Marcy Kaptur

Ms. KAPTUR

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

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] in my office, and I ran back over here because I just received a telephone call, a frantic call from the gentleman's home State of New York that for over 700 workers in Medina, NY, at the Fisher-Price plant, which is owned by the Mattel Corp., this morning were given a notice, yesterday were given a notice to come in to work this morning at 7:30. They all came in to work, and they all were fired. And where did their jobs go? Lo and behold, the jobs of over 700 Americans, manufacturing workers, went to Mexico. Why are they going to Mexico? In the company's own words, and I quote, ``The Medina plant historically has been the higher-cost producer and doesn't have the flexibility of other United States/Mexico manufacturing facilities.'' In short, American workers who asked for a more fair wage for the work that they do are punished for it. I think it is absolutely reprehensible what is going on here, because it is exactly what the critics of NAFTA, like myself, were most afraid to hear, in fact dreaded to hear: Fired by a multinational corporation, Fisher-Price, owned by Mattel, which has been crying the loudest about its investments. Where? In Mexico. And in the New York Times, on January 5, there was a story on the business page which indicates that Mattel, the Mattel Co., was concerned and wants profits in Mexico as it had hoped to make. So I want to say to my colleague from New York I am so happy he is down here on the floor. I am sorry that I am the bearer of bad tidings from his State, the northern part of the State. But it was so related to what the gentleman is talking about that I had to run over here and get this on the record. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to those who are listening with expected United States taxpayer money in their pocket, ``If Congress passes this Mexican bailout, then Mattel will be firing--they have already fired those 700 workers in upper New York State, and they are going to move those jobs to Mexico, and then we are going to back up their investment in Mexico. How is that one for late in the day on Wednesday afternoon?''

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I am very grateful, and I will not take up much of his time here, but I did want to point out this company, Mattel--that just fired 700 workers this morning in New York State--made $236 million in profit last year, $236.6 million, and one of the toys that they make is the Barbie doll. Most little girls in America own between 8 and 12 Barbie dolls. There is not a single Barbie doll made in the United States of America, not a single one, even though Mattel makes inordinate profits in our market, and is moving our jobs elsewhere and is making egregious profits off the difference between what it charges us because the price of Barbie dolls did not go down in America. They run from $29.99 all the way up to $200. I know; I used to buy them when they were made here, and they pay their workers very low wages, not just in Mexico, but in Indonesia, in China, in Malaysia, and then they bring all that stuff back here for us, and they think we do not notice. But I tell you what: Those 700 workers in New York State, we are here for you because we're going to be your voice, and we are going to continue to be your voice through this tough struggle. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Major Owens of New York who came here in the same year as I did and has been a fighter for the people of this country for as long as we have served together.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to mention to the gentleman I was in a meeting this morning with our Secretary of the Treasury, and I very pointedly asked him why we should approve this, why should Congress just go along with the administration and its supporters on both sides of the aisle up here, and he said, ``Well, you know, back in 1982 Mexico had financial problems, and they owed 12 commercial banks, and America had to try to help back then.'' Yes, Mexico had debt then, they have debt now. And I said, ``Of course, who do they owe the money to now? Where is the specific list of the investment banks on Wall Street that took a gamble in Mexico and now had their tail caught in the wringer?'' I said, ``Could you provide us with that list? What about the big megabanks all over the world that have invested in Mexico and are making huge profits by the way?'' This is a good time to be in the banking industry because the profits are so huge. ``What about some of these corporations like Mattel Corp. that have their hand out to the Government of Mexico through our taxpayers?'' because so much of the investment came through mutual funds.'' And I asked him a very pointed question. I said, ``Are mutual funds insured deposits where we have the kind of promise that we have made to our own depositors?'' He could not answer ``yes'' obviously. They are uninsured speculative investments. So, what responsibility do we have to take the people's money to bail them out?

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, first let me say, we heard about NAFTA, you hafta. Now it is Mexico, bailout or bust. United States taxpayers should not have to become Mexico's insurance company. Why should our taxpayers have to place the full faith and credit of our U.S. Treasury behind the Wall Street speculators who gambled and lost their own money? We have no legal obligation to do that. They are not insured by the Treasury of the United States or any of our respective banking institutions. So today, I would like to ask on the record our U.S. Treasury Secretary and Chairman of the Federal Reserve specifically which speculators have their hands out to the taxpayers of the United States? Which creditors must Mexico pay off in the first quarter of this year, in the second, in the third, in the fourth, and in years hence? Which investment banks, we want to know who they are and where they are located and how much? Which mutual funds, which multinational corporations who gambled that the fundamentals of that system of government in Mexico were good enough for them to take our jobs south of the border? And which global banks? Who specifically does Mexico owe the $26 billion that is coming due this year, and then the dozens and dozens of billions, $89 billion total public debt, not counting the private debt, and all the creditors that Mexico owes? Call my approach tough love. There are just some times when you have to say ``no.'' Imagine, we have a U.S. Treasury Department which recently, under the GATT debate, told our savings bondholders in this country that they could not earn 4 percent interest anymore on their U.S. savings bonds. You remember a couple years ago they could earn 6 percent; then they lowered it to 4 percent. Then under GATT, they removed the floor completely. So American taxpayers who buy U.S. savings bonds have no real incentives to buy them anymore. Then the Federal Reserve Chairman testified here in Washington last week that in order to try to balance our budget, gosh, maybe senior citizens in our country would have to take a $10 a month reduction in their cost-of-living allowance under their Social Security. That is not exactly what I had in mind for the seniors in my district, but the very same organizations, the U.S. Treasury, which cut the interest rates to our bond buyers, and the Federal Reserve, which has told our seniors, ``Sorry, you are getting too much money,'' now they have pledged the full faith and credit of this Government to another nation. I find it very interesting. What is so reprehensible to me is when I first got here in Congress in the 1980's, I came here because of the high unemployment in my district. I was appointed to the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs. The very first bill that I came up with on that committee was to try to find a way to help the people in my district to hold onto their homes. We had a bill that would have prevented foreclosure. We had a bill that said, ``Look, we will create a second mortgage, and for those of you where the bankers are at your door, the creditors are at your door, we will give you a second mortgage. It will be short term. After a year you will have your job back and you will be able to stay in your house and continue to earn money at your job.'' They have a good credit history. We were only asking for a short-term add-on to their mortgage. It was guaranteed by the collateral of the house itself. They had to pay it back, and the political situation in Toledo, OH, is pretty stable. Guess what, we could not get that bill through the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs of this Congress. We couldn't help our own people with any kind of guarantee to hold on to their own homes. Yet, now, another nation comes and is in trouble, and we are willing to pledge $40 billion in loan guarantees plus $18 billion. They already have the lines open to Mexico as of last week. I would find the whole situation absolutely amazing if it weren't so upsetting, because it just goes to prove that those that have a lot have incredible political power in this city and around the world. I have never seen the kind of people running around here to help my district when it was in recession that I have now seen running around this Congress and up and down Pennsylvania Avenue to try to bail out the Wall debated NAFTA last year. We tried to get provisions in there to protect our people, as well as to have a slower market opening mechanism so we would not have these kinds of dysfunctions as NAFTA kicked in. They wouldn't listen to us then. They have made billions already. We shouldn't pledge the full faith and credit of the taxpayers of our country.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, today freedom of speech on this floor is at stake. Two weeks into this Congress we see what gag rules are all about when no Ethics Committee has been appointed by the Speaker, when Members are purposefully muzzled in committees, when no hearings are allowed, when witness lists are completely controlled, we understand what a gag rule is. In doing our people's business we have a right to know where a new author's personal interests, financial interests get tied up with his public duties. The deal for a $4.5 million advance for three books not written, plus royalties are signed with a company owned by Rupert Murdock, the very man who owns Fox News Network and could directly benefit by the obliteration of public television and radio, positions that the top official in this House has already publicly said he supports. So we trade Big Bird and Barney for the gag rule.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman. Now the new ``leadership,'' I put leadership in quotes, of this institution is turning cartwheels over one another trying to push this through real fast, real fast. I just love it. Where is the new Committee on the Budget? Where are the new Members who said that they were going to finally balance the budget of our country? What a joke. Instead of a Contract With America, this Congress is falling over itself to pass a new contract with Mexico. Who is kidding who? Members like myself understand the power of Wall Street, and megabanks, and multinational corporations. We understand the power of the media to keep this crisis under wraps at their bidding and hope the taxpayers miss this one. Last week in Washington over a dozen Members of Congress held a major press conference here in the Press Gallery. There had to be over 100 press people. The rooms were overflowing. I asked my friends around the country, ``How much did you read about that in your newspapers?'' Who was it that made the telephone calls from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, that suppressed the press releases and the messages that we tried to get out to the people of the United States? I have a hunch who it was. We understand the power of the White House. We understand the power of the leadership here in this Congress. We do not like it, but we understand it. We know they want to slip this baby through with as little public scrutiny as possible. There is a lot of money at stake for their friends. After all, it would be embarrassing to them, all those high-flying speculators that gambled with mutual funds in this country, the ones who are always complaining about how they want Uncle Sam off their back, until they need to put their hands into our taxpayers' pockets to get them out of another one of their expensive binds. To them I say, look out, because once the American people figure out the magnitude of what you are trying to do, they are going to be outraged. Mr. Speaker, I ask, please do not tell us this will be good to the people of Mexico. That autocratic state will not be one whit more democratic when this is all over. Its citizenry will not have any greater standing in that legal system, nor will our businesses, who do business down there. All that will happen is that the vise around the necks of Mexico's people will continue to grow tighter. Mexican wages will decrease even more. Life that is already tough for the majority of Mexico's citizens will become even more unbearable. Inflation will be even tougher to manage than it is now. But get this, Mexico's super-rich families took their money out of that country before the peso meltdown. How convenient. Why are they not being held accountable? Why should United States taxpayers put their money on the line when Mexico's 3 dozen ruling families have their billions safely tucked away offshore? If we remember back to 1984 and Mexico owed commercial banks in those banks exceeded the amount that Mexico owed to our banks by somewhere between $40 billion and $60 billion. Very interesting. Not small potatoes. They got themselves into this mess. Let them bail out their homeland by repatriating and bringing home their own money and let the big business interests in our country in cahoots with them eat their own losses. That is free enterprise. That is what free enterprise is supposed to be all about, taking a risk and then being willing to meet the piper. Just last week when most of America was not looking, the House Banking Committee here on this side of Congress renamed itself and passed new rules under its so-called new leadership mandated by what I call the ``Contract on America'' that will permit this bill to subvert normal committee procedures. No hearings will be held in the subcommittee of jurisdiction. Don't have to under the new rules they passed. This will be a real railroad job. Only the full committee will have some sort of lightning speed session, because if you ask too many questions and the public begins to understand what is going on here, somebody in America might actually object. I bet you a dime to a doughnut when that bill gets to this floor, it will be the fastest ball you ever saw come down the pike. So, what is so new about this Congress? The idea is to hide the truth from the American people once again. Hold as few hearings as possible, limit floor debate, don't let the public know any of the grimy details. So let me ask again, what is so new about this so-called new Congress, anyway? And let me say to the real gamblers in all of this--you know who you are: The megabanks, the multinational corporations, and the speculators who pushed through NAFTA, there are a few of us who understand. You put our taxpayers now at the helm for your mistakes and for your greed. We are angry. We resent what you have done. My own feeling is that when you gamble, you should eat your own losses and not come whining to the American people to foot the bill. You are all big boys. You love this kind of free enterprise gamble. So practice some of it. Don't come running home to Mama in the Government. Let me just say even gamblers have rules. If you go to Las Vegas and consistently lose money, the casinos won't let you play at their tables anymore. It is a good rule. Mexico has consistently lost money and never paid back the principal on its loans from us. Why should we let them play again? Remember the Brady bonds? They keep flipping around like fish on a deck. If you go to Las Vegas, there are also table limits. In other words, there is a certain ceiling on how much you can lose. Even gamblers have a code. But with this Mexico deal, there is no limit. A week ago, the administration first said it needed $6 billion. Then it raised it to $9 billion, then to $18 billion, then to $25 billion. Then by the end of the week, it became $40 billion, and that is on top of the $18 billion line of credit already in place. How's that for 1 week's work? I have an idea and I thought about this all weekend. Since American taxpayers are being asked to bail the gamblers out on the faulty assumption that Mexico will pay back theses new loans, which would be an historical first, let me humbly suggest to the Secretary of Treasury and Chairman of the Federal Reserve, that what is fair is fair. If the American people have to pay, give them something in return. Let them earn the money off your gambling with their money. How about creating a new short-term bond for American taxpayers backed up by Mexican oil? Call it the oil bond. Its benefits will flow to each family in America bankrolling you, not just to a dozen well-connected bond houses and investment banks on Wall Street. Ask Mexico to pay us back in goods, not promises. Then let those oil barrels start rolling north. Call it cash on the barrelhead, using the current price at delivery. Since this bailout is putting citizens at a $49 billion risk to start off with, I figure with over 100 million households in America, for each family in our country we are talking about a minimum of one $600 oil bond per family, not counting the interest due them over the life of the debt instrument. So let me challenge those creative geniuses over at the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve who have gotten us into this mess--you know who I am talking about--the ones who as a result of GATT just stopped guaranteeing average Americans a decent return on their U.S. savings bonds. We used to have a 6-percent floor which said you cannot earn less than 6 percent. Then they lowered it to 4 percent for our people. Now they have even taken out the 4-percent floor. I am asking those same folks over at Treasury to go back to the drawing board. If U.S. taxpayers are going to bankroll you and your speculative buddies, let our people share in the wealth. Imagine, the oil bonds could be sold through every Federal Reserve regional bank. The Federal Reserve could establish an 800 toll-free number that citizens could call, 1-800-O-I-L-B-O-N-D. How simple and straightforward it would be. Each American would immediately be an owner of 40 barrels of Mexican oil. For the first time in our history, it would democratize the gambling done by our Treasury Department and Federal Reserve at the expense of our taxpayers. The more I think about it, the more I really like it. Citizens with credit cards could call right in. The IRS could mail special envelopes back to each taxpaying family after April 15 of this year containing the family's oil bond. All taxpayers would benefit directly, again with goods, not promises. Is this not one of those ideas, the more you mull it over, the more it really grows on you? In conclusion, I would just like to say, let's stop this clever taxpaying bailout of Mexico. Let's stop this new budget-buster that will completely abrogate any work we do on a balanced-budget amendment here this month. Let's get rid of the biggest unfunded mandate in the history of our country. Let's put our taxpayers back in the driver's seat and let them earn the money for a change. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Ms. KAPTUR. If the gentleman will yield on that point, I just want to point out that when any person goes into a financial institution in our country, whether it is a credit union, whether it is a savings and loan, whether it is a commercial bank, there is a little sticker in the window and it says insured by the full faith and credit of the Government of the United States. You do not see that when you go into a securities office or an investment bank on Wall Street. There is not any kind of taxpayer backup of the gambling, professional gambling in a sense, that is done through those investment banks. What I find really reprehensible about this proposal is that those individuals who chose to gamble, they knew what they were doing. Now whether they explained it to the people who used those institutions to place their money in private instruments, that is another question. But we have no obligation by the taxpayers of this country to prop up the investment banks of this country or the world.

Ms. KAPTUR. If the gentleman will yield, I am reminded of a sad irony in all of this. When you think with the very companies, big companies, we are not talking about little fish now on Main Street, we are talking about big fish that can move their production anywhere in the world to take advantage of cheap labor, those very corporations as well as the big banks, the investment banks, the speculators who supported them got in trouble, and now the very ones who divested investment from the United States and went elsewhere and got their tail caught in the wringer are coming back to the U.S. taxpayers to bail them out. I think it is one of the saddest ironies, and I really feel I almost want to say, you know, if you are going to be a man, be a man, stand up for your investment, at least eat the loss and do not come back to the very people you turned your back on in the first place.

Ms. KAPTUR. I am glad the gentleman brought up that point. We just came out of a meeting with the Secretary of the Treasury of our Nation along with the chairman of the Federal Reserve. One of the questions I asked them, as a democrat with a small ``d,'' I really do believe in democracy, I really believe in every single person being able to develop to their full human potential whether they live in the United States, whether they live in Mexico, whether they live in China, whether they live in Cuba, wherever they live, I believe in people first. That used to be somebody else's motto. I have not heard it talked about a lot. We ask the question, ``Look, if the United States is going to be giving this big bailout of guarantees to Mexico, what conditions are being put on this money to expand democracy in Mexico?'' I asked the question really in this way: I said, ``Which political parties down there are sitting around a table talking about the stabilization plan?'' And basically we were told the ruling party may be talking to some of the other parties, ``But, of course, we haven't been in any of those meetings,'' so it is business as usual. That nation will not only suffer those huge wage decreases because of the peso devaluation, but whose productivity has been increasing because they work under very, very difficult conditions, they have been working very hard, and their wages have consistently been cut and cut and cut in 1993 and 1994, and now this cuts it by another 40 percent. Who is the voice for those people? I believe in democracy so much; I believe the President of our country and the leadership of this Chamber should be a voice for democracy not just in the United States but in all of these other nations that want to talk about trade, because after all, America and this continent should be more than just deals, deal after deal by private companies. It should be about using whatever power we have to build democracy and to treat people fairly, to treat them right, to treat them with respect. So I am glad that the gentleman brought up that particular point.

Ms. KAPTUR. What is really very interesting that our people should know about, when we say the smart money left Mexico before the peso devaluation, we are talking basically about the 30 or so ruling families and their friends. So they take the money out of Mexico which helps to contribute to the problem of that banking system in that nation, and if you look back in 1991, there were two billionaires, and that is with a ``b'' in Mexico. Today there are 24 billionaires in Mexico as best as we can calculate after NAFTA locked in, which means some people have been getting very, very, very rich, and the majority have actually had a downward pressure on their wages and their life style has been made much more difficult. And I think what is interesting, if you look, and the gentleman may want to go into this, if you look at what Mexico has been importing from the United States over the last year, what really surprised me, when you went over those figures, the other day that the third highest import from us was art. Now, I am a member of the Toledo Museum of Art. I think I can draw pretty well myself. I love artists. I love music. I am not speaking against artists here. It surprised me in a nation where the average family earns under $1,500 a year that art would be the No. 1, in the top three.

Ms. KAPTUR. Reclaiming my time, I come from one of the highest-cost energy areas in the United States of America, and the reason is because in our region we never had federally subsidized power, and we built nuclear power plants. They were built with private money, private- sector investments. They are investor-owned utilities. We have been trying to figure out has been a heck of a problem for us to get our hands around, and we always get the door shut in our face. Well, maybe not shut in our face; people treat us very nicely when we talk to the Department of Energy and even the Vice President's office, but when it comes down to really getting help so we can maintain our manufacturing base and reduce these energy costs as a percent of doing business, we get absolutely no Federal help. And I am so glad you brought up that point, because I would say that is the chief reason that we are losing jobs from our part of the country, because of power costs, and yet our own Government would not respond to us. But within 1 week in this Capitol when Mexico needed help, the Chair of the Federal Reserve, who never comes out of the building, has been all over the Congress, has been up at the White House, up at the Treasury, the Secretary of the Treasury running all around here. It has been very interesting to see what it takes to get the attention of the top officials of this Government. Kind of sad.

Ms. KAPTUR. Reclaiming my time for just a second, I want say to both gentlemen I think the point that the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio] raised is an important one, as well. Remember now the Congress is in control of the Republican Party, and if this deal passes, it is on their doorstep. I often ask myself why is it so difficult for our message to get out? We are using this time on C-SPAN because we know we can reach some of the American people. When we try to get on the evening news or try to get on those Sunday morning talk shows, they do not invite us on. Even when you call in and you want to speak on this, you are not invited. Why do we not have a right to have our opinion heard in this country? Only those who have one position are being heard. So I challenge the American public, try this sometime when you are watching the evening news or you are watching those talk shows on Sunday morning, when you are trying to learn about your country and the decisions facing your elected officials, see who the advertisers are. Do you know that to buy one of those national ads--I know in my district, to buy 30 seconds costs $3,000. When you buy one of those national ads, it must be megabucks. I was listening over the weekend to the people who say we should do this, people in our Government who were on the news saying this is something America should do. All I did was I sat there during the commercial breaks, and I said, ``OK, which big corporations, multinationals, are sponsoring this show?'' Then I know what opinion would be heard. I never used to be that cynical, but I have become that cynical about what information leaks out of Washington, simply because it has proven to be true. You get only one side of the story which gets told. I yield to the gentleman.

Ms. KAPTUR. I would just say--and this will probably get me in trouble--but one of the big advertisers on this past Sunday morning, I ask the American people to check me out if this is not true, there is a company in Illinois called Archer-Daniels-Midland Co.

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman. This particular show was one of the major news shows, and I sat there and I listened, and I thought, ``No wonder we cannot get our story on out on why NAFTA had flaws, and who is going to actually end up holding the bag on this peso bailout of Mexico.'' Archer-Daniels-Midland was one of the biggest promoters of NAFTA, without the side agreements that we wanted in there. They are a sponsor of the show. Why would a sponsor want anyone to say anything that did not agree with their own private interests? This is all a matter of news record. Right after NAFTA was passed, the Prime Minister of Canada, who was one of the biggest proponents of NAFTA, Mr. Mulroney, was appointed to the board of ADM. This is amazing. It would be like the President of our country being appointed to a major corporate board that was supporting this kind of an agreement, and to get a seat on that board you are paid between $37,000 and $100,000 a year. I was really--I thought, in terms of the ethics that I agree with, there should be a cooling-off period. The chair was still warm. The ink on the agreement was not even dry, and I just used that as an example because that happens to be a very powerful corporation in our country with very definite interests, including that you hear the news in a certain way. I really--I never realized how significant it was, but it absolutely does color public opinion. Last week we sent a--I wanted to mention to the gentleman also in talking about the power interests in the Northwest, ``When I watched our Government get all worked up over the past couple of weeks and, with lightning speed, come up with this loan guarantee to Mexico, I thought about all of the problems in my district.'' The gentleman said he wanted to become parochial. I cannot get a loan guarantee to clean up the Ottawa River in Toledo, OH. It is a multi-billion-dollar cleanup problem that we have with all the toxic sites along that river, and we are told by our Government, ``Sorry, Congresswoman, we can't take care of your district because frankly we don't have the money.'' They will not give me a loan guarantee so that our mayor, and our local officials and our county officials can clean up that toxic river that flows into Lake Erie. We are trying to get a radio control tower built out at our airport. We have had some pretty close calls, and we are told we are not high enough up on the priority list, so our pilots and our passengers, our private pilots and so forth, have to keep coming into that airport. I cannot get them a loan guarantee to guarantee the construction of that tower. We have a railroad station we have been trying to fix up with dribs and drabs of Federal money plus a lot of local support from our port authority back home. We want to build a parking garage, a secure parking garage, next to this railroad station so that people can park their cars there if they go on a 3-day weekend to Chicago, or Toronto, or wherever they go, and feel secure. I cannot get a loan guarantee from Washington to help my people back home. So, part of the reason I ran for office is I want to help people. I want to help my people, the people who sent me here, and decisions like this do not go down very well when you cannot do as much for your people back home as certain very powerful interests can do in this city for people who do not even live here, for interests in Mexico, for people who have absolutely no interests in my district, and if I were to give Mexico one gift, first it would be the gift of democracy, to use the relationship with this country, be it political, be it business, be it cultural, to help the people there finally gain a voice, because I believe you can only have free trade when you have freedom first, and that politics does matter, and that it has to be a precondition for any kind of economic assistance or trade. We could never get that in the NAFTA accord as it was originally signed. So, as we stand here tonight, a lot of the people call my office and say, ``Why are you standing down there on the floor talking when legislative business is largely complete for the day?'' I guess the answer is ``Because it's the only way we can really reach the public.''

Ms. KAPTUR. I wanted to just reclaim my time for a second. I found it almost laughable today as I sat there and I listened to the Federal Reserve talk about taking our taxpayers' dollars to prop up Mexico in this little mechanism that they have set up when the very same Federal Reserve testified up here in Congress last week and said to every senior citizen across this country, ``One way we can save money here in America and balance the budget is give you $10 less in your Social Security this next year.'' Now I find it amazing that the same words could come out of the same institution's mouth in the same week; in other words say to our people, and believe me I have a lot of seniors in my district. They like to be close to their family. They did not move away. They depend on that Social Security check. Sure, there may be some at the top that earn a lot of money, but the average Social Security recipient in my district receives $400 to $600 a month. It is not a whole lot of money. the Federal Reserve can so--it just shows me how far away they are from the public that they could actually come up here and say to our seniors, ``We want to take $150 billion from you, but then out of this pocket we're going to put up $40 billion of your dollars for Mexico.'' It was appalling to me.

Ms. KAPTUR. That is correct.

Ms. KAPTUR. Well, you know it is very interesting, and I think those in the know in Mexico were very aware of what was going to happen, and that is why they took their money out of the country, because the elections in August--the elections in Mexico were in August. So they did not want any problems in the market before August, so they propped up the peso through August. Then we were considering GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, here, and they did not want any trouble in America. So we delayed that vote until we got back after elections in December, so they kept delaying it, and delaying it, and delaying it. Then Mr. Salinas left office. The new President was sworn in. GATT was finished, and that is when they devalued the peso. But by then their friends knew, the 30 ruling families down there; they had already taken their money out of the country. They bought art to insulate themselves against any currency fluctuations, and Members of this House, and I will put on the record the gentleman from Buffalo, NY [Mr. LaFalce] because he worked so hard to get currency provisions in the original NAFTA. Nobody tried harder than he did. He educated all of us. He tried to help to make that agreement a stronger agreement to avoid this kind of catastrophe and was unable to finally get provisions in the final agreement. In my estimation he has some aspects of heroism in what he tried to do there, but there were plenty of people that cashed in, and now our people are left holding the bag.

Ms. KAPTUR. Will the gentleman yield on that point because last week I sent the Secretary of the Treasury a letter signed by several of our colleagues, including yourselves, and one of the questions we asked him is: ``Because you are artificially propping up the peso because Mexico owes money, to whom does Mexico owe money specifically?'' In other words, it can't make $26 billion worth of debt payments, $10 billion in this first quarter. Those sound like big numbers. We want to know which banks, which corporations, if it is part of the Eurodollar market, to whom is this money owed? If it is investment banks, speculators in the market, which ones are they? This is not just owed in general. This is owed in specific, and there are huge banking profits this year and last year. They have been doing real, real well. Why do they not have the capacity to eat their own losses? What about these big investment banking houses? The speculators? And I appreciate risk-takers. But that is what risk is. Risk is taking the loss if it does not go your way, and you take the gain if it does go your way. So which investment houses? I want to know specifically, before we vote here on this floor, who is this $26 billion owed to? And there is another $89 billion that Mexico owes payments on for their full public debt. To whom is that owed? You are talking about $40 billion, Congressman Klink. There is the first $18 billion from the currency swap and the line of credit last week. Then there is this $40 billion. Then there is the $89 billion that they still owe. Now, to whom is that owed? And why should our taxpayers be propping up those corporations, those megabanks, those multinationals that moved jobs out of this country. I mean, what is the sense of it? If they are making profits and if they have cash, why don't they pay it off themselves? That is what you do, you write off losses.

Ms. KAPTUR. I think the gentleman raises a good point. I cannot tell you, with interest rates going up in this country, I have had builders and title people in this country complaining, gosh, there aren't any real inflationary pressures. Why are interest rates going up? I would posit maybe one of the reasons interest rates are going up is because your money is being taken to prop up the bank of another nation. We thank the Speaker for this time this evening, and I thank Congressman DeFazio and Congressman Klink, Congressman Abercrombie and all those who have joined us this evening.

Ms. KAPTUR. I yield to my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Hawaii.

Ms. KAPTUR. We absolutely will. In effect, our people become Mexico's insurance company.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, while America was celebrating Martin Luther King Day yesterday and the long weekend, officials over at the White House and here in the Nation's Capitol buildings were running around frantically trying to figure out how to bail out Mexico with your taxpayer dollars, without calling it a bailout. They say ``It won't cost us a penny because Mexico will pay it all back.'' However, Mexico has never pad back its debts. That is why it is in the fix it is today. The powers that be here in Washington, therefore, have devised a multibillion dollar taxpayer bailout plan to prop up Mexico after the recent peso meltdown. Listen to this. It will conveniently be placed off budget, through some fancy manipulations of lawyer's words that will make it sound like our taxpayer's don't end up holding the bag. First, there was an $18 billion loan package with a $9 billion line of credit from the U.S. Treasury and our Federal Reserve. You know what the Federal Reserve is. When you put money in your local bank, it then goes up in the chain and the local banks end up owning the district banks which then own the Federal Reserve, so it is your money to begin with. But that was not enough of our taxpayer's money last week, so now we are being asked to put up an additional, are you ready, $40 billion, that is with a B, dollars in loan guarantees in Mexico. But of course we are being told it is just a safety net and we will probably never really have to pay it, because surely Mexico will not have any problems paying off these new loans. This is really getting interesting. How ironic that during the very month when Congress is about to consider a balanced budget amendment to put our taxpayers in a vice, we are being asked to close our eyes to this unprecedented back door version of foreign aid that holds the potential to bust any budget that we pass here. Off budget? Off budget means the bill will be on your budget, that taxpayers' budget. Don't you just love it?

Ms. KAPTUR. If there is a default--and as I say, Mexico has never paid back its debts. It owes $89 billion it is not paying off right now. It means that we pledge the full faith and credit of the people of the United States to pay the debts of Mexico.

Ms. KAPTUR. That is the way it looks to me, my friend.