Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. As I said yesterday on Colombia, the noted economist Joseph Stiglitz says that our agriculture--yes, we'll get a few agriculture jobs--will displace traditional agriculture in Colombia, causing huge disruptions in that country, driving people to produce more coca. But don't worry. Right next door, the Colombian drug lords will be able to deposit their money and not have to worry about the U.S. finding out about it--right next door in Panama. How convenient. This is really a great series of trade agreements.

Mr. DeFAZIO. The United States of America has failed trade policies. They are unlike any other in the world. And I guess the question before this body today should be: Will these trade policies create jobs? The answer is yes. Will they create jobs in America? The answer is no. Like all the other free trade agreements we've entered into, these are designed to benefit multinational companies seeking cheap labor and fewer restrictions in terms of the environment and labor protections and other things overseas. That's what these are about. They're also about transshipment of goods with the low content requirement in Korea. Yeah, goods will be cheaper. Made in China, maybe made by slave labor in North Korea, those will be really cheap. American consumers who don't have jobs will benefit from this. No, American consumers would benefit a heck of a lot more if their neighbors had jobs, if they had jobs and if our kids had a future. Passing more of these free trade agreements, which has led to this sea of red ink, isn't going to fix the problem. Directly before us now is Panama. Now, Panama has a very interesting economy, mostly bolstered by being a tax haven and money laundering center. Now, the agreement that we're voting on doesn't prohibit that, but there's a separate agreement entered into by the administration that will go into effect a year from now. It doesn't require an automatic exchange of tax information between the U.S. and Panama, unlike other countries where we have these sorts of agreements. We must know what we want and submit detailed information to Panama, and Panama might or might not honor that request; i.e., we submit a request for drug money laundering. They say, ``You have to be more specific.'' ``Name the drug money people's deposits.'' ``Well, we can't do that.'' ``All right. Forget about it.'' We can name them. Good. But then Panama says they won't give us the information if it is contradictory to their public policy; i.e., the way they make a living, by being the largest Western Hemisphere haven for the laundering of drug money, as a tax haven, and also terrorist money in recent cases. We're going to facilitate that with this agreement. Somehow, a country with 3.5 million people, about the same size as my State but a much lower income per capita, has 400,000 corporations domiciled there, almost one for every Panamanian. No, these aren't really domiciled there. They're very conveniently avoiding our laws and the laws of other advanced nations around the world.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. My friend who preceded me talked about the reduction in tariff exports. Well, guess what? That will be blown away if they manipulate their currency, and Korea is one of only three nations on Earth identified as a currency manipulator by our own U.S. Treasury. Does this agreement preclude currency manipulation? No, it does not. Secondly, they rebate their national taxes, a Value Added Tax, to all their exports. Build a car in Korea, you don't have to pay taxes in Korea. Guess what? Build a car in the U.S., we can't rebate the taxes under these crummy trade laws we've bound ourselves to, and when the U.S. car gets to the border of Korea, they have to pay a 10 percent tax. So we're going to be able to export autos to Korea if they're 20 percent cheaper than those produced by cheaper labor in Korea. Not very likely, but let's say we could do that. Then there are a couple of other problems. If you buy a U.S. car and if you're a Korean citizen, they will audit your taxes. Most employers do not allow the owners of foreign automobiles, which are mostly luxury automobiles over there--there are very few foreign automobiles--to have parking spaces at work. Also, Korea does not buy very many cars. They have a 65 percent mix: 65 percent of the cars they produce are exported. This is not about U.S. exports to Korea. Once again, it's a platform for them to say to us stop here--it's cheaper--and displace American jobs. Even the U.S. International Trade Council, the wildest cheerleader in the world for all of these failed agreements, says we're going to have a bigger deficit in autos. These are the same people who said we were going to have huge trade surpluses with Mexico. Whoops, got it wrong. They can't even mess around with this and pretend we're going to benefit from this--$300 million, they say, of additional auto exports to Korea and $1.7 billion of more auto exports from Korea to the U.S. That's what the cheerleader is saying. Imagine what the real numbers are going to be like. We're talking about 160,000 to 200,000 U.S. jobs. Kiss the remainder of the auto industry and auto parts goodbye with this agreement.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, at last, it's been a long year. The House this week is finally getting around to considering legislation to create jobs. You have got to admit, their objective, and the dream of Grover Norquist, of delivering a government so small that you can drown it in a bathtub has kind of a depressive effect on investment in the economy. Cutting investment in education has lost jobs; it hasn't created jobs. Cutting investment in infrastructure--28 percent unemployment in construction, allied trades, small businesses that provide the work and the equipment, which are all private sector jobs--is not too good. So their pursuit of these goals so far this year has had a bit of a depressive and negative effect on the economy. But to congratulate the Republican leaders, finally they've turned to creating jobs this week. Three trade agreements. Now, these are kind of musty, dusty trade agreements. They were negotiated by the Bush administration. Unfortunately, they have been adopted by the Obama administration. Nothing ever changes down at the Trade Representative's office. It doesn't matter who's in charge--Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama. People in the Trade Office push the same policies. So these are job-creating trade agreements. Congratulations. We're building upon the success of the past. NAFTA, great success. The WTO, great success. Job creation. Phenomenal job creation. The only problem is the jobs are being created in foreign nations because of our failed trade policies in this country. We are hemorrhaging jobs. This is the record over a decade: We lost 15 factories a day--15. Now, some of them were kind of small, local small businesses, but Republicans love to talk about their advocacy for small business. Fifteen a day for 10 years, that's our current trade policy. So what else? Well, that figures out to about 1,370 manufacturing jobs a day over the last decade. So, learning from past experience, we are now going to do exactly the same thing yet again. We are going to adopt--I can predict the future. The Republicans will all vote for it and a substantial number of my colleagues, a minority of Democrats, but they'll sign on too, to this false promise of job creation under the guise of free trade. According to the Economic Policy Institute, for starters, the Korea Free Trade Agreement will cost us 160,000 jobs. Bye-bye to the last vestiges of the auto parts industry. They have little provisions, like 35 percent Korean content requirement, which means they can source all their stuff from China, or maybe even better, North Korea, where they use slave labor. It will be really cheap. And we're going to ask our workers to compete with that. There goes another industry. Now, Colombia and Panama. Well, EPI estimates they're kind of dinky economies. That will only lose us about 55,000 jobs to start. So, for starters, we're creating a quarter of a million jobs overseas with more failed trade policies. There are other minor problems. Colombia: they kill labor organizers. But, hey, they promised they won't do that anymore. Panama: a huge haven for drug smugglers, terrorist money, and others. They launder money, but they promised the Obama administration, even though Bush said they could keep doing it, they promised the Obama administration they won't do it. They will no longer allow people to secret ill-gotten gains in Panama unless it's in their national interest. That's a little bit of a loophole. So these are a great deal for the American people. How's that? I don't know. Because the special Trade Representative's office, unfortunately, rather meekly and quietly, the President, and the Republican leadership say these are a good deal for the American people because, yes, they will benefit Wall Street and a few multinational corporations. They'll just cost another quarter of a million Americans their jobs. It's time to put an end to this craziness. I can hope--but it won't happen--that we can stop these trade agreements here this week on the floor and look for a new trade policy, a trade policy that creates and brings jobs home to the United States of America. I thought that's who we were here to represent.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. This is momentous. We're finally talking about jobs on the floor of the House of Representatives. And the United States of America is number one. Let's have a little enthusiasm. We're number one. We're number one, and we want to make certain that we continue that status. What are we number one in? We are number one in exporting jobs to foreign lands over the last 20 years. Every day we lose 1,370 manufacturing jobs because of our failed trade policies. And guess what? These agreements are duplicates of all failed past trade agreements. Now, the chairman of the committee says we're going to have lengthy debate, and we will dispel misinformation. Well, the first misinformation is that we're having any lengthy debate here on the floor of the House; 4\1/2\ hours for three trade agreements, 270 minutes, boy, a lot of time. Not exactly like we're burning the midnight oil around here, or even working 5 days a week. Couldn't we have a little more time? Fast Track would have allowed for 20 hours on each of the two Fast Track agreements and who knows what? So that would have been 40 hours. No, we're going to have 165 minutes by the proponents to dispel the misinformation, and 105 by those of us who are opposed to these job- killing trade agreements. That's fair, 165 on their side and 105 on our side because our arguments are honest, and theirs aren't. But that's the way things break around here. That is lengthy debate. Let's talk for a minute about Colombia. You know, in Colombia, the average income is $3,200. Think of all the U.S. manufactured goods those Colombians are going to buy with $3,200 of income. Whoa, thousands of Americans go to work. Does that remind you of the myth about NAFTA? No, this is about yet one more platform to get and access abused labor, unorganized labor under Colombian law to send goods back to the United States of America.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman. And then there's the issue of, yes, we will get some more agriculture exports, insignificant to our industry, won't employ any Americans, may employ some more people who are in this country to harvest the crops. But it will cut dramatically into the principal form of employment in Colombia. There'll be a 75 percent drop potentially in rural employment in Colombia. And where will they turn? The noted economist Joseph Stiglitz says they will turn from traditional farming and farming for their own economy to growing coca. So not only are we going to facilitate the collapse of their agricultural economy, like we did in Mexico; we're going to facilitate the drug lords with this crummy agreement.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, ten years ago today the United States pursued the perpetrators of 9/11 into the mountains of Afghanistan. Our original mission--which I supported--was to bring justice to members of al Qaeda who planned and executed one of the largest mass murders in history and the Taliban who enabled al Qaeda. Members of the U.S. military have done everything that has been asked of them. They have fought heroically, and have selflessly served their country. But, thanks to strategic and diplomatic missteps, a disastrous and unnecessary war in Iraq that distracted the U.S. from accomplishing our original mission, and the pursuit of failed policies, we have lost our way in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan has cost the United States greatly in lives and taxpayer dollars. We have lost more than 1,700 American troops in Afghanistan, with this past August being the deadliest month. Tens of thousands of Americans have been injured, maimed or made permanently disabled. Meanwhile, we continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars trying to sustain an unsustainable war. To date, the U.S. has spent $454 billion--nearly half a trillion dollars--in Afghanistan. As we make drastic cuts in infrastructure, education, social services, and federal programs here at home, we are spending tens of billions of dollars per year to build critical infrastructure in Afghanistan, investing in roads and bridges in Afghanistan, and training Afghan troops and law enforcement officers. That's wrong. We should use that money to hire teachers here at home, modernize our schools, repave our crumbling roads, rebuild our failing bridges, put sheriffs back on the roads and police back on the street. It is long past time to bring this ten year war--the longest in the history of the United States--to a responsible end. I will continue to do everything I can in Congress to bring our troops home and to reinvest scarce federal resources in rebuilding our own country, rather than nation building in a failed state half a world away.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Three years ago, after a decade of deregulation, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which was the deregulation of derivatives, Wall Street--the ``job creators''--gambled our economy into oblivion, but they never paid the price. Remember George Bush and Hank Paulson, who was the Secretary of the Treasury? Well, he was kind of a stand-in, because, actually, he was the former chairman of Goldman Sachs, pretending to be Secretary of the Treasury. He took care of his buddies on Wall Street, but he was aided and abetted by none other than Tim Geithner, the chairman of the New York Fed. In fact, in one of the most outrageous moments of this whole scenario, Tim Geithner, now Secretary of the Treasury--although he wasn't chairman of Goldman Sachs, but it's probably in his future-- decided to pay off the gamblers 100 cents on the dollar when the government had to do the biggest bailout in history of AIG. Now, that was incredible--100 cents on the dollar. At the time, I proposed that, in fact, Wall Street should pay for its own bailout--that is, a tax on speculators and reinstituting a tax we had from 1916 to 1966 while we built the greatest industrial Nation on Earth. It didn't hurt investment in capitalism then. It wouldn't hurt it now. In fact, if we reined in some of the speculators, our real economy would be better off for it. But now there's sort of been this amazing political jujitsu where somehow the Republicans, aided by the Koch Brothers, who have also subsidized the Tea Party, have changed the narrative. It was the government. It was overregulation. Overregulation? Oh, come on, guys. There were no rules. They gambled our economy into oblivion. You cannot pretend that this wasn't wild and reckless, but you've changed the narrative. You took over the House. Now, this fall, something is happening. Something in this land is happening. I call it the American awakening--the occupation of Wall Street, which is now spreading to other cities across this country. They make fun of these young people because they are not totally focused on what they want, but what's happened is their future has been stolen from them. I saw some Fox commentators yesterday morning making fun of them saying, Oh, do you think they got time off from work? Oh, well, they don't have jobs, do they? No, they don't have jobs. What are we doing to create jobs and give these kids a future in this country and rein in the gamblers on Wall Street and restore the real economy, the productive economy of this country? Nothing. In fact, you want to go back to 2008. That was your dream. It is time to begin to deal meaningfully with these problems in this country and that we have the greatest disparity of wealth in our history. Corporate profits are up; jobs are down. CEO pay up; jobs are down. Bonuses on Wall Street, whoa, six figures, up. Jobs, down. It's time to rectify this, and I think the young people and the others who are joining them on Wall Street get it. They may not be totally focused, but they know that this isn't a country that gives them a fair shot at the American Dream anymore. It's a stacked deck, and it's time for a new deck and a new order. Reregulate the reckless gamblers on Wall Street. Rein them in, take steps to rebuild our real economy, give people a future, invest in education, invest in the basics of this country, transportation, infrastructure; and we can be a great Nation again. But if we continue down this path, or even if they accelerate us down this path with helping the job creators destroy the economy again, there's no hope.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, I was initially very supportive of the President's proposed Buffett tax based on the premise that no millionaire or billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a checkout clerk at the Albertsons supermarket or a small business owner who only earns $40,000 a year. It seemed fair to me. But, you know, then I started listening to the Republican response, and it's pretty heavy and it really gives you pause to think about whether or not this is a good idea for our country. It's class warfare. It will hurt job creation. You know, these are arguments. It won't raise money. These are arguments that certainly are very, very telling. In fact, I have some direct quotes from one Representative: ``This is really the Dr. Kevorkian plan for our economy. It will kill jobs, kill businesses, and yes, kill even the higher tax revenues that these suicidal tax increasers hope to gain.'' Another Representative: ``Class warfare may win political campaigns, but it doesn't spur economic growth. Raising the capital gains tax may garner political capital, but it will not create any jobs.'' And then, finally, of course: ``When are we going to get it? We do not have a revenue problem in this Congress; we have a spending problem.'' Those are heavy criticisms. And just think if they proved true what a disaster it would be for America. Now, of course, these criticisms were all leveled in 1993, the last time we had a Democratic President propose that millionaires and billionaires should pay a fair rate of taxes in this country. The first one was from Representative Christopher Cox, a total idiot who ran the Securities and Exchange Commission while Wall Street gambled our economy into the tank. He said the part about killing jobs, and we wouldn't get jobs and we wouldn't get higher revenues. Well, actually, with the Clinton tax increases, we did get higher revenues, we did balance the budget, we did pay off debt, and we had 3.8 percent unemployment. And we were asking the job creators, the millionaires and billionaires, to pay a fair share. I guess Chris was wrong. Well, let's see, the second one was from former Representative Pryce of Ohio about political capital not creating any jobs. Well, we already addressed that. We had 3.8 percent unemployment. What have they done to create a single job so far this year? Nothing. In fact, they eliminated jobs. But, you know, that's because we want to give the job creators a break. We don't want to tax them, all to protect tax cuts. And then, finally, the final quote about we don't have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem is from then Representative Boehner, now Speaker Boehner. Now, of course, our taxes are at 15 percent of our gross domestic product, considerably lower than the percent of taxes that were levied in the Reagan era. And, you know, we do have a revenue problem, $5 trillion of tax cuts over the last decade, $5 trillion, 5 thousand billion dollars of tax cuts, heavily oriented toward the job creators-- the millionaires and the billionaires. Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs? It doesn't work. First it was 8 years of Bush tax cuts, then 2 years of Bush-Obama tax cuts, and now we have President Obama's further proposed tax cuts. Tax cuts don't create jobs. Now, I think, actually, now I have considered their arguments, the President's right. Billionaire hedge fund speculators on Wall Street, let's think about it. Their rate of taxation is 15 percent on billions of dollars of income. A small business owner, $50,000 a year, whoa, more than twice that. Army captain, just back from defending America in Afghanistan, whoa, more than twice that. Who gives more value to this society, the parasite on Wall Street who is speculating and driving up the price of our fuel and making billions of dollars doing it or the Army captain or the small business owner, the real job creators? We can, by levying a fair rate of taxes on the millionaires and billionaires under the Buffett tax--the best investor in this country, who thinks this is the direction we should go--we can both create jobs, stabilize the economy, get down the deficit, and continue to fund critical programs. Ironically, in the grand deal that was adopted back here a month ago that I voted against, there was only one specified cut, one cut specified in that bill-- graduate student financial aid. That's because at the country club they don't meet anybody who can't put their kids through medical school. We need doctors. We need other professionals. We need to help the next generation succeed, education and infrastructure investment, and we need money to help pay for it.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman. Then when they escape, we hire people, pest control eliminators, to go out and try to find them when people abandon them. What a jobs creator. No, we're not going to rebuild our infrastructure. We're not going to try and continue to have fair wages for people who build the best airplanes in the world, Boeing. No, those things are off the table as far as the Republicans are concerned. It's job-killing regulations, that's what's hurting America. Come on guys, get real. Let's rebuild America. Let's invest. Let's pay workers a fair wage. You know, when a worker earns a fair wage, they can afford to go to the small business down the street and patronize them and buy their goods. And then maybe some day, if you stop these job-killing trade deals, they'll be able to buy goods that are actually made in America with their decent wages at an American company. Get real.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I don't mean to contradict my colleague, but the Republicans do have a jobs plan. Now, it's true that Majority Leader Cantor kicked off the week by saying, Not a penny for infrastructure. We don't want to just build things in America. We don't want to invest. That doesn't put people to work. You know, the $50 billion the President proposed, that would create about 1.5 million private sector jobs in the construction industry, but they're not interested in that. They do have a jobs plan: snakes. Yes, snakes. Yesterday, in the Oversight Committee, they held a hearing similar to what we're talking about here today on a job-killing regulation being proposed by the Obama administration. Keep out invasive species. Giant pythons, which are taking over the Everglades, the Republicans say that is a job- killing restriction. Just think of all the jobs related to snakes. First, there's the importer of these invasive species. Secondly, we sell them. Then there are people who raise things for them to eat.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. The best way to put America back to work is to invest in the underpinnings of our economy: roads, bridges, highways, transit, rail, our ports, our airports. These things serve the private sector and make us more productive and more competitive in the world economy. Unfortunately, at the current levels of investment, we're not even keeping up with our mid-20th century surface transportation system. Just think before the interstate highways what a disconnected country this was. And guess what? We're headed back there. We are not investing enough to maintain the Eisenhower legacy of the National Highway System. We have 150,000 bridges that need replacement or repair; 40 percent of the pavement needs not just resurfacing but underlayment, a $70 billion backlog on our aged transit systems. And that's just to give us an updated and state of good repair, 20th century transportation infrastructure. We need a 21st century transportation infrastructure, which is going to require more investment. And for the life of me, I don't get it on that side of the aisle. You've got this guy over there, the Republican Leader Cantor. He says, well, we might take the tax cuts with Obama. Those return almost 80 cents on every dollar borrowed. But, oh, that other stuff, spending money, that's like stimulus. Building bridges, repairing highways, repairing and building transit systems, having a new 21st century system for our planes to navigate more efficiently in the sky with fewer delays and less fuel consumed, that is bad according to Eric Cantor. But no, the tax cuts, oh, yeah, we're for tax cuts. We'll give the people their money back and then they'll take care of those problems. We'll pass the hat to rebuild the bridges and the transit systems. We'll pass the hat to have a new aviation system for navigation. Come on. Are we a great Nation or not? Are we going to give up? Are we just going to keep pretending, give the money back to the job creators. I haven't seen the job creators build a national highway system lately. Now, the private sector does all of these projects. You'll say, well, the government can't make jobs. You're right. This is taxpayer-invested money designated by the government to needed investment done by lowest competitive bid by competent private contractors. Millions of jobs are on the table, and not just in construction. You're talking about construction equipment. You're talking about sophisticated avionics. You're talking about transit vehicles that have electronics and motor drives and everything that all come from manufacturing. And we have the strongest buy America provisions of any part of the Federal Government for transportation investment. So we're not going to hemorrhage this money to China like the tax cuts will for cheap junk bought from China. No. This will create jobs here at home. The American people get it. We get it on our side of the aisle. It's time for the leadership on the Republican side of the aisle to get it, too.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. We have the economy the tax cuts will give us. Eight years of Bush tax cuts, 2 years of Bush-Obama tax cuts, and now the individual Obama tax cut proposals. We have $5 trillion borrowed, distributed generally with the Bush tax cuts, principally to the job creators, as the Republicans call them--millionaires and billionaires-- and in little bits to working Americans. It's not working. So why would we do more of the same? Apparently, the President tonight is going to propose again to extend the Social Security tax holiday. Two things wrong with that, maybe three. One, it's not putting anybody back to work. Two, we borrowed $110 billion this year to put into the Social Security trust fund because we cut the income of Social Security by $110 billion. And now we're being told perhaps we should double down. Let's give both the employers and the employees a little bit of a Social Security tax holiday. That's $20 a week to someone who earns $50,000 a year. Not bad. They can use it. It's probably about the difference they pay for filling up their car to get to work. But ExxonMobil isn't hiring. Or maybe they use it to put food on the table for the kids or maybe buy junk from China. It's an old economic theory: Put money in the pockets of Americans and the idle plant capacity in America will rev up and hire Americans to make things in America. We don't make things any more because of failed trade policies. Apparently, failed trade policies are going to be part of this jobs proposal. Three more Bush free trade proposals now adopted by Obama. That would be a disaster if that's a part of this so-called package. It would be a travesty. Let's forget about the tax cuts. Let's not just have a little dribble or drab of infrastructure investment. People say, Oh, the stimulus failed. What happened? All your infrastructure investment, 40 percent of that stimulus was tax cuts; 7 percent was investment in infrastructure. Yes, it worked, but it was a pathetically small part of the package in a country that has a $3 trillion infrastructure deficit, with dams that are failing, levees that are failing, highways that are crumbling, bridges that are falling, transit systems that are based in 19th- and early 20th-century technology; and our competitors are building out a 21st-century infrastructure. We need a bold vision. We don't need another little dribble or drab in infrastructure. We sure as heck don't need another one of these stupid shovel-ready project things. We need long-term investment. When you do long-term investment, the private companies who build all these projects--these aren't government projects. Taxpayers fund them. The private sector builds them. Many small businesses, they will go out and buy equipment. When they buy equipment, especially if we put Buy America requirements on all these proposals, they'll buy things that will be made in America that will put people back to work in manufacturing. So this isn't just about construction jobs. It's about manufacturing jobs, it's about engineering jobs, it's about small business jobs. But it needs to be a major, bold, long-term vision on building a 21st- century infrastructure for America to make us more competitive in the world. Enough with the tax cuts. They don't work. They don't put people back to work. Guess what? If you don't have a job, you don't get a tax cut, do you? Let's do something for the people who need jobs and for the future of the country and for our kids with a grand long-term vision tonight, not more of the same.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. This is a little different than the Reid bill we voted on on Saturday. It actually increases military spending $78 billion over the bill that we voted on on Saturday, and it decreases domestic spending by $80 billion. And it doesn't end the wars, unlike the Reid bill we voted on on Saturday. It has one specified cut--student financial aid. That's the only cut specified. What kind of world do you people live in? And, of course, it doesn't ask a single thing of millionaires, billionaires, corporations that avoid taxes. It doesn't close a single loophole. It doesn't ask one millionaire or billionaire just to go back to Clinton-era taxes. And it does nothing about our most serious deficit in this country, and that is the jobs deficit. Unless you really believe that tax loopholes, tax cuts, and cutting investment in aviation and surface transportation creates jobs on your planet, this bill creates none here today.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, here we are, after a long weekend of hyperbole and backroom deal cutting at the White House, and here's the product right here. If you look through it, it's pretty interesting. There's no balance. There are no revenues. God forbid we would ask, as the Republicans call them, ``the job creators,'' the millionaires and billionaires, to pay anything toward further supporting our country, to close some of the tax loopholes that allow hedge fund managers to pay taxes at half the rate of their clerks, you know, things like that. No, that would be a reach too far to ask them to share in the sacrifice. What we do see here is that there will be cuts, and very few are specified. But strangely enough, there's one that the Republicans always go after because, you know, they hang out at the country club, and at the country club, nobody's worried about putting their kid through college. But the one specified cut in here is in graduate school financial assistance. Now, that's kind of peculiar. We have a doctor shortage looming, and medical school is phenomenally expensive. But I guess it's just going to be the rich kids who are going to go to medical school in the future, not the middle-class kids, not the struggling kids. Just the rich kids. So that's the one specified cut, the ``one'' specified cut. The rest, we don't even know. Talking about a pig in a poke, this is a pig in a poke. Where's that $1 trillion of cuts going to come from? First round, second round, another $1.5 trillion, and not one penny in revenues. And the grand result is about $2.5 trillion of deficit reduction. If we just let all the Bush tax cuts expire--all of them--if we went back to the bad old days of the Clinton tax rates that the Republicans claimed would destroy the economy--except actually what happened was, we had 3.8 percent unemployment, and we paid down debt with the Clinton tax rates. But, yes, ``the job creators'' had to pay a little bit more. Those were really bad times, the Republicans would have us believe. So we don't want to go back there. We want to stay in the current day. We have been cutting taxes now for 11 years of Bush tax cuts, 3 years with Obama as a coconspirator on the Bush tax cuts. Where are the jobs? Well, let's just keep doing it, and maybe it will create jobs. It's not going to create jobs. There are no jobs. There are no jobs in this package. At the least, at the least, they could have extended the Federal Aviation Administration authority. Now, most people think, what does that mean? Well, a week ago last Friday, authority to run the Federal Aviation Administration expired. The air traffic controllers are working under emergency provisions, and they're being paid out of the trust fund, which is being drawn down. But all of the taxes went away. So we're walking away from $200 million a week--that is in taxes that would come from users of the system. Most of the airlines have raised their ticket prices to capture that money. Four thousand Federal employees have lost their jobs or are laid off, are collecting unemployment. Republicans don't care about Federal employees; so let's put that aside. But 90,000 private sector construction workers and small businesses are also unemployed because we have brought all the safety and security improvements across the entire system to a screeching halt because we are not collecting taxes, which the airlines are now capturing for profits. Could that be in here? That would put 94,000 people back to work. No, that's not in here. That's too much to ask. There isn't a single job in this package. The biggest problem in America, the greatest deficit we have is in job creation. If we could get back down around 5 percent unemployment, guess what: Those people are working, they are not drawing unemployment benefits, they are not drawing food stamps because they are desperate to put food on the table and the unemployment isn't enough, and a quarter of the deficit would go away with people working. How about transportation infrastructure? One hundred and fifty thousand bridges are crumbling, need to be replaced or rehabilitated; a $70 billion backlog in critical investment in our transit systems across the country, all made in America, manufacturing jobs, engineering jobs. No, can't do those sorts of things in this bill. We can't make investments because the Republicans say everything government does is bad. So we can't even make investments. We can't discriminate between wasteful spending, consumptive spending, and investments that will put people back to work, as they claim government can't put people back to work. That's funny. I wonder who built our national highway system. I don't think it was the private sector. I don't think it was the financiers on Wall Street. The billionaires and the millionaires are escaping any meaningful taxation at this point, seeing the lowest level of taxation on their incomes since, you know, forever, basically. We can't ask them to do anything. We can't invest, we can't create jobs, and we are going to cut student financial aid for sure and a few other things.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. The Washington Post: The United States is a lot like a rich businessman who owns two homes, a yacht, millions of dollars in stock, but is in debt because he took out a big loan to buy a private plane. So here we are. To protect tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, ``the job creators,'' $4 trillion over the last 10 years, loopholes for corporate jets, for private jets, for the oil companies, hedge fund billionaires, to continue tax cuts that haven't created a single job, we're going to cut real investment that would create jobs. We're going to reduce investment in transportation infrastructure 35 percent. That's a million jobs. Gone. Last week, you cut off the FAA, 90,000 private-sector jobs and 4,000 government employees. You don't care about the government employees, but what about those private- sector jobs? A lot of them are small businesses. Small businesses--I thought you liked small businesses? So we're not only going to cut there, but we're going to cut student loans, we're going to cut school nutrition, unemployment insurance, Social Security, and Medicare all so the billionaires can keep cruising at 40,000 feet in their private tax-subsidized jets, above the turbulence. The view looks good from up there, and maybe you'll get a ride.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Thanks, John. Thanks for helping organize this response to the Republicans. We do have one real and prevailing crisis in America. It's been with us now since 2008, and that's a jobs crisis. There are probably 20 million Americans who are unemployed, underemployed in this country when you get to the real numbers. Now, credible economists say if we could find a way to put those people or most of those people back to work and get unemployment down from 9.6 nationally to, say, 4.5 or 5 percent, that would solve a quarter, a quarter of this deficit and debt crisis. That would be $2.5 trillion over 10 years. Now, the Republicans here have proposed $2.7 trillion of cuts over 10 years. So if we could put people back to work, we would have about the same savings. Then, you know, if we got people back to work and healed the economy a bit, all we have to do, and I talked about this earlier this week, is nothing. Let the Bush tax cuts expire. Go back to the bad old days of Bill Clinton, 3.8 percent unemployment, paying down debt, the rich paying a fair share. Those were the bad old days, according to the Republicans, because those job creators were paying some taxes. Oh, my God, billionaires required to pay taxes at the rate equal to or higher than their secretaries and the janitors. Can you imagine that? Oh, what disaster. So, now, they are not only cutting programs and ignoring the jobs crisis, they are making the jobs crisis worse. Last week, they ended the Federal Aviation Administration construction program for safety and security. They stopped collecting the tax. The Republicans stopped collecting the tax. It's a user paid- for system on airline tickets. That's $30 million a day. Most airlines have taken it as a windfall. So the Republicans' mantra that if we lower taxes on corporations they will pass it through to the consumers--no, sorry suckers. They keep the money and you pay the same. But then the other mantra is, well, if we get rid of taxes, we will create jobs. That's how you create jobs, by cutting programs and cutting taxes. Interesting. We have cut taxes on the airline industry by $30 million a day, $210 million a week. That's well over--you know, that's a lot of money on a year's basis, over a billion dollars. And guess what? We have lost 94,000 jobs; 4,000 jobs of people in the FAA who oversee the safety and security construction program to make sure taxpayers get a fair value for their dollar and 90,000 private-sector construction jobs across America. And guess what? The American public doesn't know it yet, but this could well lead to either, you know, opening the door to terrorist attack because we don't do some of the security programs, or causing a runway incursion because we don't finish the runway incursion program before the bad weather in the winter, or I don't get my instrument landing system in Coos Bay, North Bend, before the winter and a plane goes awry, we could have people die because of that. But to them this is all good--we are giving people back their money, or we are giving the corporations the money, and don't worry. We need to focus on jobs. There is nothing that they have been doing here for the last 6 months, 8 months, 7 months, however long they have been in power--it seems like 10 years--that has created a single job. In fact, they have cost us jobs. They are costing us jobs at an ever accelerating rate, and now they want to cut one other, just one other point. They want to cut all investment in transportation by 35 percent. That's an immediate loss of 600,000 private-sector jobs. It means we won't deal with the 150,000 bridges of the national highway system that need rebuilding. We won't deal with the half of the payment on the national highway system that needs redoing. We won't deal with the $70 billion backlog for new equipment for our transit systems, transit systems that are so decrepit in places like the Nation's Capital that people are being killed. We won't deal with any of that. We won't put millions of people to work building new transit vehicles or new buses or bridges with steel and all those things with Buy America. The Republicans say, well, we'll just give the corporations the money and the rich people the money and they'll trickle down on the rest of us. Well, we've been pretty well trickled down upon for way too long. It's time for new priorities. And I would reject the Republican agenda.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts. Tax cuts solve all problems, especially for the millionaire and billionaire job creators. We're in the 10th year of the Bush tax cuts: $4 trillion. We're in the third year of the Obama tax cuts: $1 trillion. Now we have to cut programs to continue the tax cuts that don't create jobs. What's one of the specified targets? Student financial aid. Hey, they don't know anybody at the country club who can't afford to put their kid through medical school, but at the top of their list is cutting student financial aid. Cutting investments in transportation that could put millions to work. Stopping taxes on the aviation industry, which is, guess what, capturing the money, not lowering prices, and laying off 90,000 people and stopping critical infrastructure jobs for that industry. Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts. Let's get real. Let's do things for the American people, put people back to work, and solve the deficit problem.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. With one simple vote last December, Congress precipitated the so-called debt crisis. We voted to extend all of the Bush tax cuts at a cost of $4 trillion over 10 years. I voted ``no.'' So now, the debate comes down to what's more important to the American people--Social Security or tax cuts; Medicare or tax cuts; jobs or tax cuts. That's what this debate is all about right now-- preserving tax cuts, particularly tax cuts for the wealthy and the largest multinational corporations in this country. Some are still trying to drag Social Security into this debate. Social Security did not cause one penny of this debt. In fact, Social Security is the largest owner of Federal debt in the world. They're the largest investor in Federal debt. Social Security did not cause this problem. Yes, long term, starting in 2037, Social Security is projected to only be able to pay 73 to 75 percent of benefits. We can solve that simply. Ask all Americans to pay the same percent of their income into Social Security. Today, if you earn over $106,800, you pay a lower percentage of your income into Social Security. Lift that cap. You could lower the tax for everybody. All those who earn less than $106,800, they'd get a little tax cut. Everybody who earns more than $106,800 would pay the same percent of their income in taxes as those who earn less. That's fair. It solves Social Security's problems forever. Then there are others who say well, it's Medicare. Medicare is the thing we've got to kill. The Ryan plan, the Republican plan: kill Medicare. Turn it into a voucher program. That's their solution there. Future seniors would have a subsidy to go to a government-sponsored exchange to buy private health insurance, and the voucher would be far less than the cost of health insurance. We don't need to kill Medicare to save it or to preserve the tax cuts. Medicare, we could do away with the Bush-Republican unpaid-for prescription-drug benefit that subsidizes the pharmaceutical and insurance industries and instead say Medicare, we'll negotiate lower drug prices for all people on that program and give them an at-cost benefit. That saves $20 billion a year. We could reform the way we buy durable medical equipment and save another $20 billion a year. And then we could move on to paying doctors for good results rather than volume, saving tens of billions more. Yes, we can fix Medicare. We don't need to destroy it to perpetuate tax cuts. And then tax cuts create jobs. That's the reason we have to maintain the tax cuts, according to the Republicans. Tax cuts create jobs. Well, we're in the 11th year of the Bush tax cuts, the third year of the Obama tax cuts that supposedly are creating jobs. Well, where are the jobs? In fact, we just had a really good demonstration of this last week. Last Friday, all taxes on airline tickets expired. Now, Republicans said, well, that will get passed on to the consumers. No. Most of the airlines are keeping the money. That's another issue. But did those tax cuts create jobs? No. Actually so far they've cost us 94,000 jobs-- 4,000 Federal employees. Now, they hate Federal employees, so that doesn't matter to them. But 90,000 private-sector construction jobs. Building of critical security and safety projects on airports all across the country has ground to a halt because they stopped us from continuing to collect that fee, that tax on people who use the system. So tax cuts actually have destroyed 94,000 jobs. But they have profited a number of the airlines. One major airline, $4 million extra a day because, guess what, they raised their ticket prices to capture that money. They didn't refund it. A couple like Alaska have refunded it, but most of the airlines, no. So we're putting a lie to a lot of their policies here, and the biggest core part of their policy is trickle-down economics. It failed in the Reagan years and it's failing again now. Give billionaires, the job-creators, tax cuts, and they'll create jobs for us little people. Well, guess what; no. Maybe they hired another pool boy or someone else on the yacht. There are a few jobs there. They're now hiring private jets to fly their kids to camp in Maine. Yes, there's a job there, but not the jobs that 18 million American people need. If we restore the taxes on airline tickets, we would put 90,000 construction workers, private sector workers back to work, and 4,000 government employees. And if we fully fund our transportation needs in this country, we could put another 2.7 to 3.5 million people to work. No, they want to cut investment in transportation and infrastructure. Bridges are failing. They're falling down. The roads are potholed. Transit systems are decrepit, and the Republican answer is: Give people back their money and cut spending on those wasteful things like mass transit, bridges, and highways. And, oh, by the way, under their plan, we lose another 600,000 private sector jobs on top of the 20 percent unemployment in construction. It's time to get real around here. Put America back to work. If Americans were working, that would solve one-quarter of the deficit problem. Stop the tax cut mayhem.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, this week we have just disproven two items of Republican orthodoxy, and that is corporations don't pay taxes, only individuals pay taxes; and tax cuts create jobs. What am I talking about? Well, last Friday the authorization for the Federal Aviation Administration expired. So the government is not collecting $200 million a week in security fees and other fees that pay for the aviation system. It is partially funded by the users of that system with ticket taxes and such. That is $200 million a week. Now, what's happened since? Well, three airlines, three honest airlines--Frontier Airlines, Alaska, and Virgin America--lowered ticket prices because the government isn't collecting the taxes. But the other airlines, not so much. They actually raised their ticket prices to match the taxes, and they're collecting the windfall. At the same time, their association, the Air Transport Association, is complaining about ticket taxes: But a big chunk of your ticket is going to Washington. Well, you can now X out Washington, and you can put in United Airlines, Continental Airlines, U.S Airways, Southwest Airlines, and Jet Blue, because they're taking the money. And guess what? In addition to the consumers getting ripped off here, $200 million a week, we have another problem, the second one, tax cuts create jobs. Well, we've cut taxes, $200 million a week. That's a lot. And guess what? So far, 4,000 government jobs. Now, Republicans don't care about government jobs even if they're doing some pretty critical stuff. But also, tens of thousands of private sector jobs are down the tube because not collecting the taxes means all of the airport improvement projects across America funded by these fees are grinding to a halt. Critical projects, projects that will save lives from runway incursions, control towers, security improvements in our airports to defeat terrorist attacks. And in the case of my little regional airport on the coast in Oregon, their project to install a runway lighting system for instrument landing before winter has stopped. We just got jet service in there. The airlines say, Look, if we're going to come in here in the wintertime, you've got some bad weather. We need that system. Well, if this impasse continues, we will not have that system by next winter. Now, who is that helping? Who are you guys helping over there with these stupid stunts you're pulling here? $200 million a week that the government isn't collecting that would pay for these critical projects, put tens of thousands of people to work, and now it's a windfall to a bunch of airlines. But don't worry, the Air Transport Association says, these short-term increases, that is by the airlines increasing their ticket prices to make up for the taxes going away, these short-term increases benefit all stakeholders because it enables the airlines to invest in their product and service. Huh? What? Let's see. The money used to go for safety and security and other essentials; now it's going to the airlines, and they're going to use it to improve their product and service. Maybe they'll start serving peanuts and soda again on some of these flights. I don't know. But this is outrageous. So much for the Republican mantra. You know, corporations do pay taxes. And, in this case, now they are getting a windfall because the taxes went away. And no, tax cuts don't create jobs. Wrong twice.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. It's clear to the American public that Congress, especially the Senate, is very good at doing one thing--and that is nothing. Now, perhaps we can capitalize on this strength to resolve the impasse over the deficit reduction. Well, how could that work? How could Congress do nothing but solve this problem? Well, within 17 months, by doing nothing, we could lower the deficit by $3.8 trillion. In fact, the President could reinforce the message. Just in case Congress decided to do something, he could say, No, if they do that, I will pocket veto it. I will do nothing. So we've got a good chance here: Congress does nothing or the President pocket vetoes, he does nothing, we can save $3.8 trillion. Problem solved. How do we do that? We allow all the Bush tax cuts to expire. Now, you heard the gentlelady, Oh, my God, the job creators will pay more. Yeah, the billionaire hedge fund guys on Wall Street might pay a little bit more in taxes; they're creating so many jobs today. And the other millionaires. Warren Buffet says it's kind of ironic that he pays a much lower tax rate than his secretary. Now, if we let the Bush tax cuts expire and adopted some modest reforms, those inequities would no longer be in place, and we could have over $4 trillion of deficit reduction with a little bit of shared sacrifice. Yes, it would ask the millionaires and billionaires to pay as much as they did in the Clinton era. In an era when we had 3.8 percent unemployment, we actually paid down debt in this country. It was good for all Americans. And we asked those who were most capable to contribute the most. But we asked a little bit of everybody. That's what this doing nothing would do. Now, after we've restored some confidence here by this big step of doing nothing, we could do another half of nothing and put people back to work. How could we do half of nothing and put people back to work? Well, President Obama has adopted this cockamamie Republican idea of a Social Security tax holiday putting people to work. I know a lot of families that can use an extra $20 a week. That's true. But them spending $20 a week on junk made in China or food on the table doesn't put any Americans back to work. And if you're unemployed today--one of the 18 million unemployed--you don't get the $20 a week. We're borrowing $110 billion to do that under the guise that this is creating the jobs. And the President mentioned last night he wants to continue creating jobs that way. Well, guess what? It's not working. So we do half of nothing. We allow the Social Security tax holiday to expire. It doesn't create any jobs. We don't borrow the $110 billion from China to put in the Social Security trust fund. Instead, we borrow $110 billion to put people back to work in private sector jobs. We resolve to begin to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. That $110 billion applied to the 150,000 bridges falling down on the Federal system, the $80 billion backlog on our transit vehicles, the pavement that's disintegrating across the country could put millions to work. And not just construction workers. Engineers would go to work, people who manufacture things--steel, buses, tires, engines. All those people would go to work. We could put millions to work. Guess what that does? When people go to work, they don't collect unemployment, they don't need food stamps to feed their family, and they pay taxes. That reduces the deficit, too. So by doing one big nothing and one half of nothing and then one little action to put people back to work--nothing that anybody's talking about around here. Where are the jobs? Who's talking about jobs? We need jobs. Let's stop blathering around here. Let's resolve to do nothing and solve the debt crisis and resolve to do half of nothing and then apply the money that we save by doing that nothing to putting people back to work. That's an agenda a little more productive for the American people.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. In December the President caved to the Republicans and extended all the Bush tax cuts, immediately increasing this year's deficit by $400 billion and the 10-year deficit by $4 trillion, precipitating the great debt and deficit crisis. Now we're hearing from the press today that the President is preparing yet another great cave. Instead of saying we will have some revenues to solve this problem, he is apparently about to cut a deal that will be all cuts. So it's ironic. He cuts taxes to create a crisis, and then we cut spending to protect the tax cuts because tax cuts create jobs, except they haven't created jobs, but we've got to continue to protect them. It's all very, very sad. If we get rid of all the Bush tax cuts--$4 trillion--no cuts in Social Security, no cuts in Medicare, no cuts in veterans benefits, and $4 trillion less in deficits, now, that would be an equitable solution.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I think there is a misunderstanding. They can serve on the board. It's just that if a proposal comes up that directly affects their previous employer and they have been on the board less than 2 years, they would have to sit out that particular vote. They can serve and vote on any and every other procedure, but just not on that particular thing. It's a very restrictive conflict of interest rule.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, obviously we've straightened out that misunderstanding, that the folks could serve. Now let me just harken back to something where I think many of my Republican colleagues agreed with me. I voted against the TARP bailout. Hank Paulson, as I said at the time, I think he was Goldman Sachs's executive standing in as Secretary of the Treasury and meting out justice to some of his competitors in terms of who lived and who died on Wall Street. So I would think there would be agreement on that side that for future conflicts of interest that these people would be restricted only on that one vote, only as it affects their former employer, only within the last 24 months. I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.