Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the outstanding work done by participants in my Student Congressional Town Meeting held this summer. These participants were part of a group of high school students from around Vermont who testified about the concerns they have as teenagers, and about what they would like to see government do regarding these concerns.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the outstanding work done by participants in my Student Congressional Town Meeting held this summer. These participants were part of a group of high school students from around Vermont who testified about the concerns they have as teenagers, and about what they would like to see government do regarding these concerns. I am asking that these statements be printed in the Congressional Record, as I believe that the views of these young persons will benefit my colleagues. On Behalf of Kevin Decausemacker Regarding Gun Control, May 7, 2001 Kevin Decausemacker. Thank you for this opportunity. It is a really great thing you let the youth of Vermont come and express their opinions. Congressman Sanders. Thanks very much for coming, Kevin. Give us your name for the record. Kevin Decausemacker. The year was 1938. Congressman Sanders. Your full name. Kevin Decausemacker. I'm sorry. I'm a little tired. I'm Kevin Decausemacker. A little hard to pronounce. The year was 1938, one year before the invasion of Poland. It was now that Adolf Hitler implemented the first example of gun control. He prohibited the Jewish people from owning firearms, and by so doing took substantial power away from the people. He made it easier to commence his mission of genocide with little resistance from his victims. This is what a government can do with too much power: Whatever it wants. Our government has created three different branches to limit the power it possesses. The United States promotes a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The more we constrict the rights that the Second Amendment states we have, the more power is taken away from the people and given to the government. I feel that the more power the government has, the more the people are at risk of being taken advantage of by it. Why implement gun control then? Solely for safety. However, if safety is the main concern, in England and Australia, where there are strict gun-control laws, there have been rising breaking-and-entry and burglary numbers. So what gun control has done there has

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the people of the State of Vermont, I rise and in the strongest possible terms condemn the unspeakable acts which were perpetrated yesterday by cowardly terrorists. I also wish to express my condolences for the thousands of families who are suffering tonight from their losses on the four planes that went down, the losses at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon. Mr. Speaker, the goal of terrorism is to demoralize people and to create fear, uncertainty, and instability. Our Nation must not succumb to that and give terrorists that victory. Tonight we grieve for the incredible and horrendous loss of life that we suffered yesterday. It is unprecedented in the modern history of our country. But tonight we also pledge to capture and punish all of those who are responsible for this despicable deed. There is no difference of opinion on that issue in this Congress or in this country. Mr. Speaker, the world must know and will know that those who committed these unspeakable crimes will not get away with it. As we go forward in this effort, we must also be calm and focused and be thinking long term on how to defeat this terrible evil. We must also be thinking about how we can work better and more effectively with law- abiding people throughout this world, because terrorism is an international crisis, and it will be solved by decent people from one end of this world to the other working together. Let me conclude by saying that we should also be extraordinarily proud and reassured by how people throughout our country and in my own State of Vermont are coming together, how they are giving blood, how they are raising funds and how they are doing everything that they can to support the victims and their families. Let us go together and we will defeat international terrorism.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the outstanding work done by participants in my Student Congressional Town Meeting held this summer. These participants were part of a group of high school students from around Vermont who testified about the concerns they have as teenagers, and about what they would like to see government do regarding these concerns. I submit these statements to be printed in the Congressional Record, as I believe that the views of these young persons will benefit my colleagues. On Behalf of Will Babcock--Regarding Trade Skills for Young Vermonters, May 7, 2001 Will Babcock. Like I said, I'm Will Babcock, here representing Youth Build. Skateland, from Williston, got closed down recently. I'm trying to reopen it. I have plans to talk to J.D. Real Estate to see how much the lease per year is, and if I can get it cheaper for a youth organization. Because, let's face it: In Burlington, there is really nothing to do but play basketball, hang out at the mall or hang out on the streets. So I think skating is a fun, healthy activity. It is a good thing to do. I'm in love with it, you know. Let's see. I have talked to everyone I can about it. That is why I'm here today, to see if I can get any help from Bernie or anybody with political power to get the ball rolling, get it open again. I've organized a skate club at school. I have got people at school doing it. All my teachers are interested in it. And, recently, to go roller skating, I've had to go to Lathem, New York, three hours away. It is three hours away, four hours of roller stating, three hours back. Because, you know, I can't really afford a hotel room, so I have to come back the same night. I have talked to Pat McGirk, the guy that got the skate park down here by the waterfront started. I have been talking to him to see if I can get something going there. I would like to try and find some backers who think this is a good idea and want to help me get it going. I have gone to a couple of other meetings besides these, with churches and town halls and stuff. So it is getting around. People are starting to hear about it again. I'm hoping that it is more than just ``hear,'' that people will start saying: ``Yes, I'm going to help this kid do it. It is a good thing to do.'' Like I said, I have support from Youth Build, Middle Friend and Family, and everyone that roller skates, probably about a good 20, 25 of us. I need help in any way possible, so if you guys know somebody that can get into an idea like that or anything, you know, find out who I can ask for money, you know, for grants and stuff. Pretty much that's it. If you have any questions or anything.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the outstanding work done by participants in my Student Congressional Town Meeting held this summer. These participants were part of a group of high school students from around Vermont who testified about the concerns they have as teenagers, and about what they would like to see government do regarding these concerns. I submit these statements to be printed in the Congressional Record, as I believe that the views of these young persons will benefit my colleagues. On Behalf of Kevin Van Genechten--Regarding Global Warming, May 7, 2001 Kevin Van Genechten. My name is Kevin Van Genechten, doing global warming, for Colchester. Global warming is the steady rise in temperature caused by buildup of gases like CO2 and methane gas in the Earth's atmosphere. The gases act like the glass in a greenhouse; they let the heat in, but not out. The main cause of gas buildup is the burning of coal, oil and wood CFCs. 1998 was the hottest year in thousands of years. The nine hottest years on record have all been in the past two decades. Humankind's actions on the global scale have changed not just the landscape of the earth, but the world's climate too. Increasingly sophisticated measures of the Earth's climate and the weather systems have provided a wealth of evidence that the earth has been getting steadily warmer. An intergovernmental panel for climate change set up in 1988 to put together the thinking on global warming is leading the search. It has found that global temperatures are increasing alarmingly, already having risen between .3 Celsius and .6 Celsius in the last century. Sea levels are rising and previous environments are being altered, some irreparably. The rising temperatures we have witnessed may seem slight, but are we currently experiencing the greatest rate of change in the temperature ever. The effects are already being felt, and things may get much worse. Most of the impact of global warming won't be felt for another 30 years. And yet hurricanes, storms and extreme weather conditions are recorded almost weekly. Our reckless destruction of the environment through industrial pollution is creating a dangerous world. The burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, and the emission of harmful gas must be addressed if we are secure ourselves a future on planet Earth. And although interested parties are bringing pressure from the big pressure groups like the Worldwide Fund for Nature--which may soon disappear--it may be these gestures are too little, too late. There is still hope in the air and time in this millennium to make the necessary changes to happen. However, we leave this century fudging on fossil-fuel emission targets, which almost everyone now agrees is the strongest way to combat global warming. Big changes in lifestyle and energy production will be needed to slow the global-warming time bomb.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the outstanding work done by participants in my Student Congressional Town Meeting held this summer. These participants were part of a group of high school students from around Vermont who testified about the concerns they have as teenagers, and about what they would like to see government do regarding these concerns. I am asking that these statements be printed in the Congressional Record, as I believe that the views of these young persons will benefit my colleagues. Regarding The Media in Public Life, May 7, 2001 APRIL LEICHTNAM: ``There are two ways to slide through life; to believe everything or doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.'' Alfred Korzybski. The media plays an important role in the lives of all human beings. There are numerous different forms of media. Some of these forms are printouts such as newspapers, books, fliers, billboards, clothing, signs and magazines. Along with print media, there is nonprint media, such as television, radio, movies, cassette tapes, CDs, videotapes, Internet and other electronic modes of communication. When the media constructs the message they would like to convey, they have two things in mind. They have a purpose, and they design them to evoke a certain response from their audience. LAURA DICK: The main purpose of the media is to inform people of the things around them, to persuade them into doing and buying things, to entertain them by showing them false images, and to sell products by not always telling what is true. Also, when constructing ads, the advertisers look to make the ad appealing to those who are seeing it. They use many different types of techniques. Some of these techniques include humor, comparisons, economics, social prestige, emotional appeal, appeal to fears and insecurities, statistics and studies, exotic appeals, a sense of belonging, a sense of mastery, a desire to be noticed, consumer compliments, the use of parental figures, and also ``weasel'' words. many of these techniques are designed to target a certain audience. Also, a lot of these claims on TV make ads meaningless. for example, an ad will say, ``virtually spotless,'' instead of just ``spotless,'' which does not mean the dishes will be totally spotless, but it makes one think they will be. Some other common advertising techniques include bandwagon, attraction, happy families, something-for- nothing, testimonials, ``all natural,'' nostalgia, and patriotism. We ask have a statistic that shows the influence on media on the lives of many people today. For example: APRIL LEICHTNAM: During one year, a child will see approximately 3,000 drinking episodes on television. The average American child will view approximately 75,000 beer ads by the age of 18. Alcohol advertising accounts for 3 to 5 percent of total revenue on TV, and 12 percent on radio. Prime time and soap operas expose teenagers to sexual scenes every nine minutes. Fewer than 6 percent of males and 2 percent of females on TV are obese, yet 25 to 45 percent of the American population is overweight, and two major health problems among teens are anorexia and bulimia. The average American watches 1,000 hours of television every year. In 1991, three out of four households owned a VCR. The average American sees about 32,000 commercials every year. In 1998, a 60-second commercial cost $2,600,000 during the Super Bowl. The average American household owns two to three televisions. The average child views 10,000 murders, raps and aggravated assaults in one year. 20 to 28 hours per week are spent viewing television. This is the only activity we spend more time doing besides sleeping. Four out of five Americans believe violence on TV causes real violence. Beer commercials air while drinking portrayal occurs five times per hour. Average high school students spend two to three hours a day watching TV on school days, and eight hours a day on weekends. 90 million households own at least one TV set. 63 percent have two or more sets. By the first grade, the average child has seen 5,000 hours of TV. There are more people in the world who have televisions than indoor plumbing. In promoting things that are not reality, the media promotes such complex problems as drug addiction, crime, teen pregnancy, promiscuous sex, materialism, violence, racism, eating disorders, tobacco and alcohol consumption by teens and younger children, sexual and physical abuse, profanity, voter apathy, and pornography. Therefore, we conclude that media literacy classes should be offered in every high school in the state of Vermont.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this bill. At a time when this country is wasting a huge amount of fuel and electricity, this bill provides $34 billion dollars in subsidies and tax breaks for the big oil, coal, gas and nuclear companies to drill for more oil and gas and to produce more and more energy. These companies are making record breaking profits by gouging consumers, destroying our environment and threatening our health. Can anyone tell me why we need to give more corporate welfare to Exxon-Mobil, the most profitable company in the history of the world with a net income of $17.7 billion, while providing little more than lip service to energy efficiency and renewable energy and absolutely no relief to middle income Americans struggling to pay their energy bills? Mr. Chairman, this is outrageous. We simply cannot drill our way out of this mess. At a time when emissions from dirty coal-fired power plants produce acid rain and carbon dioxide that threatens our global climate and our health; at a time when scientists throughout the world believe that we have an enormous amount of work to do to combat the danger of global warming; at a time when wind energy is the world's fastest growing source of energy and when the price of solar energy has been coming down in recent years due to better technology, I find it outrageous that the best we can do is to study whether our country can get to 5 percent renewable in the next 15 years. Mr. Chairman, we don't need a study on renewable energy, the studies have already been done. The technology is already there. What we need is a firm commitment. I tried to offer an amendment to require that 20 percent of our nation's electricity come from renewable sources of energy such as wind, solar, and biomass by 2020. Unfortunately, the Rule Committee denied the opportunity for debate on this amendment. While renewable, non-polluting wind power has been the world's fastest growing energy source in recent years, wind energy contributes less than I percent of the national supply of electricity in the United States, and renewable energy only 1 percent. We can and must do better. The growing dependency on imported oil is dangerous not only to our economy but also to our national security. We must attack this problem by increasing our use of renewable sources of energy such as wind, solar and biomass, but his bill does not get this done. Mr. Chairman, the price gap between fossil fuels and renewable energy has narrowed. For example, the price of natural gas has more than doubled in the past year, while the cost of wind energy has dropped more than 80 percent in the past two decades. Mr. Chairman, they are doing it in Denmark, they are doing it in Northern Germany, and they are doing it in Northern Spain. 13 percent of Danish electricity consumption is covered by wind right now. In Northern Germany and in Northern Spain the figure is 20 percent. Danish companies have supplied more than half the wind turbines now in use worldwide, making it one of the country's largest exports and employing more than 12,000 people. Germany has 6,113 megawatts worth of wind turbine, which meets 2.5 percent of the country's total electricity demand. Spain, the fastest-growing market for the past 3 years, now has almost as much wind capacity as the entire U.S. Right now we have the opportunity to set an energy course that saves money, restores our environmental health, and enhances both the competitiveness of our economy and our national security. There is no question that the U.S. has the technology and the resources to move us away from our reliance on fossil fuels and towards renewable, non- polluting sources of energy. Unfortunately, this bill does not get the job done. I urge my colleagues to defeat H.R. 4.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding time and for bringing up an amendment that gets to the heart of everything that we have been talking about in Congress for the last couple of months. Let me begin by citing three words: priorities, priorities, priorities. In the United States today, we have by far the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any nation on Earth. The wealthiest 1 percent of the population owns more wealth than the bottom 95 percent. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider. The CEOs of major corporations now earn over 500 times what their workers earn. Yet a few months ago it was the wisdom of the President of the United States and a majority of the Members of Congress that the richest 1 percent, those people who have a minimum income of $373,000 a year, need to have, over a 10-year period, hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks. That is what the President and the Congress said. Some of us disagree. Some of us think that it is more important that we adequately fund education in this country so that every young person has the opportunity to succeed in this country. Some of us think that it is absurd that the average young person who graduates from college today ends up $20,000 in debt because we have cut back, over the years, Federal aid to education. Some of us think that it is absurd that 1 week after the President signed the tax bill and the huge tax breaks for the rich, that 1 week later people on his Social Security advisory committee suddenly announced that we may have to cut back on the cost of living allowance for people on Social Security. Tax breaks for billionaires, but we do not have enough money to adequately fund Social Security. In my State and all over this country, home health care agencies are having a terrible time and have received huge cuts in taking care of some of the oldest and most frail people in this country. Visiting nurses are unable now to do the job because this Congress, several years ago, savaged Medicare. We do not have enough money to take care of the old and the frail, but we do have enough money to provide huge tax breaks for billionaires. In the United States today, we remain alone among industrialized nations in not having a strong prescription drug benefit program for our seniors. In Vermont and all over this country, elderly people do not know how they are going to pay for their prescription drugs. They are forced to choose between food and heat and their prescription drugs. We do not have enough money to provide strong prescription drug benefits. Let us support this important amendment.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, what this debate is about, really, is the priorities of this country. Several months ago it was the wisdom of the President of the United States and a majority of the Members of the Congress that we were a rich enough Nation that we could afford to provide hundreds of billions of dollars to the wealthiest 1 percent of the population, people who have a minimum income of $375,000 a year. That is how rich we were. But today, when we are talking about the needs of our veterans, the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend this country, the men and women who were wounded in action, well, guess what, today we do not have enough money to address their needs. All over this country, including the State of Vermont, there are waiting lines for veterans to get the quality treatment that they need. There is speculation that the prescription drug program for veterans will cost veterans more money because we do not have, as a Nation, the funding available to take care of those people who made such sacrifices for this country. Hundreds of billions of dollars for tax breaks for those who do not need it but inadequate funding for our veterans. Mr. Chairman, in my State, and again all over this country, millions of Americans are paying 50 or 60 percent or more of their limited incomes for housing. In one region after another in this country affordable housing is unattainable. Yet, once again, we apparently do not have enough money to adequately fund affordable housing in this country, so that families and children sleep out on the street and working people pay 50, 60 percent of their incomes for housing. Tax breaks for millionaires, yes; adequate funding for affordable housing, no. And, once again, all over this country communities are struggling to make sure that the air that they breathe, the water they drink, is not polluted. Money for tax breaks, yes; money for the environment, no.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, this is a noncontroversial amendment that I believe is going to be accepted by the majority and the minority. Because, Mr. Chairman, we live in a world in which hundreds of millions of children work at child labor, in some cases in horrendous conditions and in some cases as indentured servants, without any freedom at all, several years ago we passed legislation here that prohibits the importation of products into this country made by children who are indentured servants. This amendment strengthens that legislation by saying that if the Customs Service detains that product because they believe it is made by children who are indentured servants, it should not be released into the general public. Occasionally that happens now, and this amendment would put an end to that. Mr. Chairman, this amendment deals with one of the most disgraceful and embarrassing aspects of our global economy: child labor. Mr. Chairman, it is an outrage that American workers must compete for jobs with as many as 250 million defenseless children working around the world today without any hope of ever seeing the inside of a classroom. Children's rights groups estimate that the United States imports more than $100 million in goods each year which are produced by bonded and indentured children. Especially outrageous is the plight of millions of child laborers, some as young as 4 years old, who are sold into virtual slavery and chained to looms for 14 hour days knotting the oriental rugs that grace the foyers and living rooms of countless homes and offices all across the country. Exploited children toil in factories, mines, fields, at looms, and even brothels, sacrificing their youth, health, and innocence for little or no wages. They are hand stitching the soccer balls that our kids play with every day. They are stitching blouses and slacks made in China and sold in Wal-Mart. They are even sharpening the surgical instruments used in our hospital operating rooms. Mr. Chairman, this amendment will help end this disgrace. Specifically, it would prohibit the importation of goods on which the U.S. Customs Service has issued a detention order because of the use of forced or indentured child labor. I believe that this amendment would provide real teeth to the Indentured Child Labor Import Ban that was first signed into law as part of the Fiscal Year 1998 Treasury-Postal Appropriations bill. Currently, if the Customs Service finds information that reasonably indicates that imported merchandise has been produced with forced or indentured child labor, Customs may issue a detention order on these goods. However, these goods may still be exported into the United States unless the Customs Service issues a finding banning the importation of these goods into the United States. Mr. Chairman, according to the Customs' website, the U.S. Customs Service has 24 outstanding detention orders on forced and indentured child labor dated as far back as October 3, 1991, but has only issued 6 findings banning the importation of these goods into the United States. At the very least, Congress should ban the importation of goods on which Customs has reasonable evidence that were made by forced or child labor. According to 60 Minutes II, the U.S. Customs Service used the present law to curb the flow of hand-rolled, unfiltered cigarettes (known as ``bidis'') produced by indentured child labor in India. In India alone, there are approximately 50 million children working in factories or fields for little or no pay. Bidis are an especially insidious product. They are made by children in India, and are purchased by children in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 40 percent of American adolescents between seventh and 12th grade have tried them. These cigarettes are popular among American youth because they are sweetened with flavors such as chocolate, strawberry, licorice, mango, and even bubble gum, giving the impression that bidis are less dangerous than other cigarettes. To the contrary, bidis contain five times more tar and contain higher levels of nicotine than regular cigarettes. Unfortunately, even though Customs issued a detention order on one bidi manufacturer in India, bidis are still getting into the U.S., and the bidi industry is now a $1.5 billion industry. This amendment would help get rid of bidis in the United States. The issue of the exploitation of child labor is not only a moral issue but it is an economic issue that is having profound impact on American workers. As consumers, we should not be purchasing products made by children who are held in virtual slavery--children who can not go to school, children who work horrendous hours each week, children who are beaten when they perform poorly on the job and children who are often permanently maimed when they attempt to escape from their slavery. But, equally important, we should not continue a trade policy which forces American workers to compete against desperate and impoverished people in countries such as China and Mexico who earn as little as fifteen or twenty cents an hour--whether those workers are children or adults. We know how bonded child workers are bought and sold like cattle. We know about the horrendous working conditions they are forced to endure. We know about the violence that meets them when they cannot work hard enough to satisfy their masters or when they try to escape their slavery. As we begin the 21st century, we must make a firm commitment to eradicate child labor throughout the world. Please vote ``yes'' on this amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the gentleman for his support as well.

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, let me begin by thanking my friend, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter), for the work that he has done as chairman of the authorizing committee. The problem is that while he has conducted that subcommittee in a very nonpartisan way, and I think we have done some very, very good work to fundamentally reform the Export-Import Bank in terms of making it more responsive to American workers rather than multinational corporations, it remains to be seen whether the effort that we have labored for will in fact become law or even be heard. We were supposed to have a meeting of the subcommittee, which was canceled, I gather by the chairman of the committee. So we will learn more about that later. Having said that, I rise in support of the amendment, because I am not at all sure that the reforms that need to be happening will in fact happen. Let me basically talk about the main concern that I have and why I support this amendment. This amendment is right unto itself, but it touches on a broader issue. If American taxpayers are going to be laying out money to create decent-paying American jobs, then we have a right to expect that the companies who receive that money in fact are expanding their American workforce. That is not a very difficult proposition. The truth of the matter is that many of the major recipients of Export-Import funds have been some of the major companies in this country who are laying off American workers. In fact, according to Time Magazine, the top five recipients of Export-Import subsidies over the last decade have reduced their workforce by 38 percent. So you take large corporations who go running to the Export-Import Bank, and they say, hey, we need this corporate welfare, and they get the support. And the next day they say, oh, by the way, thank you for the money; but we are now moving our factories to China or Mexico and laying off tens of thousands of American workers. Our current trade policy, in my view, is a disaster. We have over a $400 billion trade deficit. We have close to a $100 billion trade deficit with China. To the degree that American taxpayers' money is to be used to subsidize American companies, the taxpayers of this country have a right to know that those companies are doing everything they can to increase jobs in the United States. If a company like General Electric, and let me be specific about General Electric, says, and they advertise it to the world, they say, gee, we wish that we had a barge so that we could take all of our factories to the cheapest-labor countries in the world and layoff more American workers, that is what we want to do, that is what they say. And then they come to the Export-Import Bank and they say, here is a check for you. Go out, take your jobs to China, take your jobs to Mexico, use American taxpayer dollars for that purpose. The average American taxpayer is outraged by this behavior. What the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) and I have attempted to do is to craft legislation which does two things: it says to companies that are hell-bent on taking our jobs to China and Mexico, you can do it; but do not come in and ask taxpayers of this country to subsidize it. Second of all, we believe that small businesses are the engines for job creation in this country, and Export-Import has got to put more money into small businesses. The issue of the steel company in China is just one of many examples. Taxpayer money, American taxpayer money, should not be used to hurt American workers. In my view, in terms of the Export-Import Bank, we could do one of two things: we could kill the whole thing and say we are not giving any more subsidies, because it is corporate welfare. That would not be an irrational thing to do. The other thing that we can do, and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) and I are attempting to do that, is to make the Export-Import Bank work for American workers, to support those companies that want to grow American jobs.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just wanted to mention to my friend that between 1985 and 1995, the workforce, the American workforce of General Electric went down from 245,000 to 150,000, precisely because it is the policy of General Electric to take American jobs to China and Mexico in order to get cheap labor. Does my friend not agree with me that we should use institutions like the Export-Import Bank to tell General Electric to reinvest in America so that we can create more good jobs like the one the gentleman referred to?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Clement).

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, let me be very blunt. In my opinion, our current trade relations with China are an absolute disaster and are based on an unholy alliance between corporate America and the corrupt Communist leadership in China. As part of this trade agreement, corporate America gets the opportunity to invest tens of billions of dollars in China and to hire workers who are forced to slave away at wages as low as 20 cents an hour. And in the process, as corporate America invests in China, they are throwing out on the streets hundreds of thousands of American workers who used to make a living wage, who used to be able to join a union, who worked under some kinds of environmental protection. What an outrage, that corporate America has decided that it is better to pay Chinese workers starvation wages, have their government arrest those people if they form a union, and allow corporate America to destroy their environment. Mr. Speaker, today is a day to stand up for living wages in this country. Not only are we seeing a huge loss of manufacturing jobs because of our trade policy with China, what we are seeing is wages being forced down. How is an American worker supposed to make a living wage competing against somebody who makes 20 cents an hour? The result is that today, millions of American workers are working longer hours for lower wages than was the case 20 years ago. High school graduates in America no longer get manufacturing jobs at decent wages. They work at McDonald's for minimum wage. The reason for that is those manufacturing jobs are now in China. Let us stand today for American workers, for decent jobs, for decent wages, and let us support the Rohrabacher amendment. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, whether the idea comes from a Republican or an Independent or a Democrat, who is trying to lower the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs in this country, there goes the pharmaceutical industry again, which has spent $200 million in the last 3 years to make sure that women in this country who have breast cancer have to pay ten times more for Tamoxifen than they do in Canada. The gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) has a good idea. It will save substantial sums of money for millions of Americans. I should point out, by the way, that the concept of reimportation that we are talking about today has been in existence for 25 years in Europe; and I do not know of one problem that has existed there. Let us stand up today to the pharmaceutical industry. Let us support this amendment. Let us support my amendment. Let us represent the people back home rather than the big money interests who would defeat both of these amendments.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, is the procedure that the gentleman from Texas has the right to close?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey).