the President and his chief economic adviser kind of trumpet their success in the economy. They say we predicted 2.6 million jobs would be created this year, even though they have already lost 3 million jobs. Then the President's chief economic adviser, and probably his largest mistake in showing how he really has not thought about this, the President's economic adviser trumpeted outsourcing, saying that outsourcing, our losing jobs to other countries, whether they are blue collar manufacturing jobs, they are steel and auto machine tools, chemicals, whatever, or whether they are white collar jobs, maybe phone operators, maybe computer programmers, maybe even radiologists as we have outsourced those jobs, the President's chief economic adviser said outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade. More things are tradeable than were in the past, and that is a good thing. Secretary Snow, the President's appointee as the Secretary of the Treasury, said outsourcing is part of trade. It is one aspect of trade, and there cannot be any doubt about the fact that trade makes the economy stronger. It is hard for me to think that the American people when they hear George Bush say I cannot think of a mistake I made, that they do not think about the lost manufacturing jobs in this country. My State of Ohio, we have lost 2,000 manufacturing jobs in my State every week. We have lost more than 200 jobs every single day in manufacturing in the Bush administration. One out of six manufacturing jobs in Ohio, not temporary layoffs, those jobs have gone to China, those jobs have gone to Mexico, those jobs have disappeared. The President's answer, when he does reflect on his mistakes, when he does reflect on the economy, he has had two answers. He said we need to do more tax cuts for the most privileged, trickle down economics, hoping that will perhaps create some jobs in the country. It clearly has not. We have lost 3 million jobs in the United States. His other answer is outsourcing. His other answer is more trade agreements, more NAFTA-like trade agreements that ship jobs overseas, that hemorrhage jobs to China, that hemorrhage jobs to Mexico, that send our good- paying industrial jobs abroad. And as we tonight, as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) and the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) tomorrow night and many of us try to help the President through this, remind him of the mistakes that he has made, we also have an obligation to talk about what we should do. And what we should do with this economy, we can talk about these mistakes, but what we should do is we should first of all extend unemployment compensation, second we should pass the Crane-Rangel bill, which gives incentives for those corporations that actually produce manufacturing jobs in the United States instead of rewarding those companies that ship jobs overseas. The President's mistakes can be fixed. We need to fix them by doing some of the things I just talked about.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, Secretary John Snow, the President's second top economic adviser, was in Ohio this week trying to defend the administration's economic and budget policies. Secretary Snow said outsourcing is a good thing. Outsourcing creates more efficiencies in the economy. I wish that Secretary Snow, when trying to justify the President's economic policies, had been with me in Akron, Ohio, a couple of weeks ago. I spoke to a group of business owners, small manufacturers, the Akron machine shop, group of machine shop owners and operators. They are concerned that Ohio has lost one out of six manufacturing jobs, probably permanently. They are concerned that Ohio has lost 236,000 jobs overall. That is about 1,500 jobs a week since President Bush took office. That is about 205 jobs every day since President Bush took the oath of office on January 20, 2001. When I was talking to these machine shop operators, one gentleman presented me with a pile of brochures about twice this size. Actually, I do not have all of them with me. These are going-out-of-business sale notices, auction notices from companies all over the country, small manufacturing companies. He receives a stack of about that many every month, he said, at his place of business, companies going out of business, selling their equipment. Let me just share some of these. A company in Cleveland, Ohio, selling all its assets; a company in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, absolute auction; company in Waterville, Ohio, near Toledo, live one site, selling everything; company in Springfield, Ohio, going out of business; company in Mansfield, Ohio, where I grew up, that is going out of business, selling its real estate and all its production capacity; a company in Sydney, Ohio, major equipment manufacturer, public auction; company in Dayton, Ohio, facility closing; company in Cleveland, Ohio, assets no longer required in the continuing operations of this tube mill facility; a company in Akron, Ohio, in my district going out of business; another company in Cincinnati, Ohio, I believe, public auction, going out, precision machining facility; a company in Toledo, Ohio, going out of business, don't miss this sale, everything sold; a company in Youngstown, Ohio, going out of business; a company in Painesville, Ohio, going out of business; a company in Medina, Ohio, facility closed, all must go; Marion, Ohio, complete shop closeout auction; Tipp City, Ohio, machine tool auction, selling everything; Cleveland, Ohio. That is just the Ohio companies here that are going out of business. I bring this up partly because the administration does not get it. They keep talking about the economy is coming back. We are not seeing jobs created, and we are not seeing jobs created because the administration's answer to this kind of bad news is more tax cuts for the most privileged people in our country with the hope that some of those tax cuts will trickle down and maybe provide some jobs and more trade agreements that hemorrhage jobs, that ship jobs overseas. This administration needs to do two or three things immediately. We need to extend unemployment benefits. Fifty thousand Ohioans in the next couple of months will have had their unemployment benefits expire. These are people that want to have jobs, that are looking for work. It is 50,000 workers. It is 50,000 families that lose their benefits in communities all over my State, all over this country. The second thing the administration needs to do is allow for trade adjustment assistance. They have opposed that, even though all those jobs that have gone to Mexico and China and all over the world, those workers need help. And, third, the administration needs to pass the Crane-Rangel bill, bipartisan legislation that will give tax breaks to those corporations that hire people in the United States. The President, on the other hand, wants to give more tax cuts to the wealthiest individuals and more tax cuts to the largest corporations and rewarding those companies that are outsourcing, that are sending their jobs overseas. We need to reward those companies and give incentives to those companies that are hiring American workers and build back our manufacturing base. My State has lost one out of six manufacturing jobs in the last 3 years. My State has lost 205 jobs every single day of the Bush administration. These pleas continue to fall on deaf ears. The President tries the same tired solutions. They have not worked for 3 years. It is time we changed course.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, last week, Vice President Cheney was in Dayton, Ohio, to try to argue for the President's economic budget plan, to try to justify the economic devastation that his administration's policies have wreaked on the American people. In Ohio alone, one out of six manufacturing jobs has simply disappeared since President Bush took office; 300,000 jobs have been lost in my home State of Ohio. That is 2,000 jobs a week have vanished; that is 260 jobs every single day in Ohio, jobs that have been lost every single day of the Bush administration. Now, I wish that Vice President Cheney had been with me earlier this month. I was speaking to the Akron machine shop owners and operators; and before I spoke to this group, about 60 men and women who own small tool and die, fabricating machine shops, companies of 5 to 200 employees, a gentleman walked forward and handed me this stack of leaflets, pamphlets, and flyers. I did not initially know what they were. He explained, these are auctions, going-out-of-business, fire- sale equipment sales at plants all over the United States. For instance, auction, family facility closed, Medina, Ohio. Absolute auction, Cuyehoga Falls, no minimums, no reserves, high dollar buys regardless of price. Another going out, complete shop closeout auction, Marion, Ohio. High-tech manufacturing plant closing, Chicago, Illinois. Large capacity fabricating machine shop closing, Hingham, Massachusetts. Two complete stamping machine tool shops going out of business, 2-day auction, Northbrook, Illinois. Precision CNC Job Shop, Scottsboro, Alabama. The problem is, Mr. Speaker, I do not think President Bush and Vice President Cheney, I just do not think they see this. I think that the people who run our government seem so out of touch with what is happening to manufacturing in this country, what is happening to employment in this country, what is happening to our economy. Every time they hear bad economic news, they have two answers. One is tax cuts for the most privileged in society with the hope that some of it will trickle down to the rest of society, and the other answer is trade agreements, more North American free trade agreements, NAFTA-like trade agreements that continue to ship jobs overseas, that continue to hemorrhage manufacturing jobs in this country. From the President and Vice President, that is always the response. It is tax cuts, trickle down economics, tax cuts for the most privileged, and trade agreements that ship jobs overseas. But now there seems to be a third answer that some Republican legislative leaders have brought forth. I would cite from CNN. Paula Zahn asked the question of one Republican leader, saying, Why have 2.5 million jobs been lost during the Bush administration; and this Republican leader said, Well, Paula, in this 21st-century economy, jobs that are not reflected in the establishment payroll survey take on different forms. Then he went on to say, this is a leader in the Republican Party in the House, There are 430,000 Americans who make their full-time living selling on eBay. That is not in any way reflected in the numbers. So the Bush administration's answer has been tax cuts for the most privileged and trickle down economics, trade agreements, and now I guess they are saying that jobs on eBay are making a difference. I do not think those jobs are paying health care benefits. I do not think those jobs are the kind of jobs that we want to build our economy on. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the leaders in this government are so out of touch with economic reality in this country, instead of tax cuts for the most privileged and trickle down economics, instead of trade agreements that ship jobs overseas, instead of relying on eBay as an engine of economic growth, this Congress needs to pass the bipartisan Crane-Rangel bill. It rewards those companies with tax incentives who manufacture in the United States and, at the same time that, in essence, penalizes those companies that ship jobs overseas, those companies that move offshore to the Bahamas, continue to get government contracts, and avoid taxes in the United States; those companies like Halliburton, which get billions of dollars in unbid contracts, yet end up oftentimes with their subsidiary avoiding taxes, while continuing to pay the Vice President of the United States $3,000 a week. That is not good economic policy. Our incentives should be given to those companies that manufacture in the United States, that provide jobs for American workers, not the kind of plans that the President of the United States has thrust on the American people. Mr. Speaker, this job loss, this erosion of our manufacturing base must be turned around, not with old tired solutions, but with aggressive incentives to keep manufacturing in this country.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I came here tonight to talk about jobs and mismanagement of our budget and economy by the President, but we are going to have a moment's discussion on the previous speaker outlining the Medicare bill. The fact is the prescription drug, Medicare privatization bill is not working for seniors, and it begs the question, why is the administration spending 80 million of our tax dollars to advertise this bill to try to get seniors convinced that this law works, and it does not even go into effect until 2006? The President has made a decision to spend 80 million tax dollars, instead of putting it into a drug benefit, spend 80 million tax dollars to convince people that this new drug law, this new Medicare privatization law is good for the public, when, in fact, the Medicare privatization bill increases the profits for drug companies in this country by almost $180 billion; and this drug bill, this privatization bill gives a direct subsidy of tax dollars to insurance companies to Medicare HMOs of $46 billion. The reason the bill is not popular, the reason the law is not going to work is it was written by the drug and insurance industries. Why did the drug and insurance industries write the bill? Why did the President allow the drug companies and the insurance companies into the Oval Office to write this privatization bill? Frankly, because of major political contributions from the drug companies and the insurance companies to President Bush and to Republican leadership. The word on the street in this town is that the drug companies are going to give $100 million to President Bush's reelection. If that does not tell you something about this drug bill, this Medicare privatization bill, it speaks volumes. Jobs and Mismanagement of the Budget and Economy by the President

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, to shift gears for a moment, Vice President Cheney came to my State, to Dayton, Ohio, to defend the President's economic record. In Ohio, one out of six manufacturing jobs has been lost since President Bush took office; 300,000 people in Ohio have lost their jobs. That is 2,000 people every week. That is 260 Ohioans have lost their jobs every day since President Bush took the oath of office on January 20, 2001. The response to this bad news from the President and the Vice President, who seem so out of touch, do not seem to understand people's anxieties, people's fears, people's difficulties when they lose their jobs, their answer is always more tax cuts for the most privileged people in society, the 1 percent richest people, hoping the tax cuts will trickle down and help the rest of the country and more trade agreements that send jobs overseas. Mr. Speaker, I would hope that instead of Vice President Cheney going to a fundraiser in Dayton, like he did, and then trying to defend the Bush economic plan, pretty indefensible, difficult thing to do, I wish the Vice President would have been with me in Akron, about 3 weeks ago in my district, meeting with a group of mostly Republican business owners, machine shop owners in Akron in Summit County, Ohio. Right before I spoke to these 60 owner/operators of small machine shops, tool and dye makers and others, a gentleman walked up and put this stack of fliers on my table, a little bit more than this actually. He said this is 1 month of fliers that he has received from companies around the country that are going out of business. These are fire sale fliers from small businesses, manufacturers that are going out of business because of the Bush economic plan and because of the Bush budget. Let me just show you some of these. A company in Cleveland, Ohio, auction, going out of business; company in Norristown, Pennsylvania, public auction; public auction company in Nashua, New Hampshire; machine tool auction, Tipp City, north of Dayton, Ohio; facility closed, all must go, Medina, Ohio; absolute auction, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, everything must go; plant closed, everything sells, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Marion, Ohio, complete shop close-out action; high-tech manufacturing plant closeout, Elk Grove, Illinois, near Chicago; large- capacity fabricating machine shop closing, Bingham, Massachusetts; precision shop, CNC job shop downsizing, Houston, Texas, President's own State; complete stamping and machine tool shops, two of them going out of business, Mansfield, Ohio, the community I grew up in; public auction, Charlotte, North Carolina, everything must sell, plant closes; South El Monte, California, facility closing; public auction, Newark, New York. One thing after another. The President does not get it. We should extend unemployment benefits. We should pass the bipartisan Crane-Rangel bill, which will give incentives, not the way the President does to all large companies including those that are moving out of the country, but those that provide jobs in the United States of America. This simply cannot keep happening in our country.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives again today refused to extend unemployment compensation benefits. Almost 1 million Americans since December have lost have seen their unemployment benefits expire. That is 1 million people. That is 1 million families, people who are looking for work, people who cannot find work in this economy. In my state of Ohio, 300,000 people have lost their jobs. That is 2,000 people every week. Two hundred and sixty people have lost their jobs every single day of the Bush administration. Their answer is more tax cuts for the wealthy, hoping it trickles down, and more trade agreements that hemorrhage jobs overseas. We should extend unemployment compensation benefits to those 1 million workers. We should pass Crane-Rangel, a bipartisan initiative to give incentives to American manufacturers to hire Americans and to manufacture in this country.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle talk about the Medicare bill. This was a bill that the President told us cost $400 billion. Yet people in the department who were not allowed to tell Congress had told the White House it would cost $550 billion. That is the first part of the credibility gap. The second part of the credibility gap is that the President said this was a bill to help America's seniors, when in fact this bill will mean $139 billion more in drug company profits, $46 billion in direct subsidies from taxpayers, from all of us, directly to the insurance industry. This bill was written in the Oval Office, this Medicare law, by the drug industry and by the insurance industry while the President and the Vice President stood by and tried to pretend that it was for American seniors. That is the credibility gap this President and this Vice President have. We should have passed a prescription drug benefit for Medicare beneficiaries, not for the drug companies, not for the insurance companies.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk for a moment about Vice President Cheney's trip to Dayton, Ohio. But before that, I just want to mention that the Medicare drug law that my friend from Ohio mentions just happened to be legislation written by the drug and the insurance industries. The drug industry will get $140 billion additional profits under this law. The insurance industry gets a $46 billion direct gift subsidy from taxpayers. This bill was written for the drug industry, written for the insurance industry. In fact, the word in Washington is that President Bush will receive about $100 million in contributions from the drug industry. I think that is probably all you need to know. And that is why seniors simply do not like this drug bill, do not like the new Medicare law; and that is why the Republican Party, the President, is spending upwards of $80 million in taxpayer dollars to advertise to try to convince America's seniors that this is good legislation, that it is good law. It is clearly not. As I said, Mr. Speaker, the Vice President came to Dayton, Ohio, last week to try to explain away what has happened to the Ohio economy. One out of six manufacturing jobs has disappeared since President Bush took office; 300,000 in Ohio have been lost. That is 2,000 jobs every single week of the Bush administration. That is 260 jobs have disappeared every single day in Ohio since George Bush took office. In response to the bad economic news which cascades across my State, bad news almost every week on the economy, 600 people just laid off from a phone center in Trumbull County, near the district of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan). In response to the bad news, the President has got two solutions every time: more tax breaks for the most privileged in our society, with the hope that some of these benefits trickle down to the rest of the people in this country. That has not worked. And the second response, the second solution is more NAFTA-like trade agreements that continue to ship jobs overseas, that continue to hemorrhage jobs. We have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country, manufacturing jobs, because of these trade agreements. They simply are not working. The question always is, How out of touch can our government's leaders be? The answer to that is I do not know. Something seems to be new every day. The economic report of the President, which came out a couple or 3 or 4 weeks ago, signed by George Bush, signed by the President, the economic report of the President talks about outsourcing jobs, one of the biggest problems in our economy; and the President's Chief Economic Adviser, Gregory Mankiw, said outsourcing jobs is a good thing because it makes the economy more efficient. Well, let him look in the eye of a computer operator, let him look in the eye of a clerk who has lost her job, let him look in the eye of a steel worker who has lost his job and tell him that outsourcing is a good thing because it makes us more efficient. Then in the same report, Mr. Mankiw, the President's top economic guru, the top economic adviser, said that we will this year create 200,000 jobs a month. Well, after he said that, even the President's people, including the President, said we did not really mean 200,000 a month, because the first month they fell 199,000 jobs short, and every month they have fallen way, way short of this job creation they promised. Then the President's economic adviser said, you know, maybe in response to this, and this really shows how out of touch they can get, maybe in response to this we need to reclassify what manufacturing is. Perhaps, because a bottling company is a manufacturing job, you take the syrup in a Pepsi or Coke bottling plant with 200 or 300 employees, and you take the carbonated water and put them together, that is a manufacturing process. Maybe, they suggest, the President's top economic people, that we should reclassify fast food, I am not making this up, this is in this report, the fast-food restaurants, maybe they should be considered manufacturing. Because you have the hamburger and you chemically treat it, you cook it; you take the cheese and you chemically treat it, you melt it; then you put the bread on, and you create these manufacturing jobs. Then you take the syrup and you push the button so the syrup and the carbonated water mix. This administration actually is thinking about reclassifying those service jobs as manufacturing jobs. Now, I am not making fun of people working in fast-food restaurants. In fact, if the Bush administration is going to reclassify those as manufacturing jobs, let them pay more than $7 an hour; and let them give these young men and women, or older men and women in these fast- food restaurants, decent wages and decent benefits, if they are going to call them manufacturing jobs. Then the last point I wanted to make is in terms of how out of touch this government can get. One of the leading Republicans in this institution, the chairman of the Committee on Rules, recently was complaining that Democrats and others are saying that we have lost manufacturing jobs. He said, the fact is that you Democrats, you critics, you media people, you economists, you workers who are complaining about lost jobs are simply not looking at the economy right. Here is what he said. He said there are 430,000 Americans who make their full-time living selling on ebay. This is not reflected in the economy. So are we going to count garage sales as economic growth? Are they going to pay them health benefits? Is that where my friends want to take the U.S. economy?

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) knows that the Medicare bill that he is bragging about, in fact, is simply a payoff to the drug companies and to the insurance industries, $46 billion direct taxpayer subsidies to the insurance industry, $200 billion in direct subsidies to the drug companies. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to my friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), who specializes every year in this budget, cutting Medicare, cutting Medicaid, cutting SCHIP, cutting programs which protect health in this country, the gentleman from Iowa knows better. The fact is, our budget has $800 million in Medicare more than their budget. Their budget does a much better job of taking health care, Medicare dollars and shoveling them to insurance company HMOs. The President said it was only $14 billion insurance subsidies, taxpayer subsidies to insurance companies, under the Medicare bill until he signed the bill, then he acknowledged we are shoveling $46 billion in direct subsidies to insurance companies which also happen to be major political contributors to the President and to the Republican majority, not too different from drug company contributions to my friends on the other side of the aisle, the other major beneficiary of the Medicare bill. The Medicaid bill is not just a question of Republicans not reducing government spending, they are shifting the burden to the States. California loses $226 million in Medicaid funding; Florida loses $90 million; Ohio, $87 million; Michigan, $60 million, and on and on and on. Medicaid covers 70 percent of the nursing homes in this country. If we pass the Democratic substitute, we are putting America's seniors ahead of HMOs. If we pass the Republican substitute, we are leaving seniors and disabled Americans on their own.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, President Bush was in my home State of Ohio in Cleveland near my district a week or so ago trying to justify his economic policy. Ohio has lost 300,000 jobs since President Bush took office. That is 2,000 jobs a week, 260 jobs every day. One out of six manufacturing jobs has simply disappeared in Ohio. His response is more tax cuts for the most wealthy in society, with trickle-down economics, hoping that it might create some jobs and trade agreements that ship more jobs overseas. It is not working. Mr. Speaker, this House of Representatives should pass the Crane- Rangel bill, which will give incentives to American manufacturing to grow their manufacturing jobs here. This Congress should pass that instead of what President Bush has tried: old trickle-down economics, which is not working.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from California for yielding me this time. We all in this institution support our troops. We marvel at and applaud their bravery and their courage. It is not, Mr. Speaker, what is in this resolution. It is what is not in it. I suggest to my Republican colleagues that they meet with families of the men and women who are serving in Iraq, something many of us in this institution have done. They will learn how badly this administration has supplied our troops. There is no mention of the lack of body armor in this resolution and how the Bush administration has failed to outfit our troops. There is no mention in this resolution about the lack of safe drinking water for our troops, something that this administration has failed to supply. There is no mention in this resolution of cuts in prescription drug benefits to veterans that this administration has forced on those who have lived up to their obligation for our country. There is no mention in this resolution of the $1.2 billion underfunded for the Veterans Administration in the President's budget. There is no mention in this resolution of 558 courageous young men and women who have died in Iraq. There is no mention of the 2,788 soldiers and sailors who were wounded since President Bush dressed in his flight suit and declared, ``mission accomplished.'' There is no mention in this resolution of weapons of mass destruction. There is no mention in this resolution of the Bush administration's deceit in leading us to this war. Mr. Speaker, the best way to honor our troops is to supply the troops adequately, to protect the troops and make sure they are safe, and to fulfill the promises to our veterans. Something the Bush administration has failed to do. Something my Republican friends on the other side of the aisle have failed to address.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the $87 billion, first of all, I voted to equip the troops in Iraq in the first vote. When the Bush administration failed with enough money in that budget to provide safe drinking water, to provide body armor, when the administration failed to do it, they had plenty of money to do it; yet it took them months and months and months to make our troops safe. That is why so many in this body said do not give the Pentagon more money, do not give Halliburton more money, do not give more money to the company that is paying Vice President Cheney $3,000 a week while he is Vice President of the United States.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I think it is intriguing what the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) is saying about the whole Medicare structure and how my friends on the other side of the aisle and President Bush, in large part at the behest of the insurance industry, which sees huge profits in this Medicare bill, say that they want to privatize it. One of the most important facts about Medicare public versus a private insurance HMO Medicare is administrative costs. Traditional Medicare, the Medicare that we know, that 85 percent of America's seniors are enrolled in, has about 2 percent administrative costs, while private insurance has administrative costs averaging between 15 and 20 percent. So no wonder if we have privatized Medicare, it will cost taxpayers more, yet Medicare beneficiary seniors will actually get less.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that was with taxpayer dollars that was done. Is that correct?

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I think one of the fundamental questions here, and I appreciate the gentleman from New Jersey's (Mr. Pallone) leading this special order tonight and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) being here, and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), all of whom have been very involved in this Medicare issue. I think there are two questions. One is how can you justify taxpayer dollars being spent on an ad campaign in such a politically charged issue? Second, when the Medicare benefit does not even go into effect for 2 years so that you are running these ads at taxpayer expense during the Presidential election year, informing the voters and the beneficiaries of something that is 2 years away. I think the second question to ask is, why are they having so much trouble convincing the public the Medicare bill is a great bill? The fact is the public is not biting. The public understands intuitively, the seniors overwhelmingly, and I think people of all ages overwhelmingly, understand that George Bush and the Republican leadership have sat down with the drug industry and sat down with the insurance industry, and they went into the Oval Office, and they came into this Chamber, the drug and insurance industry, and they wrote this legislation. A $400 billion, they told us, bill, $139 billion of that goes to increased profits or the drug industry. Another $14 billion of our tax dollars goes to the insurance industry. It is just clear this is another example of President Bush's very close allegiance to the drug industry and the insurance industry. The word on the street in Washington is the President is going to get $100 million from the drug industry for his campaign. The drug industry loves this President. They have gotten everything they want from this President, and you can bet if that $100 million from the prescription drug industry goes to President Bush, that is one of the reasons seniors in this country are paying such a high price. No wonder it is darn near impossible to convince seniors that they got a good deal with this drug bill.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the President's Medicare prescription drug bill is so good, why does the Bush administration have to sell it so hard? The Bush administration has already used 13 million tax dollars to spend on selling this prescription drug bill, this prescription drug law, to the American people, spending tax dollars for a benefit that does not even take effect for 2 more years. They have already spent $13 million. They are planning to spend $80 million more to advertise to the American people, slick television ads to sell this law that simply is not going to work very well. That $80 million could fill 900,000 arthritis medicine prescriptions. That $80 million could by 1.5 million prescriptions of glaucoma medicine. That $80 million could buy 2.5 million prescriptions of blood pressure medicine. Instead, the Bush administration is going to spend that $80 million on an ad blitz of slick campaign-style ads in homage to late night infomercials.