John Garamendi

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. This House more than a month ago passed a very, very important tax bill, and what it did is to end the tax subsidies--and the gentlewoman from Ohio was speaking to this--ended the tax subsidies that American corporations get when they offshore jobs. Americans that I talk to say, What are you talking about? You mean the tax policy of America actually allows corporations to take a reduction in their tax, a tax credit when they send jobs overseas? The answer is yes, but if that bill becomes law--and it's stalled in the Senate by the Republicans--if it becomes law, that will end and no longer will corporations be given a tax break to send jobs overseas. It's $14 billion a year. Mr. Ellison, we've had a debate here with your colleague next to you about which is the greatest State in the upper Midwest. Would you care to join us and answer that really important question?

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you. I just want to kind of set a couple of things in place here. Before I arrived here, my three colleagues and the Democrats in this House passed an energy policy that puts America on the track to renewable energy and puts us on a track to end our addiction to foreign oil. That bill passed this House. It is a fundamental policy direction. We're moving this Nation to renewables. We're moving the Nation away from its dependence on oil. I wish I were here to vote for it, but the special election occurred after that. There will be some follow-ups. One follow-up, and this is something that just drives me crazy, that policy to build renewables in America actually runs up against our tax policy. The American tax policy allows our tax dollars to be used to buy wind turbines, photovoltaic systems, and even buses that are manufactured overseas. I am going, I don't get it. Wait a minute. That's our tax money. We're using it to buy wind turbines that are manufactured in China? Solar panels that are manufactured anywhere but America? That's stupid. So one of the things my colleagues and I are working on is to change American policy here so that our tax money is spent on these green technologies that are manufactured here in America. Now, I hope the Republicans join us on this one. It remains to be seen, because they certainly have not joined us on any other job creation program that has been put through this House that's been signed by the President. Now, my colleague from Minnesota.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I would yield to our mutual friend from the neighboring great State of Wisconsin.

Mr. GARAMENDI. We've got about 10 or 12 minutes. So we're going to do what we call lightning rounds. So we'll go around and we want to cover this ground as completely as we can. I notice that our representative from Ohio (Ms. Sutton) has a few more things she wants to add here. So, please, I yield.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject we're talking about, making it in America, manufacturing matters, the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. It's always good to go back to the district. I was there over the weekend. Among the many things was a family wedding. My 89-year old mother came up to me and said, John, does that Republican leader really mean to cut Social Security to pay for the war? And I said, well, apparently that's what he means. But I'll tell you this, Mom, and to every other mother and father out there that's on Social Security, no way, no how will the Republicans get their way, either privatizing Social Security, or cutting it to pay for the war. That's not going to happen. The Democrats have been for Social Security since 75 years ago when it was first established, and we remain strong to that commitment. It is there. It is the fundamental opportunity for retirees to have a foundation. No privatization and no cutting of Social Security, despite what the Republican leader might say.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. A compromise.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Please continue.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you so very much, Congresswoman Kaptur, for joining us. The heart and soul of America's manufacturing sector was the Midwest, and Ohio at one point was the strongest part of America's manufacturing economy. I know it can be restored. And right here in this area with the rolling stock of America's transportation system, with the new technologies, whether they're wind or turbine, if we use our tax money to support these industries rather than to support industries that are located in China or other countries, I think we can then provide the kind of strength that will return to America once again in the manufacturing sector. We're nearly out of time, and this has been a great discussion. I just want to turn for a few moments to another colleague from California. We do think that we are the biggest part of the American economy. And a big part of it happens to be where Congresswoman Watson lives, which is the entertainment industry. Congresswoman Watson, I think we're out of time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Let's turn to Ohio, and we will continue on with the story of jobs and what it means in our local districts.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you so very, very much for raising the critical role of small business in creating jobs. It is where many of the jobs are created, as you so correctly stated. You also referred to two bills that passed this House, H.R. 5297, which was the small business lending program, and it did all of the things you said. There is actually $30 billion in that that would be available to community banks to deliver loans to small businesses, $30 billion made available to them. There is also a requirement that they would have 10 years to pay back those funds. So it would go on the books of the bank as a loan, but it would be a long-term loan so that they would have the capital. I am told by the small businesses in our area that they were able to get $1 million of capital, which this provided up to $30 billion to small banks. If they could get $1 million of capital, they could then make $10 million of loans. So there is that kind of leverage involved here. That bill passed this House with 98 percent of the Republicans voting no. Now, I don't know how many times I have sat here on the floor and listened to our colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle talk about their support for small businesses. But here where they had a concrete chance to help community banks and small businesses, 98 percent of them voted no. You mentioned the small business tax incentive program, $3.5 billion of tax incentives for small businesses to specifically help small businesses weather the storm. It also granted tax relief from penalties that they may have had from mistakes that were made in the past. Again, a bill specifically designed to help small businesses. Ninety-seven percent of our Republican colleagues voted no on that. So don't come to the floor and say you are for small businesses when you had a chance to vote for legislation that would specifically help small businesses. There is another one that just came to me. We actually passed it and it is a good bill, it is important for many reasons. But I got a phone call last Saturday from a friend who was--``was'' is the right word-- was a home builder in California. He built many homes, high quality homes, was deeply involved in making those homes as green as possible, large energy conservation in solar and the like. He said, John, you have got to make sure that the HOME STAR programs that provide an incentive for homeowners to upgrade their home so that they can install triple pane windows, insulation, the cash for caulker things. They are really important, because it gives the homeowner a chance to reduce their annual energy bill, whether it is heating in the winter or air conditioning in the summer. He said, beside that, it is my new business. It is my new business. I am not building homes for a while because of the market in the area in which he was working, but he said I am going to existing homes and giving them the chance to make their homes energy efficient. I can make some money, they will make some money. There are other programs that are out there that provide additional assistance such as tax credits, and I want to come to that in a few moments. So when that bill was on the floor, what happened? Where do you stand? Do you stand with homeowners and small businesses such as I just described, or are you standing for Wall Street? Well, let's find out. Ninety-three percent of the Republicans on this floor voted against the HOME STAR energy program. I don't get it. I don't get it. We are saving energy, helping us consume less energy, giving people an opportunity to work and homeowners an opportunity to reduce their energy bill. I don't know what that means in Ohio, but I do know what it means in California. It is a chance for a small contractor to change his business model and to move in a direction that is good for him, good for the homeowner, and good for America.

Mr. GARAMENDI. These are the kinds of jobs that really don't require a Ph.D. People can take these jobs that were working on the line in a manufacturing industry or working in the housing industry. They may already have some skills that are available to them. But there is an enormous, enormous potential here. And the other pieces of legislation provide for a tax credit to the homeowner to put in these systems. So we need to really move along on these kinds of things. I am going to just run through another series of bills here that are very important to us, I believe. Again, this is the Jobs For Main Street Act that creates jobs for firefighters, for teachers, and to rebuild highways and the like, extending health care benefits for those who had lost their insurance because of the downturn, something as sensible as keeping teachers employed, something as sensible as making sure that firefighters are still there. Yes, it is the Federal Government helping local governments. It is true. And it is a deficit issue. But what if we don't have teachers? What if there are teachers being laid off and the classroom size goes from 20 to 30? What about the next generation's ability to compete internationally, their educational opportunities are stifled? That is not a what-if. That is my daughter's classroom. She is a teacher, first grade. She has gone from 20 to 30. The economy is down. The State of California is in financial trouble. The Federal Government has the ability to help here, to keep people employed, teachers in this case, others in schools, and, more importantly, make the most fundamental investment, which is the investment in the education of our children. You may be seeing something like that in Ohio. I know it is a major problem all across this Nation.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, these things are critically important. One more bill that I want to take up before I turn to what we can do next is a bill that dealt with the fundamental reason that the American economy crashed in 2007-8, and that was the meltdown of Wall Street. The extraordinary greed, the games that were being played, the gamble that was being made with our money by Wall Street led to the collapse. Obviously, the housing industry, the subprime mortgage market, the collateralized debt obligations, the derivatives, all of those games were being played on Wall Street. For more than a year--almost 2 years now--this House, the Democrats, have fought to rein in Wall Street; to force Wall Street to operate with rigorous rules that hold them accountable and responsible. We finally succeeded late last year to pass a Wall Street Reform Act. It went over to the Senate. It took almost 9 months for the Senate to gestate a bill. Conference committee took place. The conferees met. The bill came to this floor. And we added a few provisions to the--the bill came to the floor and it passed with provisions that were added during the conference committee. A good bill. It does rein in Wall Street, does set clear rules. It makes it impossible for a bank to fail and for taxpayers to bail out a bank--a big bank. There are things in it that went beyond that. Providing opportunities for small banks. Some of the additional benefit to small banks. They were given a break so that the heavy-duty regulations that were imposed on the major banks were not imposed on the small banks. Where do you stand? Do you stand to rein in Wall Street and finally bring to heel the bankers that brought this Nation's economy to its knees and doggone near tanked the economy, putting us into a Depression equal to 1930? Do you stand with that kind of regulation or do you stand with the Wall Street bankers that said say, Oh, trust us. We'll never do it again. The Democrats in this House carried the burden of reining in Wall Street, setting in place the regulations, setting in place the rules of the road going forward, hopefully preventing, and I think will prevent, the kind of meltdown that we had. Our colleagues on the Republican side to a person voted ``no'' when it came time to discipline Wall Street. They voted ``no'' when it came time to discipline Wall Street. You know where you stand when you vote here in this House. In this case, do you stand with the regulation of Wall Street or let them continue doing what they did? It's clear where we stood as Democrats. Now, Representative Wilson, would you like to add to that?

Mr. GARAMENDI. I was back in the district over the Fourth of July week and somebody said, Well, it's kind of like an NFL football game. I said, What do you mean by that? He said, Well, you used to play football at the University of California Berkley and you could have been in the NFL but you decided to go in the Peace Corps. I said, Yeah, it was a good decision. But what's the point here? He said, Well, you know, this Wall Street bunch, before your reform, it was like an NFL football game without any rules, and the referees were sent into the locker room. And you can kind of imagine what the outcome would be. Wild chaos and a lot of mayhem. He said, That's exactly what happened on Wall Street. The regulators during the Bush period stepped out of the room. The rules were not there to prevent the kind of excesses--if there were rules, there was nobody to make them obey it. And we wound up with the problem we had. Let's move to the future here. So what are we going to do next? In the financial reform, Wall Street reform, there was a provision, and in another bill that we passed earlier there was a provision that is extraordinarily important to the American worker. In existing law today and for the last couple of decades there's been a tax break for corporations who offshore jobs--a tax break that literally gives a tax reduction when an American corporation sends jobs offshore. You say, Excuse me, did I hear what you said, Congressman? You did hear what I said. What I said is, in the law today there is a tax break for sending jobs offshore. We have twice passed on this floor legislation that would end that tax break and annually restore to the American Treasury $14.5 billion that now sits in the popular corporations that have offshored American jobs. Must stop. It's got to be over. The Republicans voted with the corporations to keep that tax break in place. I'm not there. And I suspect you're not there, Mr. Wilson, either. So we need to make sure that that bill that's sitting over there in the Senate where the power of one senator can simply stop everything, that it is busted loose and comes back so that corporations--American corporations--no longer get a tax break when they send American jobs overseas. Issue one. Let's get with it, Senate. Secondly, this one really drives me crazy because this is really California. We've got solar in California. We started that in California. In 1978, I passed a law as a California State Senator that gave a tax break for the solar industry. The first in the Nation. And it started the solar industry. It also started the wind turbine industry in California. Right now, we're spending about $5 billion a year of tax money on buses; we spend billions of dollars supporting the solar industry with tax credits, some of which we've talked about; and the wind industry. We need, in my view, a law that says if it's our tax money, then it will be made in America. It will be used to buy American-made buses, trains, light rail. It'll be used to pay for solar panels and tax credits on the homes of Americans; panels and equipment that are made in America. It is, after all, our tax money. And with the windmills or the wind turbines. In my district, we have two of the biggest wind farm areas in the Nation. We've got the Montezuma Hills in Solano County, which I represent, and we have the Altamont Pass area in Alameda, and San Joaquin County. Many of the new turbines that are being put up are made overseas--and most of them are made in China. And I'm going, Wait a minute. We're giving them a tax credit, those companies that own these machines? We're giving them a tax credit to buy turbines that are made where? China? No way, no how. There ought to be a law. And I believe this Democratic Party and this floor is going to put such a law together. I think we've got about 10 minutes left, and I just noticed a colleague from the great Midwest just arrived. Congresswoman Kaptur, thank you so very much for joining us. I know you and I have had conversations about jobs, and I know that your part of the country used to be manufacturing center one. I guess the two of you can debate that. But let's talk about these kinds of things. How do we restore American manufacturing?

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you for bringing up the question of innovation and research. It was a very big portion of that. I'm going to come back a little later to another piece of legislation that has passed this House, yet to pass the Senate. But with regard to the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, once again, it was the Democrats that carried the ball that shouldered the burden and passed and provided the votes. Not one Republican vote. You mentioned the home-buying situation in Orange County. The first- time home buyer credit, I think it's $6,000, was made available through a piece of legislation that once again was pushed forward by the Democrats in this House and over in the Senate. And 93 percent of the Republicans on this floor voted against that provision that gives first-time home buyers that additional money that they needed for that down payment so they could buy that home. It goes on and on and on. One of the issues that confronts us, since we're not back where we need to be with our employment, is the unemployment insurance situation. Now, representing a part of the Nation that has been really harmed by the loss of manufacturing jobs is the Ohio Valley region. Representative Charlie Wilson is from the Youngstown area, and I invite him here to talk to us about his situation in the Ohio Valley and the Youngstown region. Welcome. Thank you.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very, very much for the view from the great Ohio Valley. Before we started this 1 hour, you and I were chatting off the floor, and you raised another point and maybe the two of us can kind of talk about this for a second. We're really faced with a choice. First of all, this is unemployment insurance. This has always been a program in which over time employers pay into a fund for insurance if their workers become unemployed. Because of the downturn in the economy, the Federal Government has had to backstop that insurance program. Presumably over time, we get the economy going, some of that will be refunded. I know it certainly will be at the State level because the States are obligated to make it back up. But with regard to the individuals involved here, their unemployment insurance has run out. They have not received a check now I think for the last 2 weeks. If this is not extended, what happens to them?

Mr. GARAMENDI. And a person that was working, was receiving insurance, is now going to be on welfare.

Mr. GARAMENDI. So there is no win in this, and once again, where's the Senate? I know what happened in this House. The Democrats almost universally voted for this. We were able to get 29 Republicans to vote for this unemployment insurance program, and only 29 Republicans did so. We were able to pass it; 153 Republicans voted ``no.'' So what's the sense of all this? It really raises the question in my mind because as we go through these bills that have been passed from this House, some of which have been signed into law, passed the Senate, signed into law, the Republicans universally vote ``no'' on these jobs bills and even on unemployment insurance. I don't quite get it. We were talking earlier about the workers, the first-time homeowner buyers, tax relief for small businesses, emergency relief for American families. That bill passed here with only 7 percent of Republicans voting ``yes'' and 93 voting ``no.'' Even on student aid, we're talking about men and women that want to go back to school, that want to be able to continue their education, and one of the most important ways to stimulate the future economy is to have a well-educated workforce; but in that case, that particular piece of legislation that passed this House would have increased the Pell Grants so that kids and adults could afford to go to school. What did the Republicans do? Not one Republican voted for student aid to help students go to school, to continue in school. I'm curious what's going on here. I just noticed that my colleague from Connecticut has arrived here, John Larson. Maybe you can answer this or just tell us what is going on in Connecticut.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Larson, thank you so very much. You've brought a great deal of passion to this. I know it's in your heart. I know that you see this problem in your own district among friends and others who are there. I want to turn back to my colleagues from Ohio and California in a moment. I said there were seven pieces of legislation that have passed and have been signed into law. I'm going to go through them quickly because in their own way each one of these has created economic growth and jobs here in California, in Ohio and in other States across the Nation. I mentioned the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We talked about the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act; First Time Homebuyers. The gentleman from Connecticut talked briefly about insurance reform, the way in which the insurance system discriminates against women, against people who have preexisting conditions. That insurance reform was embodied in the Health Insurance Reform Act that passed this floor and not one Republican voted for it. There will be a day of reckoning when somebody out there says, My 23-year-old daughter can stay on insurance now because the Democrats and President Obama passed the Health Insurance Reform Act. Student aid. We talked about that a moment ago. It is extremely important, so that adults can go on to school, can stay there, improve their employability, learn new skills; and as the economy is coming back, will be able to get a job. This one I found to be personally very upsetting because my old clunker didn't qualify. I actually did not register it in California. By the time you passed this, I wasn't here. It wasn't registered and I couldn't get rid of my clunker. But 700,000 cars were sold as a direct result of the clunker law and it really did help American automobile manufacturing. I know that a lot of people say that Toyota got more than its share, and it did, but a lot of that share were Corollas that were manufactured in Fremont, California; Toyotas to be sure, but nonetheless they were manufactured in California. We talked about the HIRE Act. Incidentally, 95 percent of Republicans voted against the Cash for Clunkers law. The Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act, the HIRE Act, created 300,000 jobs. Created. Not some wish list but actually created 300,000 jobs and unleashed billions of dollars of infrastructure across the United States-- streets, roads, sanitation facilities. Cut taxes for businesses that hire new workers that had been unemployed and cracked down on offshore tax havens. Oh, this one I love. I'm going to come back to this one. Again, 97 percent of Republicans voted against that program. Three hundred thousand jobs. They voted against it. What are you guys doing? We need to put people to work. Finally, one that most of the Republican leadership opposed, eventually it did become law and many, many Republicans voted against this one, which was the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights. Which one of us has not been ripped off by some credit card scheme or scam? But this really gives those of us that have credit cards--and I've got more than I'd like to say in my pocket right now--gives us at least a little bit of an equal footing here on that. So here are seven bills, all of them in one way or another providing in this case credit, the opportunity to get reasonable credit; hire people; cash for clunkers, education; health care and other kinds of stimulus. Democrats in this side took it upon themselves to shoulder the burden, to pass the legislation necessary to put people to work. My final point before I turn back to my colleagues is that the argument that I keep hearing is that it will raise the deficit. Yes. But we ought to understand where the deficit really came from, and we'll go through that. The deficit was really created as a result of three things. Keep in mind that when Clinton left office, this Nation was in a surplus. We were running a surplus of over half a trillion dollars. George W. Bush came in and did three things that created as he left office for the next 10 years, an $11 trillion deficit: One, he started two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, and didn't pay for them; really the first time in American history. Secondly, he started Medicare part D, the drug benefit, I think 700 to $800 billion in 10 years, not paid for. And thirdly the great recession with the financial collapse. Those three things added up, beginning the day that Obama took office, he was handed a $1.3 trillion debt, given to him by the Bush administration. And if you look at the years out, continuing the Bush policy, that would add up to an $11 trillion deficit. We've got to put people to work. The question that I always ask is, do you want tax takers, welfare recipients, who cannot get a job, cannot get unemployment insurance, or do you want taxpayers? The Democratic House has voted consistently to put people to work so that they could become taxpayers.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Excuse me. If I might interrupt, there is some House business that needs to be attended to. I notice our colleague arriving from the Rules Committee to take care of some House business.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, thank you. Following on Congressman Lungren, my colleague from the neighboring district, I didn't realize that Senator Dave Cox had died. I join him in the eulogy that he so graciously gave here on the floor. An extraordinary individual, represented my mother in the mountain counties, and was dedicated, as was said, to the betterment of California. So I will start with that. What I intended to discuss here today was jobs, American jobs, and the situation we are faced with today and the extraordinary burden that's placed upon so many Americans who have lost their jobs in the last years of this great recession. What I wanted to really start with was to try to get a sense of what has happened over the last 3 years, 2\1/2\, almost 3 years now. Beginning in December of 2007, the great American recession began during the George W. Bush period. And we began to lose jobs, largely as a result of the subprime mortgage, the lack of regulation that was going on, loans being made to people that didn't qualify, and all the games of Wall Street that began to unravel and to cause the American economy to literally crash. As that Wall Street problem magnified and grew, the number of jobs that were lost grew, so between December of 2007, when there is actually some modest job growth, and December of 2008, we saw an extraordinary decline in jobs. So that in December 2008 you are looking at over 750,000 jobs lost. Now, in January, at the end of January, the Obama administration came in, and again in January we faced another 700,000 jobs lost. But almost all that period of time was the previous administration. And the new Obama administration did not have any opportunity until the last 5 days of the month to even take over the administration of government. Thereafter, and most every month since then we have seen a decline in the number of jobs lost, so that now in the fall of 2009 we actually began to see the first signs of job growth. So that in September, October of 2009 there is actually a small, very modest increase in jobs, followed the next month by again a decline. But then in the following months since the fall of 2009 to this period, we have actually seen a growth in the number of jobs in America. And that's good news. We're not anywhere near where we need to be. And I think we all need to understand what has been done to--the effect of all of this job loss. So if I might just go to another chart here so that we can set the foundation for what we're going to talk about, you know, the numbers basically lay it out there. During the Great Recession, beginning in the fall of 2007 and then continuing on until the fall of 2009, 8 million jobs were lost. Nearly all of those were lost during the George W. Bush administration. For the Americans that depended on their savings, their retirement accounts, $17 trillion in retirement savings were lost during this period of time. You just compare that to the previous 8 years of the Clinton administration, when 22 million jobs were created during the Clinton administration. The question arises, why? What was the difference? What happened that caused during the last years of the George W. Bush administration the loss of these some 8 million jobs compared to 22 million jobs that were created under the Clinton administration? We're going to come to that during this discussion. And it's a fundamental question, because it is the question of national policy. During the prior period of the Bush administration, by contrast, 1 million jobs were created in America. Again, enormous difference--22 versus 1. Why? What's the reason for this? And the policy decisions that were made that led to this enormous difference here. I'd tell you what we'd like to do for the remainder of this year is create some 900,000 jobs, and we're on course to do that. It's going to take a lot of work. It's going to take a lot of changes in policy. Beginning with the Obama administration, a series of pieces of legislation were put into place, and I'd like to just review those pieces of legislation and what they were doing. Many of these were designed specifically to deal with the great recession and to prevent the American economy from falling into a 1930 Depression. We were on the edge. We were teetering on the edge of that. Some of this was done in the last days of the George W. Bush administration, which was the bailout of Wall Street, the TARP program. That program pumped some $700-plus billion into Wall Street. A lot of controversy about it. Other nations around the world were doing the same thing. And the result was a stabilization of the financial industry. For me, I would have liked to have seen it done differently, but it was done that way during the Bush administration, and it did actually stabilize the economy. Now, because of bills that have been passed since that time, we're seeing a good portion of that money returned to the American Treasury. Now, beginning with the Obama administration, immediate action was taken here on the floor of this House and in the Senate to try to stabilize the job market to try to put Americans back to work. And the very first bill that was enacted, I believe, within the first 30 days was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Now, economists looking at that today have said that that legislation alone created 2.8 million jobs, including teachers, police, firemen, construction workers, and the like. It also provided the American middle class with the largest tax cut ever for the middle class. Ninety-eight percent of Americans received a reduction in their taxes as a result of that, so that today the amount of money collected from the American taxpayers is at a rate that is as low as it was in the 1950s. There was also a major element of it that was called rebuilding America with clean energy jobs and with infrastructure. So 2.8 million jobs were enacted. I'm going to quickly go through these others. I'll come back to them during the course of this discussion. But also I want to just tell you the way we're going to do this, and that is we're going to talk about what's going on in various parts of America. So, from time to time, I'll come back and talk about the other six fundamental pieces of legislation that have been signed into law by President Obama, passed by this House. All seven, including the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, have created jobs in America and turned around the American economy. So we're growing. Not as much as we should and not as much as necessary, but we're growing. I'd like now to reach out--well, I guess I'm a Californian, but basically I'm from northern California. I represent a district in the San Francisco Bay Area east of the San Francisco Bay. But there's another part of California that is rather big. That would be the Los Angeles Basin. And specifically, joining me from Orange County is the gentlewoman from Orange County, Loretta Sanchez. Can you talk to us about what's happening there and the nature of the economy and the job situation.

Mr. GARAMENDI. So thank you so very much for talking about down home and what's going on there. I will note that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which the economists suggest has created 2.8 million jobs, provided the largest middle class tax cut ever, and also did the infrastructure-- streets, roads, sanitation facilities--and renewable green energy programs. Not one Republican voted for that.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule so that we can get on to discussing an extremely important matter, not only the domestic issues that will be included in this piece of legislation which are absolutely essential. We do need to educate our kids. We do need to provide for critical domestic policies. I also want to get to the issue of the war, particularly the war in Afghanistan, of which there will be some $30 billion allocated for that war. I strongly oppose that appropriation. The Lee amendments, the McGovern amendments, the Obey amendments all come to grips with that and, in various ways, will cause us to get out of that war. We have to focus laser beam-like on al Qaeda, but that doesn't mean that we have to engage in a counterinsurgency program in Afghanistan. $30 billion. The Pentagon estimates that it's $875,000 per soldier in Afghanistan. Roughly $87,000 is enough for a well-paid teacher in America. That translates to 300,000 teachers. If we took that $30 billion and used it in America, we could employ 300,000 teachers. We have to have a strong economy. We know that economy is in desperate need of a well-educated workforce. Better to spend the money here at home. Better to focus laser beam-like on al Qaeda wherever it may be in this world, whether it's in Aden, whether it is in Saudi Arabia or whether Sudan or Afghanistan and Pakistan, but not engage in a terribly expensive counterinsurgency program in Afghanistan. Some of us were around for the Vietnam War. And what this sounds like is another Vietnam, a quagmire in which we will ultimately extract ourselves with extraordinary loss of life and treasure. It's time to stop it right now. So I ask for an ``aye'' vote on the rule and support for the two amendments that we'll be dealing with.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Let's just go through this. Who's side are you on? Democrats supporting jobs and bills. We talked about the Cash for Caulkers and other programs and the jobs bill, every single one of them opposed. No jobs bills. Unemployment insurance. People are losing their unemployment insurance because of the Republican Party. What are they going to do? The economy hasn't come back. They're going to lose their jobs. They're going to lose their home. We're going to start another downward spiral. We talked about the health care effort. Not one Republican voted for the health care bill. Excuse me. One in this House. One Republican voted for the health care bill. Wall Street. We talked about Wall Street reform. Republicans vote against it; the Democrats vote for it. We talk about the Consumer Protection Agency. The Republicans are opposed to it; the Democrats support it. We talk about small business reforms which are in this bill and in other bills. The Republicans consistently vote against small business, the increase of the Small Business Administration. We can go back through the major bills that this House has voted on. The American Recovery Act, known as the stimulus bill, Republicans voted against it. You look at the energy and climate to break our addiction to oil. Democrats vote for it; Republicans vote against it. You look at the Wall Street reform and the Consumer Protection Act. Democrats vote for it; Republicans consistently and in en bloc vote against it. You talk about the gulf oil spill, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Republicans blame the government and want to apologize rather than the instigator of the problem, BP. On Social Security, the Republican leader wants to extend the age to 70 in order to get Social Security. You talk about health care reform. We've discussed that already. The Republicans vote against it. They want to repeal it. They get into power in this House, they're going to repeal the reforms. And unemployment and jobs, every single jobs bill they vote against. Every effort we have made to put people to work, whether it was in transportation--and that is in the American Recovery Act--or in the current jobs bills, keeping teachers employed, we want to employ teachers. They talk about the next generation, yes. But you don't educate that next generation, we're in trouble. All of these things add up and it is, as you say, there's a string, there's a path, there are road signs here. Who's side are you on? The Republicans have consistently sided with Big Oil, big health insurance companies. It's time for us to recognize the difference.