Marcy Kaptur

Ms. KAPTUR

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

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, just hot off the press, America ran another budget-busting $11.4 billion trade deficit for the month of May, continuing the recordbreaking hemorrhage for 1995 for our country. For the first 5 months of this year, we recorded a trade deficit with the world of over $52 billion, an increase of 30 percent over the same period last year, more lost wages for this country, more lost wealth. What is the administration, the leadership of this House, and every other ``blind trader'' around Washington doing about this bleeding of America's wealth? While we chalked up a deficit of $2.8 billion with China just in May and a projected $32 billion deficit with them for this year, the administration is pushing for extension of most-favored-nation for China. With Mexico, after all the promises of increased exports to Mexico, our country is projected to run a $20 billion trade deficit with them this year. American workers can no longer afford to sustain these kinds of trade losses. Let us bring that wealth back to America.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remind my colleagues why we have been arguing so vehemently against Speaker Gingrich's stacking votes on the Committee on Ways and Means. The reason is that committee is precisely where the most egregious assault on the living standards of elderly Americans is taking place. It is on that committee where legislation to cut Medicare benefits and Medicaid benefits for people in nursing homes will be drafted to provide tax breaks for the privileged few. In fact, $245 billion in breaks to the well heeled while cutting the lifeline for Medicare and Social Security recipients. Mr. Speaker, I favor balancing the budget, but why take it out on seniors? Why not cut costs first by reining in the insurance companies? the hospitals? the pharmaceutical companies responsible for rising costs? Why does the majority party want to balance the budget on the backs of our grandmothers and grandfathers while they pander to the rich and powerful friends they hold in high places?

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, deception is at work in this House today as Congress considers an amendment to our Bill of Rights in the name of respecting our flag, when just last week the Speaker of this House and his emissaries voted to terminate the American flag service here in our Nation's Capital. This flag office has served millions of Americans, and over the last decade over 1 million flags were purchased for special occasions by our citizens at cost; I underline ``at cost.'' Nobody should profit excessively from flying our flag. All Americans, even if they are not rich enough to travel here to Washington, should be able to get a flag flown over this Capitol. Now that Speaker Gingrich will close down this patriotic service, are we to stick a red, white, and blue feather in our caps for passing a constitutional amendment when we cannot get flags anymore? Mr. Speaker, the best way to show respect for our flag is to fly it. Shame on those who have put a price on flying our flag, and shame on those who would trample on our Constitution.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, in my 13 years as a Member of Congress, I have never experienced what happened yesterday in this House. Instead of doing the people's business, this House adjourned yesterday at 3:50 in the afternoon, in the middle of a workday afternoon when most Americans are still on the job. Why? Money, and millions of dollars of it. That is right. Congress adjourned early yesterday so that Republican Members with Speaker Gingrich at the helm could fly to New York to attend a GOP fundraiser aboard the Intrepid Sea and Air Space Museum, where wealthy givers paid $1.7 million to hobnob with Republican Members who did not work a full day yesterday, but were not docked for their pay. During the first 2 months of this year, the Republican Campaign Committee has raised over $11 million. That is over $123,000 a day. Maybe it is time to ask ourselves who is fighting for America here in Washington, and should not those Members who left early be docked on their pay?

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I would like to congratulate the gentlewoman and inform the membership that not only is this bill historic, but, in fact, the moment we are about to experience here with the gentlewoman from Nevada [Mrs. Vucanovich], the chair of the Subcommittee on Military Construction handling this bill, is a truly historic moment for women and for men in our country, because, in fact, as she moves this bill today, this will only be the second time in the 200-year history of our country that a woman has chaired any of the subcommittees of the Committee on Appropriations, which is an exclusive committee. The last such woman to handle such a bill was Julia Butler Hansen of Washington State who, at the age of 67, retired from this institution and chaired the Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies at the end of her career. I just want to congratulate the gentlewoman. The road here is still a difficult one for women and to rise and chair one of the most exclusive subcommittees is truly an honor. We are proud of you. Good luck with the bill and congratulations to the people of Nevada for sending you here.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to an outstanding podiatric medical physician, Dr. Marvin Shapiro of Sylvania, OH, who has been a leader and an advocate of podiatric medicine for 63 years. Although he officially retired in 1984, Dr. Shapiro, now 85, has remained a strong voice for his profession, serving this year as the only podiatrist-delegate to the White House Conference on Aging. In 1959, Dr. Shapiro was president of his professional organization, the American Podiatric Medical Association [APMA]. A gifted speaker and lecturer, he earned the title of ``Foot Ambassador'' during his term as president when he represented America's podiatric physicians as part of the State Department's People-to-People Program in England, France, and the USSR. Later, in 1963, he visited Poland, Turkey, the USSR, Israel, and Malta under the same program. This morning I had the pleasure of hosting a breakfast at which Dr. Shapiro presented to the National Library of Medicine a rare and wonderful book he received as a gift while participating in the People- to-People program. The book, ``De Calceis Hebraeorum,'' by Antoniii Baynaei, catalogues every reference to the foot found in the Old Testament. Each verse is published in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek. The volume is beautifully illustrated with both medical and artistic drawings of the human foot. The book was written in 1715. I am very happy that this treasure has found a home at the National Library of Medicine. Dr. Shapiro was also responsible for the first joint meeting between the American Podiatric Medical Association and the American Medical Association in 1959, which did much to enhance mutual understanding between the two health care professions. To help educate other physicians and the public about podiatric medicine and the importance of foot care, Dr. Shapiro instituted the audiovisual department at the APMA nearly 60 years ago, and he has produced many exhibits and countless slides and videos. His name is also on the APMA's Marvin Shapiro Audiovisual Achievement Award, an international competition for long-term medical contributions in the field. His outstanding career began as a premedical student at the University of Toledo in 1927, and he was graduated from the Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine in 1932. Dr. Shapiro founded the podiatry department at St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center in Toledo and has received many awards and honors from this respected institution. In 1980, Dr. Shapiro received the APMA's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Citation. I applaud Dr. Shapiro on his magnificent career and his life-long efforts to keep Americans walking and to advance the study of therapeutic medical treatment for the foot and human health. It is a delight to have this leader as a constituent.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, last week a full-page advertisement appeared in the Washington Post that stated: ``Leading Newspapers Agree: U.S. Trade Sanctions On Japan Are Not The Answer.'' The Washington Post raked in over $25,000 on this one ad. The Wall Street Journal, another opponent of the sanctions, printed a similar ad, but the charges there were over $123,000 for a page. Here on Capitol Hill, Roll Call, a newspaper that goes to every congressional office, printed an ad opposing the sanctions that cost $6,200. There is big money to be made by newspapers in opposing United States trade sanctions on Japan and in opposing the American people in the process, but is it not revealing who has their hands in the honey pot. I would like to say who is going to stand up for the 700,000 United States workers employed in the auto industry, the 4 million workers who work in the textile, semiconductor, paint, and plaster industry and millions of Americans who would have jobs in the industry if Japan would open its markets?

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, what is wrong with this picture? Regardless of the yen-dollar exchange rate, United States market share of the Japanese [[Page H5631]] auto and auto part market has remained flat for nearly two decades. As a matter of fact, the import share for all foreign manufacturers in Japan has remained stuck at 4.6 percent for autos and 2.6 percent for auto parts. The gigantic United States automotive deficit with Japan defies all economic rationale. In 1985, when the yen was 240 to the dollar, the United States had an automotive deficit with Japan of $23.9 billion. Now, with the yen hovering around 80 to the dollar--a 300-percent decrease in the dollar's value against the yen--our automotive trade deficit is on track to break last year's record of $37 billion. As this chart shows, the facts are on our side. The United States has a trade surplus in the automotive sector with the rest of the world. Isn't it time for Japan to play fair?

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, in referring to what the previous speaker said, he made an untrue statement. United States manufacturers manufacture 60 different models of right-hand drive vehicles both in this country and around the world, and for a Member from the State of Michigan to speak out against the United States, and we are hemorrhaging in terms of these trade deficits with Japan for over two decades, I think is unconscionable. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, Japanese auto companies enjoy a 25-percent share of our American automotive market. By contrast, our auto firms have only a 1.5-percent share of Japan's market. In fact, all foreign automotive companies, including the European, the Asian, only have a 4- percent, 4-percent share of Japan's market. This is because of the insurmountable, unfair trade barriers Japan erects to protect its home market from any kind of foreign import that would really give competition to Japan's home market suppliers. What does that mean to our country? It means that last year we, again, for the 10th time in this past decade had a $66 billion trade deficit with Japan, and over half of it in the automotive arena. For each billion dollars of deficit, that translates into 20,000 more jobs we could have right here at home. In fact, when you think about it, if we could have auto trade equity with Japan, we could build 100 more companies in this country each employing 5,000 people in an industry that pays its people a living wage. America also fails to stand tall in the ongoing United States-Japan trade standoff because of the influence exercised by lobbyists here in this city by Japanese industry throughout the corridors of power. What do I mean? This past week, the Washington Post revealed that one of our most prominent and influential political writers and columnists and broadcasters, George Will, that we have all seen on television, in the newspapers is married to a lobbyist for foreign interests who earns almost $200,000 a year working for, are you ready for this, Japan's automobile manufacturers' association, the chief lobbying group for Japan's interest in this country and around the world. Mr. Will has been writing columns and has been on television fulminating against the Clinton administration's actions against Japan's automakers, but he fails to mention that his wife's lucrative affiliation with these companies is providing very adequate income for his family. Astoundingly, when this connection was revealed, his response to this conflict of interest is, ``Well, it's just too silly.'' That is what he is quoted in this article as saying. The article says his wife's firm is paid $200 an hour to deal with reporters, to follow legislation, to place advertising, issue press releases and draft articles for newspapers with such titles as ``Selling Cars this Japan: It Isn't About Access'' or ``Fixing the Outcome of Trade with Japan is a Dangerous Way to do Business,'' castigating the approach that the Government of the United States is taking on behalf of the people of the United States. The article says her firm also sought to arrange for the industries, Japan's industries' top Washington lobbyists to meet, guess who, the Chicago Tribune editorial board, she tried to place an opinion piece in the Washington Times, and drafted letters to the New York Times and Detroit Free Press. What does Mr. Will say about all this? He says, ``Well, to me, it is beyond boring. I don't understand the whole mentality.'' Well, as one Member of Congress, I do not think it is silly. I do not think it is boring. I understand what influencing opinion is all about. I think it is a question of agents of influence who operate in ways that influence our press, press who are supposed to be objective and factual, and as one professor says in this article who is an associate dean of Columbia University's Journalism School, he says, the same kind of conflict questions that apply here also apply to extended families. The fact Mr. Will does not see a problem shows he just does not get it. Mr. Speaker, I ask the Clinton administration to hang tough for America and the American people.

Ms. KAPTUR

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

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, as the New York Times recently reported, it is a steep, nearly insurmountable uphill journey to Japan for United States autos and auto parts. It is also an expensive journey, as rigged prices in Japan serve as significant nontariff barriers to higher sales of our goods in that country. In my hometown of Toledo, OH, the world-renowned Jeep Cherokee is manufactured having a factory price of $19,100. By the time that Jeep Cherokee clears customs, passes through Japan's Byzantine distribution system, is checked for compliance with 238 regulations and is inspected in no less than 3 places, the sticker price of the same Jeep Cherokee in Nagoya is $31,372, a 52-percent markup. Japan claims to be one of the world's greatest competitors. This label seems to be true in every market except their own. The Clinton administration is right to keep its foot on the accelerator of the unfair trade practices of Japan. Open up your market, Japan. It is long overdue.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, it is time to pry open Japan's market, particularly in the sector of automotive goods. Now, what is wrong with this picture? Let me tell you what is wrong. Over the past 10 years, the United States has consistently run a massive trade deficit, getting worse year after year after year, last year the largest in the history of our country with Japan. And we have run that deficit largely in the area of automotive goods, regardless, regardless of what the economic conditions have been during those years between our two countries. That means regardless of what the yen-dollar relationship is, as this blue line charts out over the past 10 years, even as our dollar got cheaper, which means our goods should be cheaper on those shelves, the deficit got worse and worse and worse. In fact, over half of the trade deficit the United States has amassed with Japan, $66 million last year was in one sector, automotive and automotive goods. But that is not news. That has been going on year after year after year. Japan used to use the excuse, Well, in America you do not make any vehicles that are right-hand drive vehicles. Surprise, over the last 15 years our automotive manufacturers now have 60 different models, so you cannot use even that excuse anymore. If you look back to 1985, when the exchange rate was 239 yen to the dollar, the United States in that year amassed a $23.7 billion trade deficit with Japan in automotive and automotive parts. Yet in 1994, when our dollar had literally been devalued by 300 percent, devalued by 300 percent, which means that our goods should have been 300 percent cheaper and had some impact on sales in that market, we had an even worse deficit with Japan. In fact, last year we had a record trade deficit in the area of automotive and automotive goods, rising to over $37 billion, with each billion dollar of trade deficit equal to 20,000 jobs in this country. We are not talking about a small problem. Today, as we know, goods denominated in dollars are very, very cheap on the world market. It should help our exports except with Japan. In the first quarter of this year, we have amassed even worse deficits with them than we did last year, which was our worse year ever. What is wrong with this picture is Japan's market remains closed no matter what. As the price of our goods, both for automobiles as well as automotive parts, in Japan have become increasingly cheaper and less expensive and with the value of our dollar having been decreased by over 300 percent over the last 10 years, we should be running a huge trade surplus with Japan. Instead, we have recorded deficits year after year. In fact, the United States has been frozen at a 1.5-percent share of Japan's market for over a decade, while Japanese goods in the automotive sector now comprise 25 percent of our market. Let me repeat that, the United States goods are frozen to 1.5 percent of Japan's market through market control in that country, while Japan's goods now consume a 25-percent share of our market. For the sake of our Nation, in which one of six jobs is directly connected to the automotive industry and for the sake of nearly a million American workers who work in this country in the auto sector, I urge the Clinton administration to hang tough with Japan. The United States maintains a trade balance in automotive goods with every other industrialized nation in the world. I repeat, the United States is a competitive country in the automotive sector. We maintain a trade balance with every other industrialized country in the world but for one, but for Japan. So why should Japan not behave like the rest of the industrialized world? We wish the Clinton administration great success because if we can be successful for America, we will also be successful for the rest of the world in Japan, because, in fact, less than 4 percent of Japan's market is comprised of automotive goods from any country in the world, Europe, Asia, the United States. All are closed out.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the Republican budget proposal can be summarized as gouging Medicare recipients, nursing home patients, and college students to fund over $300 billion in tax breaks for the privileged few and to increase defense spending. This is not the formula to achieve a balanced budget. What it does is squeeze our middle class to reward those at the high end. In billions Medicare benefit cuts.............................................288.4 Medicaid benefit cuts.............................................186.5

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this conference report. For the last 2 days we engaged in debate over balancing the budget. That fight to cut spending, reduce the deficit, and balance our budget must be won. A budget balanced fairly, with no tax giveaways to the privileged few, is not beyond our abilities, though that is not the budget that passed here earlier today. Now before us is another bill that cuts spending, but again, does not dedicate its savings to deficit reduction. In the original bill, we all supported the Brewster amendment, which overwhelmingly passed this Chamber by over 400 votes. However, what we have here is a bill that imposes draconian cuts: no summer jobs after this year, a cut this year in thousands of jobs across this country, no heating assistance for our seniors, and then it directs those precious dollars to give tax benefits to the most privileged among us. This bill deserves to be vetoed. We will have another bill here that is just and fair.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, these Republican Medicare cuts are not just number-crunching, they mean real medical service reductions affecting real people. Let me introduce you to Toni Podojil from Cleveland. Toni is 83 years old. She worked in the textile industry before her first retirement, but with minimum pension benefits and Social Security benefits, which is true with many women she had to get a job with the united labor agency. She will have to retire again soon and they will then live on a combined pension of about $600 a month. Toni is a survivor of uterine cancer, she has had a heart attack, and she suffers from a hearing loss. Uncovered medical expenses now equal almost half her retirement income. When she retires a second time at age 83, what can she expect under this unfair budget? A doubled Medicare part B premium; over $553 more a year? An increased part A deductible over $1,200 more a year? Let us balance the budget, not give away tax breaks to the wealthiest in this country.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the Republican budget has it backward. They propose cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits by over $2,500 per recipient through the year 2002 to pay for tax breaks to the privileged few. This means your grandmother's Social Security and Medicare benefits will shrink substantially. Her nursing home expenses will rise if she can even get in. However, the money saved from these harsh cuts will not go to balance the budget. The money will go to pay for tax breaks to the wealthiest among us: The American billionaires who move to the Caribbean and take their money with them to escape paying taxes here; or the families earning $200,000 a year, who will be bestowed a $500 tax credit; or the foreign corporations who do business in this country and earn millions but do not pay a dime in taxes. If the Republicans were serious, they would not balance the budget on the backs of our seniors to pander to the rich and powerful who can pay for lobbyists in this town. If the Republicans were serious, they would not have a budget-busting $360 billion tax giveaway paid for by our grandmothers.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, at this very moment our United States trade ambassador is announcing proposed trade sanctions against Japan for its unfair trade practices. After a decade, the executive branch of our Government has taken seriously Congress' mandate to open Japan's auto market. Imposing penalties on Japan has my full support. In the weeks ahead, as Democratic cochair of the auto caucus here, I urge United States representative Mickey Kantor to hang tough for America and fight as hard as he can to increase our access to Japan's market. If this Nation were to achieve auto trade equity with Japan we could build 100 new factories in this country, each employing 5,000 people. That is how big the gap really is. The United States has trade balances with every other major trading partner in the world but for Japan. So for Japan, the time has come.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I come to the well this evening to express my strong opposition to H.R. 961, the Clean Water Act amendments and why I urged its defeat. It steps back from the progress resulting from our Nation's commitment to clean water as a national treasure. I represent a Great Lakes district along Lake Erie. Cumulatively, the Great Lakes contain 20 percent of all the fresh water on the face of the Earth. For those of us who remember when swimming or fishing in Lake Erie was hazardous to your health, the actions the House is taking to weaken Clean Water Act protections are backward-looking. I am astounded that anyone can fail to see the great progress we have made over the last 25 years to clean up our Nation's water. Today, after two decades, the job of cleaning up Lake Erie is one-half finished. Our progress is laudable, but the goal has not been achieved along our coast or on the Nation's other major waterways. I can remember when the Cuyahoga River burned and when Lake Erie was declared dead. Some of our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, have apparently forgotten. We have made great strides toward renewing our water resources, but there is still a long way to go. In Ohio, 92 percent of our lakes and 60 percent of our rivers still cannot support fishing or swimming on a year-round basis. Some of our waters still cannot support aquatic life. Just last summer the city of Toledo found it necessary to pump fresh water into the Ottawa River just to restore some oxygen and flush out the polluted discharge from combined sewer overflows. The job of cleaning our waters is far from over. The task of cleaning up dozens of major toxic burial grounds leaching into our fresh water tributaries stands before us. The aspect of H.R. 961 about which I am most concerned is the provision to make adherence to the standards of the Great Lakes initiative voluntary on the part of Great Lakes States. This initiative has been a model bipartisan effort to standardize water quality protections in the Great Lakes watershed. Over the last 6 years, Federal guidelines have been developed, which, under current law, the States have 2 years to implement. Under H.R. 961, adherence would be voluntary. States could choose which standards to implement standards. This might possibly be an acceptable program for waters within a State's boundaries, but seven States and another country adjoin the Great Lakes. Allowing eight different sets of standards for these waters is irrational. As different States adopt differing water quality standards, their efforts may be defeated by a neighboring State's program. Voluntary compliance may even lead to a race to the bottom for water quality as each State offers weakened standards as an inducement to bring polluting industries into their State or to keep them there. Mexico's policy of competing for investment with lax environmental standards may find its counterpart in interstate or international economic rivalries on our northern border. The Great Lakes comprise 95 percent of the fresh surface water in the United States. That is a resource too valuable to risk. Yet today we have restrictions on the consumption of fish from these waters because of mercury and PCB pollution. Lake St. Clair and the southern shore of Lake Erie were closed for the better part of the month of August last year because of fecal coliform contamination. The job is far from done in the Great Lakes. This is not the time to minimize our efforts. Setting consistent water quality standards in the Great Lakes watershed is the only reasonable way to protect these waters. The only way to ensure consistent standards is through entities such as the Great Lakes initiative. It once was common to find fish with festering lesions and tumors coming out of Lake Erie. Today it is rare, but it still happens. There used to be a viable commercial fishing industry on the lakes. That industry rapidly diminished as warnings about eating Great Lakes fish increased. We can restore that industry if we continue to clean up the lakes. That won't happen if we can't assure consistent water quality standards for the Great Lakes Watershed. Let's not weaken the Great Lakes initiative. The bill we have before us also takes other major steps backward. H.R. 961 allows for increases in toxin discharges into our waters, and it weakens public notification requirements when swimming or fishing is unsafe. It lets industry off the hook by weakening requirements for pretreatment of industrial toxins before they are discharged into municipal wastewater treatment systems. H.R. 961 also dramatically undermines attention to wetland habitats-- which play such an important role providing storage areas for flood waters and which naturally filter pollutants--by removing half of them from regulatory oversight. And the bill completely ignores the serious issue of nonpoint source pollution and how to reduce toxic runoff from farms, yards, streets, and parking lots. Mr. Speaker, I would like to be able to vote for a clean water bill that aims at meeting the original goals of the Clean Water Act, to make all our Nation's waters fishable and swimmable. But I am not going to have that opportunity. H.R. 961 will actually reverse the progress we have made under current clean water law. This bill will expose our communities, our water-dependent industries, and our fishery resources to continued and increased degradation. I want to support legislation that strikes an appropriate balance between a healthy economy and healthy water.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, this Sunday America celebrates Mother's Day. And families all over our country will gather on this day to honor the women who strive every day both inside and outside the home to keep the families of America strong; a celebration they richly deserve. We all know that American women are working more and more inside the home and outside the home, and what we may not know is that many of them are working for less money. For women in many industries, textiles, apparel footwear, for instance, their pay has actually dropped nearly 5 percent over the last 10 years in spite of the fact that they are working harder and working longer. In fact, one-third of America's working women earn poverty- level wages. Ironically, many of the gifts which we traditionally give our mothers on Mothers' Day as expressions of our gratitude turn out to be the products of industries which depend on the depression of wages, primarily women's wages, both at home and abroad, products such as new shoes or new handbags or new outfits and, yes, even roses. Last Tuesday, I had the privilege of participating in a press conference at which we pointed out the discrepancies in wages between products made in our country and the same products made overseas, in fact, products made by U.S. companies that have outsourced production abroad. We, to demonstrate our point, dressed a mannequin in many of these foreign goods, and on the mannequin we had a Coach handbag, where American women used to earn $7.42 an hour, not high wages by any standards, but today those bags are being made by Korean workers being paid $1.64 an hour, and those Coach bags cost nearly $200. So who is making the profit off those women? Or Naturalizer shoes; women in our country used to make $6.95 an hour in manufacturing Naturalizer shoes, but their wages and jobs are gone, and those shoes are now made in Brazil, where women there earn 47 cents an hour, but, of course, Naturalizer shoes cost well over $50. So who is making the profit off those women? Or take this sweater, a Chaus sweater that used to be manufactured in the United States, where women earned $7.88 an hour. Now this very same sweater made by that same company in China, where women work for pennies, but, of course, the sweater is not cheap. In fact, the price tag on this one is over $40. Who is making the profit off those women? Or take this skirt, manufactured by the At Last Company. This skirt used to be made in the United States of America. Women workers earned $7.49 an hour. Now this skirt is being made in India, and chances are if a child in India helped make that skirt, which is very likely, no wages were paid. with a dozen roses. Roses are grown in this country, and they are harvested, and the average wage of farm workers is $5 an hour. But, of course, the roses that are available in this community today are provided through Colombia, where workers earn 55 cents an hour. But if you try to buy your mom a dozen roses in Washington this week, it is going to cost you $75. So ask yourself, who is making the money off of these women? But are we getting a real bargain for all of this value for our money? A break for the consumer? Well, I ask you, is a bargain a Coach handbag at $200 or Naturalizer shoes at $50 or a Chaus sweater at $40 or roses at 75? The Come Shop With Me campaign asks: Is it worth it? Are we really getting a good deal? Can the 7,300 people who have lost their jobs making handbags here in America afford a $200 Coach handbag made in Korea? Can the 17,700 women who have lost their jobs in our country in the footwear industry buy Naturalizer shoes made in Brazil that cost $50? And can the women of Brazil or the women of Korea or the women of India, can they buy those products on the wages they earn? Absolutely not. Over the last decade in our country, nearly 300,000 women workers have lost jobs in the textile industry alone, mostly to foreign competition. Mr. Speaker, let me end by saying the Come Shop With Me campaign will continue over the next few months to draw our attention to the human cost of trade. Tonight I say to the mothers of America and the world, ``Happy Mother's Day. We will not forget you.''

Ms. KAPTUR

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

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize efforts in Northwest Ohio to celebrate the beginning of National Volunteer Week in America. It is very hard to imagine our country without its corps of ready, willing and able volunteers. So strong and proud is America's history of volunteerism, that the concept and nature of ``American Volunteerism'' has become an institution by which the world recognizes and understands our national identity of compassion and caring for our fellow humankind. Has there ever been a time in our history that there were not volunteers ready to lend a hand? Beginning with Paul Revere and extending right through to the response of emergency and medical personnel to last week's tragedy in Oklahoma--Americans have always been ready to help their fellow citizens. While volunteerism in America does not always manifest itself in terms as dramatic as when every available doctor and nurse within a 100-mile radius and beyond rushes to the scene of a tragedy, it is no more important or devoted than the millions of Americans who respond daily and regularly to the unsatisfied needs of their communities. Here in our community, volunteers feed the hungry, shelter and minister to the homeless, reach out and touch minds that are eager to learn and spirits that yearn to fly. Even in the lives of those whose needs are not borne from necessity, but whose pursuits are dedicated toward service and improvement, volunteers make the day. I know my colleagues join me in recognizing National Volunteer Week and in saying to every citizen in our community and country who works for a recompense that no amount of money can satisfy, thank you for answering the call, thank you for helping make our country a better place.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. We ask the President, hang tough with Japan.

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his leadership in this effort and with the dollar situation around the world, the value of the dollar versus the yen, there is certainly no reason for our companies to raise prices here or in other places but rather to go after market share, especially when the people of the United States are standing together through their elected representatives here in Washington and fighting for this key lodestar American industry, the automotive industry. When you think about it, a third of the market in this country, both automotive and automotive parts, is comprised of foreign product that we import into the United States not just from Japan but from everywhere. It is interesting to look at Japan. Only 4 percent of their market, the second largest industrial power in the world, comes from anyplace else, 4 percent of their market versus one-third of ours.