John Garamendi

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. We certainly can rebuild the American manufacturing industry, and there are ways of doing it. That was done in part when the President stepped up using the stimulus money to rebuild General Motors and Chrysler. They're now back, and millions of jobs have been saved and, simultaneously, the entire small business supply chain is in order. Mr. Ryan, I know that you have other thoughts that you'd like to add, so please share with us.

Mr. GARAMENDI. And we can't wait. We cannot wait. I'm just going to toss out two more statistics here. The top 1 percent of Americans in 1974 had about 9 percent of income of all sorts--capital gains, interest, dividends, as well as earned income, about 9 percent. In 2007--that was 4 years ago--they had 23\1/2\ percent. So you've seen the income of the very few at the top grow extraordinarily from 9 to 23. It's probably up to 25 or 27 percent this year. The top one-tenth of 1 percent--this is 15,000 families in America--have raked in more than $1 trillion of income in 2009; just 15,000 families, $1 trillion of income. Yet, when the Senate took up the bill to provide about 2 million jobs for America to be paid for by these men, women, and families that have had this extraordinary growth in their income, just a small percentage of a surcharge, 5 percent surcharge on that additional income, the Republicans in the Senate refused to pass that bill. So 280,000 teachers are not going to get a job, 100,000 police and firemen will not be back on our streets protecting us, and $50 billion of construction programs will not be built, 35,000 schools will not be renovated, and all across this Nation the pain of the middle class will continue. It's time for us to have a better deal for America. The American Jobs Act can do that. And I think it can help Ohio in the central part. Ms. Kaptur, if you would care to join us, thank you so very much. I yield to a terrific Representative who I know has fought fiercely for years and years here to bring back to middle America the manufacturing base and the middle-income jobs that are so important.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Explain to us what the Chinese currency bill is all about.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the gentleman from Connecticut. My apologies, Rhode Island being not too far away. Thank you very much. And thank you for pointing out that it's very, very difficult in America if you're poor. One out of six Americans now live in poverty and are dependent upon food stamps and other kinds of subsistence in order simply to stay alive. And we cannot forget that, although we ought to remember that here on this floor very recently there was an effort to reduce the food stamps. So I don't quite understand why anybody would want to do that, given the poverty rate. You also spoke to the issue of fairness in taxes. Eighty-four percent of all of the wealth in this Nation is now controlled by the top 20 percent, and the bottom have become more and more poor. Now, one of the States that is struggling to get back into the American Dream is the State of Ohio, and there's a lot of conflict going on there about labor and politics and the like. But I know, Mr. Ryan, that you're focused solely on trying to get people back to work in your community. If you would please join us. If I recall correctly, you're from the eastern part of Ohio.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Excuse me. May I interrupt? You and three of your colleagues or four of your colleagues have undertaken a program to try to live on the unemployment insurance?

Mr. GARAMENDI. We can't wait to get a bill out of this House, and hopefully the Speaker will allow us to bring it to the floor. And I can't wait to hear from Mr. Courtney of Connecticut. Mr. Courtney, please join us.

Mr. GARAMENDI. You said something that came to my mind--I'm going to do this quickly before I turn to my colleague from--Rhode Island? You mentioned student loans. Now, the President has been out in California, in Los Angeles and in San Francisco, near my district, and he's been saying something that really caught my attention, and that is: we can't wait. Speaking for the American people, we can't wait for Congress to act. We can't wait. And he did something that is really, really close to home. My daughter and son-in-law just finished medical school. They have huge loans that they took out to go through medical school. But across this Nation, about $1 trillion of loans have been taken out by young men and women--and older--who have gone back to school to improve themselves, to get an education, to learn a skill, $1 trillion out there. And many of those loans are at a very high interest rate, and they may be from different sectors. And the President says, we can't wait to help these people. These young men and women and others who have these loans, they need help today. And so he put together a new program based upon a law that we passed last year--the Democrats passed last year--that said we're going to do some consolidation. So he's taken that step. He's going to allow for the consolidation of these loans into one loan package and allow the interest rate to be reduced, on the average, at least a half percent interest rate and stretched out--and a small percentage of the income. And many of these young men and women--I'm just going to say men and women, they're not all young--aren't able to get a job other than just a minimum wage, and so they can't pay. So he's giving them a break. And that's what we want our President to do. We want our President to go out there and say we can't wait for Congress--even though I'm ready to go and I know my colleagues are--and giving them a break. This is really important that he has done this.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the gentlelady from California so very much for sharing with us the words that she has received from her constituents. I know that for me, and I suspect for many of our colleagues, there are similar words, similar comments to us. It's time for us to get with it. Let's pass a jobs bill. Let's really work for the people out there, not only the unemployed, but for the great middle class that has been pushed down over the last decade. It's time for them to have their say. Thank you so very, very much for being with us this afternoon.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I'd be fascinated to hear. I know that your constituents have been very, very active, and I know that over the years you have been superactive. Please share those tweets with us.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much for joining us this evening. Before I turn to my colleague from California, I want to just emphasize the point that the President's American Jobs program is balanced, fully paid for. It's paid for with a fair tax. We know that over the last 12 years now the upper income, that top 1 or 2 percent, has enjoyed an enormous tax break that was put in place during the George W. Bush first and third year. They've had it good. They've really seen their share of income in America grow extraordinarily fast while the great middle class of America has had basically a flat situation. They've seen no improvement in their income. And then in the last couple of years, they've seen a very precipitous decline. The President has also proposed--and I know I agree very strongly with this--end the tax breaks for the oil companies. Why does the oil industry need another $5 billion or $6 billion a year of tax breaks when in fact over the last decade they've earned more than a trillion dollars in profit? Our colleague from California is ready to go. This is Maxine Waters, representing Los Angeles, a colleague of mine dating back to our years in the California Legislature, which was just a few years back. If you would care to share with us your thoughts on how we're going to get Americans back to work.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Over on the Senate side, the leader of the Senate, Mr. Reid, brought the issue to the Senate floor and was unable to even get a vote on the Senate floor because of the Republican threat of a filibuster and the 60-vote requirement to end that filibuster. And so even though on the Senate side they almost came to a vote, they were stopped short by a filibuster. And the reason, apparently, was that the Republicans did not want to raise a one-half of 1 percent tax on those very small number--the top 1 percent of Americans that are earning more than a million dollars of adjusted gross income a year. And so with that small tax increase, they refused to go along. So here we are in this House without a vote and on the other side because of the threat of a filibuster, and 280,000 teachers are not going to be hired unless we're able to break through. The only way to break through is for the American public to rise up, the 99ers out there, and say: Enough. Give us our jobs. Give us the opportunity to go back to work. I yield to my colleague.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Certainly.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I can go through each one of those numbers that my colleague from the wonderful State of New York talked about. California, similarly, would receive very, very significant benefits. However, we need to look at the reality of what is happening here in this Chamber where the Speaker of the House refuses to even allow a vote on the President's proposal. All of the things you talked about that would benefit New York will come to nothing unless the Speaker of the House will allow these proposals to come to a vote.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you very much for bringing us the overall view of this. You are quite correct about the small businesses. Let me just put this pie chart up here. Small business is where 64 percent of all new jobs have been created over the last 15 years. Big businesses actually lost many, many jobs as they have offshored jobs. In fact, it was just last December that the Democratic-controlled House passed a tax bill that terminated tax breaks for big businesses sending jobs offshore. That was about $12 billion of tax breaks that were terminated so that American businesses would not get a tax break to send jobs offshore. I would just like to point out that not one Republican voted to end that tax break that sent those jobs offshore. But the point here is that small businesses really do create 64 percent of the jobs. Now, in the American Jobs Act, as my colleague from New York said, there are some very, very important provisions that deal directly with small businesses, encouraging them to hire. For example, we've got some 6 million people that are unemployed more than 6 months, so those are the long-term unemployed. If a small business were to hire one of the long-term unemployed, they would receive an immediate $4,000 tax credit. That is off the bottom line of their taxes, providing a very powerful incentive to hire the long-term unemployed. Now, I think the entire Nation is sick and tired of our wars, but the wars are real. Those wars have created a situation where a very, very high percentage of the veterans that come back are unable to get a job. These may be those veterans that have been off in Afghanistan or Iraq. There's a tax credit again for a veteran returning from the wars, a $5,600 tax credit for hiring an unemployed veteran. Now if that veteran happens to have a service-connected disability, and we've seen the terrible tragedies of those disabilities, arms, legs, and other problems that have befallen the veterans as they serve our country, there's a $9,600 tax credit in the American Jobs Act for those small businesses that hire the veterans. So by hiring new people, small businesses will be able to receive a very, very significant benefit as a result of this American Jobs Act. If the gentlelady would like to continue on with some of the reasons why this is important to New York, please, Mrs. Maloney, if you would take care and have at it.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to present here on the floor the solution to the question that was just raised by my colleague from the Republican side of the aisle. A month ago, the President laid out a plan that would create millions of jobs here in the United States. It was the American Jobs Act. We are going to talk about this tonight. Before I get into the details of it, last week, in fact 1 week ago, I held a town hall meeting in Fairfield, California. At that town hall meeting the question of jobs was on everybody's mind. What are you doing about jobs? What is Congress doing about jobs? It just seems as though nothing is happening, and all we're seeing from Congress is talk of the deficit and cuts. Every time there's a cut, we have another job loss here in our area. Maybe it's a school teacher that's laid off or some highway project that's not going forward. So what's happening with the jobs? And I then began to explain the American Jobs Act, and we're going to spend some time this evening talking just about that issue, the American Jobs Act. As proposed by the President, it does address a variety of ways in which American jobs will be created, and not increasing the deficit at all, but rather fully paid for. I would like to start off this evening by asking my colleague from the great State of New York (Mrs. Maloney) if she would like to express the view from the East Coast, and then I'll move to the West Coast.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Our worthy chairman has put up a dozen canards, none of which really address the underlying issue here. This amendment is a very simple one that would locate in Arizona the headquarters for this mine. Is there something wrong with that? We are not moving this off to Finland. Come on. This amendment would also provide that the copper--and it's been stated by the proponents of the bill that 25 percent of the copper needs in the United States would come from this mine, so why not use this copper in the United States? It seems to me to be perfectly reasonable, despite all the canards that we just tossed around here a few moments ago. The other part of this has to do with the equipment. Is the worthy gentleman from Washington opposed to using American-made equipment in American mines? Is that what this is all about? Yes, there may be some definitional problems. I'd be delighted to work with you on the definitional problems, but the underlying point is why would we set up all of this so that we could import the equipment from China or Japan or some other place. Why not simply require that this mine, which under the bill itself is an enormous giveaway of American property, of property owned by the American people and the enormous unparalleled giveaway of our value, why not simply require that at least if they're going to be given all of this, they be required to buy American-made equipment for the mine operation? What's wrong with that? Why not make it in America? If this mine is in America, why not use American-made equipment and hire Americans and, in this case, Arizonans? You got a problem with hiring Arizonans? You got a problem with locating in Arizona the headquarters of this mine, or would you prefer London or maybe somewhere in Australia? Come on. These are very simple amendments so that Americans can go to work. These are very simple amendments so that this company will buy American-made equipment to mine our copper which, under your proposal, is given away.

Mr. GARAMENDI. It belongs to us, Americans, and we ought to be getting our full value. This is not an obscure or new provision. This is the standard procedure. We actually use it for oil extraction, except in deep water. It is something that really will give us the value. Secondly, and I'll make this very, very short, the equipment used ought to be American made. There's going to be a lot of equipment, a lot of different equipment and material used; let's make that American- made. That's an amendment that will come later. But right now, deal with the royalty issues so that us Americans, all of us, 300 million, will get our share of the extraordinary value that this mine will produce.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Mr. Grijalva, and thank you very much for our friends from Arizona. Let me just tell you, my family has been in mining since the 1860s, gold mining, which isn't working too well in California right now. And I am not at all opposed to mining copper in Arizona, although there are issues, local, to be dealt with; and I will let that go to another individual. I was deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior and had the opportunity to deal with appraisals and land transfers. This bill, as structured, is a bad deal for American taxpayers and for Americans. It basically is an enormous giveaway of extraordinary value to these two companies. As has been mentioned by our colleagues from Arizona who are in support of the bill, this is one of the biggest deposits of copper and other minerals in the United States and quite possibly among the biggest in the world. What is its value? The mechanism that's used to determine the value of the trade is called a capitalization appraisal, which has to assume the cost, has to make assumptions on the extraction, the cost of extraction, and the amount of ore to be obtained. There is no way in the appraisal process that that can be done with any accuracy at all. In the language of the bill, there are certain provisions that make it impossible for the United States Government to go back and do a reappraisal, so we're left with a bad financial deal. I'm all for the copper mining. It has to be done properly, and environmental views and all that. That's not the issue for me. The issue for me is let's make sure the American public gets the right value out of this, and there's only one way to do it. That is as the ore is extracted. It then has a known quantity and a known value, and a royalty on the ore extracted, that is the material--copper, gold, and other materials--is then known. And if you simply put a royalty on it, then the American people will get its fair share of its property. This property doesn't belong to Rio Tinto or BHP Billiton; this property belongs to us, Americans.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I offer my highest congratulations today to Mr. Phil Blazer of California on the 5th anniversary of his founding of Jewish Life Television (JLTV). In 2006, Mr. Blazer initiated America's first full-time Jewish television network, which is now seen in all 50 states through DIRECTV, along with cable distribution on Comcast, Time Warner and other systems. Jewish Life Television (JLTV) originates from its headquarters in Encino, California and reaches over 36 million households in America and over 80 million households across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. The network's ratings show an audience of 3-4 million different households during any given month. Over 160,000 homes watched the Kol Nidre-Yom Kippur Service on JLTV. Jewish Life Television programming features news, talk shows, cooking, comedy, and entertainment. JLTV also broadcasts live events including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference, the Jewish Federation's General Assembly, the March of the Living, and the Maccabiah Games in Israel. Mr. Blazer's award-winning weekly television program, Jewish Life, was established in 1977, and has featured interviews with prominent figures from all walks of life including Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Weisel, Yitzak Rabin, Elizabeth Taylor, and Sandy Koufax. Blazer is the editor and publisher of the National Jewish News, which he founded in 1973. His radio program, Jewish Soul, began broadcasting in 1965 and continues to be heard weekly around the world and on the internet. During his 46 years of working in Jewish media, Mr. Blazer has played a valuable role in numerous projects for the Jewish community and for America. He was a key catalyst in the rescue of nearly 1,000 Ethiopian Jews through U.S. Government Operation Joshua. Mr. Blazer championed California's Holocaust Education bill, led a counter-rally against Neo-Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, and started dialogue between Jews and Gentiles in post-war Berlin. Mr. Blazer helps Israelis, the Jewish Diaspora, and America maintain strong ties. In addition to the aforementioned activities, he has led Hollywood celebrities and other leaders on trips to Israel. He attended the 1979 White House Peace Signing Ceremony between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat, and U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Prime Minister Begin stated Blazer knows ``Israel better than any American'' the Israeli Prime Minister had ever met and was ``rare'' as a ``true leader'' of the Jewish people.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. And how about the President's proposal, $50 billion?

Mr. GARAMENDI. What we have is the Republican agenda. The Republicans have now been in control of the House of Representatives since January--over 10 months now--and they have not produced one jobs bill. You were talking about the issue of shipping jobs overseas, and it is true. The American tax system, prior to December of last year, gave a tax break of some $15 billion a year to American corporations for every job they shipped overseas. The Democrats, by a democratic vote, passed a law that eliminated that tax break. Not one Republican voted to eliminate the tax break that American corporations had when they shipped jobs offshore. Just so you know where people are in this House, the Republicans refuse to end the tax break that American corporations had when they offshored jobs. The Republican agenda: no jobs. That's their agenda. They talk about cuts. Every time there has been a cut--and there's been numerous cuts. We've been through this for the last 10 months. Everybody's cut is somebody's job. They've lost that job. What we need is a different agenda. What we need is a Democratic agenda. What we need is a better deal for America. And it's this: We'll Make It in America. We will build, we will rebuild those parts of the American economy that create jobs, solid jobs. You mentioned the China currency bill. Yes, it is true, and they say American businesses can't compete. That was directly from our Republican colleagues. That's not true. Economists say over and over again the American industries can compete on a fair level playing field. But when China has its currency 25 to 30 percent cheaper, there's no way we can compete. It is unfair; it's unrealistic. It has got to end. The Senate passed that bill. The Speaker of this House has refused to allow the Chinese currency bill to come to the floor for a vote. We passed it last year when the Democrats ran the House. This year, with the Republicans, apparently they want to make sure China succeeds and America fails. Bring the bill to the floor, Mr. Speaker. Bring the bill to the floor so that we can vote here in this House on the Chinese currency bill and end the unfairness. And if they want to continue, China wants to continue to undervalue its currency, then we'll put a tariff on their goods coming in here, and we will have a level playing field. We need a better deal for America. Here's the Republican deal: no jobs, no jobs. That's what they are about. We are about building jobs in America. We're about Make It in America once again, helping our manufacturing sector, creating those middle class jobs; and we can do it with fair tax policy, as Mr. Tonko has so eloquently explained, and for the manufacturing policies that you have, Ms. Sutton. Thank you so very much for the opportunity to be on the floor with you and to talk about making it in America, rebuilding the American middle class. We can do it. This is a great country.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you very much, Representative Sutton and Mr. Tonko. It's good to be back on the floor and to talk to you and to be talking about basic fairness, about the basic fairness of: How is America going to get back on track? How are we going to create the jobs? I did a town hall in my district on Wednesday this last week, and the subject matter on everybody's mind was the jobs: How are we going to get a job? How am I going to stay in my home? There is a way to do it. The American Jobs Act that the President has proposed--I suppose had that actually been proposed by anybody else it may very well have passed the Senate. But the American Jobs Act actually has the ingredients to get Americans back to work. Just this week, I guess it was actually last week now, the Senate took up a couple of pieces of the American Jobs Act, a bill that would put 200,000, almost 300,000 teachers back in the classroom and about 100,000 police and firemen back on the streets to protect us with a one-half of one--one-half a percent increase in taxes on those who have an adjusted gross income over $1 million. And the Senate Republicans killed the bill with the filibuster, didn't even allow it to come to a vote. So with the filibuster, they were able to kill a bill that would have put 400,000 Americans back to work in the classroom, on the streets for policing, and protecting us with firemen. I wonder what they are thinking. There's a basic gross unfairness in that, that middle class teachers lost their jobs because of the recession; lack of tax revenue at the county or State level, they've lost their job, and because the Republicans in the Senate and in this House refused to put a little teeny, tiny tax on millionaires' income, those people can't go to work. Where do you stand in fairness? And this Wall Street business. OMG--text this, folks. The Wall Street bonuses--you have 2009 on your chart there, Ms. Sutton, but the Wall Street bonuses in 2010 and 2011 are even bigger. Extraordinary income for Wall Street while teachers cannot get a job, while police and firemen are out of work, where protection in our community is not available. And the Wall Street barons are continuing to make money, and they're not making loans. They're doing this by simply gambling in computerized trading. And it's got to stop. This basic unfairness has got to stop. Thank you so very much for bringing this to our attention. And you wonder what this Occupy Wall Street, occupy cities across the Nation, that's what it's about. People in their gut know something is wrong and it's just not right.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank my friend from Massachusetts. I don't understand. This is a very, very important issue. This is an issue about dealing with fly ash and how we're going to contain it and process it and protect the citizens. It's also an opportunity for us to deal with one of the fundamental economic problems we have in the United States, which is the loss of manufacturing. There's going to be a lot of different kinds of equipment, material, steel, cement, other kinds of materials that are going to be part of the process that this bill calls for, that is, adequately dealing with fly ash. Why wouldn't you want to put into this piece of legislation that those materials, those pieces of equipment, be manufactured in the United States? We need to rebuild our manufacturing base in this Nation. We've lost more than 50 percent of it over the last 25 years. We need to once again make it in America. And I tell you, you put this amendment into this bill and we'll see one more piece of American manufacturing coming back into place. It actually works. In the Recovery Act, which you like to call the stimulus bill, there was a paragraph put in that says if you're going to use the transportation funds in this bill, then you must buy equipment made in America. In Sacramento, California, Siemens has built and is continuing to expand a manufacturing plant because of that provision. Hundreds of people in California are employed because Congress wrote into the bill money spent on trains and buses and light rail will have to be spent on equipment manufactured in America. So Siemens is doing it. Write into this piece of legislation, and there will be new manufacturing plants in America making the equipment to deal with the fly ash. It is eminently sensible, so why be unsensible? Why block this amendment?

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, Representatives George Miller and I rise today in honor of Travis Credit Union, who has served Solano County and its surrounding communities for 60 years. Originally opening as the Travis Air Force Base Federal Credit Union in the autumn of 1951, Travis Credit Union has grown to be the 13th largest credit union in California, and with $1.8 billion in assets, among the top 100 in the country. To the charter members of Travis Air Force Base Federal Credit Union, the cost of living in 1951 was likely a major reason they decided to create their own financial alternative to banks that made it easier for them to borrow and save money. When the credit union first opened, it was in a makeshift base office and served only military and civilian personnel at the base. In December of 1951, Travis Air Force Base Federal Credit Union had 68 members and $2,015 in deposits. In 1954, the credit union made its first house trailer loan and then moved into the Passenger Terminal Building in April of 1955. At the end of 1961 TAFB FCU had 5,0432 members and $1.39 million in deposits. Membership was expanded to include military and U.S.-sponsored civilian personnel stationed overseas in 1964 and in 1965 the Executive Committee was created establishing a president, vice president, treasurer and secretary. The Travis Air Force Base Federal Credit Union changed its name to Travis Federal Credit Union in 1974 and in 1977 construction of the first off-base branch in Fairfield was completed. Today, the credit union has 22 branches located throughout the region in the cities of Fairfield, Vacaville, Dixon, Suisun City, Benicia, Vallejo, Davis, Woodland, Napa, Concord, Antioch, Clayton, Merced and Atwater; and is known as Travis Credit Union after a board approved switch to a state-chartered credit union took place in 2000. Travis Credit Union serves 180,000 members in the communities of northern California and has $1,020,037,614 in loans to these communities. Travis Credit Union provides a critical service to our community by offering higher rates on deposits, lower rates on loans, lower fees on services, convenient access and friendly service, and all while working to ensure their long-term viability as a not-for-profit banking alternative. Mr. Speaker, we are truly honored to pay tribute this important community institution as it celebrates 60 years of service. We ask our colleagues to join with us in thanking Travis Credit Union for its long and dedicated service to the citizens of Solano County and northern California, and in offering our best wishes for its continued success in the years ahead.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.