Ted Strickland

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to my friends that what they are describing here is almost humorous, talking about the putting together of a hamburger as being a manufacturing activity, but it is serious because it represents deception. It represents an effort, quite frankly, to mislead the American people; and I hope they are listening tonight because this information is coming from the ``Economic Report of the President''; and as my colleague said, it has got his name on it. So he is responsible for this charade. I would like to read just one sentence from page 25, and I hope unemployed steelworkers along the Ohio River, I hope those who work in the pottery and ceramic plants along the Ohio River, on the Ohio and West Virginia side of that great river, I hope they understand what this means: ``When a good or a service is produced at lower cost in another country, it makes sense to import it rather than to produce it domestically.'' Let me say that nearly everything we make in this country can be produced in another country at a lower cost. I was in Mexico about 2 months ago. I talked to a woman who works for an American company. She works 9\1/2\ hours a day, 5 days a week. She showed me her weekly check, $38. Nearly every job in this country can be produced for less cost somewhere else; and the President's report says, ``If a good or service is produced at lower cost in another country, it makes sense to import it rather than to produce it domestically.'' Apparently, they are willing to give up the entire employment base of this country, anything to get it a little cheaper. It is a race to the bottom. It absolutely is a race to the bottom. I would hope the President would publicly renounce this report, disassociate himself from it, take his name off it. This is a report that is based on the theory of comparative advantage. If you can do it for less cost somewhere else, that is where we ought to do it. Where does it stop?

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow morning Ohio's Governor Taft is going to be here in the capital city meeting with those of us who are Representatives from the State of Ohio. The State of Ohio has been devastated, absolutely devastated and especially my district that stretches all along the Ohio River, some 330 miles. I have perhaps the poorest, the oldest, and the sickest district in Ohio. I have got lots of veterans. I have got lots of unemployed steelworkers. And what does the President say to them? How can the President come to Ohio and own this statement, ``When a good or service is produced at lower cost in another country it makes sense to import it''? What does that mean? We all have constituents and we are all concerned about our constituents. I am a little parochial in my concern I guess because I have got a lot of constituents who do not have jobs, who have lost jobs. As a result, they have lost health care. They have lost nearly everything they have worked their entire lives for, and we have an administration that is encouraging the outsourcing of jobs to other countries. It buffaloes me. I do not understand what kind of thinking goes into a document like this that is called the ``Economic Report of the President.''

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding once again to me. I said a little earlier that I feel kind of parochial in these concerns because each of us represents, I do not know, 630,000 or so men, women and children. I represent people who are desperate for jobs. Now, in a little town that my colleague represents that I think he is familiar with, Salem, Ohio, there is a company, the Elger Company. They make bathroom sinks and wash basins and so on. They decided a few months ago that they would go to China. That means that there are going to be lots of families without a job. A short time ago, although the company has not really closed the operation in Salem yet, that is going to happen this spring, I got a call from one of the employees there, and they had just gotten a shipment of goods back from China, and they opened up the crates, and guess what they had stamped on the sides of those sinks and so on? ``Made in the USA.'' The mold had not been changed, so they were forced to grind off the ``Made in the USA'' label. That is just an example. I guess in China they can make a bathtub or a wash basin or a toilet for less cost than we can do it in Salem, Ohio, where these workers got living-wage jobs, paid taxes, supported their schools, gave to their churches, and cared for their children. They were good, solid, living- wage American jobs. But they can do it for less cost in China, so this administration says, oh, that is where it should be done then. So every worker at the Elger plant in Salem, Ohio, should know, and the community that depends upon those jobs should know, that this administration believes that is the right thing to do. As the President's report says, if it can be done more cheaply somewhere else, that is where it should be done. If a cheap product is a cheap product or a reduced cost to the consumer is the ultimate good, then maybe what we are doing is the right thing. But if we believe that in this country people and the communities in which they live should have living-wage jobs which enable the workers to pay taxes, to support their schools, to contribute their taxes to the State and to local government, to be a fully functioning taxpayer.

Mr. STRICKLAND. And to buy the product, absolutely. If what we want is a cheaper pair of blue jeans from Wal-Mart, then maybe we are headed down the right road. But if we want a secure country, with stable families and secure communities, we had better change our way, because we are going to lose the American way of life. We are going to lose the middle class, and we are going to lose the ability to continue to support the infrastructure that makes us uniquely American.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown). The gentleman made reference to our former colleague, David Bonior. I remember when NAFTA was passed some 10 years ago; and David Bonior stood on this floor, as did others, and told us the truth. The other side told us what we now know are falsehoods. They told us if we pass NAFTA we are going to create more jobs in America and raise the standard of living of the folks who live in Mexico. They said it is a win/win. We know that manufacturing wage rates have actually declined in Mexico since NAFTA, and we have lost jobs here in this country. This trade deal is only a part of the overall picture. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) pointed out we have an exploding budget deficit. A Medicare bill was passed at 6 a.m. after arm twisting and deals were made, and perhaps even illegal activities, we do not know for sure, but that is certainly worthy of investigation; and it is being investigated. The fact is we now find out that it is not a $400 billion bill; it is a $534 billion bill, in part because there are no cost savings. There is no way to control the costs of prescription drugs in that bill because of our sellout to the pharmaceutical industry, basically. But I believe this trade issue is the overarching issue because we cannot deal with our health care problems; we cannot deal with all of the other problems that face us, funding education, prescription drugs for our seniors, caring for our veterans; we just cannot do that unless we solve this trade deal that is bleeding jobs out of this country. I get discouraged sometimes, and I would like to ask the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), what does the gentleman think can be done to reverse this? What is it going to take to reverse this?

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. That is Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, and we have pictures of Mr. Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. Back in those days, the fact that he was a dictator and cruel and vicious to his own people and used chemical weapons against the Kurds, back in those days it did not seem to mean a lot, apparently, because we took no action. In fact, the administration at that time actually blocked, proactively blocked, the imposition of sanctions.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Tried to, certainly.

Mr. STRICKLAND. I think that special envoy is our current Secretary of Defense.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, the fact is, at the time he used those weapons we were cooperating with him. The first Bush administration was cooperating with him. He was a part of our team, so to speak, because we felt it was best if Iraq would be able to prevail over Iran at the time. And then to think that, 10 or 12 years later, there is no evidence that I know of or that the administration has brought forth to show that Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons following that incident some 12 or so years ago. And then to come back after a decade and use that as an excuse to launch a preemptive war simply does not make sense. When Saddam Hussein used these chemical weapons against his own people, our government was silent. We knew it was happening, and we were silent. And then for these self-righteous statements to be made a decade later does not make sense.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if I may just respond, I think many of us watched the President's interview last Sunday morning with Tim Russert, and the President continuously called Saddam Hussein a madman. I have no problem with that. He is a despicable human being. The President talked about the chemical and biological threat, and he talked about the fact that he used chemicals on his own people. What the President failed to say was that he did that in the late 1980s when the President's father was in the Oval Office, when Colin Powell was a part of the administration, and we did nothing except block the efforts of Congress to impose sanctions. My point is all of these years later to come forth and try to use that argument to convince the American people that we should launch a preemptive war that to this point has cost over 530 precious American lives, has resulted in the injury of thousands of our troops, has consumed about $150 billion of resources, the word ``hypocrisy'' comes to mind here. The American people, when we hear that Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against his own people, assume that we are talking about something that happened within the last few months or last few years, not over 10 years ago. When you tell a half truth or a partial truth, it gets pretty close to being a lie. I think the American people really have been manipulated, misled and purposely deceived in the kind of information that they have been given about why we needed to enter into this preemptive war.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Absolutely. If I can just point out something that I think the observer of this Iraq Watch may be asking, why are these Members going so far back in history? Why are they regurgitating facts that happened more than 10 years ago? I think it is important to point out that the same people that were responsible then are making decisions now, and the same people who I think neglected to do the right thing more than 10 years ago are the people who have advised this President and urged this President to engage in preemptive war. They are the same individuals who want to remain in power. We can only guess what their next adventure may be if, in fact, they are allowed to remain in power. They continue to advise the President. They continue to justify this preemptive war. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to share something else which I think many Americans do not fully understand, and I think they will find it interesting. There is a story in The Hill newspaper here, which is one of the Capitol Hill newspapers, about an effort by the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) to get some answers regarding something that happened in this country following the attack on September 11. As it turns out, when our country was attacked, there were a number of Saudi citizens, some of them relatives of Osama bin Laden, in this country. They were here in this country. As we know, most of those who flew those airplanes into the Towers and into the Pentagon and those that were responsible for the plane crash in Pennsylvania were Saudi citizens. They were not from Iraq or Iran or Syria. They were from Saudi Arabia. Now this is what gets interesting. A few days after 9/11, a significant number of those Saudi citizens, including relatives of Osama bin Laden, were allowed to leave this country. Apparently, they were allowed to leave this country before they were ever questioned. Did they know anything about the al Qaeda terrorism network? Did Osama bin Laden's relatives who were in this country at the time perhaps know of his whereabouts? We do not know. The FBI does not know because apparently they did not bother to ask the question. We are trying to find out from Attorney General John Ashcroft who made the request that these Saudi citizens be allowed to leave our country. Who made the decision to allow them to leave without being questioned? Can you imagine a few days after the attack upon our country when these pilots were Saudi citizens and we knew almost certainly that Osama bin Laden was responsible for those attacks, that members of his family, two members especially, Abdullah bin laden and Omar bin laden, were allowed to get on an airplane and be taken out of this country.

Mr. STRICKLAND. He has not responded. If I can just share this with the gentleman, at a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing just last year, Richard Clarke, who has headed the National Security Council's counterterrorism security group said, and this is a quote: ``What happened was that shortly after 9/11 when it became clear that most of the terrorists of 9/11 were Saudis, the Saudi government feared that there would be retribution and vigilantism in the United States against the Saudis. That seemed to be a reasonable fear.'' If our government felt that vigilantism and retribution was going to endanger the lives of these Saudi citizens and Osama's relatives who were here in this country at the time, why did they not just simply take them into protective custody, at least until the FBI had an opportunity to question them? Is it possible that the Saudi citizens and Osama bin Laden's relatives could have known about the attacks? Might they have known where Osama bin Laden was located? We will never know because our government let them leave without first of all subjecting them to questioning.

Mr. STRICKLAND. I think it is legitimate to ask this question: Were these Saudis, were these members of Osama bin Laden's family given special treatment? Why would they have been given special treatment? Can you imagine how we would have felt, how we would have reacted if those who piloted those planes into our trade towers had been Iraqi citizens? Or Syrian citizens? Can you imagine how we would have reacted if there had been relatives of Iraqis or of Saddam Hussein in this country after such an attack? Why were the Saudis given such special treatment? Could it be because of the oil and because of the close connection between the oil industry and the Saudi government and the Bush family and the Saudi royal family? I think these are questions that deserve to be answered. I think Attorney General Ashcroft should answer questions regarding who made the request that these citizens be allowed to leave the country without questioning. I think we should find out for certain that the FBI had said they had no interest in questioning them. I cannot imagine the FBI within days of the towers being struck saying we have no interest in questioning relatives of Osama bin Laden. I just cannot imagine that that is the case.

Mr. STRICKLAND. I think it is appropriate that we bring this back to the human price that is being paid for our policies, because Sunday evening back in my district in southeastern Ohio, I visited a funeral home, attended the wake of a young soldier who had just returned, a man leaving a 14-year-old son, a 5-year-old daughter, three sisters, a mother, and wife. Saturday morning I went to the air base in Youngstown, Ohio. I met with about 30 soldiers and their families and their children; and in that early morning hours as the snow was falling, I saw those soldiers get on that plane, and I saw that plane take off down that snowy runway and disappear into the heavens. Tonight those soldiers are in the desert. The fact is that as we talk about the policies of our Nation, I do think it is appropriate, and I thank the gentleman from Washington for bringing our attention to the fact that we talk about policies, we talk about decisions in an almost theoretical sense sometimes here, but the fact is that there are real families, real soldiers, real deaths, real injuries. I also, and I will end my remarks with this, over this past weekend was able to attend a happy occasion because I went to the homecoming party of a young soldier who had just returned from Iraq. He was there with his grandfather, his father and his 4-year-old son, four generations. The mother of this 4-year-old son, the wife of this young soldier who had just returned, told me that during this soldier's absence, their 4-year-old son was so disturbed that the pediatrician suggested that he may need to go see a child psychiatrist, and she said his daddy is home and he is back to normal. Everything that we do here in this Chamber, but especially the decisions that we make regarding war and peace, affect real people, real families. I think we should never, ever forget that. I thank the gentleman for bringing up that situation that occurred in his district as well as giving me a chance to talk about the situation in my district.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Can I ask a question about that, because the heading across the gentleman's chart says ``Licensed Dual Use Exports to Iraq by U.S. Companies, 1985 to 1990.'' When we use the phrase ``dual use,'' does that mean that what has been exported can be used perhaps for legitimate purposes but also could be used for illegitimate military purposes or offensive purposes if that government chose to use them in that way?

Mr. STRICKLAND. From 1985 to 1990?

Mr. STRICKLAND. More than 10 years ago.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, may I point out something to my friend. The U.N. inspections worked. The U.N. inspectors were in Iraq. They were asking for additional time. It was this government that terminated the inspections right before this war began. And the fact is that if the inspections had continued, we would have uncovered the fact that these weapons of mass destruction did not exist in Iraq at the present time. And it is so sad, it is tragic that we rushed to a decision, that we told the U.N. inspectors their time was up and that we initiated this preemptive war. And we cannot, we must not, forget that over 530 of our fellow Americans have lost their lives, and we are losing lives in Iraq every day, and there is no end in sight.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, when the President was interviewed on Sunday, he told the American people that the Congress had the same intelligence available to them as he had available to him. And that was not true. No one told us that there was ambiguity. The President and the Vice President spoke with surety. They said, as the gentleman has pointed out, there was no doubt.

Mr. STRICKLAND. We cannot even find out who served on the Vice President's energy task force, let alone have access to all the intelligence that the President has available.

Mr. STRICKLAND

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

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. I thank my friend from New Jersey. I think the American people need to know that under this President and under the leadership of this Congress that this government is for sale. It is for sale. It is for sale to the highest bidder. The fact is that Halliburton was fined, I think, over 60-some-million dollars for overcharging for fuel that they were supplying in Iraq, and now in the New York Times today there is a story about Halliburton having overcharged for the meals they are providing to our soldiers some $24 million. Halliburton has overcharged for the meals they are providing or should be providing or said they are providing to our troops in Iraq. In most other circumstances, this kind of behavior would be called criminal behavior. Why would this government continue to do business with Halliburton that has been fined 60-some-million dollars and overcharges $24 million for meals? It is almost beyond belief that we would continue to let this rogue corporation that Vice President Dick Cheney, I understand, is still getting compensation from, from getting these contracts. What is going on with this government? When are we going to stop and say, wait a minute, this is just unacceptable for a corporation to act like this?

Mr. STRICKLAND. They are profiteering on this war. That is what they are doing. They are profiteering on the war, and it is time the people in this country and those of us who serve in this Chamber say enough is enough. We are not going to continue to allow this rogue corporation to act in this behavior and to continue to get government contracts. I talk to my folks back home in Ohio, especially my seniors, very frequently about this so-called Medicare bill. When I describe to them what happened in this Chamber, the people's House, they are appalled. We got that Medicare bill, as you will recall, I think it was over 800 pages long, and we received it on a Friday morning. That debate started Friday evening. We debated in this House back and forth until 3 o'clock in the morning, at a time when most Americans are asleep. At 3 o'clock in the morning, they finally called the vote, and the vote which normally lasts 15 minutes, at the end of that voting period, the bill had lost. Most Members of this Chamber recognized that it was a bad bill, that it would not provide adequate benefits for our seniors, that there were no cost controls, that we were prohibiting cheaper drugs from being imported from Canada, that the Secretary of Health and Human Services could not negotiate discounts, and the bill had failed. And so they just kept the vote open, not for 10 minutes, not for 30 minutes, not for an hour, but for 3 hours they kept the vote open, until 6 o'clock in the morning. And the news reports indicate that they got President Bush out of bed, or woke him up about 4 o'clock in the morning, so that he could start making calls and try to twist arms and get people to change their votes. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith), a Republican, a man who is retiring from this Chamber and whose son is running in a contested Republican primary to replace him, shared with a columnist, Robert Novak, that he was approached on the floor of this, the people's House, and that he was told if he would change his vote that his son would be provided about $100,000 from certain business interests if he would change his vote. I am not an attorney, I am a psychologist by training, but that description sounds a lot like bribery to me; and if it is and if it happened on the floor of this House, it ought to be investigated and those responsible ought to be held accountable. But to his credit, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith), as I said, who is a Republican, refused to change his vote. And then it is reported that another Republican Member approached him and said to him, ``Your son is dead meat. He will never be able to serve in the House of Representatives.'' That behavior is beneath the dignity and the honor of this, the people's House, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives ought to call for an investigation. We ought to determine if something illegal was done on this House floor, or at least something unethical or something that violated the rules of this House. And that is how that bill actually became law, because at 6 o'clock in the morning, as the sun was coming up, a couple of Members were finally persuaded to change their votes. That is not the way to create public policy in a democracy; certainly not in the American democracy. It is shameful behavior.

Mr. STRICKLAND. I had several members of school boards in my office today from Ohio. They were here because they are concerned about the fact that we are underfunding the No Child Left Behind legislation and passing unfunded mandates over to our States, and they told me there is an effort underway to require an audit of 12 or 13 percent of all of the school lunches that are fed to needy children in this country. Currently I think the audit requires a sample of 2 or 3 percent to be audited, but there is concern apparently that maybe we are feeding children who somehow do not deserve to be fed, so they want to increase the audit size to 12 or 13 percent. Then I pick up the New York Times, and I read about Halliburton and the fact that they overcharged our government $24 million, saying they had provided food to our troops that they had not in fact provided. I mean, when are we going to get real around here and go after the real culprits? Now, I am not in favor of fraud in the school lunch program certainly, and we ought to do whatever we can to stop fraud wherever it exists, but I am a lot more concerned about Halliburton ripping off the American taxpayer than I am the fact that some needy child may be getting food that does not meet the specific criteria. That is just an example of how our priorities are really out of kilter up here. We ought to be going after the big guys, the big offenders, those who are really ripping off the American taxpayer, whether it is Enron and the Ken Lays of this world, or it is Halliburton that has been fined, I think, $64 million or $65 million for overcharging for fuel that they provided in Iraq. And now we find out that Halliburton, this corporation that used to be headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, has overcharged $24 million for food that they should have provided to our troops. When is this madness going to stop? When are we going to get serious about stopping this war profiteering? I am just sick. I think the American people are getting fed up with their tax dollars being used in these kinds of ways.