America Exports Jobs, Not Products

AMERICA EXPORTS JOBS, NOT PRODUCTS -- (House of Representatives - March 17, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, last week the administration announced a record $541.8 billion trade deficit for the year 2003. That means 541.8 billion more dollars' worth of imports coming into our country than our exports going out. That is over one-half trillion dollars, the largest in the history of this country. We are exporting jobs, we are not exporting products.

In fact, this number is so big, it is bigger than the last record deficit set in the year 2002. These are staggering numbers.

Let us take a step back and look at them again. $541.8 billion or almost half a trillion dollars being lost to foreign competitors. This is not just pocket change. With each additional billion, America loses another 20,000 jobs here at home. In fact, since President Bush took office, America has lost 2.2 million more jobs, mostly due to our jobs being shipped offshore.

Meanwhile, taxes are going up for the majority of Americans as only a wealthy few benefit while the majority of our people are paying higher gas taxes, higher property taxes, higher excise taxes, more money for their health insurance, and higher tuition if their children are lucky enough to go on to college. Consumer confidence is plummeting. Disapproval of the President's handling of our economy has reached 59 percent, a career high, in a recent ABC News Washington Post poll, and there is no reason to wonder why.

The Bush administration tells us we can trade our way to a better, stronger economy. But let us look at the record. Since NAFTA passed, unfortunately in 1993, a very flawed trade agreement, we have not had a trade surplus with Mexico. In fact, the surplus we had has plummeted into a giant deficit as more and more of our jobs move south of the border. Every single year since NAFTA passage, we have had a growing trade deficit with Mexico.

The United States signed a trade deal with China in 2000. Before the trade deal, we already had a $68 billion deficit with China. Guess what, since the trade deal, it has doubled to over $124 billion in just 3 years. Every time we enter into one of these flawed trade agreements, our balance of payments goes in the wrong direction. What does it tell you, it tells you that the model of trade we are using is seriously flawed. Is anyone in this city paying attention?

When it was only manufacturing jobs being shipped out, some self-styled trade experts claimed this was the way to modernize our economy. I am not quite sure how cutting our core will modernize us, but that did not matter when we had all those service sector jobs to depend on. But not so fast. Now we hear from the jobs of accountants, medical technicians and other formerly untouchables, those are on the line. So where does the future of America lie and how do we stem this job loss?

When we started losing manufacturing jobs in automobiles and other core economic sectors, the economists assured us we were in for a so-called information economy, but now the jobs in the information economy are moving to India, so where are the new jobs supposed to come from?

Well, the Bush administration had several great ideas over the last couple months. First, one of the President's top advisers suggested that outsourcing our jobs was actually a good thing. The administration resorted then to a sleight of hand: When you are losing the game, change the rules. So they proposed reclassifying fast food workers as manufacturing workers. Nobody gets a new job, just a new title.

So when a fast food employee is adding pickles to your Big Mac, that must mean he or she is "working on the line." I will give them points for creativity, but the American people surely cannot be fooled.

Six months ago President Bush, with the fall elections in sight, announced he would be appointing a manufacturing czar. Now, that is not a bad idea to help a little bit, even though 6 months later as our economy still lags behind the administration's own rosy predictions, we still do not have that manufacturing czar in place because his name was pulled because that potential employee had one small problem: As he was letting American workers go, he was building a factory in China.

That is right, the man that President Bush wanted to put in charge of stemming the flow of jobs overseas was busy sending our jobs overseas.

Mr. Speaker, I have been coming to the floor asking for fair trade, good trade, balanced trade, not just free-for-all trade. Please, let us put a human face on trade.