Marcy Kaptur

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a truly dedicated American, Mr. Walter H. Dettinger, who passed away on November 21, 1995. In 1936 at the age of 17, Walt embarked upon several years of selfless service to our country when he enlisted in the Ohio National Guard. Upon his discharge in 1939, he joined the Naval Communications Reserve and was called to active duty the following year. His area of expertise, radio communications, led him to service aboard the USS Worden in Pearl Harbor, HI. Walt was among the thousands of servicemen there on the morning of [[Page E 2318]] December 7, 1941, when the Japanese launched their unannounced offensive. As a survivor of the attack, he went on to defend our Nation in the Battle of the Midway and Guadalcanal. In January 1943 while aboard the USS Worden in Amchitka, AK, his ship fell victim to an enemy suicide attack. Once again surviving, he served the rest of World War II in the Pacific on the USS Murray. In October 1945 he was discharged and returned to civilian life. Five years later, he married Betty, with whom he shared a 45-year marriage and two children. In early 1952, Walt was again called upon to serve his country in the Korean war. He served faithfully and diligently on the USS Fred T. Berry until his discharge in November 1952. Ambition and drive followed Walt into civilian life as well. As a civilian, he left his mark upon the Toledo broadcasting community in several ways. He helped put an AM radio station, WTOD, on the air, as well as a television station, WTOL-TV 11, from which he retired in 1981. He was a lifelong amateur radio broadcaster, member of the Quarter Century Wireless Association and the American Radio Relay League. Walt was also a proud member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association--charter member, past president of Ohio Chapter 3 and past Ohio State Chairman, the Toledo Post #335, American Legion, past commander, and life member of Sylvania Post #3717, Veterans of Foreign Wars. It is through this association that Walt provided me with invaluable assistance in 1991. Together, we worked to give Pearl Harbor survivors from my district the Pearl Harbor Veterans Award during a moving ceremony 50 years after that long-ago day. Walt's assistance in organizing this commemoration was invaluable to me, and appreciated beyond words by the veterans we honored. A kind and gentle man who sought neither recognition nor accolades and held his achievements privately, Walt was a truly dedicated American. His advice, counsel, and friendship will be missed. He served America and the cause of freedom with selfless devotion. He left our world a finer place.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss our Bosnia policy. In the past 4 years, nearly 250,000 people have been killed in that war-torn region, 2 million people have become refugees. Atrocities have been committed that have truly shocked the world. The region has been a tinder box for European instability for centuries. Thus the peace agreement agreed to by the Presidents of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia in Dayton, OH is indeed an historic step toward bringing peace and ultimate stability to this region. However, the deployment of over 20,000 United States troops to Bosnia to enforce the peace raises many questions. One lesson I have learned from history is that when Congress and the President are not at once with the American people, our Nation suffers. First, the Nation must be committed, and only then should we send troops. Sending troops to Bosnia without broader public consensus will prove to be a mistake. The President's recent efforts to convince the American people fell short of achieving that public support. May I ask, why in this post- cold war era, when our U.S. citizenry has been clamoring for more defense-burden sharing by our allies, has the United States again been asked to assume the central role in resolving this situation, even convening the peace talks in Dayton, OH rather than on the European continent. The short-term cost of U.S. participation will equal $2.6 billion. This entire matter is a defining moment in U.S. foreign policy in that the United States is being asked to substitute for European resolve in this post-cold war era. In the NATO nations of Europe, we have thousands of European trained, deployable troops that could be dispatched immediately to Bosnia in the event a final peace accord is signed in Paris. Let me read to you the list of European countries associated with NATO and the number of their combat ready troops. This does not even count their reserve forces: In Belgium, 63,000 troops. In Denmark, 27,000 troops. In France, 409,000 troops. In Germany, 367,000 troops. In Greece, 159,300 troops. In Italy, 322,300 troops. In Luxembourg, 800 troops. In the Netherlands, 70,900 troops. In Norway, 33,500 troops. In Portugal, 50,700 troops. In Spain, 206,500 troops. In Turkey, 503,800 troops. In the United Kingdom, 254,300 troops, bringing the total NATO active forces to over 2\1/2\ million war-ready forces. Identifying 20,000 ground troops from among these forces would represent less than a 1-percent additional commitment for NATO's European partners to enforce the peace. Is that too much to ask of them? If the United States maintains our logistical and our air support. The administration has stated that Europe, since 1914, has been unable to effectively maintain the peace and there was no other recourse but for the United States to assume the lead in bringing the warring factions to peaceful resolution. They have urged us not to become isolationists. The truth is, the long-term prospects for peace in this troubled region are very slim. Once the NATO troops withdraw, it will require 50 years of cooling off between the warring factions and maintenance of borders by external forces to give peace a chance. A 1-year quick fix is not going to do it. Who will commit to that long-term maintenance of peace? And who will pay for it? Is it not time for NATO's European partners to measure up to their common defense? The United States, as a partner in NATO, has a role in logistical and air support, but we should not be sending ground troops to Bosnia. NATO in Europe is perfectly capable of doing that on its own, if it wished to.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the assistance of our esteemed colleagues, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] and the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank] in allowing us to talk about this amendment this evening. Mr. Chairman, the amendment is one that has been introduced in bill form in this Congress since the year 1985. There have been extensive hearings held on the content of this bill in several Congresses. For various reasons, because of its content and because of the pace of the legislative process, we have never been able to move this language on to a bill that was headed for presidential signature. The acronym for this bill is FACEIT, the Foreign Agents Compulsory Ethics In Trade Act, and its purpose is to close the revolving door between government service and lobbying on behalf of foreign interests. Mr. Chairman, our bill introduced with bipartisan support over the last decade, has two parts. The first is to impose a permanent restriction on high-level government officials from representing, aiding, or advising foreign governments and foreign political parties once they leave the employment of the United States and attempt to go back and lobby, advise, the very same clients before the very same agencies that they had worked for. The second part of this bill would impose a 5-year prohibition on high-level officials against representing, aiding, or advising what we term ``foreign interests,'' and these are defined in the bill as well. Let me say that in March of 1992, the General Accounting Office published a report which we requested entitled ``Former Federal Officials Representing Foreign Interests Before the U.S. Government.'' That report identified dozens of former high-level Federal officials, those who had served on the White House staff, those who had served at the highest level of Cabinet-level agencies, congressional staff, even some Members of Congress, executive agency officials in various administrations, who left the employment of the people of the United States, and then attempted and are representing foreign interests before the very agencies that they had served in years past. We, in earlier years, thought it would be sufficient to merely ask for disclosure. In other words, the current law says to people, ``If you are conducting this type of activity, all you need to do is register.'' Well, lo and behold, the GAO found that numerous foreign agents simply do not register at all. Mr. Chairman, the current law operates much like a sieve with very large holes in it. There is absolutely no enforcement and the disclosure process itself is extremely flawed. Our bill would ensure that our Federal officials are working on behalf of the people of this country and that they serve the government of the United States. In my own personal experience here, I have seen too many officials of this country use their positions to seek post-employment opportunities. I might just say for the record, and I have said it in public hearings and I have said it here on the floor before, I have experience in my own district. Mr. Chairman, the way I got into this was a businessman from my own district had come here to Washington, had gone on trade missions around the world with high-level government officials, and divulged certain aspects of his production, the products that he sold, what his competition was, to the government officials that accompanied him on these trade missions. He came back to Washington 2 years later and he found that the people that he had spoken with were now working for his competition. Mr. Chairman, his question to me, when I met him as a fairly new Member of Congress, he said to me, ``Why should I tell you anything?'' I said, ``Well, I am very interested in what problems you are facing as a businessman trying to move your product into international markets.'' He had lost complete trust in the government of the United States because of what he had experienced. This is absolutely wrong. Mr. Chairman, the reason it has been so hard to get this bill passed is because the people conducting these activities make lots and lots of money. Just think about the trade arena. The average person who is serving our government in trade negotiating capacity has a tenure today of less than a year and a half. We are beaten consistently in trade negotiations around the world because we have people who do not have the tenure, experience, and breadth of people negotiating for other countries. Mr. Chairman, it is possible to work in a position in this government and maybe earn a salary of $100,000 a year, which sounds like big money in Toledo, Ohio, but then those same people can be offered four times as much as that the day after they leave the government to represent the very same clients before the agency that they just left. Mr. Chairman, that is absolutely wrong. We need to plug the hole in that dike completely and restore integrity to the trademarking and other functions of this government. The other aspect, what happens inside these agencies where we have people with integrity working very hard, when they see their compadres and compatriots in these agencies merely milking it for what they can get for themselves, it is totally demoralizing to serve in these various agencies and capacities in our government. So, our purpose in this is to close the revolving door permanently for those who have such high-level knowledge that they can literally compromise the interests of this country, and it is to set a standard of integrity for those who would serve our people, and then try to cash in on it. We have a cooling off period that we think is realistic in this bill. I think it will restore confidence among people like the businessman from my community who lost his respect for the government of the United States and the people who serve it here in our Nation's Capital. Mr. Chairman, I would ask for favorable consideration by the committee and express a complete willingness to work with the gentleman from Florida to attach this legislation to this bill, or to work with the gentleman in any manner that could make an idea that is now a decade old a reality for the people of our country. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank both the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] and the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank]. I have to say, I recall my testimony before the subcommittee chaired by the gentleman from Massachusetts, and I was always welcomed. Some of the thinking that we refined in those years has helped us move to this point. I thank the gentleman for working with us and being so open to us, and I thank the gentleman from Florida for offering to hold hearings on this matter and bringing in other Members who may have related measures. Mr. Chairman, I think as the audience and American people are listening to us tonight, this is on the minds of a lot of the public. They have questioned why we as a Congress cannot move a measure through here. I think with the strong leadership of the gentleman from Florida and the support of the gentleman from Massachusetts and other Members in this institution, we can really do something and give the 21st century the kind of service here in Washington that our people deserve. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment at this point, and ask that we be one of the first witnesses that the gentleman welcomes to his committee when he holds that set of hearings.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, today my colleagues and I introduce the NAFTA Accountability Act of 1995 to stand up for the thousands and thousands of workers across our country who are being terminated. NAFTA promised our country a $12 billion trade surplus. This year we will rack up an historic $40 billion deficit with our two trading partners on the continent. NAFTA promised our people 200,000 new jobs. It has already cost us over 300,000 lost jobs: Like 3,200 workers at Fruit of the Loom in Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, and North Carolina; like 200 workers at Emerson Electric in Indiana; like 120 workers at Alcatel Data Networks in New Jersey; like 127 workers at American Manufacturing Co. in Alabama; like 130 workers at Data Products in Georgia; like 220 workers at Woolrich, Inc. in Pennsylvania; like 340 workers at Oxford Industries in Georgia; like 245 workers at Sara Lee in Georgia. Mr. Speaker, we will continue the list as the week moves on.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank you very much, and I wanted to follow on points that you have all made. The gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Thurman] talked about how do we get our economy to grow, which is what I really enjoy talking about the most----

Ms. KAPTUR. They say they are cutting taxes. They are cutting taxes for their friends who can pay enough to lobby up here, but they are raising taxes on the people in our district who have not seen their wages go up, who are struggling to make ends meet and are now going to be asked to pay more to the piper. It is downright wrong. [[Page H 12338]]

Ms. KAPTUR. You knew they were from our community. We are very proud of them. In December they will be traveling down there, and we know they are going to win. We also have Bowling Green State University where we have about 18,000 students and then Lords College with about 2,500 students. These student loans for many, many thousands of students are life and death. It is their future or nothing. And to add to their burden, they are our future, really, is the wrong way to go. I would say to certain executives in our country, like the gentleman who heads up Walt Disney who made $50 million last year, that is a substantial sum of money. I am sure that he would [[Page H 12339]] admit, if he were given the chance to speak out on this floor, that he does not need an additional $500 in a tax credit for his family, that he would rather have some student in California be able to go on to school. And if you multiply that by the thousands and thousands of students in our country, there are just better ways to spend these dollars. It seems such a tragedy to me that we are here late in the evening while the Government is essentially stopped and we cannot seem to find accommodation with Mr. Gingrich simply because he is being unreasonable about where to cut and where not to cut. I do not understand what he is after. I think all of the mail we have gotten, the phone calls, the communications from our constituents, give us a sense of where we need to make changes in the budget. I do not know why he is taking such an extreme position. I do not think it yields anything for the country. I do not think it yields anything for him or his allies in this Congress. I do not understand why the rigidity, what is the rigidity all about. I am just proud to be here with our colleagues here this evening because we are from all different parts of the country. And we very much want to continue on the path of deficit reduction. I think we have all been a part of making tough choices. All we do on the Committee on Appropriations now is cut. It is just a matter of what you hack next. We have eliminated programs. We have had hundreds of thousands of people that have left the service of the Federal Government, both on the civilian side and the military side. We have got base closings all over this country. We as a Nation are begging foreign countries to invest in space research. It is somewhat embarrassing at times to be a beggar. On the international front, we have cut foreign aid. When you look at where we have cut, all the agriculture programs, we are losing thousands and thousands of farmers, dairy farmers, vegetable farmers, tomato farmers, cattle growers. We have got people all over this country who are going out of business. We know cuts have been severe. We know that we have been about the task of putting the finances of the Government in the proper order. But I do not understand why Mr. Gingrich cannot be a partner with us and help us to balance the budget responsibly rather than hurting people who need the help the most.

Ms. KAPTUR. I just want to say, we were talking about universities and the importance of student loans. I am someone who personally was able to have the work study program available to me as a college student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. And I was able to work my way through school along with some scholarship assistance. I think that all of us who have struggled hard to get an education understand what the students of today, whose bills are even higher than ours were, are facing. I do have to say on the Record that the University of Toledo is in my district. They are on their way to the Las Vegas Bowl. We are very proud of them for that. We have over 22,000 students at that particular institution.

Ms. KAPTUR. Not sort of treading water, and I wish we could spend more time as a Congress debating that whole subject, and then the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] talked about the interrelationship and how, what kinds of programs do we need to decrease, which ones should be increased, and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Barrett] also talked about that, where would we make investments for the future, where does it make the most sense, and I think it is important to point out that, if you look at the whole economy of our country, 80 percent of it is the private sector, so the growth has to come on the private side. Twenty percent of our gross domestic product is the Government. So, as hard as we might try to cut and move toward a balanced budget, the truth is, if we make the wrong choices and we stifle growth on the private side, we have all done a disservice to the Nation, and I think that some of the cuts that are being talked about are, in fact, ones that will inhibit growth on the private-sector side because, if you do not have an educated work force, if you are throwing more people into poverty who are nonproductive people, if you are robbing students of a bright future in the next century, and, I think, if you defile your environment, you are going to, you know, pay a very heavy price for it down the road, and I think one of the problems with the proposals, the way they have come out of that committee, is that they do not help the middle class to grow. I think that in fact they make people who are trying to earn a living and keep a household together, make it much more difficult for them to stay in the middle class, and we have seen enough people drop out of or keep hanging on with their fingernails at this point, and you cannot solve the whole problem just on the Government side, on the deficit side. You do have to look at choices that you make that will create growth. So I think you pointed out important aspects that we need to think about as we make these choices, that they are the proper ones and they do not create more harm on the private-sector side, and we have heard a lot of talk about capital gains and who will benefit from that, and I think one of the issues there really is perhaps indexing of capital gains as opposed to just giving money away, and there is no, no requirement in the bill that is in that committee today that, when those dollars are given, they have to be invested in the United States of America. So we could be giving another freebie away and have more of our jobs taken to Mexico, or Taiwan, or wherever, and who is really benefiting? Not the society, not the middle class, not the growth of wealth in this country, but rather the frittering away of scarce resources to people who already have pretty big boats to float in. So I just want to commend you for your comments.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, first of all we need a clean continuing resolution. We ought to have one similar to the one that was passed about 1\1/2\ months ago, without all the bells and whistles on it, that brings us below last year's level of spending, but without all these riders and everything else they have been trying to stick on. I think also we should go back to regular order. And I have to say to the former Speaker, Jim Wright, if he is listening tonight, thank you for being a great Speaker. Thank you for clearing your bills on time. We should be doing the same with the appropriation bills. I would say to President Clinton that I hope he keeps on his balanced budget target and hangs strong on Medicare.

Ms. KAPTUR. If the gentleman would yield, I cannot tell you how many companies we have in Ohio where workers work let us say for 30 years, and when their pension funds went belly up, they said to the workers, ``Oh, gee, sorry, we don't have your pension dollars,'' or, ``You worked 30 years? Well, we can only pay you 10 years.'' I just met a gentleman the other day who worked for Eastern Airlines for over a decade on the east coast and who had to move to Florida to completely change his occupation. He is now in his fifties, enrolled in a 5-year program in environmental agriculture, a highly skilled airplane mechanic who, if he is lucky, will get maybe $300 a year when he reaches 65 from that company for his years of employment there, much less than he would have expected to have gotten in his retirement years. So we have got people all over this country who have been robbed of their pension benefits.

Ms. KAPTUR. I am glad the gentleman brought up those points because the $40 billion that they want to take out of workers' pensions is double the amount that was taken out during the 1980's, before the law was changed, and, if we think back to the 1980's, all the workers that have been put out on the streets of this country; 3-M announced today they are laying off 5,000 people, 3,000 of them here in the United States. Those jobs are gone. Add those to Fruit of the Loom 2 weeks ago. I mentioned yesterday that even Hershey's kisses in Pennsylvania has decided to make its giant kisses in Guadalajara, Mexico, so it is a giant kiss of death to all the Hershey workers in Pennsylvania who will no longer be employed, and all the dairy farmers who supply the milk into that plant and so forth. But it is a massive hit on workers' pension funds, and I would be proud to serve here during a day when we talk not just about changing capital gains, but helping worker gains and helping our workers benefit from their hard labor across this country so they can have a more secure economic future, but that $40 billion is a gigantic amount, double what we experienced back in the 1980's, and we all remember what happened then.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I would like to reemphasize that point, because I do not think most citizens have been listening to the fact that all these cuts that are occurring out of the Medicare program, the nursing home program, the additional costs for students loans, and the very point that my colleagues are raising, which is tax increases for families who are working who earn under $30,000 a year, really add up. We are talking about over 8 million families in our country who are going to have to pay more in taxes. Mr. Speaker, I have a chart here that I want to reference that really shows that if you are working and you earn under $10,000 a year, if you earn under $20,000, if you earn under $30,000 a year, under their proposal, you are going to have to pay more. But, if you happen to be in the category, as every Member of Congress is who has accepted the pay raises, of over $100,000 a year, as Speaker Gingrich is, you are going to get a handsome tax break. For those people who earn over $200,000 a year, they will average a $14,000 tax break, while people who are earning under $30,000 a year are going to have to pay about $600 more a year in taxes and in lost benefits from these health programs. Mr. Speaker, that is really something to consider. To me it shows the unfairness of the Gingrich set of proposals on the vast majority of the American people. I am glad that the gentlewoman brought up the point. In my district I will say that the earned income tax credit helps 26,000 working families.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues here, and I guess what we can talk about is wreck-onciliation, and it is truly a wreck for our communities, and for communities across this country. I happen to serve on the Committee on Appropriations, and I can testify that there have been many, many years when we have cleared our bills on time, all 13 of them, before October 1. There is no reason to furlough 800,000 Federal employees. I can tell you in Toledo, OH, my largest community, we had our office in the Federal building, and just today, because Social Security had to really close down, those people were furloughed, there were 70 people whose claims could not be directly processed, 500 visitors were turned away, because our office is pretty close to their office, and, on average, they receive about 245 phone calls a day. That means 245 seniors called in to the office, and the phone could not answer today, because the people were not there. Here in Washington, tomorrow I think I am the only Washington monument that students in my district will see, because hundreds of them are here during the fall season, and they learned that all the monuments, all the museums, are all closed down. So here they have saved their money, they have done car washes during the summer, they have worked so hard to come with their classes to Washington, and today they cannot see any of them. This is their one time. It is so expensive to come here, so we are seeing the results of this unnecessary train wreck here in the month of November. What is amazing to me, this so-called new leadership on both sides of the Congress, why do we have to wait until the end of the week? It is Tuesday. Now they told us we have to wait through Wednesday, wait through Thursday, and maybe we will have a vote on Friday. What are we waiting for?

Ms. KAPTUR. If the gentleman would yield, following on what you so importantly have outlined, and I think that message should be repeated and repeated and repeated to show where the costs are going to fall, and then Congresswoman Thurman's comments about how much more seniors will have to pay and when those bills will come due, I think what is important to put out in the Record tonight again is to show people that all of these additional costs that seniors are going to have to pay, and all of the cuts that are going to come in Medicare totaling over $270 billion, as this chart demonstrates, none of that money is going to make Medicare more whole. In fact, it is all going to go for major tax breaks, over $245 billion, to among the most privileged people in this country. So, all of the sacrifice that we are talking about, the quadrupling of what seniors will have to pay over the remaining part of this decade and into the next century, is not going to do a thing to make health insurance more accessible to seniors. All that money and all that sacrifice is going away so at the same time the seniors are shouldering a heavier burden, the Medicare Program will not be made any better. I yield to the Congresswoman.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I do not often come down into this well in a harshly partisan manner because I do not think most of the issues facing the country are either Democrat or Republican, but tonight I really felt compelled to come down here as a Democrat in memory of a marvelous gentleman that many of us served with named Claude Pepper from the great State of Florida. I hope our dear man, Representative Pepper, is listening to us tonight because he was the man who knew the history of the Social Security and Medicare Programs better than any other Member that I ever had the privilege to serve with. I know what he would say if he were standing here tonight. He would look to the Republican side of the aisle and say: ``I served here when Social Security was first debated and passed. Let the record show there was not one Republican vote that stood on this floor in support of the Social Security Program.'' [[Page H 12317]] I was elected many years after Claude Pepper was elected, in 1982. In March of 1983, we had to restore the health of the Social Security Program. What happened in that election year of 1982 was, the American public saw that, with the election of large numbers of Republicans in 1980, the Social Security Program was again threatened. Claude Pepper stood on this floor, and there was not a dry eye in the House when he finished. We passed a bill in March 1983 to restore, restore the health of the Social Security Program. So I find it somewhat ironic when I hear the crocodile tears from the other side of the aisle all of a sudden being real interested in trying to save Social Security and save Medicare, when the Republican Party has fundamentally never supported the two most popular programs that have been enacted in this century. Now, in fact, if it had been up to the Republican Party, we truly know those programs would not have happened. If we look back to the Medicare program, consider this: From 1952 to 1965, 13 years, the Republican Party used every delaying tactic possible not to allow a Medicare bill to get on this floor. It was bottled up in committee for over a decade and a half. When the bill finally emerged, 97 percent of Republicans voted against Medicare in 1960. In 1962, 86 percent voted against Medicare. Then in 1964, thank God for Lyndon Johnson, 85 percent of them voted against Medicare. So tonight we have got the entire Government of the United States shut down. Seniors in my district are not being served. Seventy a day are being turned away, over 400 phone calls, 400 visitors, people we have not been able to serve in Toledo, Ohio today because of inaction by the Republican Party. Now we hear these very same people telling us, oh, they really want to save Medicare. They really want to save Social Security. Please, do not deny history. From the very beginning, what has the Republican Party stood for? It has stood for voluntary plans, voluntary plans with no guaranteed financing and no guaranteed benefits. So tonight we have watched people--I know their offices are being called because seniors all over this country know what is happending-- stand down on this floor and act as though they have had this change of heart. I do not think there is any change of heart at all. It is the same old struggle that we had from the time of Franklin Roosevelt. That is the struggle on whether you truly believe in the integrity of these programs, that these are a contract of trust between generations, or what are they trying to do? In the resolution that we are stuck on and we cannot move out of this Congress, they are trying to increase Medicare premiums. They are trying to change the program to what Speaker Gingrich calls a Medicare program that will wither on the vine by making the program a program that does not keep the integrity of the system, because it gives people so many choices to operate out and go into other plans that in fact you lose the insurance base, the universal insurance base of the current program. So I can just say that this Government shutdown is absolutely unnecessary. A thousand Federal workers in my district today were furloughed. As a result, three of our local Social Security offices are operating with a skeleton staff. Telephone calls are going unanswered today from in our district. Collectively, these offices could have served hundreds of people. I do not see why we have to wait around here until Friday. What is wrong with the Republican Party? It's the same thing that has been wrong with the Republican Party since the 1930's. They have never believed in the Social Security and Medicare Program for all of our people.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to switch my special order with the gentleman for New Jersey, [Mr. Pallone].

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and wish to state that I think this is a sad night for America, for our country and this Congress, as we are held hostage by a few extremists who want to take actions like raising premiums on Medicare part B for our senior citizens and rolling back environmental standards across this country, under the guise of a bill that is supposed to be about running our country and conducting the people's business. One of the reasons that the Government is short on funds and our families are working harder and showing less for it in their pocketbooks and their wallets is because of the dry rot inside the economy of the United States. It is that that I want to focus on, and it is that subject I wish that we as a Congress would be focusing on. This week represents the second anniversary of NAFTA's passage on November 17, 1993. Each day this week, several of my colleagues and I will be here on this floor discussing various aspects of that agreement. We will be calling attention to its performance to date which can be properly characterized as truly dismal and devastating for thousands of Americans as well as Mexican workers and their families. But it has been truly rewarding for speculators on Wall Street and Mexico's Wall Street at the Bolsa in Mexico City. Promises, promises, we were given lots of promises. During the NAFTA debate we were promised it would create 200,000 jobs just this year; good jobs, they told us, jobs that could help people pay taxes, jobs that could help people increase their incomes. However, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported, the reality is, and I quote: ``There has been no evidence of any overall gain in jobs as a result of this agreement with Mexico.'' In fact, by the end of this year, 800,000 people in our country and several million in Mexico will have had their jobs put on the chopping block because of this agreement. Think about the toll of human lives in our country just in the last 2 weeks. Fruit of the Loom announced 3,200 jobs being shut down in this country in Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, the Carolinas, moving to Mexico. And 479 workers out of work in St. Joseph, Missouri. They made Lee jeans. They earned $8.35 an hour. And chocolate workers in Hershey, Pennsylvania who were told that they are going to be laid off, get their pink slips because Hershey has decided to move its production of Giant Kisses to Guadalajara, Mexico. So I guess we could say NAFTA has become a giant kiss of death for many workers in our country. I want to pause here for a moment and say that NAFTA did not really grow out of a vacuum. It is merely one agreement within the larger context of our Nation's extremely flawed and ill-advised trade agreements which purposely ignore consequences on large segments of our people. These policies and trade agreements have spawned and destroyed both jobs and wealth in our country by providing incentives to export our jobs someplace else, exporting income from our people, increasing frustration in our electorate and causing a kind of doubt about the ability of this Government to deliver. There is economic dry rot out there in our country. Think about the last 20 years. The average American family has not had an increase in their purchasing power. In fact, the high school graduate today makes 27 percent less in real wages on what they can actually buy with their check than their counterparts did 20 years ago, but the chief executive officers of our country are earning just in the last year 12 percent more real wages than they did in the prior year. Now, what exactly are those CEO's being rewarded for? Fortune 500 companies have not created a single job in this country for a decade. Virtually all their investment in production has been abroad. American workers are being asked to compete against capital that can move anywhere in the world, foreign cartels that block our access into their markets and millions of low-wage workers in the world who live under undemocratic regimes. The resultant pulldown in wages in our country has been verified by economists like the University of California's Professor George Borjas, who maintains at least 25 percent of the loss in wages in this country is due to the type of trade agreement that we [[Page H 12165]] got ourselves locked into including the NAFTA agreement. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that this week we will be introducing the NAFTA Accountability Act. My colleagues and I will be on the floor talking about its various provisions. We are going to listen to what the public is telling us. Once we restore the economic health of the country it will be easier to restore the governance of the Nation.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a gentleman who has spent his life serving his country, his union, and his community. Until his recent retirement, Wesley Miller was the first and only recording secretary the Toledo area UAW-CAP Council has had in its 27 years. Wesley has also served as president of UAW local 48 at the National Castings Corp. and more recently, as president of that local's retiree chapter. Born in Columbus, OH, Wesley had the good sense to move to Toledo in 1952. During the Second World War, he served his country as a staff sergeant in the Air Force stationed in New Guinea. Wesley married Clara Furgeson in 1960 and can boast of five children, nine grandchildren, four great grandchildren, and counting. Wesley's leadership in his union and his community has helped to improve the lives of all the citizens of Toledo. Wesley Miller deserves our thanks and our best wishes.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a gentleman who has given long and faithful service to the trade union movement in Toledo. Dean Chase recently retired as president of the Toledo Area UAW-CAP Council. Dean had served the CAP Council as its president since 1981, and he has spent most of his adult life dedicated to improving the lives of working men and women. Dean was also president of UAW Local 11 at the City Auto Stamping Plant for 20 years. Born in Toledo, Dean Chase, has lived in our community all his life. He attended Cherry School, Scott High School, and the University of Toledo. Married to Betty Lamb in 1950, Dean will have time to enjoy his two grandchildren and three great grandchildren in his retirement. Dean's outstanding leadership in his union and his community have made Toledo a better place to live and work. Let this special tribute express our sincerest appreciation and best wishes to Dean Chase.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, last evening on November 6, the greater Toledo community gathered at Temple Shomer Emunim to pay tribute to the heroic life of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Our citizenry humbly assembled--Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, people of all faiths and denominations--to stand together as free people, of diverse heritage, to light candles of commemoration and of peace. Our people wished to demonstrate that here in the United States--a Nation dedicated to justice, human betterment, and ``E Pluribus Unum''--One from many--we stand at one with people of peace, wherever they reside. We witness through our unity as well as our deep sorrow that the hope for peace for which Prime Minister Rabin laid down his life will enlarge the resolve of the entire world to bring its human and spiritual resources to bear on the Middle East peace process. May the cause for which he so nobly shed his blood be sanctified. The heartfelt remarks of Rabbi Alan Sokobin, cochair community relations of the Jewish Federation of Greater Toledo, delivered with eloquence, offered deep comfort and inspiration. Let them be inserted in this Record as historical evidence of the international understanding of our Toledo community and the deep desire of all our people for reconciliation. [[Page H 11810]] Those officiating at the ceremony included: Michael Berebitsky, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Toledo; Rabbi Samuel Weinstein, Temple Shomer Emunim; Cantor Judy Seplowin, Temple Shomer Emunim; Cantor David Friedes, Temple Bnai Israel; Rabbi Arnold Bienstock, Temple Bnai Israel; Judah Segal, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greator Toledo and Jewish community representatives; Cantor Evan Rubin, Congregation Etz Chayim; Rabbi Edward Garsek, Congregation Etz Chayim; and Rabbi Sokobin. Mr. Speaker, Rabbi Sokobin spoke on behalf of our entire community when he said of the death of Prime Minister Rabin: ``We all now share a pain which will not go away.'' Then he reminded us of the life of Prime Minister Rabin: [All his life, almost all his years were years of war. He was a first generation Sabra born of parents who fled persecution in Europe. His parents met when they fought side by side defending the Jews of the Old City who were defenseless when attacked in the orchestrated riots, the pogroms, of 1920. As a child of the thirties he was aware of tragedy enveloping the Jews of Europe. In Palestine, there were descriptions of horror as European Jewry was being wrapped in bloody shrouds of hatred. He was very conscious, deeply affected, by both the hatred of Jews in Europe and the enmity of Arabs. His youthful passion was agronomy. He wanted to plant, to cultivate, to inspire the sacred soil to flourish. A young man of exceptional intelligence, at Kadoorie Agricultural School, he was the number one student. He achieved the highest score, comparable to one SAT scores, in Palestine. But he gave up his personal dream and accepted onerous responsibility. He became a soldier. He dropped the plowshare and took up the sword. His adult life was the sword. His army service was dedicated to killing. As a young man he killed, personally. Later, as a military commander he directed others that they might kill. He was well acquainted with death. His final evening of life, at a rally for peace he joined in singing the song: Shiru shir la-shalom, sing a song of peace]. Mr. Speaker, it is our desire as the Toledo community on an interfaith and interdenominational basis to journey to the Middle East and to Israel as we recommit ourselves as witnesses to peace and in his memory and in our own way help Prime Minister Rabin's dream of peace reach ultimate fulfillment. May God rest his soul and give comfort to his family, the people of Israel, and peace-loving peoples everywhere. Mr. Speaker, I include the remarks of Rabbi Sokobin for the Record, as follows: I have stood before you and represented you in other dolorous occasions. During moments of personal grief when your beloved lay before you and your grief required articulation you turned to me for words to tell of the immensity of your sorrow. I spoke for you other times as well. When we all were gripped by unbearable excruciating communal anguish such as that time of evil when the Israeli athletes were massacred at Munich. Who can forget our emotions when there was that craven attack on Yom Kippur, our holiest of days. We have gathered together as caring community too many times when implacable enemies used the sword and inflicted unbearable pain. Each time that I spoke to and for the community, I faced my own humanness and my own personal limitations. I could not explain those verities which were beyond my ken. I could not really interpret the activities of others that were outside of my understanding. I could not and still cannot understand, comprehend, the depth of hatred in some that they would wage war and commit terrorism. I could not and still cannot understand the malignity and cruelty of human beings who are willing to, who desire to, inflict excruciating pain on others. But in the past it was enemies of the Jewish people who were uncompromising and unrelenting in their hostility. It was enemies who had views of destruction on their lips. This is the first time where the ripping, searing pain was caused, generated, not by a foe. What crushes my soul, causing agonizing soul searching, is what so many have said with simple majesty, ``Jews don't kill Jews.'' Until now it has been a truism, an irrefutable axiom, that the political and ideological cannibalism that infects and contaminates other societies has not tainted Jewish life. Until now! Yitzhak Rabin's life was taken by a senseless, irrational, stupid and unthinking act. That the finger that pulled the trigger had pointed to words in Torah is unthinkable! That a Jew could denigrate all that we represent, our ideals, our sanctified mission, the visions enunciated in our tradition, our God given flawless purposes is monstrous. We all now share a pain which will not go away. That this pain would be generated by the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin is also unthinkable. He in his life represented Israel's and the Jewish people's highest hope. In the moments prior to his death he exemplified and epitomized the torturous path of our people in our generation. All his life, almost all his years were years of war. He was a first generation Sabra born of parents who fled persecution in Europe. His parents met when they fought side by side defending the Jews of the Old City who were defenseless when attacked in the orchestrated riots, the pogroms, of 1920. As a child of the thirties he was aware of tragedy enveloping the Jews of Europe. In Palestine, there were descriptions of horror as European Jewry was being wrapped in bloody shrouds of hatred. He was very conscious, deeply affected, by both the hatred of Jews in Europe and the enmity of Arabs. His youthful passion was agronomy. He wanted to plant to cultivate, to inspire the sacred soil to flourish. A young man of exceptional intelligence, at Kadoorie Agricultural School, he was the number one student. He achieved the highest score, comparable to our SAT scores, in Palestine. But he gave up his personal dream and accepted onerous responsibility. He became a soldier. He dropped the plowshare and took up the sword. His adult life was the sword. His army service was dedicated to killing. As a young man he killed, personally. Later, as a military commander he directed others that they might kill. He was well acquainted with death. His final evening of life, at a rally for peace he joined in singing the song: Shiru, shir la-shalom, sing a song of peace! He was blessed with active intelligence, deep commitment, dedication and unusual ability but he was not endowed with a singing voice. But he sang, Shini Shir la- shalom which is the Israeli equivalent of sixties song. ``All we are asking, is give peace a chance.'' This was his final vision, his hope. He wanted the blessing to live to see his Israel proud, strong, productive, living in amity and concord in the family of nations. He wanted to lead his country and his people who had been tortured by generations of war, a people who knew well the torment of mangled bodies and hasty funerals, to peace. He had walked with grieving families accompanying their loved ones to their place of peace in the military cemetery. Now he asked them to walk with him on a path of hope, not of promises, but trust and faith. He asked them to sing a new song, a song of peace. We have gathered together on this sorrowful and melancholy evening not to mourn a man. By any measurable standard he was immensely successful and fulfilled. he was a richly loved and loving husband, parent and grandparent. He was an eminent soldier and statesman, honored by the world for his achievements. Beyond these accomplishments, which reflected both his leadership qualities and his humaneness, Yitzhak Rabin fulfilled a fundamental Biblical mandate And they shall beat their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruning hooks Nation shall not lift up sword against nation Neither shall they learn war anymore. (Micah 4:3) This memorial service honors Yitzhak Rabin, a planter and a soldier. He protected his people, their ideals, and planted within them new hope. A hope which is ours as Jews. But our service is not only a memorial. It is our response to our initial question. How could a Jew slaughter another Jew? I have heard, as you must have as well, numerous commentators refer to the ``loss of innocence'' in Israel. Innocence meaning naivety, perhaps. But innocence meaning purity, integrity, utopian idealism is not lost. No one can take this from us. Not as long as we maintain those ideals, those sacred purposes. We are a sanctified people. We are not pragmatic: we are prophetic. For us, this is our moment of recommitment. Now we dedicate ourselves to share with our fellow Jews of Israel, our brethren throughout the world in all our habitations to seek a path of reconciliation and equitable peace. We would have a peace predicated upon the ancient principles enunciated in our sacred tradition. We must devote ourselves to ancient the mandate given us by the great Rabbi Hillel. Be of the disciples of Aaron. Love peace, pursue peace. Reach out to your fellow human being. (Ethics of the Fathers). We must stretch forth our hands, reaching across the gulf of hostility, to create peace, amity, concord and hope.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, last week, the Wall Street Journal finally got around to printing what we all already knew to be true--that none of the promises made by NAFTA's supporters have come true. The promised 200,000 high-skill, high-wage jobs have not materialized. Real wages in the United States have decreased by 3 percent, and in Mexico they have plummeted by over 50 percent. Even the Wall Street Journal now calls NAFTA ``a terrible disappointment.'' It's about time. The Journal itself made an awful lot of promises in regard to NAFTA. Yet NAFTA's supporters now incredibly claim that Mexico has ``turned the corner''--but the financial markets tell us something different. Last week, the peso lost 7 percent of its value in one day, and hit a record low of 7.5 pesos to the dollar--a depreciation to less than half what the peso was worth before NAFTA. At the same time, interest rates jumped 9 percent. And the Mexican Bolsa--their stock market--has continued to plummet in value. This volatility is clearly due to a lack in confidence in Mexico's economy. So who should we believe: NAFTA's supporters, or the market? I'll take the market. Why should Americans care about volatility in the Mexican market? Isn't it only the Wall Street fat cats and Mexican billionaires who play in that market? My friends, this volatility impacts each and every American as high-skill, high-wage United States jobs are continuing to be shipped to Mexico and our living standards continue to decline. What is the connection? Think about the volatility in the Mexican market like this: it is like a garage sale for United States corporations. Because pesos cost only half of what they did before NAFTA, for United States corporations, everything in Mexico--including capital, taxes and labor costs--is half as expensive as it used to be. And that is not the end of the story. United States corporations who operate in Mexico then export their goods from Mexico to the United States still charge us high prices for them. In short, it costs United States corporations half as much to manufacture their goods in Mexico so they are able to earn twice as much when they sell those same goods back here. It is no wonder that our corporations are moving production to Mexico at an accelerating rate. NAFTA has become the deal of the century for them. In 1994, there were 2,000 maquiladora assembly plants along the border. At the end of this year there will be 2,600, an additional 30 percent. Just today, Lee jeans in St. Joseph, MO, announced it will terminate 479 workers, shutting production down there and moving those jobs to Mexico. Yesterday, Fruit of the Loom, an American staple company, said it will slash its U.S. work force, get ready, by 3,200 jobs to streamline operations here and boost profits, closing plants in Florence, AL, and Franklin, KY, Acadia Parish, LA, Batesville, MI and operations in Bowling Green, KY, Rockingham, NC, and the list goes on and on. Where is the work going? You guessed it. Most of us know it is going south of our border to Mexican plants where Fruit of the Loom can pay Mexican workers less than $1 a day. I guarantee you that the prices of their products will not come down in our country when they ship it back here. As our colleague the gentleman from Ohio, James Traficant, said today, America is now losing its pants because of trade agreements like NAFTA. Funny, but sad. We teach our nation's young people that, when they make mistakes, they should admit them and take responsibility for them, not deny them or try to cover them up. But NAFTA's supporters are in a state of serious denial. Let us hear no more empty rhetoric about Mexico's economy having turned the corner before NAFTA can be fixed. Those who foisted it upon us have to own up to the fact that it is broken. NAFTA's supporters need to acknowledge that Mexico's economy is fundamentally unsound and that the agreement is costing us jobs and holding down our wages, and it is destabilizing Mexico. They need to take responsibility for what they have done to the working families of our continent. That would be the first step in the right direction; that would be true leadership. Let me say that growing NAFTA job losses translate into real people like the 14,000 tomato farmers in southern Florida, the more than 2,000 workers being scheduled to be laid off at Briggs & Stratton in the State of Wisconsin. I will include the entire list in the Record here this evening. It is time to wake up, go back to the bargaining table and strike an agreement that works for working people across this continent. Madam Speaker, I include for the Record the following information: [From the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 26, 1995] Two Years Later, the Promises Used to Sell Nafta Haven't Come True, But Its Foes Were Wrong, Too (By Bob Davis) Washington.--Promises, promises. Here's what was predicted two years ago for the North American Free Trade Agreement, followed by what really happened. Prediction: ``I believe the Nafta will create 200,000 American jobs in the first two years of its effect,'' President Clinton said, flanked by three of his predecessors in the Oval Office. Reality: No evidence of any overall job gain as a result of trade with Mexico. Prediction: Quaker Oats Co. said it would add 61 U.S. jobs in Dallas, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and St. Joseph, Mo., if Nafta passed, by shifting Gatorade, pancake mix and oatmeal production from Mexico. Reality: Quaker Oats continues to make the stuff in Mexico. No new Nafta related jobs at the factories. Prediction: ``I believe that you have to just say that the peso would become stronger if Nafta passes,'' said Mr. Clinton, ``because it would strengthen the Mexican economy.'' Reality: He should leave futures trading to his wife. views of nafta foes Hardly anything anyone said about Nafta during the congressional fight, including Nafta foes, has turned out to be true. That's a problem for all the big players in Nafta, particularly President Clinton. Meantime, many Nafta foes consider the trade pact a symbol of fat cat Washington, where promises aren't kept and the little guy always loses. For them, says Nafta-opponent Pat Choate: ``Nafta was their first real issue. They lost by a hair. They feel the vote was stolen by the president. And it's turned out worse, than they expected.'' Of course, Nafta's ultimate impact won't be known for years. But measured by promises used to sell it. Nafta is a colossal disappointment. Jobs haven't materialized, border- area congestion has worsened, and environmental cleanup remains haphazard. But Ross Perot had it wrong, too. He warned that Nafta would put six million U.S. factory jobs ``at risk.'' Instead, U.S. manufacturers have added about 300,000 jobs since he made the prediction. Nafta probably limited the length of the Mexican recession by boosting exports to the U.S., while also helping some chronically depressed border towns. At its core, Nafta is a pact to eliminate tariffs among the U.S. Canada and Mexico over 15 years, and protect investments in all three countries. Judging strictly by these criteria, it works. Two-way trade between the U.S. and Mexico--Canada already had its own free-trade pact with the U.S.--has grown 30% since 1993. But Nafta's significance was always greater than trade statistics; it was a new model for economic development. A big industrialized nation would merge economically with an impoverished neighbor, without paying billions of dollars in aid as the European Union did when pulling in poorer relations. Liberalized trade and investment would make Mexico weathier, the White House said, opening markets and creating jobs. Results were promised--fast. Improvements should be most obvious at the border, where trade's impact is the strongest. Lured by cheap wages and tariff breaks, U.S. companies have run factories on the Mexican side for 30 years--and aggravated health hazards as factories and a burgeoning population poured refuse into canals on the Mexican side. By cutting tariffs throughout Mexico, the White House argued, development would extend inland, while environmental funds would clean up the border. What really happened? So-called maquiladora border factories--which import auto parts and electronics, process them and send them north again--have boomed. Foreign investment in the interior has withered. In the nearly two years since Nafta took effect on Jan. 1, 1994, maquiladora employment rose 20% to 648,000, according to the Mexican forecasting arm of WEFA Group Inc. By the year 2000, it will reach 943,000, the consulting firm predicts. Maria Luna takes home $31 a week assembling seatbelts at a TRW Inc. factory in Reynosa, Mexico, a few miles south of Brownsville, Texas. How has her life changed since Nafta? A niece from Veracruz recently joined her to seek work and crowd into Ms. Luna's garage-sized shack with 10 others. ``People still come,'' she says. ``They though they'd stay here a little time, but they stay.'' The border boom results largely from Mexico's peso devaluation, which cut overall labor costs, including benefits, to $1.80 an hour from $2.54. Human factors contribute, too. U.S. managers can live in comfortable homes in Brownsville and El Paso in Texas or in San Diego, sending their children to American schools and commuting across the border to work. That can't be duplicated in Mexico's interior, whose lousy roads and telephone lines also scare off U.S. companies. One expanding shantytown is Colonia Salinas de Gortari, named for the former Mexican president, on the outskirts of Reynosa. Workers there so they can't afford city rents anymore, so they seize land and build plywood shacks the size of tool sheds, with no running water, no sewage, no electricity, no paved streets. Maria Del Carmen Garcia Luna, who isn't related to Ms. Luna, lives in one of the shacks with her toddler and husband, a Zenith maintenance worker. Not Enough money for children In the U.S., jobs like her husband's are the backbone of countless blue-collar neighborhoods. But he takes home only $26 a week, and merely buying powered milk for the child consumers 15% of it. ``We don't have enough money for meat or chicken,'' she says. About the best Nafta has done so far is to limit the impact of the Mexican crisis on the U.S., while offering Mexico a chance to export its way out of trouble. During the last crisis in 1982, U.S. border communities were crippled as Mexico sharply raised tariffs and restricted imports. This time, Mexico kept tariffs at Nafta-reduced levels and pushed exports. In Brownsville, retailers complain that few Mexicans can afford to shop there for clothes and electronics anymore. But Brownsville's port, which serves the industrial hub of Monterrey, is booming. Cranes load five-foot-high coils of steel into the black-hulled ``Sunny Success,'' bound for Italy. Port managers lobby for a new bridge to ease border transport. Local unemployment remains distressingly high, around 11%, but it hasn't surged, as in 1982. However, Nafta has failed to deliver on the biggest White House promise: creating U.S. jobs. During the Nafta debate, Fortune 500 companies forecast job gains, which now look foolishly naive, Johnson & Johnson says it can't locate the person who in 1993 forecast ``800 more U.S. positions'' as a result of Nafta. ``If there is job growth, I don't think that's because of Nafta,'' says a spokesman. Some big-time exporters do report gains, General Electric Co. says sales of power equipment and locomotives are up, as Mexico upgrades its infrastructure. But the company notes carefully that this work ``isn't creating jobs, it's supporting jobs.'' In other words, Nafta makes it less likely that GE will have to lay off workers. special nafta math U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor gamely argues that Nafta ``created a huge number of net jobs.'' But he needs special Nafta math to do so. He counts just export growth-- not jobs lost through imports--and adds in Canada. Mr. Clinton only cited trade with Mexico in his job-growth prediction, and for good reason. Canada's free-trade agreement with the U.S. dates to 1989; Nafta barely affected their trade relations. Gary Hufbauer, an economist at the Institute for International Economics whose predictions of Nafta job gains were embraced by the Clinton and Bush White Houses, now figures the surging trade deficit with Mexico has cost the U.S. 225,000 jobs. But such estimates are suspect, too. With the U.S. economy near what's considered to be full employment, it's difficult to know how many workers actually lost jobs as a result of Nafta and whether they found new ones quickly. The Labor Department has certified only 21,500 workers for special unemployment benefits because they lost their jobs as a result of trade with Mexico. The Clinton administration pins much blame for missed promises on the peso's collapse last December, when Mexico ran out of dollars to support it. The country had become to dependent on short-term borrowing to finance imports and didn't recognize enough that it had to devalue. Some economists say Nafta helped cause delay. It let Mexico see itself as part of the industrial elite, a self-image reinforced when it joined the rich-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In August 1994, an internal U.S. Treasury analysis found the peso overvalued by 10%, but noted Mexico didn't agree because it expected a Nafta surge. Optimists contend the Mexican economy will start growing soon. Yet the peso mess and ensuing recession have pushed the benefits far into the future. ``If people notice anything with Nafta, they notice more traffic because there's more trade,'' says Alfredo Phillips, who runs a border development bank, ``Expected improvements haven't occurred.'' He then adds a new prediction: ``We expect we'll see them next year.''