Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we have a plan. We know what could fix the problem. The American people understand what is going on right now. If we review poll results, this Chamber is not one of the most popular institutions in the country. I think there is a 33, 34 percent approval rating for the Congress. I think some of the issues that the gentleman touched on are why that kind of sense around America is what it is. I want to share one final chart here that we have. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) mentioned the $7.7 trillion debt and the $26,000 that everybody owes, and the general theme tonight is, what are the real crises in the country. We explained that Social Security is solvent for another 45 years, and then we got into our over $160 billion trade deficit with China, a $400 billion deficit here at home. We are spending more money, we are borrowing it from the Chinese. We are not participating in a sound fiscal policy. One final thing that kind of sums everything up, if Members look at it, and this is in trillions of dollars here, how much tax cuts for primarily millionaires are taking away from funding priorities that we have in this country. If we make the tax cuts permanent over the next 10 years, it will cost $1.8 trillion. The tax cuts for the top 1 percent, people making 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, over a million dollars a year, well above half a million dollars a year, will be $800 billion we are going to spend or not take in because of tax cuts primarily for the top 1 percent. Look at what we are spending on veterans. This is $800 billion, this is $3 billion, over the next 10 years. So we are basically saying in this country that our priority is the top 1 percent, not the veterans of the United States of America. The other side would say, well, we have increased spending for veterans over the past few years. The answer to that is, yes, but thousands and thousands of more veterans are beginning to enter the VA system now. They are losing their pensions; they are losing their health care in places like Ohio. When I was on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs last session, Secretary Principi was in front of us and I asked him, is the reason more people are going into the health care system in places like Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania because of the massive job loss and companies are going bankrupt? And he said, yes. We have people in Ohio that were veterans, that never accessed the VA system, who lost their jobs, lost their pensions, lost their health care, they had nothing, and they entered into the VA system because they were veterans. So, yes, you may be increasing the number of what we are spending on veterans; but when you have thousands of more veterans going in and nursing homes being closed down and nursing home beds being closed down, it is time to reevaluate what the policy is. We could go on and on and on with this on what we are going to spend on education, health care, which you so eloquently mentioned, all these great issues that we need to invest in. I want to make a point. We are not saying that some of these programs do not need reform. We are not saying that at all. These programs do need reform. We need to move into more preventative health care than we are doing now. You talked about CVS and Rite Aid and the emergency room. Why would we want people to go if they were sick into an emergency room? Because we are paying for that, anyway. The hospitals get charity aid that comes out of Federal money. Why would we wait until someone got pneumonia and went to the emergency room when we could have a clinic that provided them with basic antibiotics that would allow them to address their issue when they had a cold? But we wait. So the system does need reform. We need to put more emphasis on early childhood education. There is no question about it. We did a study in Ohio, and I mentioned it several times here before. The University of Akron did this study. For every dollar that the State of Ohio spent on higher education, the State received $2 back in tax money because you are educating someone and they are going to be worth more, they are going to create more value, and they are going to pay more in taxes over the long run. These systems need reform to where we are making good investments and saving the taxpayer money in the long run. These tax cuts are not having the economic impact they thought they would have. We have given trillions of dollars in tax cuts and the whole reason was to stimulate the economy. We are still in a recession or just modest, very modest, economic growth, if that. Some signs are saying we are going to go back into a recession. This is not having the impact, because these people who make this money are not investing it in the United States. I will pull out the China graphs again if you want me to, but these people are taking their tax cuts and investing it in Asia. The economic impact again is not being felt in the United States. It is being felt abroad. The old theory that tax cuts will stimulate your national economy no longer work. It is an outdated method; it is voodoo economics as President Bush, I, said; and it is not working here today.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I will explain the chart, but I want the gentleman to lend his voice to it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Again, send us an e-mail, tell us what you believe the real crises are in the country, 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov, and possibly we will read your e-mail next week.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. But we have less than we had when we started, and we are closer to the end than we are to the beginning, so I am going to try to make a final point or two towards the end here. The question really, and I want to ask the people at home, is this: What do you think, someone watching at home or if you are having a discussion with your friends over dinner, or your family over dinner tonight, what do you think the greatest crisis is in the United States of America? What do you think this Chamber and our friends across the hall and the White House, what do you think we should be focusing on? Do you think that this problem that is 47 years away or 40 years away or 35 years away? We have all kinds of different numbers, we will give you the benefit, say 35 years away. Do you think that is the greatest problem facing the country, or do you think that the 40-some million Americans without health insurance, maybe that is the greatest crisis facing the country, or do you think the rising costs of health insurance, if you are a small business owner, or you are in a union and you are trying to negotiate a contract or you are trying to run a school system, and you are the superintendent or you are the teacher, maybe that is the greatest crisis facing the country. How about, and I am sure in your district just like mine, Youngstown City Schools, Akron City Schools, Cleveland City Schools, 80, 85 percent of the kids qualify for free and reduced lunch. Maybe that is a more imminent crisis than a Social Security issue that is, you know, 40 years out. And I just ask the American people to ask themselves, what do you think the great crisis is in the country today? The fact that the trade deficits, the debt, the annual deficits that we are running? To me, I share my opinion, those are the issues. That 85 percent of the kids in a school district in Ohio qualify for free and reduced lunch, that 50 or 60 or 70 percent of those kids live below the poverty line. That to me is a crisis. How are we going to compete with the Chinese workers? How are we going to compete with the Indians if we are not able to educate our kids and our kids are living in poverty? To me that is the crisis. That people do not get the kind of health care that they deserve, that if you have a lot of money and you are able to get yourself into the Cleveland Clinic or some of the great hospitals around the country, you are going to be fine, but if not you are on your own.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The same in Ohio. 315,000 folks that receive survivor benefits. 16 percent of people who receive a Social Security check in Ohio, 16 percent of them are survivor benefits. So this is a program that helps people who lose a parent at a very young age, they are under the age of 18 and they need a little assistance. And that is what the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) talked about last week is a sense of community where we are going to have a system that protects and looks out for each other, gets each other's back. I think it is very important that we recognize that Social Security is really the best system, because it inherently embodies what is best about the country, and I think it is great. I want to just raise a question here. We are kind of running out of time here. We only have a few more minutes left. We have a little bit of time.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yes, even further behind. So someone out there watching, a parent that has a kid in college, the average college debt, $20,000; average share of the national debt that you owe, $26,000. And, think about it, if you are having a baby this year and project this number out, if we keep going down the road we are going down, because we already had to lift the debt ceiling in Congress several months ago that raised this even further so the United States could go back out and borrow even more money, so here we have a situation where we owe this, each individual owes this. Now, if a baby is born today, guess what? They owe this right out of the gate. So project this out, this number, $26,349, project it out 18, 20, 22 years and imagine what that number is going to be if we keep going down the road we are going down now, and then add to that what college tuition costs are going to be 20 years from now. They have doubled over the past 4 or 5 years, I know for sure in Ohio, and I know in Florida, so let that rate continue and let this rate continue and let us keep borrowing money and have to pay interest on that. Let that continue. So we are saying that a young baby that is born today has a tremendous tax burden on their head, from the national debt that they owe, their share, plus what they are going to owe for going to college; and if they go on to get a master's degree or advanced degree, it would be even more, and then the President's proposal to borrow $5 trillion more. What are we doing to the next generation? At the same time, we are not making the proper investments in health and education and the kinds of things that will eventually move the country forward. Mr. Speaker, the Web site is www.house.gov/budget.democrats underscored, to get the deficit ticker to see what the real number is as this continues to move.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I think it is appropriate for us tonight to kind of take another tack, a little more specific. We know that the President's privatization plan for the Social Security system is a bad one. It means benefit cuts across the board to the tune of 40 percent for most. Under the President's plan, middle-class workers earning $58,000 a year would be hit with a 42 percent benefit cut. And the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), who was here last week, said very eloquently that this Social Security system is a system that is put together and was put together to solidify the country and to talk about our common interests, our common goals, and our common humanity, and how we have an obligation in this Congress to maintain that system and not to say and begin to promote the kind of attitude that says, hey, everybody is on their own. They go here and they make the kind of money that they want. They invest in the stock market, and if they go belly up in the stock market, they are on their own. And that is basically what the President's plan says. We have a system that works, a system that is a safety net for many American people who have struggled. But the point I think we need to make tonight, which we have touched upon over and over and over again, is the issue of jobs in the United States of America. If we are not participating in an economy that is growing, there are not going to be the kind of resources put into the program. I was at a town hall meeting on Social Security a couple of weeks ago, and I had a lady stand up, my age, and say ``I do not want to put 4 percent of my Social Security taxes into a private account'' because she figured out the math. She makes $19,000 a year. Four percent of $19,000 a year is not enough to retire on even if the stock market is going gangbusters. So this may sound nice to have private accounts. If one is making $150,000 a year, they know how to invest their money. They know how to pull it out and put it back in. The President's plan does not allow that. So if we say the same exact thing to someone who is making $19,000 and they are allowed to invest their 4 percent of $19,000 a year, there is not going to be enough there for them to retire, and they are going to lose their Social Security benefit. This is a risky proposition, and it is why only 30 percent of the American people are saying this is a good idea. It makes me become more and more aware and concerned that this is a whole ploy. While we are cutting food stamps and we are cutting Medicaid, we have the whole country having this debate about Social Security over here. And we do not want to talk about what is going on in Iraq, and we do not want to talk about the kind of cuts that are being made in the veterans' health care program. We have to keep the discussion on an issue that is highly volatile and has been known to be a third rail of politics. Now, I want to share with the American people and our friends who are here tonight a chart. We are talking about jobs and job creation in the country. This chart shows the U.S. trade balance in goods, durable goods. This goes from 1979 to 2004. In 1979 we had a trade deficit of $24 billion, in 1979. And we do not really need to see the numbers. We just need to see the bars. And it slowly got worse, got better in the early 1990s and then the dipsy-do all throughout the 1990s. But in 1998 our trade deficit in goods got to $230 billion. That was in 1998. And then from 1998 to 2004, a $651 billion trade deficit in the United States of America. We are buying $651 billion more worth of goods than we are selling. If we want to fix Social Security and we want to have enough money in our local communities to fund our schools and our libraries and Medicaid at the State and Federal level, we need to fix this problem, or we are never going to have enough money to do anything. Four percent of whatever one wants to put in their side account is never going to be enough because we are going to have more people for 19 and 20 and $30,000 a year than we are for 70 or 80 or 90. And this is the main culprit. And today Secretary Snow came out with the weakest report on the Chinese currency manipulation that we have ever seen and basically gave the Chinese a free pass when they are manipulating their currency by 40 percent. That is why this number looks like it does. I am going to get the other chart out here that is dealing with annual trade with China. There are three different graphs here. The gold graph, the gold line, with the blue dots is what we are importing from China. This starts off in 1985; it ends up in 2004. The blue line is what we are exporting to China, and then the trade balance. What we are importing from China is going through the roof, $200 billion of goods coming into this country. We are exporting to China virtually nothing. The trade gap just with the Chinese is $162 billion; $162 billion we are buying from the Chinese without the ability to sell.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are not making this up, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This is not the ``Kendrick Meek Report.''

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, that is exactly right. We are going on the record of what this administration has consistently told us and told the American people, and the gentleman is exactly right. With the prescription drug benefit we were told it was $350 billion, then it became $400 billion, we passed it at 3 in the morning here. Then a month or two later, after the election, it turned out to be $700 billion, and then it went to $1.1 trillion. When we passed it, it was $400 billion. And someone in this administration told the actuary who had the real numbers, do not tell Congress. Wait a minute. That is not telling the American people. I represent 700,000 people; the gentleman represents 700,000 people.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. They withheld the administration from your constituents and my constituents, and we made a faulty decision here on the House floor where many Members would not have voted for it. When we go back and look at the war, what we were told about the war: we are greeted as liberators, we will use the oil for reconstruction and it will only cost us $50 billion when we have already over $300 billion invested in the war; all of these things that turned out not to be true. Here we are today being promised a scheme that we have to borrow $5 trillion to implement. It is bad enough we have to borrow it and pay it back; we have to pay the interest on it too. Talk about sticking it to the next generation.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, he brings up a great point because over the next 10 years, and I do not know if he said this before I arrived, in the next 10 years we are going to have to borrow $2 trillion to fund this privatization scheme. Over the next 20 years we are going to have to borrow $5 trillion. This is billion. We have to borrow $5 trillion to fund this privatization scheme. So it is just brilliant that he brought that up in such a timely fashion because it ties into this. As we are running a $162 billion trade deficit with the Chinese at the same time that they are stealing our manufacturing, stealing our jobs, we are borrowing the money right now for our annual deficit that we have, from the Chinese, $500 billion. So what do we have to do to fix this problem? One, we have to balance the budget. But if we are already borrowing $500 billion from the Japanese and the Chinese, why would we then go out and say let us go borrow another $5 trillion to roll the dice on and play roulette?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Not just yourself. Your wife, your kids, my wife, constituents, people watching at home, if you are watching this program.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Everybody, $26,300 you owe. The point I would like to bring up and highlight again is what the gentleman brought up, talking about what college students owe. The average college student owes 20,000 bucks.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I just think that is it. Thanks for reiterating it. It is just what is the crisis? What do you at home want us to deal with, because we work for you. What do you want us to deal with here? And we are trying to bring up issues like China and how we are going to deal with that tremendous threat, and the administration brushes it off. You know, we want to deal with health care and the amount of poverty, not necessarily for compassionate reasons, although some may feel that way. But because we need everyone playing. We are going on the field now with only half a team, and that is getting very dangerous. So as we wrap it up, I want to share again, send us an e-mail, 30somethingdems @mail.house.gov. Do I have time to read?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I want to read the e-mail.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Lockbox.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Not personal. It is not personal.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman brought up a great point, and we will share some more information from the Department of the Treasury of the United States of America. This is the national debt, and I believe this is moving. You can go to a Web site, next week we will have to bring the Web site up so you can see, but this is actually always moving: $7.79 trillion in debt that the United States owes other interests. Your share of the debt, I say to the gentleman from Florida, $26,349.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I just gave it. 30somethingdemocrats@mail. house.gov. Send us an e-mail. I want to read one, we only have time to read one here, from Mark Sanchez from Las Cruces, New Mexico. We are making it out West, somewhat of a political junkie, 25 year old active duty service member stationed out there. And last week he saw us talking about Social Security, very hot topic. He considers himself very informed, and it bothers him to a great degree that those in my age group do not care about what the President and Congress are doing. I personally feel that the President's plan for Social Security is not one with the people in mind, but rather one with his friends on Wall Street in mind. I may be young, but I am not blind to record deficits that are causing this country to go deeper and deeper into debt. I believe the President's plan is wrong for America. I believe this is an issue that can be addressed and thought over as time goes on while more important matters that are hurting this country are addressed. He said very similar things to what we were saying, issues such as health care, immigration and energy are problems that face Americans now, not 30 years down the road. I am happy to see that you are willing to stand up for the people rather than special interest groups that have too much control in Congress these days. Please keep up your hard work because it is needed. People like you keep his personal hopes alive for one day standing on the floor of the House of Representatives and debating issues and problems that face our country. So we have an aspiring Member of Congress here, Mark Sanchez. So thank you, Mark, for sending that in. Again, 30somethingdems @mail.house.gov. You also go to the site I gave you earlier to check out the deficit clock too.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of The Reverend Michael H. Harrison, Sr., for his decade of inimitable service to the Youngstown community. After serving the United Baptist Church in Akron for 10 years, Pastor Harrison was called to lead the 125-member congregation of the Union Baptist Church in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1995. In just four years, the Pastor built the congregation to more than 650 people from our community. Today, thanks to his work, a new sanctuary of the Union Baptist Church can seat over 800 worshippers. In addition to his tireless commitment to his church and congregation, Pastor Harrison has shared his leadership with countless other civic and religious organizations. He is Chair of the African- American Leadership Commission and is also the 1st Vice President of the Ohio Baptist State Convention. The Pastor previously served as President of the Baptist Pastor's Council of Youngstown and vicinity. In 2004, he was honored as ``One of the World's Most Beloved Pastors'' by Gospel Today Magazine. I commend The Reverend Michael H. Harrison, Sr., for his selfless dedication to our community.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Damion DeRobbio, whose heroics in the face of a neighbor's house fire saved the life of a 6-year-old girl. On April 22 of last year, Mr. DeRobbio rushed to the aid of a frantic mother, whose daughter, Mackenzie, was trapped in her bed, blinded and suffocated by smoke. After several attempts to get into the burning house failed, Mr. DeRobbio persevered, smashing the little girl's bedroom window and squeezing through the tiny opening. Mr. DeRobbio crawled over the shards of broken glass, sustaining cuts on his knees and shoulders, and seized Mackenzie from her bed. He then passed her through the window to a waiting police officer before climbing out himself. For his actions, Mr. DeRobbio was awarded the Carnegie Medal by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, and deservedly so. However, recognition was certainly not what motivated this hero on that night more than a year ago. Were it not for Mr. DeRobbio's selfless bravery, this inspiring story could have easily been one of tragedy and loss. So today, on behalf of all of his neighbors in Ohio's 17th District, I honor Mr. DeRobbio for his valor.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity here to address the House on an issue that I think has become more and more pertinent to the American people and to the American economy. One issue that I hear about almost as much as I hear about the Social Security issue back home in my district, which is northeast Ohio, I hear about the issue of China. We cannot, I do not think, speak of any kind of economic recovery in the United States of America or talk about providing middle-class people with high-wage, high-paying jobs until we figure out the issue of China. I am going to have a brief discussion here tonight and show some charts just to kind of outline what has been happening here in the United States of America. Quite frankly, I feel like it was an issue that was not discussed enough in the last presidential election. I feel like this is an issue that the American people want the politicians that are here in Washington, D.C., in this Chamber and leaders in government to talk about, and we have not been. Hopefully, with some legislation that I have offered with the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the China Currency Manipulation Act, this issue will become and come to the forefront of American politics. I just want to share with the American people some statistics, some charts that I think help outline exactly what has been happening. This first chart here is the State crisis. It outlines here how many manufacturing jobs have been lost in the United States from June of 1998 to February 2005. As you can see, the red States here have lost more than 20 percent of the manufacturing that they have in their States. You can see the red from Maine, mostly in the Northeast-Midwest quadrant, Ohio, Michigan. Ohio lost 216,000 manufacturing jobs. Then between 15 and 20 percent of manufacturing jobs lost are in the deep blue or the deep purple, Georgia, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, between 15 and 20 percent of manufacturing. These are the high-wage, high-paying jobs that have health care, that have a good retirement, that have a good pension. These are the kind of jobs that drive the middle class forward. And these are the kind of jobs and the kind of companies in Ohio and elsewhere that pay taxes, that workers pay taxes. They vote for school levies. They vote for mental health levies. They vote for library levies. They vote for all the things that are needed to help lift up local communities. What has happened because of this crisis that we have here, local communities are beginning to suffer. They are not able to pass the police and fire levy because the 216,600 workers who no longer work in a high-wage manufacturing jobs are left to go to Wal-Mart, are left to go to Super K or Kohl's and make very little money without health care benefits. If we think that we are going to maintain the kind of prestigious global power that we are today and hopefully will continue to be, there is no way we can do this by replacing General Motors with Wal-Mart or replacing Wal-Mart for General Electric. That is not going to be a great America in the 21st century. This graph, this billboard here, illustrates that point. And so the issue of China inevitably comes up, and how are we going to deal with it? Because we know, whether you are the owner of a small machine shop or a mold shop or in some light manufacturing, it is the Chinese goods that are coming into the United States that are helping wipe out the manufacturing that is here now. What is happening is the Chinese are manipulating their currency, and they are manipulating their currency to the rate of 40 cents on the dollar. I have a factory back at home. They make tubing when you put up the sprinkler systems in industrial facilities and commercial facilities. It is called Wheatland Tube. Wheatland Tube has been a great company and still is. They have invested over $8 million in the United States over the past few years. Their product is competing with a Chinese product. The Chinese are shipping their tubes into the United States. When the Chinese product, fully assembled, completely at the end of the manufacturing process, when it arrives in the United States of America, that Chinese tube is the same cost as the raw materials that Wheatland Tube has to buy. Wheatland Tube has not even begun the process of making their tubes. But the Chinese tubes have already been manufactured and produced, arrive in the United States less than the cost or the same cost as the raw materials for the United States company. How can the United States company compete with that? It cannot, and that is why the United States in the previous billboard looked like it did. This is a graph that has the U.S. annual trade with China. This line here, the gold line with the blue dots going up, is imports. These are Chinese products coming into the United States, and it goes up to $200 billion in 2004. And we can see where it was in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, and it slowly began to rise. The exports, what we are shipping to the Chinese, is this blue line, coming straight across. We are not able to increase our exports. And the funny thing is, if the Members remember back when we were signing all these trade agreements in the 1990s, when we were talking about we have to open up markets and we have to export products from the United States so that other people will buy them and we will make them here and we will ship them off and it will be great, that has not happened with the Chinese. We were told when we signed PNTR, Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, most favored nation trade status with the Chinese, we were told there is 1.3 billion people in China, we want to sell our products to the Chinese. It has not happened. It simply has not happened. These are the goods we are importing, these in the blue line is what we are exporting, and it is not working out. And when we look at the top 15 exports from the United States to China, three are either waste or scrap products, three of the 15. Four of the 15 are raw materials or agricultural products, and six of the 15 are parts, which basically means we are exporting parts, raw materials, scrap, to China, which are manufactured there and shipped back only to be imported here in the United States. The gold bars are the trade numbers with China, the deficit that we have, $162 billion trade deficit with the Chinese. We are importing $162 billion more than we are exporting to the Chinese. They are wiping out the middle class in the United States of America because of our trade policies here and because we are allowing the Chinese to manipulate their currency. Now, if the currency situation was fixed in China, if they were not gaining a 40 cents on the dollar advantage, Chinese products that were made in China, the price would go up; and if the price goes up and they still try to ship it to the United States, our goods here would be more competitive, and then the Chinese would have currency that had more value so that when we shipped products, when we exported products to China, our prices coming from the U.S. would actually be cheaper to the Chinese consumers. And the Chinese agreed, when they came into the World Trade Organization, that they were going to be fair brokers and they wanted to be a part of the global system. And we are not seeing much action by the Chinese. And, quite frankly, we need to be firmer here in the United States. And that is why the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter) and I, along with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner), who signed on to our legislation, the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Manzullo), AFL-CIO, China Currency Coalition, a lot of the small business trade groups, this is not a Republican or Democrat issue. This is an American issue. This is an American issue. And if we do not fix it, there is not going to be a middle class in the United States of America, and we are going to continue to see some of the older industrial cities and industrial areas in our country continue to struggle. Whether it is the county funding, police and fire, schools, we are not going to be able to survive. This is a startling, stunning chart. This is the U.S. trade balance in goods. The U.S. trade balance in goods. The goods deficit which covers manufactured products hit a record $651 billion in 2004. And from 1998 to 2004, a $421 billion jump, just in these few years, from 1998. These are the hardcore manufacturing products which contribute to job loss here in the United States: steel, supply chains for all of the major corporations that have moved and have altered the trade balance with the Chinese to the tune of $651 billion. So we have to ask ourselves, why do we continue down a road where we are losing, we are losing this battle? And I do not know about anyone else, but I keep score, and when we are losing, we need to stop doing what we are doing and fix it and apply the pressure to the Chinese that we need to apply until they fix at least their currency problem that is cheating everyone else who is trying to buy their products and in the U.S. up to 40 cents on the dollar. They are cheating. And the reason this is so urgent for the United States of America to act now and not wait 10 years from now, not take the slow, diplomatic process that we have been taking, the reason it is so imperative is right now we are buying all their products. Right now we are consuming all of the Chinese products. They need us now. They need us now. And when they need us, that is when we have leverage to move. Now, we also need to balance our budget because the Chinese are helping fund our $500 billion deficit. So we ought to do our job here. But at the same time, we need to recognize what the U.S.-China Commission said and told Congress, submitted a report. First it said that the overall trade situation with the Chinese had an overall negative impact on the United States, overall negative. A bipartisan commission, people from the Reagan administration, people from the Clinton and Carter administrations, totally bipartisan. The Chinese trade has overall negative implications on the United States. That is scary enough. But they went on to say that we have about a decade in the United States, about a decade, to fix this problem because at some point we are not going to be consuming as much as we are, because we are not going to have the kind of money here that we have now. We are not going to have the kind of wealth to be buying if we continue to go down this road. If jobs that pay $50,000 or $60,000 are getting replaced by jobs that are paying $30,000 or $35,000 without health care benefits, there is only so much we can consume, and that is what is happening. The jobs replacing the jobs that are leaving are $10,000 to $12,000 less a year without health care benefits. So how are we going to keep up? And what the U.S.-China Commission has told us is that we have about a decade and we had better fix it now. And that is why this is so urgent. That is why we see bills, the Schumer-Graham bill in the Senate, talking about putting on 27 percent tariffs on Chinese goods coming into this country to try to stem some of this tide that is coming in, or whether it is the WTO-compliant Ryan-Hunter bill that is gaining a lot of support here in this Chamber because Members are beginning to recognize that this is a real problem in the country. Our bill does not violate any of the WTO rules. It is compliant with the World Trade Organization, which I am not exactly thrilled with the World Trade Organization. I do not like the way they operate. I do not think it is a democratic body. I think it rubber stamps decisions for multinational companies. There is no doubt about it. But what happens a lot here is someone will put a bill up that will say put 27 percent tariffs or 30 percent tariffs on Chinese goods and a lot of people in this body will say that is not WTO compliant, so we will not even look at it. So the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter) and I went out of our way with a lot of very smart people to compose a bill that is WTO compliant because we want to get over that first hurdle. And we have because we have a good bill, and that is why it is gaining the kind of steam it is gaining. WTO compliant. And it allows the President to recognize currency manipulation for what it is, and that is a subsidy; and so it should be seen as any other kind of subsidy that other countries give in order to ship products into our country and hurt us domestically. Currency manipulation is no different. If we are gaining 40 cents on the dollar, then that is subsidy; and it is no different than any other kind of subsidy. And our bill gives the President the tools he needs. We want to work with the administration. We have got three Chairs of Republican committees on this bill with the AFL-CIO, with the China Currency Coalition, with a tremendous amount of trade groups, mostly Republican small business owners. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. And it is time for us in Congress to get the guts we need to make this happen because it is hurting average people in the country. This is the U.S. manufacturing employment from January of 1999 to March of 2005. And we can see here that in January of 1991 we were at about 17.3 million jobs, manufacturing jobs; and we hit the recession in the early 1990s and we came out of it and peaked out in 1998-1999 at over 17.6 million manufacturing jobs. Not too bad. And then we peaked off in the end of the century; and when we hit January of 2001, here comes the downward slide, from 17.6 million in 1999 all the way down to under about 14.3 million jobs in March of 2005. Look at this slide in U.S. manufacturing. And, again, it is the manufacturing jobs that are the jobs that have the high wages. They are the jobs that pay a decent wage, a real wage. They are the jobs that provide health care. These are the shops that are part of communities all over the country. These are not the big multinationals who can have the wherewithal to pick up and go over to China and ship the products back. These are the people who live in our communities who donate to the church. They are the small business owner who would donate to the school and give that little extra and the workers who had solid work can work overtime and contribute to their union and to their church and to the civic organizations in local communities, which would be the tax base that supported a lot of the local community. We have all been there. In Northeast Ohio, it seems like it happens all too much, where a local company that has been in your community for 100 years, or 50 years or 60 years, all of a sudden cannot compete anymore. Then the county and the city and the local school district loses hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the crunch, the squeeze on the people in that community continues, and it ultimately results in a weaker United States of America. Just a few final charts here. We were told MFN, PNTR, NAFTA. Now we want to pass CAFTA here, which I do not think is going to make it. Now we are being told here in the U.S., and we were told all throughout the nineties, we are going to sign these trade agreements, and it is going to be really great, because the low wage jobs are going to go to the other countries and we are going to keep all the high-tech, high-wage jobs here in the United States and it is going to be a panacea here. Everyone is going to have a good job and work with their brains and not with their hands, and it is going to be great. This is the total trade balance in advanced technology products. These are the millions of U.S. dollars. We had in the early nineties a surplus of millions and millions of U.S. dollars, all throughout the early nineties, throughout the mid-nineties into the late-nineties, and then we began the decline. These are advanced technology products. These are the things that appear in the computers. These are the things that appear in your cars, that you do not really know how they work, in airplanes, in televisions. We are losing this too. We were told we were going to win on these. We are still losing on that too to the tune of millions and millions of dollars in deficits in the United States of America. This is a trend we need to begin to turn around, or our kids are going to be left with a country that is not as strong as it should be. So we have been told, as the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) said about an hour ago in this very Chamber as we were talking about a lack of job creation and more or less tied to Social Security, the key in the United States of America, if we are going to compete, is we are in the process of creating a new economy and we do not really know what it is. We want to help with the Chinese and we need to fix the currency manipulation problem, and I think we are applying a lot of pressure to the Chinese now with some of the legislation we have here. Hopefully they will be able to do it on their own and we will not have to implement the kind of reforms here in the U.S. to give the President the power to do that. We want that done. But, at the same time here at home, we cannot talk about our trade issues, we cannot talk about China, without fixing the problem here at home. We need healthy and educated students in the United States of America who have access to a quality education in any school in the country, because that is the only way that they are going to move themselves forward, that is the only way they are going to be able to lift themselves out of poverty, that is the only way that these communities are going to be able to create and generate enough wealth, enough wealth, to be able to fund their schools and provide for libraries and all the different sorts of services that need to be funded. So we need to focus on education, as well as dealing with the China currency manipulation issue. This is the budget the President submitted on education. Fifty appropriations will be below current services in the billions of dollars with that budget. You can see there are cuts of $2.5 billion in 2006, $6.2 billion in 2007, and then the same and even greater in 2008, 2009, and, by 2010, cuts of $11.9 billion in the various education programs. Something the 30-Something Group and I have been working on for a good many years now is college tuition and the Pell Grant. The Pell Grant, when it started, would account for 80 percent of a student's college tuition, 80 percent. Today a Pell Grant accounts for a little over 40 percent of a student's college tuition. An average student graduates with over $20,000 in loans. Here is what we are doing, the outpaced college tuition compared to what the Pell Grant is. Here is the Pell Grant minimum award, here in light purple, the Pell Grant maximum award in the navy blue, and then the average cost of tuition and fees in a four-year public college setting. You can see how much it outpaces that, so this grant here no longer meets the need of what the average college student needs in order to go to school and get an education and allow them to compete. So we have our work cut out for us. I commend to the American people this week's Newsweek, May 9 and the title, ``China's Century, a Special Report.'' ``China's Century.'' The reason this is so urgent for us is not because America is perfect and not that America does not make mistakes, because we have, and we have articulated many of them on the floor here over the years, and we will continue to make mistakes. But when the question comes as to who will lead the world in the 21st century, will it be the Chinese? Will it be a Communist regime that is currently manipulating their currency? Will it be a Communist regime that is spending mass amounts on their military budget? Is it the Communist regime that has no concern for worker rights? Is it the Communist regime that has no concern for the environment? Is it the Communist regime that has no concern for human rights? Is it going to be the Communist regime that has no concern for religious freedom? Is it going to be the Communist regime that will promote and implement a policy of forced abortions on their own citizens? Or will it be the United States of America? Will it be the country that has promoted the middle-class, the country that does stand for freedom? We have many warts, but we do promote democracy. There are disagreements on how we go about it, but this is a democratically elected body here of human beings, of American citizens who make human mistakes. But this is a lot better, and this country is best to lead the world in the 21st century, not a Communist regime who has no concern for the human rights of other citizens. That is what is at stake here in this whole debate. We could talk about currency manipulation and trade and funding and all these different political issues, but the bottom line with this whole situation is who is going to lead the world in the 21st century? If you want it to be the United States of America, we better use this window of opportunity to play tough with the Chinese; to tell them to fix their currency manipulation, or face the consequences. This body needs to provide the President with the tools that he needs to be tough with the Chinese and force them to fix this issue, and then we come back home and we fix and fund and implement education reform and funding for education and funding for health for young children and young students all over the country, and let us get ready to go to battle in the 21st century with healthy, educated kids who have an opportunity at schools all over the country, with access to the arts and speech and debate and drama and music and foreign languages. We can do it, but we have got to make it a priority and we have got to make it a goal. And this all starts, Mr. Speaker, with making sure the Chinese, if they want to participate in the global economy, they do it in a fair way. They agreed to play fair, and now they are cheating. This body is primed to act, and we are going to act. It is going to start with facing down the currency manipulation problem and not allowing the Chinese to cheat to the tune of 40 cents on the dollar.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for being here and raising the intellectual level of this debate that we usually have. Mr. Speaker, I had a town hall meeting last night on Social Security in Green, Ohio, just south of Akron. And it was 2 or 3 to 1 against any kind of privatization. There was one point I wanted to share tonight. There was a woman who was there who said she was actually for the private accounts until she, I think, found out a little bit more about them. The 4 percent that the President says that you can divert and put into a private account, she made $19,000 a year. Now, 4 percent of her income, of $19,000 a year, is never going to be enough for her to be able to retire on. And there was a gentleman who was there who said that he made 30-some thousand dollars a year his whole life, never any more; he did not have any money to put extra into these personal accounts. What he would have put in, he went back and did the math, would have never worked out to him receiving the kind of money that he would have been able to get through Social Security. So it may sound good that you are making a lot of money every year that, hey, I will get a little extra and put that in the market too. But what about those people who are struggling now more than ever, making 19, 20, 25, $30,000 a year. Four percent of that is peanuts to say that you will be able to retire on. So as we have this debate about the personal accounts, I think it is very important for us to recognize that diverting 4 percent of your Social Security taxes into this is never going to be enough for this to retire on. That was really the only point I wanted to make here. I want to thank the gentleman for joining us. Throughout, since I have been here, he has been the guru on the budget. We all follow his lead. So I thank him very much.