Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I would invite the gentleman to Youngstown, Ohio. He can see it for himself.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I thank the gentleman. I just want to use an example here from a district in northeast Ohio, an old industrial district. We've had chronic foreclosures for 30 years. The census just came out. The city of Youngstown went from 180,000 people down to about 65,000 people. The tax base has been eroded. And in the last few years, Youngstown has been cited as one of the top 10 best cities to start a business by Entrepreneur magazine. Site Selection magazine says it's one of the top 10 places to start or grow a business. In part, the renaissance of Youngstown is because of Federal investments like this that help us downsize and shrink our community. And I find it ironic that our friends who are trying to reduce government spending, we're trying to get rid of dilapidated housing where it increases crime, prostitution, drug use. This all puts more pressure on the safety services within a town like Youngstown. This bill to repeal this money is actually going to cost cities and rural areas more money because you're not allowing us to reinvest into these places, downsize them, shrink them, make them more manageable and, over time, reduce the tax burden on the local taxpayer. These are critical investments that are needed in the United States of America. This should have been $5 billion, not just $1 billion.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to commemorate Brain Awareness Week (BAW) and the benefits of this informative week in educating students and the general public on brain science in my congressional district and across the country. Brain Awareness Week, launched in 1996, brings together the Society for Neuroscience, the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, and 2400 other organizations in 76 countries who share a common goal of improving public awareness of brain and nervous system research. During Brain Awareness Week, which is being held March 14-20, neuroscientists around the globe educate K- 12 students, senior citizens and the public at large on the wonders of the human brain. These activates include tours of neuroscience laboratories, museum exhibitions, and classroom discussions on elements of the human brain. This year, in my congressional district, high school students will have an opportunity to learn about brain physiology by working with Kent State University's graduate students to dissect a sheep's brain. This event will get these kids excited about the mysteries of the mind and the nature of scientific discovery. Today, in recognition of Brain Awareness Week, I would like to highlight a serious neurological disorder that affects millions of Americans--impacting their livelihoods and families: Addiction. In fact, 9 percent of Americans--more than 22 million people--abuse drugs on a regular basis. As co-chair of the Congressional Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus, I understand the urgency of treating addiction and the burden this neurological disorder has on lives, loved ones, and our economy. According to the U.S. Office of National Drug Control, each year, more than half a trillion dollars is lost to substance abuse in the United States alone. These losses are realized across the board--in health, criminal, and productivity-related areas. That impact totals about $181 billion for illicit drugs, $168 billion for tobacco, and $185 billion for alcohol. Even more worrisome are the statistics on drug-induced mortality. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 38,000 people in the United States died of legal or illegal substances in 2006. That figure doesn't even include the 300,000 to 450,000 deaths each year attributed to nicotine addiction. As disturbing as these numbers are, they don't reflect the unquantifiable impact of drug abuse. Drug abuse dissolves families, shreds the social fabric in neighborhoods, leads to loss of jobs and income, contributes to poor school and job performance, and is often a causal factor in domestic violence and auto accidents. Mr. Speaker, the consequences of substance abuse for children in society are especially tragic. Drug-addicted parents often don't properly care for their children, neglecting medical and educational needs, and failing to provide basic food and shelter. When parents fail, the government must step in. These deficits are ultimately made up for by the taxpayer. Although more than 75 percent of illicit drug users are employed, these adults are more likely to frequently change jobs, be involved in accidents, be absent, and be less productive even when at work. Notably, heavy drinkers are absent from work four to eight times more often than non-addicts. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), drug use changes brain chemistry and physiology beyond just the brain's reward system and includes regions involved in memory, learning, impulse control, stress reactivity, and more. Repeated drug exposure ``resets'' these circuits toward compulsive behavior so that a person's control over the desire to seek and use drugs is compromised, despite devastating consequences. Over the course of the last three decades, the scientific and medical communities have made amazing strides in the understanding and treatment of drug abuse and addiction. Combined biological, epidemiological, and social science discoveries have given us a detailed understanding of the risks, mechanisms, and consequences of drug abuse and addiction. Today, the rate of cigarette smoking in youth is at its lowest recorded point since tracking of teen drug use and attitudes began in 1975. Marijuana use has shown a consistent decline since the mid-1990s, although that trend has flattened in recent years; a study released last month by NIDA found that daily use of marijuana among America's youth is making a bold comeback--surpassing tobacco use. Mr. Speaker, recent scientific advances have revolutionized our understanding of addiction as a chronic, relapsing, disease and not a moral failure. According to the NIDA scientists have now identified the specific sites of action in the brain where every major drug of abuse has its initial effects, including opiates, methamphetamine, cocaine, tobacco, and marijuana. Brain imaging technology has demonstrated that addiction is a brain disease by delineating profound disruptions in the specific brain circuits affected by addiction. In-depth, NIH-supported studies of chronic drug exposure confirmed that by causing abnormal regulation of key brain receptor, addictive drugs modify the strength of connections between neurons. The scientific knowledge we have accumulated will be used to transform the way we treat addiction and how we prevent drug abuse and its escalation to addiction. Neuroscientists are working to identify the genetic and environmental factors that put people at risk. For instance, genes account for about 50 percent of a person's risk of becoming addicted, and environmental factors influence the effect of these genes. Progress in genetics research will lead to more refined prevention and treatment interventions targeted to individual risk or to modifiable environmental influences. Now, it's time for our policies to catch up with the research findings. We have to understand that addiction is a treatable disease requiring continuing care and multifaceted approaches, like diabetes, or heart and respiratory disease. We have to continue to support the research advancements by investing in a strong, sustainable research funding platform for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) that will bring us further in understanding and treating drug abuse and addiction. Failure to properly address this growing problem will only lead to more lives ruined or extinguished by drugs, more families broken by abuse, and more taxpayer money squandered on ineffective programs. Mr. Speaker, today I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Brain Awareness Week, which exposes our constituents to the wonders and mysteries of the brain. I also ask that you join me in continuing to support basic research funded through the NIH and NSF that provides a foundation for new addiction treatments and drug abuse prevention methods that have an enormous impact on the lives of millions of Americans.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, this Monday morning the Prime Minister of Australia, the Honorable Julia Gillard, will be participating in a ceremony on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to present a $3 million check from the government of the Commonwealth of Australia to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to help build the Education Center at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. On behalf of my constituents, I hereby extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Prime Minister Gillard and the Australian people. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, Australia has been a reliable and close ally and partner to our nation. The decision by the Australian government to make such a generous contribution to build the Education Center is a vivid reminder of the close ties that bind our two countries. The Vietnam War was a difficult time for both the United States and Australia. From 1962 to 1972, some 60,000 Australians served in Vietnam, during which time more than 500 Australians lost their lives and another 3,000 were wounded or otherwise injured. I am gratified that our close friend and ally, Australia, is joining Americans in helping to build the Education Center at the Wall. Of the 185,700 Ohioans who served in Vietnam, the names of the 3,095 Ohioans who died during the war are etched on the Wall. For almost thirty years, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has served as a powerful and moving tribute to their sacrifice and the sacrifice of the more than 58,000 Americans who perished in the Vietnam War. I cannot overstate the importance of telling the stories of bravery and dedication behind the names etched on the Wall. That is exactly what the Education Center at the Wall will do. Not only will the Education Center tell the story of the Vietnam War, but it will also serve as a fulcrum of education and learning about the courage and patriotism of all of America's service members throughout the ages. I was so moved and gratified to learn of the Australian government's generous contribution to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. In a larger sense, Mr. Speaker, this is a gift from the Australian people to not just the Memorial Fund, but to all Americans. Thank you, Prime Minister Gillard, and many thanks to the Australian people.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, a few years back towards the end of my grandfather's life--he was a steelworker for about 40 years--and towards the end of his life, he couldn't drive anymore. I had the pleasure one day of taking him shopping. In Ohio, and where I come from in Niles, shopping is an art form; so we had to go to a certain place for the meat and a certain place for the cheese and a certain place for something that was on sale somewhere else. So I got to spend the day with my grandpa. We had to go and get something, and he said we should go to a certain store. I said: Well, Grandpa, Giant Eagle is right here. We can just go right here. He said: We can't go there. I said: Why not? It's right here. He said: The meat cutters are on strike and we can't cross the picket line. He didn't go to Giant Eagle out of respect for the worker, out of respect for the situation that those workers were in at that grocery store. And the issue that we are talking about in Ohio and in Wisconsin is an issue of respect for the average worker in the United States of America. And for us to somehow try to obscure the issue and blame workers, firefighters who go into burning buildings while we are all running out of them, police officers who we call up when we are in trouble, or teachers who we ask in many instances to spend more time with our kids than we do, somehow push the blame of the major financial meltdown that happened because of Wall Street recklessness, blame the teachers for that and ask them to go out and get rid of their right to stick together and determine what size of classroom, how many kids are in their classroom is ridiculous. And at the same time, in Ohio, we have the top person who works for the current administration get a $40,000 pay increase from what the last Governor was paying, and the secretaries and the people in the mail room get a cut. And the firefighters and the police and the teachers get a cut. While all of this is going on in Ohio, they want to cut the estate tax for the wealthiest people who live in the State of Ohio and ask the teacher to make the sacrifice. This is disrespectful and unfair to the workers in the State of Ohio. If we want to have a 21st century America where we compete with the globe, where we compete as 300 million people, compete with 1.3 billion people in China, over a billion people in India, and we are going to tell our teachers that they can't be treated with respect, how are we going to get good teachers to come into the teaching profession when they are going to be the foil for all of the problems we have in our country? When we ask them to take our kids who have lice, who haven't eaten today, who are hungry, who have a domestic violence issue in their family--these children all go before our teachers--and we are going to say that they don't have a right to bargain, a right to come together to say what size their class is? We are going to pull their pensions from them? This is not right. This is not right, and we need to get back to where we were when my grandfather was around. We realize the world is different and we have to compete globally, but the issue is: Are we going to respect work in the United States of America? Are we going to respect the workers in the United States of America? While all these fat cats have gotten off scot free, we turn around and tell the workers in Ohio and Wisconsin and Indiana and the Big 10 Conference: You've got to take the hit. It is unfair and it is disrespectful and it is not an American value.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I was going out to dinner the other night, and as I was walking in, one of the young folks who was working there walked up to me and said, Sir, can you tell the new leaders in Congress about my story? The story was that he is a 25-year-old kid who is working at a restaurant and has seizures and could not get any medication, could not get any health care coverage, but because of the law that was passed here last year, this young person now can get the medication, can stay on his parents' health care, and now is a productive member of society. I know my friends on the other side have said things like, well, this employer said their insurance was going up 50 percent. That's been going on for decades now, especially in the last decade. This is going to fix that. I know my namesake from Wisconsin also said there are some employers who are going to have to let their people go into the exchange because their competition is going to let people go into the exchange. The bottom line is people were dumping workers for a decade and there wasn't an exchange. Now there is an exchange that these people will have some remedy and ability to get health care.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Rose Ceroli Stabile. Rose died peacefully with her family at her side on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010 at the age of 88. Rose was born April 20, 1922, in Niles, Ohio the daughter of Carmen and Basilica Meroli Ceroli. She was employed at Packard Electric, a homemaker and a member of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Niles. She enjoyed cooking, spending time with family and friends, and was well-known for baking pitzels and fancy cookies with her girlfriends for weddings. Her husband, LeRoy A. Stabile, whom she married Feb. 14, 1942, died Dec. 12, 1999. She will be deeply missed by a son, LeRoy M. Stabile of Arizona, who traveled home to Niles to help care for her; two daughters, Anna Lee Williams and her husband, Joseph, of Niles and attorney Sandra Stabile Harwood and her husband, Thomas, of Niles; seven grandchildren, Christopher Stabile, Bryan Stabile, Nicole Stabile, Timothy Waddell, Tiffany Waddell Redman, Kristen Wolfe and Joseph J. Williams; eight great-grandchildren, Darrin, Dawn, Ryan, Joseph, Jeffery, Joshua, Haley and Timothy; and one great-great-grandchild, Carmen. She was preceded in death by two brothers, Nicholas Ceroli and Joseph Ceroli; and a sister, Mary Lucarelli. She lovingly and enthusiastically supported the endeavors and interests of her loved ones. She could be found many weekends at car shows with her husband, where their antique cars won many awards, and accompanying her musician husband at his performances. She hosted band rehearsals in her home, cooking and feeding band members and also thoroughly enjoyed the countless hours she spent working on her daughter state Rep. Sandra Harwood's political campaigns. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to speak on behalf of such a beloved woman who will be missed dearly by the many whose lives she touched.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, on Monday, November 29, 2010, I was unable to return to Washington, DC, in time to cast my vote for rollcall votes 581 and 582. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on both.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition of a dear friend, Jerry A. Castellano. Jerry was a wonderful husband, grandfather, great-grandfather, uncle, and friend to many, many people. He was born Feb. 2, 1918, in Brooklyn, N.Y., the son of Frank Castellano and Teresa DiVito and moved to Warren, Ohio in 1944. Jerry retired in 1986 from the Trumbull County Board of Elections as a voting machine official after 27 years. He previously worked at Mullins Manufacturing. Jerry served our country with the finest distinction, a World War II U.S. Army veteran, having served in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater. He expressed his faith in his worship at St. James Catholic Church. He was in the Trumbull County Legends of Leather Boxing Commissions, Trumbull County Chapter of DAV Chapter 11, Amerital Club, where he was president, and was a precinct committeeman for Precinct 5A. He was an avid New York Yankees fan and enjoyed woodworking, Italian classes, playing cards, spending time with his family and grandchildren, and also teaching and storytelling to his great- grandchildren. He is survived by and greatly missed by his wife of 66 years, Esther Pagano Castellano; his children, Teresa (William ``Bill'') Massucci of Warren, Philomena (Gary) Lucariello of Warren, Frank P. Castellano of Warren and Jeri (David J.) Germano of Cortland; five grandchildren, Angela (Jason) Menz, Marla (Dan) Chain, Jim (Renee) Fogarty and Jenna and Jacqueline Germano; four great-grandchildren, D.J., Dylan, Drew and Olivia; and many loving nieces, nephews and friends. His parents, eight brothers and two sisters are deceased. Madam Speaker, it is a great privilege to honor such a wonderful human being, an avid participant of democracy, a veteran, and above all, a family man. Jerry Castellano was, indeed, a model American.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition Gene Rossi. A long-time personal friend, a model citizen and a beloved father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, Mr. Rossi will be truly missed by the many people whose lives he has touched. Born on May 12 1926, Mr. Rossi was part of our greatest generation and his life story embodies that to the fullest. Gene's accomplishments began early, notably at Warren G. Harding High School where he was the senior class president and captain of the basketball team, an All-Ohio selection that year. It was not long after Gene was leading his high school basketball team that he was fighting for our freedom as an Army soldier in the Battle of the Bulge. Returning after the conclusion of World War II, Gene received an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army and returned to Warren, Ohio where, throughout the 1940s, he worked as a timekeeper for Mullins Manufacturing, played semi-pro basketball with the Warren Coaches and later graduated from Youngstown College with a B.S. degree in business administration. It was 62 years ago this September that Gene and his wife, Ginny, were married in 1948. A veteran of war, a college graduate, and a newlywed, Gene in 1950 founded Warren's Rossi Insurance Agency, from which he never retired. His accomplishments in the insurance business included those of trustee of the Independent Insurance Agents of Ohio and president of the Trumbull County Independent Insurance Agents. His membership in the Trumbull County Association of Life Underwriters included more than 50 years of service as a respected agent of the Equitable Life Assurance Society. Gene loved sports--baseball, basketball, football, tennis and golf. It is in sports where he distinguished himself as a 1992 inductee into and trustee of the Warren Sports Hall of Fame. In 1999, he received the Man of the Year Award from the Mahoning Valley Chapter of the National Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame. Gene's membership in local clubs and organizations included BOE Lodge 295, American Legion Post 278, VFW Post 1090, Knights of Columbus 620, where he was past Grand Knight, Buckeye Club, Trumbull Country Club and Notre Dame Subway Alumni. A member of Blessed Sacrament Parish, Gene's faith was paramount. For his devoted participation, he received the honor Cross Pro-Ecclesia Et Pontiface (Cross for the Church and Pontiff) in 2000, served on the Youngstown Diocese Financial Advisory Board and was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Oblate Sisters of the Sacred Heart. A man who could have hung his hat up time and time again after service to his country, family, and community, Gene never stopped giving back. Gene loved and served his community and was noted numerous times for his efforts. In 1986, he served as president of the Warren Area Chamber of Commerce and was recipient of its Distinguished Citizen award. In 2001, he was named president of the Mahoning Valley Economic Development Corp. and was recipient of its Person of the Year award. In 2006, he was an inductee into the Warren Harding Distinguished Hall of Fame. Gene also served as a trustee for the St. Joseph Development Foundation, YSU Foundation and CSC, Copperweld, Scholarship Foundation. On August 17, 2010, at the age of 84, Gene Rossi passed away from complications of prostate cancer. He is survived and sorely missed by the family he devoted so much of his life to, his wife of over sixty years, Ginny; their four sons and daughters-in-law, Michael and Rosanne, E. Jeffrey and Carol, Dennis and Luann, and Gregory and Leslie, all of Warren; 13 grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; sisters, Mary Louise Rose and Elaine Wallace; and brother, Anthony G. (Marilyn) Rossi. It is hard to sum up the life of a man like Gene Rossi--a man who truly lived the American dream. He bore the hardships of the Great Depression, fought in one of the deadliest battles in American history, and returned home to spend a lifetime of devotion building a wonderful family and a successful business all while being a man of faith and a pillar in his community. Madam Speaker I want to thank Gene Rossi, for his service to his country abroad, his service to his community at home, and for his dear friendship.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I just want to respond to the gentleman from Arizona. He talked about our exporting products to China. This bill would actually increase the buying power of the Chinese consumer because their yuan would be worth more money so they would have more buying power to buy American exports. So this snake oil that the Chamber of Commerce is trying to send around and scare everybody not to vote for this doesn't make any sense. The more your currency is worth, the more you're going to be able to buy.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Let me thank the chairman for his good work. Let me thank Speaker Pelosi for her giving us this opportunity to bring this bill to the floor, and Leader Hoyer, who was very instrumental in our Make It In America project, of which this is a major component. In the late 1970s, the top 1 percent of the people in our country controlled about 9 percent of real income, and in 2007, the top 1 percent controlled about 23.5 percent of real income. If you go back and see the amount of time families worked in the late 1970s compared to today, the average family works about 12 weeks more a year than they did back then. So the average family is making less, working longer, sometimes two or three jobs just to make ends meet, and part of the problem has been this erosion of the manufacturing base. And what we are talking about with currency manipulation is the Chinese Government artificially subsidizing every single product that lands on our shores here in the United States. So, yes, it may be cheap, because it is being subsidized by their government, but it is putting American workers and American manufacturers out of business. If we are going to resuscitate this economy, we have got to focus as a nation on making things in America again. And if you look at the list of the supporters of this bill, tool and die manufacturers, corn growers, the supply chain for all of our manufacturing that happens in the United States, they are all supporting this bill, along with all of the workers groups, all of the unions. This is something we can all agree on. It will stimulate our economy and not add one dime to the deficit, and that is what this is about. For every manufacturing job, you get five or six or seven spinoff jobs. Manufacturing jobs pay more. There are more patents, more innovation, more research and development. This is about taking our country back. You wonder why people are anxious out there? They have been working longer, working more, and getting paid less. I would be anxious too. I would be upset. That is what we are feeling in the country. I think this bill is an opportunity for us to reinvest back in the United States, put people back to work, and have good, middle class jobs here in the United States.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yes, we do. And we are right in line to continue down the road of innovation, whether it was aerospace with the Wright brothers, the steel industry in Youngstown in the eastern part of my district, or the rubber industry in Akron, which is the western part of my district that I share with Representative Sutton. And we had, in Youngstown at one point, the highest per capita income in the country in the late fifties, early sixties. Steelworkers were working hard, long hours, making good money, good wages, raising their families, having a good middle class. The big bands would come through town. They would go to Idora Park. The story of America that we all remember. And today, what we are saying is we understand that it's not going to be 1950, and Frank Sinatra is not going to come back and start singing songs again, as much as that would be terrific. We have got to create our own era of prosperity, and that means that in this country we have got to get tough with globalization and enforcing trade laws. And that means as a country we've got to suck it up, and we've got to say to the multinational corporations, who, quite frankly, don't have the national interest at heart--they've got their bottom line at heart, which is what they do. But as a country, we've got the national interest and need to protect the national interest. So tough with China. Level the playing field. Drive investment back into the United States so that we can make that bus, those solar panels, those windmills and the batteries, right down the line. And we are not foolish enough. This isn't Pollyanna. We're not going to make everything. We know there is going to be stuff that's manufactured in China for the Chinese markets. Great. And I hope American companies go over there and do that. But what we are saying is we can't be weak-kneed with the Chinese. I like what I saw today at the hearing we had. I like what I'm hearing within our caucus to possibly bring a bill to the floor that would get tough with China and get us making things in America again.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That makes sense to me.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yes. Well, I would say that if it's balanced, and I think all of the workers and the business people in America would say this, if China is not manipulating their currency, if there was some balance with human rights and worker rights and the environment and those kinds of things, we would compete with anybody. But what we have now under the current trading system, with China blatantly manipulating our currency, we had almost everybody at this hearing today acknowledging that China is cheating on their currency, Democrats and Republicans. But we had a lot of Republicans on the other side saying, we just don't think this is the approach. And it gets back to these multinational corporations that have a stranglehold on a lot of the politics going on here in the United States capital. But we need to bring this bill to the floor of the House of Representatives, and we need to pass it, and we need to take on the Chinese. We are not going to have a country left in a decade or so if we are not making things. You get the spinoff. You get the technology. You get the patents. You get five, six, seven, eight spinoff jobs for every one job. You are actually making something and moving it to you and you improve it and add value and you pass it along and add value. And then it's assembled; then its trucked. There is the spinoff that we get with manufacturing. That's how we are going to resuscitate the middle class. My fear is that as we have lost manufacturing, and if you chart it-- you can see it decline from 39 percent in post-World War II down to under 10 percent--you could see the decline. My fear is that as we move into the development of solar panels, as we move into the development of windmills, that's exactly it. As we develop the green technology and all of the component parts, you will begin to see China taking the lead on green manufacturing, and we can't see that ground because that is the future. As much as our friends on the other side of the aisle want to bury their head in the sand and hope this goes away, that's not the world we live in. So we need to take a firm approach with China, respect them, but make sure they play by the rules. We have got to play by the rules. Everyone else has got to play by the rules. I will use one example real briefly. We had a steel company, Oil Country Tubular Products for oil and gas. The steelworkers, the trade groups, the local businesses, all went around, petitioned the International Trade Commission, got approval. The President was kind enough to put on a tariff for these Oil Country Tubular goods coming in. They end up investing $650 million in a factory in Youngstown, Ohio, 400 construction jobs, 350 permanent jobs, the spinoff, the whole 9 yards because our government enforced the rules and leveled the playing field. That's what we are saying about currency, tires, paper, textiles, right down the line.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman will yield on that point, one of the issues we've talked about today and have been for a long time is the issue of Chinese currency manipulation by the Chinese Government. And we do not have to have growth in the United States at the expense of growth in China. If the Chinese would allow their currency to float, it would actually be worth more. So the Chinese consumer would be able to have more buying power for American goods that would be shipped over there, for other companies who are selling within China. There is just a small group of people within China, who own primarily state-owned businesses, who like the currency low, artificially reduced so that they can ship products to the United States cheaper and subsidized to put American workers out of business. So what we're saying when we say make it in America and manufacture again, can actually help lift up a lot of these folks in countries like China if we play by the rules.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. You want to talk about an example, the illustration of what Democrats stand for when it comes to manufacturing, come to my district. Last week we unveiled the rollout of a third shift at the General Motors plant that is making the Cruise car, a hot car being sold by General Motors all over the world. Think about what would have happened with manufacturing in the United States if this President and this House and this Senate said, Let the auto industry go. I remember watching TV programs and hearing Senators and Republicans from the other side of the aisle saying let the free market work. Let it crash. We would have lost an essential component to manufacturing in the United States. We would have lost General Motors for sure, sold off in pieces, and who knows who would have come in and ate up that market share from somewhere else in the world. But we said, no. We need to have manufacturing. We need to be a leader in the auto industry. This is something we believe in, and we are now seeing manufacturing increase month after month after month because of the stimulus package and because of what the President and this Democratic Congress did for the auto industry.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Be happy to yield.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are all for it, and I tell you what, if you think about the contrast of the Bush doctrine, which Republicans currently want to go back to, and I am amazed around election time when they are pretty blatant about saying, yup, that is exactly what we want to do. We want to go back to the Bush doctrine on taxes and on energy and all of this, and the economy and not regulating Wall Street, they want to go back to the Bush doctrine of economic policy. Now I understand that we are having this tax debate now because the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and everyone are going to expire. We need to remember that these were the tax cuts that were going to unleash the economy in the United States. We were going to have all of this growth because of the Bush tax cuts. Cut taxes for the wealthy, explosion among developers, explosion among the economy, and we're going to have low unemployment and everything else. And where did it end? The absolute collapse of the United States economy. What we're saying is not only tax cuts for the wealthiest in the country but tax cuts to offshore work, incentives for businesses to offshore work out of the country. So it's tax cuts for the wealthiest, offshoring work, having a prescription drug plan that you don't even pay for, borrowing money from the Chinese to run two wars, okay? So this is all the Bush Doctrine which would privatize Social Security and Medicare. This is all the Bush Doctrine. What we're saying is don't privatize Social Security and Medicare. Let's invest back into these programs. Let's give tax cuts to the middle class. Let's give tax cuts to businesses which will locate and create jobs in the United States. Let's get a manufacturing policy in the United States so that we can have an auto industry, a steel industry, a paper industry, a textile industry, and most importantly, engineering, design and manufacturing economies of the future in green--a clear contrast between the Bush policies that our Republican friends clearly still trumpet and want to go back to. You have on that chart there what we have done to reverse that trend and to continue to invest back into America so we can make things again.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to rise this evening with some of my colleagues to repudiate some of the comments that have been made here tonight, to correct some of the record, and to provide, I think, the real story, Mr. Speaker, of what is going on in America and compare that--and my friend from Iowa, who was up here prior to me stated that it's about the record. And I would 100 percent agree: it is about the record. And if you look at the past few years prior to the Democrats taking over, our friends on the other side had complete control of the entire Federal Government. And in States like Ohio, they had control of the whole Ohio Government. And with President Bush, Republican House, Republican Senate, they had an opportunity to implement their economic policy. They had an opportunity to implement their foreign policy. They had an opportunity to implement their energy policy. They had an opportunity to implement their health care policy. All across the board, our friends on the other side had an opportunity to govern this great country. And the end result, we saw just a few short years ago with deregulation of Wall Street, turning a blind eye to what was going on, hoping that the health care problem would go away, hoping that the energy policy, the energy problems we had in this country would go away. And the end result was what happened just a couple of years ago with the complete collapse of the American economy, with trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars lost by American families and American businesses, with millions of people losing their homes due to foreclosure, with the Federal Government down here saying that government never works, it has no role, no place in our society, let the free market work, let Wall Street run the show, let the multinational corporations run the show. And we will do everything in our power, while President Bush was in office, to completely denigrate the responsibilities of having a referee on the field to monitor Wall Street shenanigans, Mr. Speaker, to make sure, learning from history, that if you let Wall Street go without any regulation, that they will run free and, for a short time, monitor themselves. But then after a while, they will get greedy and they will cheat, and it will become inherent in the system. And at some point, as we saw many economists predict the collapse that they said maybe would happen in '08, maybe '09, or maybe '06, they thought it would come a little bit earlier. But there were economists out there that could see what was going to happen. And it did. The unregulated free market Wall Street collapsed and took Main Street with it. For example, our friends on the other side, just in the last week or so, when this Congress and this President passed a complete overhaul of the regulations of Wall Street to make sure that this doesn't happen again, our friends on the other side voted against it, Mr. Speaker, voted against regulating Wall Street after we all just watched, as a country, and as the world watched, this system collapse because people just started moving money around. You want to talk about family values and taking responsibility? We are now holding Wall Street's feet to the fire, and our friends on the other side said, nope, we're going to side with the big banks. We're going to side with Wall Street. We're going to side with the status quo. And to me, Mr. Speaker, that's unacceptable. That's unacceptable. And we have a bogey man America now. Oh, we've got to hold up. A San Francisco agenda's coming. Or here comes socialism. It's coming at you. This time in our country's history requires very sober, mature analysis of the facts and an attempt to build a consensus around solutions. And our friends on the other side have consistently said no, no, no, no to everything that we've done. Now, you can't disagree with everything. My goodness gracious. Everything? Regulating Wall Street, saying we need a referee on the field to keep an eye on the big banks and the big-time money firms on Wall Street, to say they need regulated and you say, no? To say that we wanted to pass unemployment insurance at this very difficult time, and the Republicans put up procedural block after procedural block saying no? They come out and readily admit we've got to pay for $30 billion in unemployment insurance, but we don't have to pay for $650 billion worth of tax cuts that go primarily to the top 1 percent of the people in the United States of America, millionaires? That doesn't need to be paid for? So what we're here tonight to do, Mr. Speaker, is to provide for this Chamber and for the American people, and to put into the Congressional Record, the choice, the difference between the party that is now governing the country, and the party of George W. Bush, who left us this mess. Now, no one's saying that we can fix this overnight; but, basically, what happened is that we were in a football game, and President Bush was the quarterback. And when they took President Bush out as quarterback, we were down 50-0. And now President Obama is in as the quarterback; Democrats are now in on the team. And we may not have won the game yet, but we're still in the second quarter, and the score is now 50-21. But we're moving in the right direction. And when you look at where the Bush economic policies that everyone on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, rubber stamped, those policies cost our country millions and millions of jobs; 8 million jobs were lost because of the economic collapse on Wall Street, which was the final result of the Bush economic policies. Millions of people and their homes went into foreclosure because of the Bush economic policies. Trillions of dollars in wealth were lost because of the Bush economic policies. We were bleeding jobs. The January that President Obama came into office, we were losing almost 800,000 jobs in that month alone, in that month alone. And so this President and this Congress took a series of bold measures that weren't necessarily the most popular measures to take, but definitely needed, mature measures to help stabilize our economy and turn it around. And that, Mr. Speaker, beyond all facts to be presented, worked. Now, as I said, we are not anywhere near where we need to be, but it worked. The stimulus package worked. Did it work well enough? Probably not. But I can only imagine what would have happened if our friends on the other side were in charge and there wasn't any stimulus package at all. How many thousands and thousands of teachers would have been laid off? How many thousands and thousands of State workers would have been laid off? Police and fire would have been laid off because our friends on the other side said, No, we're going to implement a political strategy that means we have to repudiate everything that President Obama does. We have to hope that he does poorly. We have to root against the President. We have to root for the President to fail. We have to root for the country to fail so that we could maybe benefit politically in the next election. And that's what's happened. ``No'' to the stimulus. ``No'' to unemployment compensation. ``No'' on reducing dependency on foreign oil. ``No'' to taking on the insurance companies. ``No'' to Wall Street reform. ``No'' to the banks. ``No'' to providing more credit for small businesses. ``No'' to tax credits. This is the one I really like. Our friends on the other side voted against getting rid of the tax credits that incentivized moving jobs offshore. Now, can you imagine saying that, you know, there are some things I'm for and some things I'm against. Our friends on the other side voted against a closing of a loophole to disincentivize jobs moving offshore where Democrats are closing that loophole and incentivizing American manufacturing. Things made in the United States again, making things in the United States again, those times where our parents and grandparents grew up where we made things as a country, where we built things. And that's what the energy revolution is all about. We send a billion dollars a day offshore. A billion a day, Mr. Speaker, offshore to oil- producing countries that don't like us all that much, and in many instances take our money and fund terroristic acts, try to in the United States and across the world. And then we have to spend money in our military to combat the global terrorist acts. So if we come up with the idea of can't we produce our own energy here with nuclear, natural gas, wind, solar and put people back to work in the United States making the 8,000 component parts that go into a windmill, making the 400 tons of steel that go into a windmill, making the component parts that go into a solar panel, this is the idea of putting America back to work. And our friends on the other side, Mr. Speaker, are saying, No. Let's keep giving tax cuts to the oil companies so that they can keep drilling when we only have 2 percent of the world's oil in the United States of America. There's a real choice here. There's a real difference here. And it's important for all of us to recognize the choices that have been made down here and the differences between the two parties. So we stabilized things. We went from losing 750,000 jobs in that first month in January, and now we have an average monthly job growth of 170,000 jobs a month here in the United States. Not nearly enough. We need more. And we're working on more by helping small businesses, eight-plus small business tax credits to help create jobs, including a tax credit to create jobs here in the United States--as opposed to a tax credit that our friends on the other side support to move jobs overseas--so that we can put Americans back to work making things, manufacturing things, and taking on China. That's what these policies are all about. A green revolution in the United States is about resuscitating manufacturing in the United States. And let me say that if you had a 401(k) or if you have a retirement plan, it looks a heck of a lot better today than it did when our friends threw us the keys. Most families have gained about 60 percent of their wealth back because of the increase in the stock market because of the policies of this administration, the bold policies of this administration. We have seen 98 percent of families in the United States in this past year see a reduced level of taxation. Again, it's in vogue today in America, especially if you're a part of the neoconservative radical right wing that has taken control of the Republican Party, quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, to put up another bogeyman to say, They're raising your taxes. Well, we haven't. Ninety- eight percent of Americans have seen a reduction in taxes. And so we are doing what we need to do to get us out of this economic catastrophe that President Bush and his Republican Party left this country. Deregulated Wall Street, looked the other way; let the insurance companies run crazy over the health insurance industry. And we've seen skyrocketing costs, incentivized ``drill baby drill,'' continue down that road while oil-producing countries take our money and fund terrorism when we could be investing that money in the United States and manufacturing renewable energy products here. So we have seen, Mr. Speaker, a dramatic change over the course of the last 2 years. So the choice is quite clear. Do we return back to the failed tried and tested policies, the worn-out, trite policies of the Bush administration? Do we trot those back out after we saw where they took us? You know, here's the thing that I love. Our friends on the other side say, Well, if we just cut taxes for the people that make all the money, it will trickle down and it will benefit everybody else. We tried that, Mr. Speaker. Those were the policies of the first 6 years of this decade. Bush came in, passed his tax cuts, and we didn't see extreme economic growth. We didn't see the middle class rise. We didn't see wages go up. We saw more offshoring of jobs to China and foreign countries. We saw the tax burden pushed off on the middle class. We saw health care costs skyrocket and go through the roof, continuing to take money out of the pockets of middle class families. We saw tuition costs go up all across the country, 9 percent a year. And Pell Grant, because our friends said, Well, you're on your own; we don't even want to invest in education. You know, Pell Grants did not keep pace with where they needed to be. And our friend who was here earlier was talking about the student loans, how the Department of Education took over the student loan program and the free market. Yeah. Because the banks were charging our kids 8, 9 percent. You want to keep that system going where you've got to take out a student loan and you get out of college and you owe $20,000 or $30,000 to get a college education? Or heaven forbid you get a master's degree or go to medical school and you come out with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt so that banks could make a profit off of trying to educate our kids so we could be globally competitive? That's what the other side wants to do, Mr. Speaker. They want to keep that system in place. They like it just the way it was. Everybody was happy. The insurance companies were happy. The multinationals were happy. The banks were happy. Wall Street was happy, but we weren't happy as a country. And not only did the banks charge 8 or 9 percent for a student loan, check this out. The government said, if a student defaults on that loan, we'll pick up the tab. Jesus, I mean, wouldn't it be nice to be a bank under George Bush. You mean I get to loan this student and this family a student loan at 8 percent and if they default on it, the government will come in and pick up the tab? Hey, we should all go into banking and be that lucky. They set up a system, Wall Street did, that if there were lots of profits and lots of economic activity, they reaped all the benefits and the wealth was not spread throughout society. They would benefit. And that if it failed and collapsed, they would bring the whole country down with them, Main Street included. And then President Obama gets in and we pass the most sweeping Wall Street reforms since the Great Depression and our friends on the other side voted against it, just to keep the status quo. So let's recap a little bit. Bush comes in, Republicans rubberstamp his agenda, they cut taxes for the top 1 percent. They try to privatize Social Security and Medicare. Their policies are implemented across the board, economic, energy, foreign policy, right down the line. After they're all implemented, the economy completely collapses and shuts down. And then the Democrats come in. We get the keys to the car. The wheels are spinning, wobbling. There's cracks in the windshield. There's steam coming out of the engine. The tailpipe's dragging on the ground. There's no back window. It's like the car from ``The Big Lebowski'' that the Dude used to drive. So this thing's just wobbling down the aisle, wobbling down the street. We get the keys to the car. We take some bold needed actions, and our friends on the other side don't even try to solve the problem, don't even try to solve the problem. But what has happened is we went from losing 700,000 jobs a month to creating on average 170,000 jobs a month. We saw the stock market go from a little over 6,000 up to 11,000, and 60 percent of the wealth returned to American families. We have seen a reduction in student loans, an increase in Pell grants, an increase in the minimum wage, making sure everybody in the country has health care. We tried to provide, and we have provided, tax incentives for businesses who create jobs here in the United States of America as opposed to our friends on the other side who voted against closing the loophole to bring jobs to the U.S. They wanted to keep the status quo which incentivized people and businesses moving their companies offshore. And our friends on the other side don't want us to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and have consistently voted against initiatives to resuscitate manufacturing here in the United States and invest in green technologies and green energy here in the United States. So on and on and on. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, which I think really highlights the difference between the two parties is, if you look at the alternative budget provided by the Republican Party here in the House of Representatives, it privatizes Social Security and it attempts to turn Medicare into a voucher system for our senior citizens. Again, a leap back to the Bush-era policies. Do we really want to go back there? I'm the first to say, Mr. Speaker, we haven't done everything right. I could talk about my disagreements I have with some of what the President has done, or everything we're not all in agreement here. But clearly, there's a difference between what we have done and what our friends on the other side handed us after full implementation of their agenda. I'd like to yield to the gentlelady from Florida.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I'm just standing here, listening to you both. When you piece this all together, their philosophy, which obviously didn't work because we saw how it ended, is to cut taxes for primarily the top 1 percent of the people--millionaires and multi-, multimillionaires--and expect that money to get reinvested. We all saw that the money was reinvested, for the most part, abroad in China and in other countries, so that was part of the offshoring. Then their philosophy was to completely look the other way. It was to take the referee off the field on Wall Street, and let those people who are making all this money continue to find out all these other schemes to make more money--that's how that ran--even to the tune of the student loans where they let banks give student loans and charge 8, 9 percent. Then the government would back the loan if somebody defaulted. So the system was set up to allow just the wealthiest people in the country to keep making money any way they saw fit.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Could I make a point real quickly. That vote is such an example that the other side seems to just be playing politics. They want Obama to fail, and they want to be able to say----

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Who has her Florida orange on tonight.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We're going to continue to go down the road. We're not going to turn back. We've had too much success. We've got a long way to go.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yes, they have said it. And they want to be able to say, see, we had nothing to do with any of that. So being so ideological that they vote against getting rid of tax cuts that incentivize off-shoring business. I mean, that says it all. It's one thing to say you are against some of this stuff, but that too?