Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is also being offered by the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio); the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens); and the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark). Mr. Chairman, this amendment cuts the intelligence budget by 5 percent from the level authorized for fiscal year 1999, while still protecting the CIA retirement and disability fund. Although this year's amount authorized by the bill is classified, we do know that last year's budget was $26.7 billion, which means that this amendment would cut approximately $1.3 billion from the intelligence agencies. Mr. Chairman, this amendment truly speaks to what we are as a Nation and who we are as a people. It speaks to whether the Congress of the United States is here to represent the ordinary people of America, the middle class, the working families, the children, the veterans, the seniors, or whether we are here to continue representing very powerful special interests within the military-industrial complex, the force that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about 40 years ago. Mr. Chairman, it is no secret that the United States today is becoming two very separate nations. On the top we have people who are enjoying incredible wealth. In fact, the wealthiest 1 percent is today better off than at any time in the modern history of this country. We have people like Bill Gates, himself, alone, who owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of households in America. One man owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of our households. In recent years, we have seen a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires, but Mr. Chairman, there is another reality in America today, and that is that the middle class continues to shrink, that the wages of the average American worker are 15 percent less than they were 25 years ago, that 40 million Americans have no health insurance, that millions of senior citizens cannot afford the prescription drugs they desperately need. That millions of our families cannot afford to send their kids to college. That food shelters and emergency shelters are seeing a large increase in the hungry and the homeless who come to them for help. That is the issue that we are talking about today. We are not just talking about the intelligence budgets. We have to put that into the context of the needs of all the people in this country. Mr. Chairman, how can we increase funding for an already bloated intelligence budget at exactly the same time as some propose major cuts for millions of low- and moderate-income citizens? How is it okay to say more for the intelligence budget at the same time as this Congress cut $115 billion from Medicare? Tell the senior citizens of this country whose benefits we have cut back on. How can we look our veterans in the face when in last year's balanced budget agreement we cut funding for veterans programs by 19 percent; when we cut the administration of Social Security by 23 percent; when just last week we cut $2.3 billion in affordable housing, despite the housing crisis experienced by so many Americans. Mr. Chairman, even in Washington the $1.3 billion that we cut from the intelligence budget is a lot of money, and let me tell my colleagues what we can purchase with that $1.3 billion if we get our priorities straight. In Vermont and throughout this country, seniors are finding it difficult to pay for their prescription drugs. Legislation has been offered which would provide up to $500 each in prescription drug assistance for seniors. This $1.3 billion that we cut from a bloated intelligence budget could provide 2,600,000 seniors up to $500 each in their prescription drug assistance. Are my colleagues going to go back to their districts and tell their senior citizens who are struggling to ease their pain that we cannot cut $1.3 billion from the intelligence budget when we can provide 2.6 million of them help for their prescription drugs? Mr. Chairman, there are 808,000 homebound seniors who receive the excellent Meals on Wheels program supported widely in this Congress. This $1.3 billion could double the number of seniors who receive this help. These are elderly people at home, long waiting list for the Meals on Wheels program. We could double the number.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, nearly 1 million college students could receive Pell Grants to assist them going to college. Just yesterday we passed the education bill. I voted for it, but remember the authorization is nowhere near equal to the appropriation. We have millions of middle-class families in this country who cannot afford to send their kids to college. And are my colleagues so sure that it makes sense for the security of this country, for the intelligence of this country, that it is more important to vote another $1.3 billion than it is to provide nearly a million kids in this country with Pell Grants? Nine hundred sixty-nine thousand families could benefit from Section 8 housing programs if we cut that $1.3 billion. In the State of Vermont, we have a long waiting list for Section 8. That is true all over this country. Two hundred forty thousand more children could attend the Head Start program if we cut this $1.3 billion. So, Mr. Chairman, what I would just like to say at this point is that the Cold War is over. We do need an intelligence budget, but there is very ample evidence that the budget that we are being asked to support today is bloated. I would say to my friends who are the deficit hawks who get up here every day and who say cut, cut, cut, if they are going to cut Medicare, if they are going to cut Medicaid, if they are going to cut veterans programs, if they are going to cut housing, take a look at the intelligence budget.

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I want to make a brief statement just on that. You are aware that just last week when we voted for disaster relief, which virtually everybody supported, suddenly out of nowhere came an offset from disaster relief to cut $2.2 billion in housing. It seems to me that if this Congress has the capability of cutting affordable housing for disaster relief, we also have the capability of working together and making sure that when we cut intelligence spending, it goes to people in need, middle-class and working families.

Mr. SANDERS. I suggest to my friend, the gentleman from Washington, we are spending $267 billion this year on defense in addition to our NATO allies and all their expenditures in addition to the intelligence. That is a lot of money.

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time, and I rise in support of the rule. I think it is a fair rule. Among other things, it, in fact, allows this Congress to begin debating major priorities as to whether or not we are going to increase spending for the intelligence budget, despite the end of the Cold War and despite the fact that while we increase funding for the intelligence budget, we have cut spending in Medicare for our senior citizens, cut spending for veterans' programs, cut spending in a dozen different areas that the middle-class and low- income people of this country need. So I applaud the chairman for bringing forth this rule. It is a fair rule and it is going to allow us to have a serious debate on what we want this Congress to be doing for the American people.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, if I might, let me broaden this discussion a little bit and put it into a somewhat different context. Mr. Speaker, the United States has by far the most unfair distribution of wealth and income in the industrialized world and the greatest gap between the rich and the poor. In recent years in this country, we have seen a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires, while at the same time about half of the senior citizens in this country are trying to survive on incomes of $15,000 a year or less, and 12 percent of the seniors live in poverty. Many senior citizens today cannot afford their prescription drugs. In my State seniors make a choice between heating their homes in the winter and buying the food they need and the prescriptions drugs they need. That is a crisis which we should be dealing with. What is not a crisis is the fact that Social Security today will pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 33 years. Now, what other program do we have that is going to pay out all of their benefits for the next 33 years? How many businesses in America today can say, gee, if I do not do anything, things are going to continue to go okay for 33 years? Should we begin to address the fact that as our population ages and we have fewer workers, that we are going to have a problem? Of course. Should we discuss it today? Yes, we should. But let us not fool the American people and talk about a crisis and the bankruptcy of the Social Security system which today is going to have an $80 billion surplus this year.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I will be very brief, and I want to thank both the majority and the minority for accepting this amendment. Mr. Chairman, as we attempt to make higher education more affordable and more accessible for the middle-income and working families of our country, we need, in fact, to do a much better job in controlling the escalating cost of a college education. The cost of a college degree from many institutions in this country today is truly shocking. According to the National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education, and I quote, ``In the 20 years between 1976 and 1996, the average tuition at public universities increased from $642 to $3,151, and the average tuition at private universities increased from $2,881 to $15,581.'' Tuitions at public 2-year colleges, the least expensive of all types of institutions, they have increased 5 times over. So it seems to me while we do all that we can to increase Federal aid for those middle- income and working families that need a college education, we are doing relatively little, I think, to hold down the costs of college. In fact, the number 1 recommendation of the National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education is to strengthen institutional cost control. That is their number 1 recommendation. Mr. Chairman, the very simple amendment that I am offering would help institutions in some ways to reduce their costs and hopefully allow them to use those savings to lower the cost of tuition and college fees. In the State of Vermont, where my wife has served as provost of a small college and has been involved in this area, and in many other regions of the country, colleges are beginning to come together to form partnerships or consortia that enables them to share resources and reduce their collective costs. For example, in some cases, significant cost savings can be realized by joint purchasing of goods and services when schools come together to purchase things like fuel, and in the State of Vermont fuel is an expensive cost, or insurance; if they pool their resources, they can save money and use those savings to lower the cost of tuition. The problem right now, however, is that many hard-pressed schools, many of the smaller schools, simply do not have the resources or the available technical expertise to figure out how they can do those things and how they can work with other colleges to reduce costs. This amendment, which would add no additional costs to any of the higher education programs, would instead give the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, which administers a competitive grant program for higher education institutions, a broader mission and allow them to make competitive grants available to institutions which seek to cooperate and reduce costs through the joint purchase of goods and services. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is consistent with the National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education which recommends: ``Greater institutional and regional cooperation in using existing facilities and institutions of higher education,'' and that is what this amendment does. I thank both the majority and the minority for accepting this amendment.

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise proudly as a progressive, as an internationalist, as somebody who is pro-choice, and someone who has a 100 percent lifetime labor voting record in the House of Representatives and have worked for labor and working people for his whole adult life. I rise in strong opposition to the motion brought forth by my good friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). Let us be clear what we are talking about here. We are talking about an $18 billion replenishment of the IMF, a 45 percent increase in our contribution to the IMF. Please understand the Asian bailout is over. The $19 billion that we have already given to the Chase Manhattan Bank and the BankAmerica and to Citibank for their losses, and they came here for corporate welfare, and we gave it to them, that is gone. That is over. What we are talking about is new money for a new mission and for an expansion of the function of the IMF. That is point number one. Point number two, I believe it was last year that many people took to the floor of this House and they said, Mr. Speaker, you are wrong for combining disaster relief with other matters. I said so. How could we come back today and say the IMF is a disaster? It is not. People all over this country want to deal with the ice storm in the Northeast, tornados, hurricanes. That is not an issue that the IMF should be combined with. Thirdly, no matter what our point of view may be on the IMF, this issue needs serious debate. It should not be brought here all of a sudden for a one-hour debate. It deserves many hours, and it deserves some ample warning time so we can have serious discussion. Fourthly, does the IMF need this money today? No, they do not. Nobody believes they do. The IMF has $45 billion now in liquid resources, a $25 billion credit line and $37,000 in gold reserves.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the gentleman from Louisiana is, in fact, in opposition to this IMF bailout?

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Let me begin by doing something that I very rarely do, and that is concur with the remarks of my friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon). We should not be naive and not understand that the largest banks in this country have done everything that they could to prevent the passage of this legislation. Mr. Speaker, as an original cosponsor of H.R. 1151, I am proud to be on the floor to offer my strong support for this legislation and for its passage today. At a time of increasing bank fees, increasing ATM fees, increasing credit card fees, increasing minimum balance requirements, and the loss of many locally-owned banks to large multi- billion-dollar corporate institutions, credit unions today are more important than they have ever been. H.R. 1151 will go a long way toward ensuring the long-term viability of credit unions, of allowing credit unions to expand rather than to contract and wither away, which is clearly the goal of many large banks. Mr. Speaker, I make no apologies for being a strong supporter of credit unions. I want to see credit unions grow. Because they are good for the State of Vermont, and they are good for America. Congress chartered credit unions not only to help people of modest means but to give ordinary Americans a not-for-profit cooperative alternative to for-profit banks. If we do not act today, the Supreme Court decision would be extremely harmful to tens of thousands of Vermonters and millions of Americans. Let us pass this legislation.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to congratulate the Chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster); and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the Ranking Member; and others for the very fine work they have done on this important bill. Mr. Chairman, the truth of the matter is that the infrastructure of the United States of America is rotting. It is falling apart right under us. And our roads, our bridges, our mass transportation, which is our rail system, our rural bus system, our bicycle paths, are in major need of repair; and it is high time that we paid attention to those needs. In the State of Vermont, we have a major infrastructure problem which has been made worse in recent years by flooding, flooding which is occurring today in the State of Vermont, further damaging our infrastructure. All over Vermont bridges are in serious need of repair, and this bill begins to address that problem. Sixteen million from this legislation is going to the Missisquoi Bay Bridge in Franklin County, Vermont. This bridge in the northern part of our State serves as a vital transportation link for New York, Canadian, and other New England traffic and would have been virtually impossible to rebuild without help from the Federal Government. What we now have is a deteriorating two-lane bridge, which, in light of its high level of truck traffic, poses a significant hazard to the traveling public and is a serious deterrent to interstate and international commerce. The State of Vermont's Agency of Transportation regarded this project as the State's highest transportation priority, and this $16 million will be a significant step forward in helping to rebuild that bridge. Mr. Chairman, we hear about budget busting. In my view, tax breaks for the wealthy are budget busting, corporate welfare is budget busting, spending money that the military does not need is budget busting. But rebuilding the infrastructure of this country and putting our workers to work at decent-paying jobs is doing exactly the right thing. It is improving the economic well-being of this country, and it is long overdue. I congratulate our friends for the work that they have done.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, let me quote from a letter that I recently received from Colchester, Vermont, from a senior citizen who does not have a lot of money. She wrote, ``The list of persons who qualify for the section 8 program'' that she is applying for ``puts my name on a list with 990 persons ahead of me. When you enter your seventh and eighth decade, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to surmise that the likelihood of ever deriving benefit from this program is pretty minimal.'' And that is the story all over this country, elderly people needing affordable housing, working people needing affordable housing. Mr. Speaker, at a time when we have given huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in America, when we spend $2 billion for B-2 bombers that the Pentagon does not want, when we provide $125 billion a year on corporate welfare, we do not have to continue the assault on affordable housing and on education. Yes, the Northeast and the rest of this country was hurt by a disaster; and, as Americans, we must rise up, as we always have, to protect those people who were hurt. But let us not take away from the elderly and the working people and the poor to do so. It is unnecessary. Vote down this rule and support emergency relief.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam Speaker, it is an outrage that wealthy individuals can contribute huge sums of money to both political parties and that so-called independent expenditures, under which there are no regulations, can attack candidates all over this country in ugly 30 second ads. Madam Speaker, this bill would close the door even further on working people's participation in the electoral process by making it harder for union members to participate. Apparently our Republican friends are not content that during the 1995-1996 election cycle corporations, groups and individuals representing business interests outspent organized labor 12 to 1. Twelve to one, and apparently that gap is not wide enough. Our Republican friends wanted to make it even wider. The legislation before us would increase, not decrease, the influence of wealthy contributors, by tripling the amount of money individuals can donate to Federal candidates and political parties. Madam Speaker, currently the wealthiest one-quarter of 1 percent of Americans contribute 80 percent of all political contributions. That is an outrage. We have got to end it.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman and my colleagues from Maine and New York for putting on this special order, and to say that we in Vermont intend to work with the gentlemen as hard as we can to try to help some of those people who have been hurt. I applaud the gentlemen for all of their efforts. I think the stories that we heard from Maine and New York State and New Hampshire are certainly repeated in the State of Vermont. I have lived in Vermont for 30 years, and I do not recall seeing a weather disaster to the extent that we experienced in the northern part of our State. The storm cut electric power to some 30,000 Vermont customers for as long as 10 days. As people know, it gets awfully cold in the State of Vermont. People had to make do as best they could without electricity. As the gentleman from New York indicated, this was an especial problem for our family farmers, who already have more than enough problems to try to contend with. This is just another problem on top of many others. Without electricity to run their milking machines, many farmers obviously were unable to milk their cows. Because cows could not be milked regularly, there was widespread cases of mastitis developing, which is an inflammation of the udder. In some cases the cows died and had to be shipped for slaughter. Farmers who did not have generators had no way to keep their milk cold and with roads impassable, it was not possible to ship the milk to producers. Thirty-seven dairy farms in Grand Isle County alone lost between 500,000 and 750,000 pounds of milk over the extended power outage. In my State, and I am sure in upstate New York and in other regions of New Hampshire and Maine, family farmers are struggling very hard right now just to keep their heads above water and just to maintain their farms. This was a blow that they really did not need. In terms of maple production, and obviously Vermont is well-known for maple syrup production, our maple producers were hit hard as well. Thousands of acres of sugar bushes were destroyed by severe icing. The storm is expected to cause a 10 percent drop in Vermont maple syrup production resulting in losses of millions of dollars to the State. Farmers were not only hurt, but local communities were hurt. In the City of Burlington, we saw extensive damage to our trees. Burlington has a reputation of being one of the greenest cities in America and there has been substantial damage to our trees. Utility losses due to down lines and poles total in excess of $10 million, and the estimate is that farm losses totaled nearly that amount as well. But like the representatives from Maine and upstate New York and New Hampshire, Vermonters came together as we have not seen for many, many years, helping each other and doing the best they could to weather the storm. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with my colleagues from Maine and the rest of the Northeast to make certain that we do everything that we can to try to help those people and those communities that were hurt. And I want to congratulate my colleagues from Maine for calling this special order.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this Congress voting 1 penny of future funding for the IMF, let alone the $18 billion requested unless a number of conditions are met: First, the taxpayers of this country should not be forced to bail out the large multibillion-dollar banks like Chase Manhattan, Citibank, and Bank America, who have made billions of dollars investing in Asia, but now that their loans have gone sour, they are running to the United States Congress and the taxpayers of this country to be bailed out. That is wrong. Further, we should not be bailing out people like General Suharto, the dictator of Indonesia, whose family is worth $30 billion. The taxpayers of this country should not be bailing him out. Further, I believe that we need a study to determine how effective the IMF has been in developing the global economy. My impression is that the middle class of this country is shrinking, unemployment is too high in Europe, poverty is increasing in Latin America, the economy remains dismal in Africa, and now we are seeing an economic collapse in Asia. I think we need to question the whole concept of the centralized global economy and the role that the IMF is playing.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I am reintroducing legislation calling for President Clinton to submit to the U.S. Senate and for the U.S. Senate to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. America needs to affirm these fundamental human rights for all children. Our Nation remains one of a handful of nations that have not seen fit to affirm civil, political, economical, social, and humanitarian rights for children. Why should we do this? Let me cite just one example. It is wrong that at least 200 million defenseless children are working around the world today without any hope of ever seeing the inside of a classroom. Many of these abused children are making products exported for sale in our shopping malls, sporting goods stores, and oriental rug shops all across America. Consider the plight of millions of child laborers, some as young as 4 years old, who are sold into virtual slavery; that is, bonded and indentured servants, and chained to looms for 14 hours a day hand- knotting the oriental rugs that grace the foyers and living rooms of countless homes and offices all across our country. Exploited children toil in factories, mines, fields, at looms, and even in brothels, sacrificing their youth, health, and innocence for little or no wages. They are hand-stitching the Nike and Adidas soccer balls that our kids practice with every day. The very same soccer balls that were used at the Atlanta Olympics last year. They are sewing the blouses and slacks that Kathie Lee Gifford was paid $7 million a year to promote for Walmart stores until she was embarrassed last year. They are making Mattel Barbie Dolls that little girls across America play with every day. They are even sharpening the surgical instruments used in our hospital operating rooms. This situation is totally unacceptable and there are actions that must be taken to stop this affront to basic human decency. That is why I authored the recently enacted law to prohibit the importing of any products made by forced or indentured child labor for the first time in our Nation's history. At the same time, our standing to push for a crackdown on child labor around the world would be strengthened if we would ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. I firmly believe trade is not an end in itself, but a means toward attaining more economic justice, social responsibility, and environmental sustain ability in the United States and the global economy. The fact that current trade rules go to great lengths to protect property rights, while ignoring the rights of working people-- especially children--says much about the absurd priorities of our current trade policies. Inside and outside the halls of government, we have the power to change this sorry state of affairs. Access to the American marketplace and consumer purchasing power are powerful sources of leverage that should be used to encourage foreign producers and importers to treat defenseless children and all workers with dignity and respect. We need a trading system that protects the fundamental rights of children and all working people and not just the property rights of corporations and financiers. I am especially delighted that some Vermont teenagers have already begun to speak out and demand action in defense of kids overseas who cannot help themselves. I applaud their human rights leadership and I hope this Congress will go beyond the recently enacted ban that I authored to cut foreign aid to countries that fail to enforce their own child labor laws and to keep any imports made by children under 14 who are employed in manufacturing or mining out of the U.S. marketplace as has been proposed by Senator Harkin, Congressman Frank, and myself. Mobilizing the global community against the scourge of child labor is critically important. Certainly, this effort will be greatly enhanced if America joins 169 other nations that have already ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1370, the Export-Import Bank reauthorization bill, because I believe that the Export-Import Bank will have been made better as a result of amendments which were added to its authorization bill during its consideration of the Banking Committee. I am very pleased that the committee approved an amendment that directs the Export-Import Bank [Exim] to establish procedures to ensure that, when selecting firms to provide financial assistance, preference is given to any firm which has shown a commitment to reinvestment and job creation in the United States. Because the purpose of Exim is to support U.S. jobs through exports, the Bank should give preference to U.S. corporations which reinvest and support jobs in the United States, as opposed to corporations which are laying off American workers only to locate production and other facilities in countries which have less expensive, unprotected workforces. This preference provision gets at, I believe, the heart of the issue of the relationship between the U.S. Government, the taxpayers of this country and corporate America. A number of Federal programs are being criticized, inside and outside Congress, as corporate welfare and these programs are being targeted for spending cuts by people with widely different political philosophies. The Export-Import Bank is one of those programs. The Journal of Commerce reported on June 12, 1997, that Exim, like the rest of the country, is presently facing a money crunch. The journal reports that Exim: ``faced with strong exporter demand, may run out of money this fiscal year as early as July, officials indicate. Next year, the money squeeze could be worse.'' It seems clear that it is time for the Export-Import Bank to prioritize; this money squeeze should indicate to us that there is actually a need for a system of priorities, such as that in this amendment, to ensure that companies which are the most committed to jobs in the U.S. are given preference over companies that are not. It is becoming too common for U.S. corporations, including corporations which are supported by Exim, to downsize their U.S. workforce and move their production facilities to take advantage of cheap labor in other countries. According to information from Exim, among the top 25 companies which receive assistance from Exim are Boeing, General Electric, and AT&T. A brief look at the employment practices of these corporations underscores the need for an amendment which gives preference to corporations that show a commitment to employment in the United States. Boeing is the top recipient of Exim loans and guarantees. Reports indicate that in 1990 Boeing had 155,900 employees. In 1996, it had 103,600 employees--a decline of 52,300 jobs during that period. In other words, it laid off \1/3\ of its workforce, despite being the top recipient of Exim aid. General Electric [GE] is listed as the No. 2 recipient of Exim aid. In 1975 GE had 667,000 American workers. Twenty years later, it had 398,000, a decline of 269,000 jobs. General Electric is well known for its politics of moving GE jobs to anyplace in the world where it can get cheap labor--Mexico, China, and other poor Third World countries. As for AT&T, in 1995 AT&T laid off 40,000 workers. Interestingly enough, reports show that in that same year, AT&T provided its CEO, Robert Allen, with $15 million in options plus a $11 million grant. The point here is that the entire approach of Exim in terms of job creation is too narrow. They approach the idea of jobs through exports on a project-by-project basis, and ignore the totality of what the company is doing. This amendment, on the other hand, expands Exim's focus when making the determination as to how many jobs a transaction will support. This amendment directs the Export-Import Bank's to look at the totality of the situation regarding a company's commitment to job creation in the United States, and not just a particular project. In other words, if there is a company that is showing a commitment to job creation and reinvestment in the United States, then that company should receive preference for assistance. At a time when the Congress is working very hard to balance the budget, it seems only right that if U.S. taxpayer funds are to be used to support U.S. corporations' exports, then incentive and priority must be given to those corporations to reinvest and support jobs in the United States. A preference system, as provided by this amendment, would provide such an incentive to corporations, while at the same time, allowing the Bank some discretion in implementation, to ensure that both the purpose of the Bank and this amendment are fulfilled. two representatives from the labor community on the advisory board of the export-import bank The committee also approved an amendment which directs the Export- Import Bank to include upon its advisory committee no less than two representatives from the labor community. Because the purpose of the Export-Import Bank is to support U.S. jobs through exports, it is important to have two members representing the American workforce on the advisory committee to ensure that the influence of the advisory committee is more evenly balanced for the sake of U.S. workers.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in support of this legislation because it contains some amendments which I think make the reauthorization palatable. But I should be very clear that if the amendments are taken out in conference, I will do everything that I can to defeat this reauthorization. Mr. Chairman, one of the great economic crises of our time is the decline in real wages of American workers and the loss of millions of good manufacturing jobs. In my view, we are not going to rebuild the middle class and create good paying jobs unless we rebuild our manufacturing sector. Given that reality, Mr. Chairman, it is unacceptable that the taxpayers of this country continue to provide financial support for large multinational corporations who are laying off hundreds of thousands of American workers, they are taking our jobs to China, to Mexico, to countries where workers are paid 20 or 30 cents an hour. But then they come into this building and they say, help us, we need some money to participate in the export-import program. Mr. Chairman, I have introduced an amendment which was accepted by the Committee on Banking and Financial Services which has a very simple goal. It demands that the Export-Import Bank implement procedures to ensure that in selecting among firms to which to provide financial assistance, preference is given to a firm which has shown commitment to reinvest in America and create jobs in America. I do not think that is too much to ask. If the American taxpayers are going to help out in this process, they have a right to know that the companies who receive that help have a commitment to reinvest in America and create jobs in America and not to run to Mexico, not to run to China.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Later on in the course of the debate I will be talking about why I will support this legislation today, but let me just deal with some of the issues that my friends on the other side have raised which we should all be aware of when we talk about the Export-Import Bank. The fundamental issue is whether working families in this country, who for many years have seen a decline in their real wages, people are working longer hours and are earning less, should be putting tens of millions of dollars in helping large multinational corporations who over the last 15 years have laid off hundreds of thousands of American workers. That is an issue we have to focus on. The Boeing Co., which is the major recipient of this program, has laid off over 52,000 workers between 1990 and 1996. General Electric, which is taking jobs all over the world, hiring people at 50 cents an hour, laid off 153,000 workers from 1975 to 1995. AT&T laid off 127,000 workers. Are these the companies that the middle class taxpayers of this country should be supporting? I think there are real questions about that. Now, some of my friends say, well, we need a level playing field. They are doing it in Europe and they are doing it in Japan. And there is truth to that argument. But there is another side to that story, and that is that corporations in Japan and corporations in Europe have a different ethic in many ways. Their systems are different. In Europe they have a national health care system guaranteeing health care to all people. In Europe, German workers make 25 percent more than manufacturing workers do in the United States of America. In Europe, in many of those countries college education is free, not $25,000 or $30,000 a year. In many of those countries corporations pay significantly more in taxes than do companies in this country pay. So what we have is corporations are coming in here and saying, help us with Exim programs, we need some help, but of course we want to pay less in taxes. We want to pay our workers lower wages. We want to move our jobs to Mexico or to China, but we really would like this form of corporate welfare. Within the Committee on Banking and Financial Services I have successfully put in an amendment which begins to address some of these problems. Let me be very clear. If that amendment is taken out in conference committee, I will lead the effort in this body to defeat the Exim reauthorization. With the amendment, I think we will make some progress in saying that the companies that we are supporting should be companies who are reinvesting in America, who are trying to create jobs in America, and are not taking our jobs to China or Mexico.

Mr. SANDERS

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