Marcy Kaptur

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, Alan Greenspan has said fundamentally to the Congress, this is unsustainable. We cannot keep displacing production and bringing it in from elsewhere without ultimately having an impact on your ability to produce and create not just money for a country, but wealth. We can print a lot of money, but what is standing behind it is the productive wealth of a society. That is what we are displacing.

Ms. KAPTUR. If the gentleman would yield, many of those mansions are not in the United States of America, nor are their major funds. They are offshore.

Ms. KAPTUR. Again, if the gentleman would be kind enough to yield, I would just place on the record that the State of Ohio is one of the top five losers under NAFTA. We have already lost over 100,000 jobs to Mexico directly. That does not even count the supplier jobs and the service jobs that are associated with those corporate relocations. The impact is staggering. Income growth in our region and our State has not gone up. In fact, it has been stagnant, and in many cases has been going down. People do not have the purchasing power. And the jobs that are replacing them are part-time jobs with no health and retirement benefits. If we look at, and I will just give one example and then yield the gentleman back his time, but one of the major corporations, and I hate to pick on a West European company, but Daimler-Benz-Chrysler, for example, they are one of the many automotive manufacturers that have moved production to Mexico, and they manufacture the PT Cruiser in Toluca, Mexico. Now, that is a very popular vehicle in our country. All the PT Cruisers are sent back here. There is not a single PT Cruiser manufactured in the United States of America. Now, in our district we make the Jeep Liberty. We are the home of the jeep in Toledo, Ohio, and there are so many orders backed up for the PT Cruiser, our workers contacted the company and said, look, why do you not bring some of the excess production from Toluca up to Toledo? We will put on an extra line, we will meet the backlog, and we will be able to share in this rising market. No deal. No deal, because they can pay workers in Mexico so little, they can literally make $10,000 more a car. They do not have to pay environmental costs. They do you not have to pay decent wages. The people that work in Toluca cannot afford to buy the cars they make. Go to the places where they live and ask yourself, is this what we want for the world, people who have to use batteries to have any electricity in their home because they live at such a low wage? So if we peel the veneer off, and I must say I am not just picking on Daimler-Chrysler, because it is the same with the Japanese auto manufacturers, the Koreans, it really does not matter with these multinational corporations which country they are from, but their behavior where they locate. And, unfortunately, those jobs, if all the PT Cruisers are sold in the United States, why should they not be made here? There is a real disjuncture between production and consumption, and, therefore, our plant in Toledo has not increased in employment. Years ago we had 10,000 workers. We are down to 4,000. There are several hundred workers, several thousand workers actually, down in Mexico around that Toluca plant, but they are working at, I cannot say starvation wages, but close to it. They really do not have a living wage. That is what is going on with production. We are really hurting those people. We can say we are keeping them busy, but they are not really able to improve their lives. And our people, with the loss of over 1.2 million manufacturing jobs in just the last 2 years, they are being cashed out.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I would just want to point out that Argentina and Brazil, we are already in deficit with them. And if we look at what has happened with Canada and Mexico post-NAFTA, we used to have surpluses with those countries. Then, when NAFTA kicked in, we have moved into gigantic deficits with both countries, where they are sending us more goods than we are sending them. We already have growing deficits with Argentina and Brazil and Venezuela. If this is passed, it will only grow worse because that has been what the pattern is. If we look at a country like Argentina, I found it very ironic that our Governor went down to Argentina in order to try to move Ohio product down there. But if we look at what is happening, Ohio's beef producers are being wiped off the map. They cannot get access to market. We are importing Argentinian beef into the United States. We have a deficit with Argentina. They are sending us more than we are sending them, and they were not about to buy any more of our beef. They want to sell us their beef. And in terms of Brazil and Venezuela, if we look at the steel industry, if we look at agriculture in those countries, the numbers are not moving in our direction already. And many of the people in those countries do not earn enough to buy what we have to sell, so we end up shooting ourselves in the foot. I thank the gentleman.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to express deepest appreciation for the yielding of my esteemed colleague, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio); and though I am not for human cloning, I just wish that somehow we could clone more of him to serve in this Chamber, and the people of Oregon are extraordinarily fortunate to have an honest and very, very able Member serving their interests and indeed America's interests. I was listening to the gentleman's comments on fast track, which I always call the wrong track, and felt compelled to come here to the floor to at least try to attempt to gain just a few moments to discuss these issues with the gentleman. My colleague mentioned how much America is in hock to other countries and foreign interests borrowing those dollars in order to fuel this economy. The flip side of the fact is that 40 percent, over 40 percent now of our public debt is owned by foreign interests, is the interest that we have to pay them, and this year that number will total close to $400 billion. It is between $300 and $400 billion, which is almost as much as we will spend on the defense of the United States of America to pay on our borrowings and the interest that is owed on those. So I think that the underside of this trade equation is the fact that piece by piece we are selling ourselves off, the public interest and the private interest. I think the American people really have a sense of this when they go to the store and they look on the bottom of a cup or they look on the label on a piece of clothing and they sort of ask themselves, well, is anything made in America anymore? Everything from hedge trimmers to automobiles to clothing. We import over half of the oil, which we should totally displace by domestically produced new fuels. We are not independent. This was a Nation formed with the great ideal of independence and self-sufficiency, and piece by piece, at the end of this past century and now into the new one, we are frittering away that national endowment. Now, the bill that was supposed to have come before us today for the second time in 2 weeks has not made it to the floor. And the reason the fast track bill is not here today and was not here last week is because the motion lacks the votes necessary for passage. The problems with the fast track proposal are so numerous that the rule that they have adopted is self-executing. In other words, we cannot really change anything in the bill. And what are some of the things that are bad about it, in addition to its fundamental architecture, which is only going to increase more imports into this country? Well, first of all, the displaced workers that will occur in this country. And we know it is going to happen. It happened with NAFTA, it happened with PNTR with China. Every time we sign one of these agreements, more companies close in our country. It does not take a mental giant to figure out what is going on with displaced production. The money that was supposed to be in the bill to help the U.S. workers thrown out of their work was lowered, and there were lower levels of trade adjustment assistance in this fast track measure. In addition to that, there were several provisions embedded in this fast track bill to try to protect the seats of certain Members of this institution in a very tough election year. In addition to that, there were provisions that had been put in by the other body that would have protected industries in this country from illegal dumping of foreign goods, such as steel, and those were taken out. In addition, worker health provisions, those people who lose their job and then lose their health benefits, there were provisions in the Senate bill to protect the health benefits of our workers at least for a period of time. Those were taken out. And so those are just some of the few irresponsible ploys that were included by my colleagues from the other side of the aisle. And I would have to say to the gentleman, and I appreciate his yielding to me, really one of the issues that we have to consider is how, when we add up everything that has happened at this time of Enduring Freedom, or any time when we should be considering the independence of this country, are we either strengthening or destroying our national defense? We can look at job security, border security, industrial security, economic security, all of those together comprise what we take an oath to defend: the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to assure the defense of the United States of America. The end result is we become less able to make the bolts that go into the airplanes, we become less able to make the airframes. The gentleman knows a whole lot about that in the Northwestern part of our country with what has happened to some of the outsourced Boeing production. We become less able to make steel. We become less able to make electronics. If we look at what is happening with the defense base of this country, in my district we have just had a major nuclear incident. Guess what? In order to try to repair the facilities that can be repaired, if we need a new head on the reactor, it has to be done by Japan and then sent to France for finishing, and then comes back to the United States, and then the company is absolved of liability under exemptions in the Price-Anderson Act. What is going on? What is going on in this country? The last foundries have closed. I have machine tool companies in my district going bankrupt one after the other. That is happening all over this country. We have lost almost 1.5 million manufacturing jobs over the last 2 years. So I want to compliment the gentleman and say that I would like to stay for a while longer, as I listen to what he is saying to the people of our country and to the Record. This is an extraordinarily important issue. Fast track should not be brought up on this floor until its flaws are repaired. And why should we be allowing 31 more countries special access to our market when we are hemorrhaging, when, in fact, we are hemorrhaging jobs all over the world, and our trade deficit will be over $360 billion more this year? So I want to thank the gentleman very much for the opportunity to join him this evening and again compliment the very wise voters of the State of Oregon for sending the gentleman here. I have long admired his independence and his innovativeness as a Member of Congress.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to recognize a momentous occasion soon to be celebrated by Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Toledo, Ohio. On June 11, 2002, the church will have achieved its 100th year. A special anniversary celebration commemorating this milestone will be held on Sunday, June 9, 2002, when the bishop of the Northwest Ohio Synod E.L.C.A. will conduct a centennial church service. Soon after its 1902 inception, Dr. G. Neiffer was installed as the church's first pastor in 1904. Having outgrown its initial site, the present building's cornerstone was laid in 1924, followed by a 1949 groundbreaking. In 1951, Pastor C.A. Hackenberg formally dedicated the church. Through the years it has grown to meet the needs of its congregation, so that the church facilities include an education wing, a multi-purpose gymnasium, and a day care center. Youth and senior activities, intergenerational services, small group ministries, and retreats serve today's active membership. Holy Trinity Lutheran Church's mission states the church is ``committed to follow Christ's command to be fishers of men and to feed His sheep so that Christ may be alive in the lives of all.'' Living this calling, Holy Trinity's faithful have maintained a consistent Christian presence in the neighborhood and our community, seeking to live the Gospels and Christ's teachings so that all are made whole. At the same time, the church has evolved with an ever-changing society over the century, so that it has remained a vibrant and integral part of the lives of its congregants and our community. For the members of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church both past and present, this anniversary will be a time of introspection, remembrance, and reflection. But even as its members look back across a century of worship, good works, and communion, I know that they will also look forward to a new century fulfilling its mission to ensure ``that Christ may be alive in the lives of all.''

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in sad acknowledgment of the passing from this life of a national heroine and true Toledo treasure. Millie Benson, author of the original Nancy Drew series of books and lifelong adventurer, passed away on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 the age of 96 years. She had spent the day at her desk at The Blade newspaper completing her regular column. That last column, published on May 29, 2002, discussed the history and importance of the public library system. It is a fitting end to the storied career of a woman who inspired a lifelong passion for reading, as she herself had, in generations of youngsters. Millie Benson was born in the town of Ladora, Iowa to Dr. J.L. and Lillian Augustine on July 10, 1905. In addition to being a voracious reader, she also excelled at athletics. She pursued both while a student at the University of Iowa, where she was a champion diver, a reporter for the local newspaper, and a published author. Her first story was published in 1919 in The Nicholas Magazine of New York. It was when completing her Master's Degree that she began her famous book series, and under a pen name wrote the first 23 books of the Nancy Drew mysteries. Paid little and required to sign away the rights, Mildred Benson remained in obscurity as the books' author until a legal battle in 1983 revealed her identity. In the meantime, Mildred Benson, who had married Asa Wirt in 1928, kept busy with many other pursuits including the writing of several other series for children and novels, obtaining both commercial and instrument rated private pilot licenses (in her sixties!), and traveling into such remote outposts as the jungles of Mexico and South America and archeological sites in Central America, where she pursued her hobby exploring Mayan civilization. After Mr. Wirt's passing, in 1950 she married George Benson. Mr. Benson was editor of the Toledo Times newspaper. Thus began her revived career as a reporter. When the Toledo Times ceased publication in 1959, she began working for The Blade. The 1990s brought her renewed acclaim as the author of the Nancy Drew series. Although in her eighties and nineties, she was a guest of many national and worldwide conferences, publications, and televised broadcasts. In 1993, she was the feature of the University of Iowa's Nancy Drew conference. Recognized by her alma mater not only for her journalism, she was also remembered as the first woman to receive a master's degree in journalism from that institution, an accomplishment she achieved in 1927. She was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame and received her alma mater's highest alumni award. Other recognitions included lifetime achievement awards from the Ohio Newspaper Women (1997) and The Blade (1999), an honorary Doctor of Letters Degree from Adrian College in Michigan (1999), and the Ohio Library Association's recognition of her ``distinguished and creative contributions to children's literature'' (1989). Even while living this full and creative life, Millie Benson never forgot her fans. She answered every single letter, honored each request for an autograph, and always had time to talk to her fans. Everyday of Mildred Benson's life was spent living to life's absolute fullest. Her example inspired those around her. Her unflagging enthusiasm for her chosen profession was infectious and her zest for life unsurpassed. Perhaps Blade publisher John R. Block summarized her best, saying ``Millie Benson was one of the greatest women writers and journalists of the 20th century. She was gutsy and daring, a living embodiment of her Nancy Drew heroine.'' Our deepest condolences go now to her daughter Peggy. Yet Mildred Benson's lasting legacy remains through her books and the millions of lives her writing and her life have influenced. In a 1973 issue of Books At Iowa describing her career, Millie Benson wrote of writing for the ages and not just a place in time, but her essay ``The Ghost of Ladora'' is actually the finest tribute to her life's passage, ``So now it is time for the final chapter, seemingly one destined from the beginning. A fadeout becomes the most difficult of all, for the story is finished, the reader led to believe that the very best lies directly ahead. New worlds to conquer! New horizons to explore! . . . and all the pilots of fantasy suddenly take shape before our eyes, their waggling wings flashing the personal message: `Come fly with me.' Such challenge cannot be denied. Work forgotten, we hasten to the nearby airport where a small plane awaits its all-too-willing passenger. Eagerly we take off, climbing high above the smog, the petty perplexities of life. The sky is blue. The wind blows free, Here at last, far above the earth, age and youth imperceptibly blend, and stem reality dissolves into the ultimate Magnificent Dream.''

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, this month brings us the retirement of Dr. Benjamin Reed, long time county coroner in Fulton County, Ohio. I am pleased to recognize Dr. Reed, who ended his service April 1, 2002 after nearly four decades. A physician in the finest sense of the word and true public servant, Dr. Reed is known by everyone in Fulton County and is doctor to all in his hometown of Delta and to so many more in Northwest Ohio. A friend and confidante to all who knew him, his energetic attitude and dedication to his profession are unsurpassed. The practice of medicine runs deep in Dr. Reed's family. He followed in his grandfather's footsteps, obtaining his medical degree from the University of Louisville. He began his practice in Kentucky, then moved to West Virginia where he doctored to the people of a coal mining town. There he learned to put his skills to the test as he practiced everything from obstetrics to cardiology to surgery. It was soon after moving to Delta that he began working in the coroners office, to which he was elected after seven years. In 1994, his neighbors recognized him as Delta's Citizen of the Year. In addition to his practice and his coroner's work, Dr. Reed held offices with the Ohio State Medical Association, the Fulton County Medical Society, and the American Heart Association's Northwest Ohio Chapter. As he ends his public life, may Dr. Reed enjoy the serenity of family life and the peace which comes from a job well done. We wish him a very enjoyable retirement as he spends time on his own schedule and preferred activities, and with the family and friends dear to him. Thank you Dr. Reed, for your exemplary service to us all!

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, this week the House was scheduled to take up a measure relating to fast track trade authority but, for some reason, it got pulled from the schedule and we were not told why. We know President Bush has called fast track one of his top legislative priorities, even though it will lead to more lost jobs and even higher trade deficits for our country. So it is a bit of a mystery why we did not take up this important measure. Mr. Speaker, the President wants fast track to pave the way for the so-called Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, a kind of super NAFTA. This super NAFTA would extend NAFTA provisions to all of the countries in our hemisphere except Cuba. But why would we want a super NAFTA, considering the damage that NAFTA has caused in the past 8 years? NAFTA has been like a tornado, ripping up jobs and tearing apart communities from the textile areas of the Carolinas to the agricultural valleys in California and Florida, to the automobile industry in the Great Lakes region. Now, according to the Los Angeles Times, the latest of our exports are high-wage jobs. Before NAFTA, we had a trade surplus with Mexico. We sent them more than they sent us. In 1993, in fact, before NAFTA, America held a surplus of over $6 billion with Mexico. Yes, that was a surplus. Where are we today post-NAFTA? Well, we had a trade deficit, a record deficit of nearly $30 billion with Mexico in one year; that is billion, translated into over 600,000 more lost jobs in our country. Do we think the balance of accounts was any better with Canada? Wrong. Our trade deficit with Canada for the year 2001 was over $50 billion. That translates into 1 million less jobs in our country. Who can call this kind of policy a success? Most estimates indicate that more than 3 million jobs, direct and related, have been lost post- NAFTA. Analysis shows State-by-State job loss figures range from a low of 6,838 in North Dakota to a high of over 364,000 in California. Other hard-hit States include my own of Ohio, but add Texas, New York, California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Illinois, Tennessee, Florida, Indiana, Georgia, New Jersey, each with a loss of over 100,000 good jobs. Those may sound like numbers to the White House or some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but each one of those numbers is a family fighting to put food on the table, to pay for college and medical costs, and is a strong indicator as well of America's waning manufacturing and agricultural strength. If that is the wave of the future, I sure do not want any part of it. Under the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, the ``Super NAFTA,'' instead of just covering Mexico and Canada, now we are going to add 31 more countries into the mix, like Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. In the first 3 months of this year alone, we already had a trade deficit with those countries of $6 billion. So why would anyone want to exacerbate a situation which is already working against the interests of our people? This appears to be what the administration is fighting for: more lost jobs, more trade deficits. When will this job hemorrhage end? When we have no manufacturing base to speak of? When our markets are flooded with agricultural products from every place else in the world? Mr. Speaker, many of our working families are suffering. In fact, millions of them are. America is becoming a bazaar to the world's goods and, at the same time, we are hollowing out our own productive strength here at home. It is no surprise to us here to tell the American people that 75 cents of every farm dollar today is Federal subsidy. Farmers are farming the government, not the market. Our agricultural policies are only working to hold the farm credit system together so we do not have a depression in rural America, and in manufacturing America we have had a depression. I do not know why it is not on the front pages of every newspaper in the country. We have lost over 2 million jobs, more in the last 2 years. Talk to anybody in the integrated steel industry. Talk to anybody in the machine tool industry. Talk to the electronics industry. It seems to me we ought to have trade policies that work for America again. We should not be trading away our good jobs, and fast track is not a responsible plan for a secure economic future. Why should we have a fast track for more lost jobs and higher trade deficits? Someone ought to pay attention, and we ought to reject any fast track proposal that is brought to this floor.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding me this time and I rise in very strong support of the Markey motion to instruct. Make no mistake about it, the energy bill provides a world of opportunity for wasting taxpayer dollars in pursuit of very bad policy. I agree with my dear colleague from Louisiana about the need for renewables here at home. The problem is the bill pays very short shrift to that while it gives away $34 billion over 10 years and shovels money like coal into energy blast furnaces out of the Social Security trust fund. We are really happy that the motion to instruct apparently has been accepted by the other side. But for the life of me, I do not know how they are going to make the numbers work, because a week ago the Republican majority had borrowed $207 billion from the Social Security trust fund and that number this week went up to $212 billion. And now this bill adds $34 billion in red ink on top of that. Somebody has to keep the ledger balanced at the end of the year. What seems to pass for energy policy in this administration includes renewal of the Price Anderson Act which exempts nuclear power plants, for example, from liability for accidents and potentially streamlining the licensing process for companies that are seeking to bring old reactors back on-line--like the one in my district which just had a hole eaten in its head, and they are trying to figure out what to do about it. It has been shut down for months. The failure of this administration to provide an intelligent energy policy and the failure of Congress to pass tough, no-nonsense campaign finance reform creates a climate for vast giveaways of taxpayer dollars. If you look at the nuclear industry alone, which the Vice President loves a great deal, they gave more than $13.8 million to Federal candidates in the 2000 election cycle. Most of our citizens do not have that kind of election clout. So I would just say it is important to pass this motion to instruct conferees to protect the Social Security trust fund being tapped as the only place to get the money for the kind of corporate giveaways that are included in this bill. Unfortunately, the surpluses that had begun to build as of January 2001 have now plummeted into deficits in every single account in this government. The promise that was made with seven votes that we took here on this floor ``not to break the lockbox'' has been broken seven times. We are now in the red already this year, as of yesterday $212 billion. This bill worsens that problem. I urge my colleagues to vote for the Markey motion to instruct and stop the raid on Social Security trust funds being cashed out to the corporate energy giants.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, this evening I would like to dedicate my remarks to Social Security, its trust funds and our growing national debt. In January of last year, our Nation finally moved to an annual balanced budget after decades of being awash in growing debt as far as the eye could see. Many of us fought very hard to bring that budget back into balance and, in fact, the Congressional Budget Office at that time projected that we were on course to have the publicly held debt, the over MMMM$6 trillion of accumulated debt, paid off in about 10 years, by 2011. Now, not even one and a half years later the Congressional Budget Office projects that under the Republican budget passed here in March, there will be a $1.8 trillion in budget deficit over the next 10 years. So instead of paying off our Nation's debt by 2011, under the Republican budget the publicly held debt will stand at nearly $3 trillion. I can remember when they took the debt clock down in Time Square and everybody across America cheered. Well, I would encourage those folks up on Wall Street to put it back up because it is growing again. Now, what is the biggest reason for this radical reversal in our Nation's financial health? Primarily, the Bush tax gives away mainly to the super rich. Now, what does this burgeoning public debt represent? First and foremost it means Social Security trust funds are being drawn down to pay for those tax breaks. And what is really amazing is that the Republican majority here in this Congress voted seven times to protect the Social Security trust fund in a lockbox. They said they wanted to ensure that not a penny of the Social Security surplus would be used for other programs. They have vowed that every penny of the surplus would be used solely to buy back outstanding Treasury bonds in a manner that would shore up Social Security for the future. So the Republican budget they passed in March does not simply break the lockbox and dip into the Social Security surplus, it calls for a grand and extended raid, tapping the surplus every year of the next decade. The timing could not be worse. We must balance the Federal budget and protect Social Security surpluses for the 44 million baby boomers set to retire over the next ten to 15 years. Working families have earned a secure retirement and we must put Social Security solvency first. Congress is the main protector of Social Security. It is the people's program intended by Franklin Roosevelt and every Democratic president since, to allow generations of retirees to live with independence and dignity. And it is time for the Republican majority to stop raiding Social Security. But so long as they continue to do so I will be down here every week telling the American people exactly how much they have taken from the one remaining portion of the Federal budget that is in surplus and that is the trust funds. Last week we reported that they had taken as of June 5, $207,232,876,712, which last week amounted to about $717 per American. This week, they have now taken over $5 billion more. As of June 11, 2002 they have now dipped into the trust fund $212,246,575,342 averaging about $754 per American. I do not think that this is responsible budgeting. I do not think this is what the Republican majority promised. I am generally not quite this partisan on the floor of this Congress. However, when it comes to Social Security and Medicare, and what it has meant to lift half a Nation out of poverty, there is absolutely no reason that Kenneth Lay and his likes should get a $350 million tax refund while average Americans are having their future retirement funds raided every single week. So I would just ask those who may be listening in New York City, if you could find that old debt clock and put it back, I think we need to tell the truth to the American people. It is time that we begin putting money in the trust fund, not drawing it down for purposes that are unrelated to the purpose for which it was originally organized.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about Social Security, the premier program of the last century, which has helped to raise a generation of our seniors out of poverty. Most seniors in America receive upwards of perhaps $580 per month. For them it is a lifeline, and without Social Security and Medicare, they simply could not survive. Today this House debated what to do with the estate tax, some call it a death tax, but assets accumulated by very large interests, and we heard the debate. But what is important to point out about this debate is that because the Bush administration and its allies inside this Chamber cannot afford to pay for the tax benefits being given, especially to the very super-rich in our country, they have raided the Social Security trust fund consistently this fiscal year, and, as of this week, June 5 and counting, they have taken from the Social Security trust fund already $207,232,876,712. This chart and those that will follow in the weeks to come will clock the Republican raid on Social Security. The amount that has been taken to date averages thus far $717 per American citizen, and the numbers are still being counted as the days tick on. As long as Republicans continue to raid the Social Security trust fund in violation of the promises not to raid the trust fund dollars contained in what was called an accounting lockbox, it is my intention to be here on the floor clocking their raid with our Social Security debt clock. I also will be going through the history of who created Social Security for our country and who has historically opposed it. In fact, in 1935 in the deliberations in the Committee on Ways and Means not far from this floor, the Republican Members of the House Committee on Ways and Means voted to kill the original bill that created the Social Security program that our parents and grandparents and great- grandparents have benefited from since the mid-1930s. When the bill moved to the floor, it was Democrats that passed that bill. I think it is very important that that history go on record, because if you look at what has been happening with the accumulation of additional debt in our country, and I put this chart up here as illustrative, we look at the accumulation of debt, this goes back to President Johnson. For a long time, because of the Vietnam War, and going into the Carter years, the recessions that resulted from rising oil prices, and then into the Reagan-Bush years when we had the huge defense buildup and the Persian Gulf War, our Nation went deeply into the red. We have over $6 trillion of debt that we are now financing in this country. But during the Clinton years, with the budgets that were passed in cooperation with this Congress, we were able to move to a point where we were actually, for the first time in modern history, accumulating surpluses, until now, with the inauguration of President Bush, and we are beginning to move into a deficit position again, and very severely so, in a very short period of time. The funds that are available to borrow against for various purposes, whether it is giving tax cuts to people like Ken Lay, who will get over $350 million additional in a tax refund because of the tax bill passed earlier this year, or the estate tax that was voted here today, that money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the lockbox that almost every single Member here voted to protect. It is beyond my imagination why anyone would want to vote in that manner. But until this administration and House Republicans put seniors first and reverse this raid and commit to saving Social Security as we have promised, I will be here to tell the truth to the American people, using these red numbers and this debt clock to show just how much is being raided. Today in the Washington Post there is a story called ``The State of the Estate Tax.'' I will enter it into the Record, but what is really interesting about this is it talks about some of the major beneficiaries of the bill that passed here by a very thin margin this afternoon. The very people that are raiding Social Security are taking care of some of their best friends. Here is one of them. Gary Winnick of Global Crossing fame, with assets of nearly 3 quarters of a billion dollars, will probably yield $366 million in so-called estate tax savings. Dennis Kozlowski from Tyco International, which has run into a little difficulty, $149 million. Though my time has expired for this evening, all I have to say is the Democratic Party historically has been the party that has believed in and supported Social Security. We do not support borrowing from the trust fund in order to give tax benefits to the super rich. More on this story later. The information mentioned earlier follows: [From the Washington Post, June 6, 2002] The State of the Estate Tax The House begins debate today on President Bush's proposal to make permanent last year's elimination of the estate tax, or ``death tax'' as Republicans call it. Bush will be in Des Moines on Friday to tout the effort, which would benefit family farmers. Apparently, eliminating the tax would also benefit some non-farmers--some of them in the Bush administration. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) asked his staff to assemble a chart estimating just how much more the heirs of Bush, Vice President Cheney and members of the Cabinet would get if the estate tax were permanently eliminated. Waxman's aides also applied their calculators on the balance sheets of former Enron executives and the executives of other companies in the news. The winners? Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's heirs could gain as much as $120 million from the repeal, with heirs of Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill getting as much as $51 million more and heirs of Cheney getting up to $40 million more. Heirs of Enron's Kenneth L. Lay would get $59 million more. Bush, a relative pauper, would leave behind an extra sum of no more than $10 million if the tax were eliminated. The White House said Waxman's analysis was beside the point. ``Failure to make the tax cuts permanent would increase the taxes on 104 million Americans,'' Bush spokeswoman Claire Buchan said. ``The president thinks that's wrong and that it's wrong to double-tax families, especially at the time of death.'' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Assets Estimated estate tax savings ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bush Administration Official: President Bush..................... $11.1 million-$21.6 million. $4.6 million-$9.9 million. Vice President Cheney.............. $19.3 million-$81.8 million. $8.7 million-$40 million. Defense Secretary Donald H. $61 million-$242.5 million.. $29.6 million-$120 million. Rumsfeld. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill. $62.8 million-$103.3 million $30.5 million-$50.7 million. OMB Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr $18.1 million-$75.3 million. $8.1 million-$36.7 million. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. $19.5 million-$68.9 million. $8.8 million-$33.5 million. Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans. $11.4 million-$45.1 million. $4.8 million-$21.6 million. EPA Administrator Christine Todd $6.4 million-$20.3 million.. $2.3 million-$9.2 million. Whitman. U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. $3.3 million-$13 million.... $555,000-$5.6 million. Zoellick. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao..... $2.3 million-$5.4 million... $123,000-$1.8 million. HUD Secretary Mel R. Martinez...... $1.6 million-$4 million..... $0-$870,000. VA Secretary Anthony J. Principi... $1.6 million-$3.6 million... $0-$690,000. HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson.... $1.3 million-$3.3 million... $0-$555,000. Attorney General John D. Aschroft.. $1.1 million-$3.3 million... $0-$555,000. Education Secretary Roderick R. $1.1 million-$2.9 million... $0-$377,000. Paige. Agriculture Secretary Ann M. $680,000-$2 million......... $0. Veneman. Interior Secretary Gail A. Norton.. $207,000-$681,000........... $0. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham... $224,000-$664,000........... $0. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. $220,000-$655,000........... $0. Mineta. Company Executives: Gary Winnick (Global Crossing)..... $734 million................ $366 million. L. Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco Intl.)... $300 million................ $149 million. Kenneth L. Lay (Enron)............. $119 million................ $59 million. Charles Watson (Dyengy)............ $112 million................ $55 million. Bernard J. Ebbers (WorldCom)....... $78 million................. $38 million. Michael Saylor (MicroStrategy)..... $54 million................. $26 million. Richard McGinn (Lucent)............ $25 million................. $12 million. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the following Members were unavailable for rollcall vote 213 this morning, on the Motion to Adjourn, due to a meeting we were holding with President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak at Blair House relating to the Middle East Peace Process: The gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), myself, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, this chart shows how much money Republicans have already raided from the Social Security trust fund this year. Was the trust fund not supposed to be in a lockbox and off limits to tampering? Well, they have raided it to the tune of over $207 billion as of the first week of this June. In 1935, not one single Republican on the Committee on Ways and Means voted for the original Social Security Act. They have always had a problem believing in it. Now they are raiding Social Security to pay for their tax cuts for the super rich, both living and dead! So long as they do, I will be here on this floor clocking their raid from the Social Security Trust Fund with this Debt Clock. I will be here to tell the truth to the American people. And that truth is that Democrats will fight to save your Social Security. For us, it is a compact of trust between generations for all Americans, senior citizens and disabled, not just the super rich.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I have watched this Import-Export Bank for years, and the idea when it was set up in 1934 was to promote U.S. exports. I have even been questioning the name Export-Import Bank because it seems to me it has been much more successful at increasing imports into this country, displacing our manufacturing base year after year after year, than promoting exports. Look back to the loan that was made in the 1970s in Brazil to mine ore and help to create a Latin American steel industry that has contributed to the global steel overcapacity that her now swamped this Nation's industry. Not only is something fundamentally wrong with the way this organization functions but with our trade policy in general. America's trade deficits have never been larger. Why should we approve a bill for an organization for 5 more years that has helped to spawn our competitors? They are not creating export markets for us. They are creating export platforms where steel and electronics and apparel and aerospace products are U- turned back into this country displacing U.S. jobs. We should reject the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on its final reauthorization today.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to question the fiscal responsibility of the current administration and to question their priorities. On May 23, I came to this great House floor to vote for positive sweeping changes to our Nation's education programs, along with 384 of our colleagues who passed H.R. 1, the Act to Leave No Child Behind. H.R. 1 passed this House and it also passed the other body and was signed by the President this past January. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle stood next to the President to sign the legislation we believed would finally make education what it should be, a number one priority. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this evening because the administration's budget, its budget for next year, does not make education a priority. The President's education budget is a broken promise. President Bush has stated that he is the education president. Yet resources in his education budget did not match his rhetoric. Last month, President Bush visited my home State of Ohio and told a crowd of citizens in Cleveland that we must make sure every child in America gets educated. However, the President's rhetoric does not match the resources in his budget. President Bush did not mention the education programs that would not receive funding in the State due to his budget cuts. Indeed, the education budget that President Bush sent to Congress falls $7.2 billion, not million, billion short of the funds needed to implement programs that we passed in H.R. 1. The most troubling aspect of the President's budget to me is that it spends 50 times more on tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans than the total of new education spending, 50 times more for those that already have extremely difficult choices for school districts across this country. The President's budget cuts 57 education programs authorized in H.R. 1, 57 programs are cut, and his budget will fall short by $4.7 billion needed to support most academically needy students in our country, $4.7 billion short. So one can rightly ask the question, is President Bush's education budget a broken promise? Mr. Speaker, education must continue to be a priority. Couple this with the impact of the recession on State budgets which currently have deficits in aggregate of over $40 billion and there is no doubt that our governors are going to be forced to place major cuts on State education and spending at the elementary and secondary levels as well as the post-secondary. We already have seen this in States like Ohio. State colleges are facing the worst State budget crunch in a decade. Frankly, I cannot understand why the college students across this country are not organizing to impact legislation in their State houses and here at the national level because we are witnessing the largest tuition hikes on our college students in recent history. Why are they so satisfied when, in fact, most of them are graduating with a debt of nearly $17,000 and in medical school over $100,000 debt for a new doctor coming out of med school? A congressional survey found that 49 States made $1.5 billion in mid- year cuts to higher education funding. Public and private universities share a grim budget outlook indeed as public support dwindles during a faltering economy. Ohio students will pay prices for higher education because the State of Ohio, as are many other States, is cutting support for higher education. Some State campuses, in fact, are facing increases in tuition of 3 to 15 percent. In the wake of this news, it did not make any sense then for President Bush to propose ending the fixed-rate consolidations of Federal student loans earlier this spring. The administration stated that the funds, once allocated for the student loan program, would be used to cover the current $1.3 billion shortfall this year in the budget for the Pell grant program, so important for our lower-income students. But then the administration, after substantial criticism, rescinded that proposal. Members of Congress continue to believe that education should be a number one priority. As a member of the Committee on Appropriations, I very much want to keep it a top priority, but we need the cooperation of the White House in this endeavor. And the barbecue tonight will not solve the problems of students and school districts across this country. Seven hundred thousand borrowers consolidate or refinance their total Federal student loans each year. It is important to ask what other programs are going to be slashed, what other promises are going to be broken. Education should remain a number one priority.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to highlight the flaws in the Bush administration's trade policy, a plan to trade away even more of America's jobs, our national security, and even our sovereignty. Word came today that the administration will once again try to bring back to this House an irresponsible fast track bill and seek its passage. This proposal obviously is not the road to a prosperous future for working families in our country, because throughout our country we see the fruits of NAFTA: Closed factories, a jobless recovery, and downward pressure on wages. From Iowa to New Hampshire to the Carolinas and everywhere in between, NAFTA has killed thousands of jobs and left working families without hope. For a multinational corporation with the ability to move production to low-wage countries like Mexico and China, NAFTA and fast track are made to order. For a textile worker in the Carolinas, a farmer in Florida or California, or an auto worker in the Great Lakes, NAFTA and fast track can spell disaster. NAFTA passed almost eight years ago. Ask any American worker standing in an unemployment line, ``How has NAFTA affected you?'' It has been almost two years since Congress passed permanent normal trade relations with China. Ask any American worker standing in an unemployment line, ``How has trade with China affected you?'' The answer to both questions is the same: More layoffs, more factory shutdowns, and more plants being moved to China and Mexico. If the fast track conference bill passes the House, President Bush will push Congress to pass a whole new NAFTA: NAFTA for the Americas. Basically this would mean a free trade region encompassing 34 nations in our hemisphere. To the produce-producing States like Florida and California, instead of just Mexico they will have to face an onslaught from more countries, 31 to be exact, with low wages and no environmental regulations. To our beef producers, imagine beef from Argentina imported tariff-free. Grains, citrus fruits, cut flowers, and just about every other good available in the world will be flooding our markets tariff-free. The Founding Fathers gave Congress the power to regulate all international commerce. It is right in our Constitution. Some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle may not know this, or worse, may not care. Our constituents did not send us here to sign over our constitutional duties to the executive branch. That is not why we were elected. They elected us to represent their interests, not only those of multinational corporations hoping to report another penny or two on their quarterly profits at the expense of America's workers. Pick up a paper in just about any city on any given day and the report reads, ``IBM to Cut 1,500 Jobs in Microelectronics Unit.'' Or how about this one: ``Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina Sees 15,000 Job Cuts,'' or ``Williamson-Dickie Becomes Latest Textile Employer to Close Factory.'' How will America defend herself without any manufacturing infrastructure? Do you really believe we should import the goods from China, Pakistan or Indonesia as substitutes for our own? The other body fiercely debated something called Chapter 11 of the NAFTA agreement as it considered its bill. That little clause would allow a corporation from another country to sue a city, a State, or even the United States Government in an attempt to undermine our environmental, food safety, and consumer protection laws. Take the case of a Canadian company that recently sued the State of California over a State environmental law. California banned MTBE because it was contaminating groundwater. Federalism at work; right? Not under NAFTA. Using chapter 11, the Canadian company sued the State. Not in court, but before a secret NAFTA tribunal, claiming the law was trade-restrictive. If we cannot protect our own health and safety, we give our rights to multinational corporations. What kind of sovereignty is that? It is ridiculous that the Bush administration wants to give more power to just a few foreign companies and ignore our local communities. What kind of a trade policy is it that leads to more unemployment, more pollution, and a deterioration of our constitutional rights of sovereignty? I would ask my colleagues to say no to more fast tracks, say no to NAFTA for the Americas, say yes to a future for working families and jobs in our own communities.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, today I went up before the Committee on Rules and, not knowing the rule that would be allowed on the supplemental appropriations bill that will be coming up later this week, I asked that I be allowed to offer a motion to strike $6 million that is included in the supplemental appropriation bill to fund the Colombian Army to protect the pipeline, the oil pipeline owned by that country, but operated in conjunction with Occidental Petroleum and two other multinational oil companies. I am hoping I will be able to offer that amendment here on the floor, because I do not think that U.S. taxpayers should be paying for the protection of private oil when in fact Occidental, for example, made over $2 billion over the last 2 years. Why should the American people be asked to pay $6 million or $100 million to protect that particular facility? I was reminded of how very difficult it is to get America and certain decision-makers to think beyond the petroleum age. Sometimes you wonder if you can ever win this fight and wean us off our terrible, terrible strategic vulnerability to imported petroleum. Then I come upon an article this past Sunday in the New York Times by Thomas Friedman that is so good I want to read it into the Record tonight. It is called ``A Failure to Imagine.'' Wherever Mr. Friedman is in the world, believe me, he has my thanks, because he is an ally in our cause to get America refocused on what is really important and to no longer use oil as our proxy for foreign policy in the Middle East or Venezuela or Colombia or anywhere else. He says: ``If you ask me, the press has this whole story about whether President Bush had a warning of a possible attack before 9-11, and didn't share it, upside down. ``The failure to prevent September 11 was not a failure of intelligence or coordination. It was a failure of imagination. Even if all the raw intelligence signals had been shared among the FBI, the CIA and the White House,'' Mr. Friedman writes, he is convinced that ``there was no one there who would have put them all together, who would have imagined evil on the scale that Osama bin Laden imagined it. ``Osama bin Laden was (or is) a unique character.'' He says, ``He is a combination of Charles Manson and Jack Welch, a truly evil, twisted personality, but with the organizational skills of a top corporate manager who translated his evil into a global campaign that rocked a superpower. In some ways, I am glad that America (outside Hollywood) is not full of people with bin Laden-like imaginations. One Timothy McVeigh is enough. ``Imagining evil of this magnitude simply does not come naturally to the American character, which is why, even after we are repeatedly confronted with it, we keep reverting to our natural, naively optimistic view. Because our open society is so much based on trust, and that trust is so hard-wired into the American character and citizenry, we can't get rid of it, even when we so obviously should. ``So someone drives a truck bomb into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, and we still don't really protect the Marine barracks there from a similar, but much bigger, attack a few months later. Someone blows up two U.S. embassies in east Africa with truck bombs, and we still don't imagine that someone would sail an exploding dinghy into a destroyer, the U.S.S. Cole, a few years later. Someone tries to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993 with a truck bomb, and the guy who did it tells us he had always wanted to slam a plane into the CIA, but we still couldn't imagine someone doing just that to the Twin Towers on 9-11. ``So I don't fault the President for not having imagined evil of this magnitude. But given the increasingly lethal nature of terrorism, we are going to have to adapt. We need an `Office of Evil' whose job would be to constantly sift all intelligence data and imagine what the most twisted mind might be up to.'' No, the author, Mr. Friedman, does not blame President Bush at all for his failure to imagine evil, but he blames him for ``something much worse: his failure to imagine good.'' Mr. Friedman blames him for ``squandering all the positive feeling in America after 9-11, particularly among young Americans who wanted to be drafted for a great project that would strengthen America in some lasting way, a Manhattan Project for energy independence. Such a project could have enlisted young people in a national movement for greater conservation and enlisted science and industry in a crash effort to produce enough renewable energy, efficiencies and domestic production to wean us gradually off oil imports. ``Such a project not only would have made us safer by making us independent of countries who share none of our values. It would also have made us safer by giving the world a much stronger reason to support our war on terrorism.'' Mr. Speaker, I will include the remaining part of this article in the Record and would say that America, our country and the planet would be a whole lot greener, cleaner, and safer in the broadest sense if America were truly energy independent. Mr. Speaker, I include the balance of the article for the Record. There is no way we can be successful in this war without partners, and there is no way America will have lasting partners, especially in Europe, unless it is perceived as being the best global citizen it can be. And the best way to start conveying that would be by reducing our energy gluttony and ratifying the Kyoto treaty to reduce global warming. President Bush is not alone in this failure. He has had the full cooperation of the Democratic Party leadership, which has been just as lacking in imagination. This has made it easy for Mr. Bush, and his oil-industry paymasters, to get away with it. We and our kids are going to regret this. Because a war on terrorism that is fought only by sending soldiers to Afghanistan or by tightening our borders will ultimately be unsatisfying. Such a war is important, but it can never be definitively won. Someone will always slip through. But a war on terrorism that, with some imagination, is broadly defined as making America safer by also making it better is a war that could be won. It's a war that could ensure that something lasting comes out of 9/11, other than longer lines at the airport--and that something would be enhanced respect for America and a country and a planet that would be greener, cleaner and safer in the broadest sense. Too bad we don't have a president who could imagine that.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, when the supplemental appropriation bill comes up this week, largely for defense purposes, the Republican majority will try to play games and use sleight of hand to slip an increase in the debt ceiling past the American people. These issues should not be linked. They should be voted separately. Yes, America has returned to the days of a growing budget deficit. The President's economic policy will reduce our surplus by nearly $1.7 trillion. That is 42 percent. The government, therefore, is about to bump its head against the debt ceiling. This situation makes it all the more irresponsible, Mr. Speaker, for this Congress in the same bill to throw more than $100 million in taxpayer money to the wind to protect a private oil pipeline in the nation of Colombia. Yes, that is right. American taxpayers are being asked to pony up over $100 million to protect a private oil pipeline in a foreign country. This oil pipeline is owned by two multinational corporations and also by the Government of Colombia. I will be offering an amendment to strike the first $6 million down payment in funding in this bill to protect what is called the Cano Limon oil pipeline. Most Americans do not even know about this pipeline; but they should, because the Bush administration wants to use their tax dollars to protect it. This pipeline that pipes Colombian oil is owned by U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum, along with Repsol, a Spanish-Argentine combine, and Ecopetrol, which is an arm of the Government of Colombia. Can you believe it? This is where our lack of a national energy policy has led us, into the jungles of a Colombian war and into the middle of a civil war that has raged for two generations. The Bush administration wants Congress to spend American tax dollars to defend a pipeline that is owned by the Government of Colombia, a Spanish- Argentine multinational corporation and Occidental Petroleum, an American-based multinational giant, to pump Colombian oil. When you think about it, this first $6 million is but a down payment on $104 million which is supposed to come later. This particular pipeline has been repeatedly attacked in Colombia's 38-year-long civil war. Occidental Petroleum is not a poor company. In fact, it earned profits of more than $2 billion over the last 2 years. So why in the world should the American people have to foot this bill? This gift to Big Oil is a waste of our taxpayers' money and will only lead to other Big Oil giants lining up for similar corporate handouts. We are going backwards. We have gone from shoveling money into the pockets of American multinationals like Enron, that is outrageous enough, to shoveling money into the pockets of foreign multinational corporations and foreign governments. Where does it stop? Where do we draw the line? When do we adopt a real energy policy in this country that promotes biodiesel, ethanol and other renewable fuels and cures our addiction to foreign oil? How many wars do we have to fight? How many people have to die? How many taxpayer dollars have to be wasted to keep the foreign oil flowing? The Colombian army brigade that will be trained with these funds will protect a pipeline that, when operational, will pump about 35 million barrels per year. This adds up to $3 per barrel in costs to U.S. taxpayers to protect a pipeline for which Occidental currently pays security costs of about 50 cents per barrel. Very interesting. Moreover, as military Occidental Oil spokesman Larry Meriage admitted before Congress in February 2000, ``This pipeline is 483 miles long, and so there aren't enough troops in all of Colombia to protect that pipeline along its corridor.'' Americans should not be in the business of paying for the protection of privately owned foreign oil pipelines abroad. We must act now to defeat this dangerous and wasteful pipeline protection proposal. If this $6 million down payment is provided now, it will be extremely difficult to stop the $98 million that is still due when the 2003 foreign operations bill is debated later this year. Mr. Speaker, it is time to just say no. Say no to the Cano Limon pipeline. Say no to foreign oil. And say no to the Bush administration policy to keep our Nation addicted to foreign oil.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 4737, the Republican punishment bill that makes people work 40 hours without a minimum-wage guarantee. Mr. Speaker, a half century ago, the old miner's song captured the plight of the working underclass--``16 tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt.'' Today, author Barbara Eisenreich in her contemporary book, Nickel and Dimed--on Not Getting by in America, reports \1/3\ of our workforce toils for $8 an hour or less. Indeed, the fastest growing segment of our job market is part time jobs with no benefits. Today, I rise in opposition to H.R. 4737, the Republican's punishment bill for needy, working families. It's their latest gimmick to keep our workforce's pay scales down. Essentially this bill assures that individuals transitioning off welfare will be locked into the lowest paying jobs, 40 hours a week, because not only are Republicans not creating high paying jobs--in fact since George Bush became President we have lost 2 million more good jobs across our Nation--but this bill denies necessary education and training to help workers gain some skills to negotiate troubled employment waters. Incredibly in this high tech age, this Republican bill restricts work-related training to no more than 3 consecutive months over a 24- month period. Punish them, indeed. To vividly make my point: in the past 2 decades the poverty rate among working families has shot up 50 percent. The Bush plan doesn't reverse it but makes it worse. Essentially people in our country are working for less because our good jobs--in textiles, steel, automotive parts, electronics, and high tech--are being exported to China, Mexico and Latin America. We are seeing a race to the bottom of the wage scale. Now we have a whole new class of workers who are being relegated to fill these low wage slots, with no hope for a living wage. 16 tons and what have you got. Over 8 million children in the United States live in poor families that work. Half of all parents in working poor families lack health insurance. Rather than produce a bill that links education and training to create some hope of a ladder of economic opportunity to true self sufficiency, this bill subjugates them to a shadow economy where even minimum wages are not guaranteed. Under the Republican bill, 39 states could not fulfill the bill's work requirement without violating the current minimum wage rate for a 2-person family. Vote for the Democratic substitute as a life preserver in most difficult economic waters.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 1613, a measure referred to the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I too rise on this occasion of Mother's Day weekend to pay tribute to those who bring to life and nurture and educate the children, the families of our communities and our world, and as my dear colleague, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones) so eloquently stated in the prior Special Order, when we think about it, mothers have the most important role in the world because they create the love that holds, the center that holds their families together. I think that their idealism helps inspire the world every day, not in big measures always, but in smaller signs of love and affection. There is no more important person in a child's life than the mother and father. But as this is Mother's Day weekend, I think it is important to point out that for children learning in schools, the most important factor in their success is their mother reading to them at home. As we think about education, which is on the minds of all the people in our country, because education is so important to the preservation and the advancement of our democratic way of life, having an enlightened republic, it is important to think about the role of women and education and the role of this Federal Government in helping our families educate their children. We have heard a lot from this administration about compassionate conservatism. I have really tried to understand what that term means. But in speaking about education, maybe it is important to put on the record, it is important to have individuals going to schools and reading to children. I do it myself. It is important to have mothers reading to children. It is the most important act that they can perform for that child in the home other than feeding them. But if you look at this Federal Government and this particular Bush administration, though the compassionate side comes out when we see pictures in the paper of the President coming to Michigan, which he just did this week just north of where I live in Ohio, or wherever he might go, and then you look at the bills that come on this floor such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act this year, it provides no additional assistance for education of our children around the country. In fact, the bill that passed here authorized an expenditure of over $24 billion for education at the elementary and secondary levels, but 2 weeks later when the President's budget arrived, it was $4 billion short. In other words, they might be compassionate, but the conservative side actually does not allow them to fulfill their promises. Broken promises, that is what compassionate conservatism is all about. Frankly, it is all about nothing. Ask any of our college students across this country. They graduate on average today with a debt of nearly $17,000. Our physicians, when our medical school students graduate from college, on average we force them to have a debt load of over $100,000. How can a young physician going into practice manage to have a practice that is profitable while he or she has to pay that debt at the same time as they have to buy all this medical liability insurance, pay for the building, pay for all of their instruments and the medicines, and so forth. Think about the burden that we continue to place on the future of this country, on our young people. So as a woman of our country, as a Congresswoman, as someone who I think has some mothering instincts of her own, let me just say probably the most important thing I can do is to support the future, and that is to support our young people at the elementary and secondary level and at the college level and to say to the Bush administration, compassion is not enough. Conservatism is not enough. You have to do something with the power you have to help nurture and grow the next generation. And burdening them with debt that they do not get out from under until they are 40 years old is not the way to build this country. Frankly, we ought to have a program that allows any student, any young adult in this country that has that kind of debt to work it off through national service on the military side or the civilian side at a rate of $20,000 a year. We ought to get them out from under that debt and take care of some of the needs of this country, whether it is in our nursing homes, whether it is in our forests, whether it is in our inner city schools, whether it is in our medical clinics, wherever it might be, that we take this burden off the next generation so that they can move into this 21st century and new millennium in a way that helps advance America's cause. Happy Mother's Day.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, as a representative of industrial America, I am urging my colleagues today to vote both to strengthen the U.S. steel industry and to put on hold plans to ship spent nuclear material to Yucca Mountain. In an era where our rail beds as well as human error yield major train derailments and accidents each year, why authorize Yucca Mountain? Why not improve our rail beds, improve our steel industry and make this country an industrial leader in terms of rail transportation? In an age of terrorism, why have nuclear material moving all over this country? And, finally, in my own district, a recent nuclear mishap occurred in which boric acid ate through 80 pounds of carbon steel in the central container inside the core, I really ask the question--Why do we have such poor engineering and poor inspection in the nuclear industry? Why do we have a plant reactor that cannot be repaired in this country? Why even if we were able to repair it, do we have to send the core to Japan to cast a new head and then to France for finishing? Why is the nuclear industry exempt with no one responsible under the Price Anderson Act, for liability in the event an accident occurs? Please, I urge my colleagues today to vote to strengthen the U.S. steel industry and vote for nuclear safety. Vote to uphold the steel decisoin on limiting imports and to table the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage proposal.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the cause of peace and to express my concern about the content and the timing of this resolution, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``present.'' Just before we adjourned last year, I introduced House Resolution 328, a bill expressing the sense of Congress that during the holiday season peace should be America's top priority in the Middle East. I was greatly disappointed, in fact I was shocked, that the leadership refused to bring up such a mild but hopeful bill on this floor. They never considered peace a priority. The killing escalated over the holidays and into this year. What a corrosive impact this is having on the young minds of our world. If Congress truly wants to encourage peace, then let us do it constructively. I agree with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) that hundreds more innocent Israelis and Palestinians have died tragically in the ongoing violence. But his one-sided resolution will only fan the killing frenzy. It offers no encouragement for the Arab states to have a place at the peace table. Israel cannot make peace alone. This resolution envisions no Palestinian state as key in the peace process. At its worst, I fear it represents crass domestic politics in this election year. By contrast, President Bush and Secretary Powell have both asked that Congress put this bill on hold. Instead of supporting our ally, Israel, this resolution further endangers the delicate balance so necessary to bring peace to the entire region. Let us be a true partner for peace, not just with Israel but as well with the Arab states in the region, surely those that have suffered bloodshed in their common cause with Israel, for a just and lasting peace. Mr. Speaker, a just peace process must be inclusive or it will not be sustained. America must stand for inclusion. I urge the Members to vote ``present'' on this resolution, and in this way we will demonstrate America's continuing support for Israel but also that this resolution is half-drawn and ill-timed.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) for yielding me the time, and I commend him and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Combest) for producing this conference report, and I rise in guarded support of this conference report. Basically I view the bill as a holding action. America obviously cannot undermine our farmers at a point when 70 cents of every farm dollar is coming from the government, and we ought to produce a different program that permits farmers to earn from the market. But this bill does have some historic titles that are important to building that future, importantly, the historic inclusion of an energy title. This title will really focus the Department of Agriculture on biofuels in every way, biomass for energy production, biobased products, et cetera. There are some other important provisions in the bill, such as enhanced conservation and farmland protection, Global Food for Education, and many of our international programs that help feed hungry people throughout the world and relieve the surplus on our market. We want to compliment the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for their terrific work there. I think the bill falls far short in the area of assisting specialty crop producers to be included. Also, it does not do enough to break up concentration that is causing higher food prices, and really, a narrowing of those who can bring product to the market in this legislation. I am not pleased with what was done on changing the language dealing with labelling of irradiated foods. But overall, we cannot undermine our farmers at a point when they need our support to maintain U.S. food security. I would urge my colleague's support of this legislation.