Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I have an amendment at the desk and ask the clerk to report.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, this merely stops the Secretary of the Treasury from looting the Social Security trust fund in order to make the national debt appear smaller than it actually is. On Sixth Avenue in New York, they have a debt clock showing, day to day, the increase of the national debt. On March 5 of this year, that debt clock stopped, courtesy of the Secretary of the Treasury, who immediately started using trust funds, particularly Social Security trust funds--Enron accounting--to make the debt appear smaller. I ask unanimous consent that the daily history of debt results be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, my distinguished colleague, the Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Nickles, raised this particular point back in 1995. He cosponsored a bill along with Senator Santorum, Senator Shelby, and Senator Thomas. I refer my colleagues to page S. 18819 of the Record of December 18, 1995, at the introduction of S. 1484, a bill to enforce the public debt limit and to protect the Social Security trust funds. It is just the darnedest thing you have ever seen. We are using Enron accounting. We are looting the Social Security funds, and the debt goes up, up, and away. The Congressional Budget Office already reports, Senator Domenici, where we had a $428 billion deficit last year. We are running $138 billion ahead, so it is up to $566 billion this minute. Let's understand what we are all about. This week, the Republicans are asking the Congress to casually vote to raise the limit on the national debt by $984 billion, from $6.4 trillion to $7.384 trillion. I say casually because the seriousness of this move is passed over and barely discussed. It took us 200 years of our history and the cost of all of the wars to ever get to a trillion-dollar debt. Today, by a vote, we are going to add $1 trillion to the debt. It was not always this way. Just over 2 years ago, in his first speech to Congress, President Bush bragged he wanted to pay down $2 trillion in debt. Earlier, there was a crowd standing on the Capitol steps hailing their Contract with America to stop deficit spending. There was the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution cry-out that went so far as to forbid deficits. Some Republicans may not realize the reason for this 180-degree turn, but Carl Rove knows. It is about getting rid of the Democratic Party. Republicans hope this increase in the debt limit is large enough so that any further increase will not be needed until after the 2004 Presidential election. In the meantime, the Government will be able to borrow money for all the tax cuts the President wants to get reelected. Borrow, we will. This is the first installment of the Republican- passed budget that increases the debt from $6 trillion to $12 trillion over the next 10 years. That is an average of $600 billion deficit each and every year for a decade. It took 38 Presidents and 192 years to reach $1 trillion in debt. It took Ronald Reagan 4 years, and it has taken George W. Bush just halfway through his term. The Bush policy takes Reaganomics to the extreme. If it means getting rid of the Government at the same time, so be it. I hesitate to add that the President is not alone in his mission. The Democratic Party is in lockstep with him. When President Bush says, we need not pay for the war, the Democrats agree. This is the first time we have sent GIs to fight a war and then want them to hurry back to pay the bill. We in Congress are not going to pay for it. We need a tax cut to get elected next year. When the President says, increase the debt, we Democrats say, yes, that is what the country needs, just not as much as the President wants. The President calls for fast-track trade negotiating authority to export America's jobs faster and the Democratic leadership says, right on. Both parties triangulate, so, as George Wallace used to say, there is not a dime's worth of difference between the two major parties. We are bogged down in the needs of the campaign rather than the needs of the country. The country needs fiscal discipline, and we are getting it at the State level. Fourteen Republican Governors are increasing taxes to provide for the States' needs, but the cost of the war does not move Washington. We already are spending $500 billion to $600 billion more than we are taking in. Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, and Robert Ruben believe this is enough stimulus. The President's tax cut merely increases the debt which will increase the interest costs, which increases waste. Before long, all the Government will be able to afford is defense, Social Security, health care, and interest costs that must be paid. Karl Rove knows the more we spend on interest charges, the less there is for programs. The Democrats thrive on programs and their constituencies. Less programs equals less supporters, which equals less Democratic Party. Already the Democratic Party is in a fix. Labor, its main supporter, is being shipped overseas. And money, the main support of the Republican Party, is flourishing. The only thing to save the Democratic Party and the country is the free press. But the free press is worse than both parties. The media is charged with telling the truth but they avoid it. The other day, when the Congressional Budget Office reported the government would hit a record in deficit spending for the year, the Washington Post buried the news on the bottom of page A5; but it gave front page billing to President Bush's tax cuts, which the President claims has no impact on those record deficits. Recently, when I offered an amendment to stop tax cuts and limit the explosion of the debt, nobody in the press wrote a story. James Fallows in his book, Breaking the News, tells of the debate for a democracy between Walter Lippman and the educator John Dewey. Lippman allowed that the way to provide for a strong democracy is to gather around the table the experts in defense, health, highways, foreign policy, and the economy. Let them hammer out the needs of the country and give it to the congress for enactment. ``No'', said Dewey. Let the free press report the truth to the American people and the people will reflect these truths and needs through their representatives in Congress. The press avoids the truth. They are completely bemused by politics, promoting conflict between the candidates and the parties. The increase in the debt before us reflects the true national debt, but hereafter the press will obscure the national debt by Ernon accounting, making the debt and deficit look smaller than they are. The press will report the ``on-budget deficit'', ``unified deficit'', and ``public debt'' as separated from the ``government debt''--numbers that do not take into account what the government loots from Social Security and other trust funds, which is the true deficit and debt. The taxpayers can't follow this, they can't know. Little do they realize the deficit last year exceeded the sum total of 30 years of deficits during the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford years. We are spending and cutting taxes like drunken sailors. Europe's fiscal discipline requires a nation's debt not to exceed 60 percent of its gross national product before it can become a member of the European Union. Our national debt exceeds 60 percent, and is rising. We don't even qualify to enter the European Union. Today interest costs are almost $1 billion a day, and with $600 billion deficits it will exceed $400 billion a year. Without this waste we could double the defense budget or give everybody in America the best health care. But with this waste, the dollar drops in value, interest costs rise, and the Nation is impoverished. For the first time in history our generation will leave a lesser nation for the next generation. But rather than report on the state of the Union, all the free press can report is that Gary Hart is not running. In the interest of time, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the budget realities demonstrating the state of the Union.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record another article from the Financial Times today that the U.S. administration throws prudence out the window. [From the Financial Times, May 23, 2003] Tax Lunacy President George W. Bush declared victory yesterday in the long-running congressional wrangle over his tax proposals. ``This is a Congress which is able to identify problems facing the American people and get things done,'' he said after House and Senate Republicans struck a deal on a $350bn tax cut over 10 years. If only that were true. The long-run costs of financing huge US fiscal deficits, which stretch far into the future, will weigh heavily on future generations. With little of the tax cut having an immediate effect, the necessary short-run economic stimulus will be negligible. Democrats are prone to exaggerate the culpability of the current administration in the deterioration of the US public finances from a surplus of 1.4 per cent of gross domestic product in 2000 to a projected 4.6 per cent deficit this year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that only a third of this deterioration is due to legislative changes, the rest being either due to the cyclical downturn or excessive optimism in previous tax forecasts. The fiscal loosening over the past few years has mitigated the economic slowdown. But those caveats aside, on the management of fiscal policy, the lunatics are in charge now of the asylum. Including ``sunsetting'' provisions to cut the 10-year cost of the tax measures is an insult to the intelligence of US people. Anyone who genuinely believes that in 2007 Congress will automatically reverse these tax cuts needs therapy. Much of Mr. Bush's 2001 tax-cutting package was also deemed temporary, only for the measures to be made permanent later. Long-run US fiscal forecasts are still based on unrealistic assumptions of spending restraint that have not been met, either by this administration or by its predecessor. And the latest wheeze in Republican circles is to dismiss forecasts of fiscal deficits because they rely on ``static'' forecasting techniques. ``Dynamic scoring'' which takes account of the effect of tax cuts on economic growth would transform the picture, they insist. But the evidence is not so kind to these assertions. The 1990s, when taxes were raised, was one of the more dynamic in US history; and fiscal deficits raise the cost of capital, reducing growth. Never mind these facts, more extreme Republicans often say, big deficits are in our interests. Proposing to slash federal spending, particularly on social programs, is a tricky electoral proposition, but a fiscal crisis offers the tantalizing prospect of forcing such cuts through the back door. For them, undermining the multilateral international order is not enough, long-held views on income distribution also require radical revision. In response to this onslaught, there is not much the rational majority can do: reason cuts no ice; economic theory is dismissed; and contrary evidence is ignored. But watching the world's economic superpower slowly destroy perhaps the world's most enviable fiscal position is something to behold.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I draw the attention of my colleagues to an article in the Wall Street Journal of May 23, 2003 by J.D. McKinnon entitled ``Get Ready for Era of Budget Deficits.'' It says it better than I can. Finally, as has been related in David Hale's column in today's Financial Times, what we have is those who were telling the truth like Lawrence Lindsey and Paul O'Neill. They have gotten rid of them. For those who avoid the truth or get tired of trying to avoid it, like Mitch Daniels and Ari Fleischer, they are on the way out. As the Financial Times reported here yesterday, the Secretary of the Treasury is merely a salesman and the true Secretary of the Treasury is Carl Rove. Mr. Hale writes: ``Economic policy appears to be under the control of the political advisers. The White House will not be able to encourage a dollar rally until Carl Rove holds a press conference on the subject.'' I ask unanimous consent to have this printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I am happy to yield back my time.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I object. Let me get it straight. Do we have the yeas and nays?

Mr. HOLLINGS. I withdraw my objection.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, last month the citizens of South Carolina lost a legend with the passing of Isadore Lourie, and I wish to recognize the most progressive lawmaker our State has ever known. Izzy served three decades in the South Carolina statehouse. He came in 1964, right after my term as Governor was up, and back then the statehouse was made up of a bunch of segregationists and right wingers. But Izzy had a conscience, and he had a heart. He came in with this passion to turn things around for African-Americans and poor white citizens, and nobody was going to stop him. He led a group with Dick Riley and Joe Riley that became known as the Young Turks. They backed school integration and smoothed the road for bringing blacks and whites together in a calm way. Then they passed legislation in education, in health care, in economic development, in consumer protection, and the like. They may have been up against a brick wall of old-time thinking, but that didn't stop them from passing a progressive agenda that has had a profound impact on my State. This Senator will miss this very generous gentleman, and I want to share our Nation's sympathy to his wife Susan, and their children and grandchildren. To share with my colleagues just how much Izzy meant to all of us back home, I ask that this article about Izzy from The State, in Columbia, SC, be printed in the Record. The article follows: [From the State, Apr. 26, 2003] Hundreds Say Goodbye to Beloved Legislator; Lourie Remembered as S.C. Progressive Who Fought the Good Fight (By Valerie Bauerlein) Only in America, Isadore Lourie would say. Only in America would the son of immigrants become one of the most powerful men in a state, by knowing the law and by loving justice. Only in America would a freshman legislator in the segregated 1960s stand up to the General Assembly's status quo, and say ``enough''--if we introduce white students who come to our gallery to watch justice work, we must introduce black students as well. And perhaps only in America--his favorite phrase--would almost a thousand people arrive two hours early, park in the middle of the road, and pack Beth Shalom Synagogue to say goodbye to Isadore Lourie, a man who never said ``no'' to someone in need, not the elderly, the poor, strangers, friends. Lourie, 70, died Thursday after a trying battle with progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare brain disorder related to Parkinson's disease. He suffered but he endured, his family said at his funeral, living life throughout. Three weeks ago he was spotted at his grandson Sam's baseball game, screaming at the ref. He was still enjoying a history class that he helped start. Lourie's imagination took him back with Daniel in the lion's den, Moses in Egypt. ``Confined to a wheelchair, he still soared,'' said Rabbi Hesh Epstein of Chabad of South Carolina, an outreach and educational organization. Lourie was a state House member and state senator from 1964 to 1992, lauded as a progressive who forced the state forward on civil rights when it preferred not to move. He authored legislation on public housing, affirmative action and aging. He also was a loving husband to his wife, Susan, a devoted father and grandfather, and a dedicated believer. ``He was a great gentleman from a great state, but let us not forget, a great Jewish gentleman from a great state,'' said Rabbi Philip Silverstein of Beth Shalom. Lourie's sons had hoped to take him on a vacation last August for his 70th birthday. He knew his time was drawing short. They talked of taking him somewhere special, perhaps the Bahamas. But his son Lance told mourners that his father preferred to stay in Columbia and come to Beth Shalom: ``He said he wanted to stay here, in this room, and that's what he did, and he was happy.'' Almost a thousand people packed the synagogue, which is shaped like a butterfly, with the rabbi and other speakers in the center. The wings were lined with hundreds of people in chairs and pews, and dozens more standing along the walls. And although he was a public figure, and there were people spilling out into the hallway, the funeral was an intimate, almost a family, affair. Isadore Lourie's three sons eulogized him, fighting sobs. His oldest son, Lance, said he remembered angry phone calls at the dinner table during the 1960s, when his father was fighting unpopular fights. ``He said, 'I will not be intimidated, and I will not be bullied,' and he wouldn't,'' Lance said. ``He would not let his efforts on what he thought to be right to be thwarted.'' He told how his father loved the phrase, ``only in America,'' and what a privilege it was to have the opportunity to fight for causes. His middle son, Joel, said too often, people say when they have lost someone that they wish they had done this or said that. ``My only wish is that he would not have gotten sick,'' said Joel, his voice cracking. ``And we could've extended the great times we had together.'' Joel, a state representative since 1998, said his father was one of God's special servants. ``I know that if not now, then soon, he will be organizing and giving directions up in heaven and doing good work,'' Joel said. The youngest son, Neal, shared his father's law practice and said he would miss his hero, his motivation, his partner, and most importantly, his father. ``My family used to always say that our father could hear everything, no matter what he was doing,'' Neal said. That was whether he was working or sleeping (and snoring), in sight or out of sight. ``So I say this to my dad, as he rests peacefully in God's hands today, that I know he can hear me. Thank you, God bless you, I love you.''

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I call up my amendment 607 on behalf of myself and Senator Chafee and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished majority leader admonished that we act with common sense and be reasonable. So in acting with common sense and being reasonable, this amendment eliminates the tax cuts from this measure because the country cannot afford it. At the very moment we are running at a $500 billion or more deficit-- which is a $500 billion stimulus, incidentally--we have just adopted a budget that calls for a $600 billion deficit stimulus each year for 10 years. What we are really engaged in is a pollster charade whereby the pollsters admonish tax cuts have to be voted for in order to get reelected. This country cannot afford the tax cuts, and it is time we looked upon the needs of the country rather than the needs of the campaign. I yield what time I have remaining to my distinguished colleague, Senator Chafee.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I had 10 minutes. I ask unanimous consent that my time be extended to 15 minutes in morning business.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it is fortuitous that the distinguished Presiding Officer is the forerunner of the position: If we are going to cut taxes only $350 billion, you are going to lose his vote. The debate has ensued from $756 billion to $350 billion to try to make for a compromise of $550 billion in tax cuts. But the most responsible voices say at this particular time: No tax cuts. The present Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Alan Greenspan, says: No tax cuts. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record an article from the New York Times, dated May 1, 2003.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, the former Secretary of the Treasury, Bob Rubin, as well as the former Secretary of Commerce, Pete Peterson, call for no new tax cuts. They took this stand in an article in the New York Times on April 9, 2003. The position they take is that budget deficits matter. There is no question that we had a conscience with respect to deficits. The economists at the Federal Reserve have said that every $100 billion in deficits raises the interest rate a quarter of a percent, and our friends at the Brookings Institution say, no, every $100 billion in deficits raises the interest rate one-half to 1 percentage point. The point is, look at what we are doing. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a chart of the budget realities.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, during that 30-year period under six Presidents, with the cost of World War II, the cost of Korea, the cost of Vietnam, the sum total of deficits over that 30-year period under Republican and Democratic Presidents was only $358 billion. Last year, without the cost of Iraq, it was $428 billion. We now are on course for a deficit this year of $600 billion. If there is any doubt about it, I ask unanimous consent to print page 4 of the conference report budget resolution.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, you can see that the debt rises during the 10-year period from 2003 to 2013. Mr. President I want you to particularly listen to this--the debt rises from $6 trillion to $12 trillion. I know the distinguished Presiding Officer remembers well how we had the balanced budget amendment running around here for 15 years. Remember back in 1994, the Republicans stood on the Capitol steps and said: Government is going to be different; we have a contract; we are not going to run any deficits; we are going to have a balanced budget. This particular budget passed the U.S. House of Representatives without a single Democratic vote, all Republicans. In the Senate, there was only one Democratic vote, the Senator from Georgia. Otherwise, Vice President Cheney had to come in and adopt this course of $6 trillion to $12 trillion. That is $600 billion a year in deficits each year for 10 years. The Chair can see I am trying to gain the attention, for Heaven's sake, of this body to where we can get down to reality so that we do not just willy-nilly go on and not even pay for the war. I put up an amendment to pay for the war. I could get no support for that. We tell GIs to go into Iraq and we hope they do not get killed, and the reason is we want them to hurry back so we can give them the bill. This generation, this Congress, this Government, aren't going to pay for the war. Now what happens? Treasury Secretary Snow says: Wait a minute now, you have to stimulate, you have to stimulate. Of course, we had that back when President Reagan started that nonsense of tax cuts. That is what President George Herbert Walker Bush called voodoo, and I will never forget the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Dole. He was against all of this growth and voodoo. He said: There is good news and bad news. I said: Senator, what is the good news? He said: The good news is a busload of supply siders have just driven over the cliff. I said: Well, what is the bad news? He said: There was one empty chair. He was talking about Jack Kemp. We were against supply side and voodoo. But two years ago, we had voodoo 2, with President George Walker Bush's tax cut, which the distinguished Presiding Officer helped pass. Now let us see what President Bush's newest tax cuts, voodoo 3, will do. Secretary Snow said a dividend cut would boost stocks by 10 percent. But, look, stocks are up 14 percent since March 11. Do you believe you are getting rich? Do you see all the jobs busting out all over? On the contrary, you see Robert Samuelson talking about ``Stubborn Stagnation.'' I ask unanimous consent that article from this morning's Washington Post be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. We all know it is not going to stimulate anything in that we already have a $428 billion budget deficit this year that is stimulus, plus $600 billion next year. We have over $1 trillion in stimulation. That is why Alan Greenspan says we do not need any further stimulation, and adding $30 billion or $40 billion more is not going to do it. But let's assume that it does. It is not going to stimulate Peoria. It is going to stimulate Shanghai. What has happened is, and Mr. Samuelson talks about this, is that we have made it too expensive to do business with our high standard of living. Before one can open, for example, Jones Manufacturing in the United States, you have to meet requirements for clean air, clean water, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, plant closing, parental leave, safe working place, safe machinery, just go right on down the list. You can go down to Mexico for $1 an hour, $2 an hour, or you can go to China for 50 cents an hour. So they are going like gang busters there. We have a tremendous imbalance of trade--a $500 billion imbalance. We are going out of business. We have to get with reality. We cannot treat foreign trade as foreign aid any longer. We have to get a competitive trade policy. We have to cut out the tax benefits companies have when they go overseas, and instead include tax benefits for manufacturing in this country. We have to straighten out many other items dealing with trade. There is no question that we have to say to the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation that they shall not finance any product that does not have at least 80 percent U.S. content; that we ought to prohibit the sale in interstate commerce of any manufactured product by an individual 12 years of age or younger. We have to require the Buy America provision not just in defense but in homeland security. We have to get what Senator Dole tried to do 10 years ago with the World Trade Organization judicial body to review the WTO determinations. There are a lot of things we have proposed. I ask unanimous consent that this article of mine from the State newspaper in Columbia last week be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Now is the time to sober up and approach it the way we did in 1993. When Governor Clinton was first elected, he invited the best of the best in financial minds to Little Rock. Greenspan went. The Governor was advised: you are going to not only have to cut spending when you take office, you are going to have to raise taxes. And we did. The chairman of the Finance Committee, Bob Packwood, said: I will give you my home if this works. Newt Gingrich said: This is going to put us into a depression. John Kasich, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said: I will change parties and become a Democrat if this thing works. Oh, it was going to be disastrous. The disaster turned out to be 8 years of the strongest economy. We paid the bills, putting Government on a pay-as-you-go basis. We created 22 million jobs. Now with President Bush's voodoo 2 that we passed in 2001, we are just more in debt. And the Democratic proposal just announced is nothing but Bush lite. You can either have the Bush proposed program of $756 billion in tax cuts, or $550 billion in tax cuts from the House, or Bush lite of $150 billion. None of them are going to stimulate anything. Since the President has taken office, the country has lost 2.6 million jobs already. Don't you think we ought to stop now and get a hold of ourselves and realize what we have with all of these deficits; that interest rates are bound to go up, as well as the cost of a car, home payments, the cost of a washing machine, the cost of a refrigerator, and everything else? America is seeing this because back home every mayor is having to cut back, every Governor is having to cut back. They are having to release prisoners from the penitentiary. They are having to charge children to ride on the schoolbus. They are doing any and everything to try to get fiscal discipline back into their particular budgets. But up here, we're like drunken sailors, saying oh, no, do not worry about it. We have to get reelected next year. To dickens with the needs of the country. It is the needs of the campaign, and we have to have tax cuts. So there we go. We have a big argument around here whether it should be $750 billion or $550 billion or $150 billion in tax cuts. And the best of minds say: Wait a minute, we are in trouble. As Mr. Samuelson says, we have financial stagnation. We have the threat right this minute of deflation, and we are not creating jobs at all. We have a deficit in the balance of trade in not only hard manufacturing, but in high tech, high tech the motor of growth. Again, with respect to the service economy, the Wall Street Journal this last week, said: U.S. financial-services companies plan to transfer 500,000, or 8 percent, of total industry employment to foreign countries. I ask unanimous consent that this article from the Wall Street Journal be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. We are going out of business, and the discussion here is between $350 billion and $550 billion in tax cuts, and all they want to know is who can do the most? I can go home next year and run for reelection and say: Look what I have done. I have given you a tax cut-- when we do not have any taxes to cut. We are running a $600 billion deficit in the Republican budget, when the Republicans are supposed to be financially responsible. We never heard of $600 billion deficits. You folks came to town and said, Look, we not only want a $600 billion deficit, we want it each year, every year, for the next 10 years. It is the budget on page 4. People don't see that. I can see the Presiding Officer is going to call my time. He has been very courteous. I will be glad to yield him time when he can take the floor and answer these things because I have not been able to find a good answer. I am trying to sober them up. Let's put the Government on a pay-as- you-go basis. Let's start getting competitive in industry and manufacturing and create real jobs. Let's start rebuilding--not Bosnia, not Afghanistan, not Iraq--but rebuilding the United States of America. That is the need of the hour. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, March marked the 32nd consecutive month, since July 2000), that manufacturing employment has declined in the United States. This is the longest consecutive monthly decline in the post World War II era. Already, more than 2 million manufacturing jobs are gone. In South Carolina, we have seen a steady erosion of our manufacturing job base, and if we don't come up with new concepts to create and maintain domestic manufacturing jobs, America will go out of business. For all of 2002, industrial production fell 0.6 percent following a 3.5 percent decline in 2001. That represented the first back-to-back annual declines in industrial output since 1974-1975. Quite frankly, this is unacceptable. We must act to save our manufacturing jobs. Earlier this Congress, I introduced S. 592, the ``Save American Manufacturing Act of 2003,'' that seeks to eliminate the tax incentives for off-shore production. Today, I introduce complementary legislation to provide tax incentives to produce in the United States. The legislation I'm introducing today would provide tax benefits to domestic producers. These tax incentives would become increasingly beneficial as the percentage of manufacturing done in the United States increases. Conversely, as the percentage of domestic production decreases the incentives would also decrease. This mechanism will provide a strong incentive for manufacturers to maintain U.S. production and to return runaway production to the United States. Our communities, our industries and our workers are being harmed by the erosion of our manufacturing base. Today's legislation is one additional way that we can provide assistance to these vital groups. This legislation is the companion to H.R. 1769 introduced earlier this session in the House by Representatives Rangel and Crane. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, March marked the 32nd consecutive month, since July 2000), that manufacturing employment has declined in the United States. This is the longest consecutive monthly decline in the post World War II era. Already, more than 2 million manufacturing jobs are gone. In South Carolina, we have seen a steady erosion of our manufacturing job base, and if we don't come up with new concepts to create and maintain domestic manufacturing jobs, America will go out of business. For all of 2002, industrial production fell 0.6 percent following a 3.5 percent decline in 2001. That represented the first back-to-back annual declines in industrial output since 1974-1975. Quite frankly, this is unacceptable. We must act to save our manufacturing jobs. Earlier this Congress, I introduced S. 592, the ``Save American Manufacturing Act of 2003,'' that seeks to eliminate the tax incentives for off-shore production. Today, I introduce complementary legislation to provide tax incentives to produce in the United States. The legislation I'm introducing today would provide tax benefits to domestic producers. These tax incentives would become increasingly beneficial as the percentage of manufacturing done in the United States increases. Conversely, as the percentage of domestic production decreases the incentives would also decrease. This mechanism will provide a strong incentive for manufacturers to maintain U.S. production and to return runaway production to the United States. Our communities, our industries and our workers are being harmed by the erosion of our manufacturing base. Today's legislation is one additional way that we can provide assistance to these vital groups. This legislation is the companion to H.R. 1769 introduced earlier this session in the House by Representatives Rangel and Crane. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.