Jobs and the Economy

Press Release

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Ms. KAPTUR. Congresswoman Fudge, I want to thank you very much for organizing this Special Order this evening, and especially from the Buckeye State, being down here every week, using your voice, using your talents to fight for the American people, particularly those who are out of work. And don't we know that well in our beloved State of Ohio.

In fact, there was a billboard that was put up, paid for by anonymous donors in Ohio, that read as follows: Recession. Your self-worth is more important than your net worth. And what is happening around States like ours where the unemployment rate is above even the horrendous national unemployment rate, where we have 20 million people out of work, directly out of work, those who have run out of benefits or those who are working part time when they really want to work full time. This is an enormous amount of people.

And Congresswoman Edwards, who was down here a while ago, was talking about the fact that with the help of the Obama administration Congress has begun to dig out of this deep job-loss hole that the last administration left us. But the percents really don't tell the full story.

Where people finally say, I just simply can't find work. They send out 400 resumes--nothing back. They're told by some of our friends on the other side of the aisle, Well, you can't find a job? Start your own business. Create your own job. Where are they supposed to go for capital? How are they supposed to do this when they can barely feed their families at this point?

I mean there's a certain unreality and cruelty that attends those who are consistently voting against even extending unemployment benefits, which all of the studies show provide immediate consumer buying power and are the biggest bang for the buck that the Federal Government can actually provide out there in communities across this country to spur purchasing and to allow people to hang on to their homes, to make their car payments--barely, and to try to put food on the table for their families.

The situation in States like ours is very, very precarious. One of the communities that I represent has had a string of shootings that I have no doubt when the crimes are solved will probably point to a number of young people who just simply are idle.

There could be choices for them. There could be constructive work that they could be doing. But instead, they're getting caught up in the old expression, I guess, the idle mind and the idle hands are the devil's workshop. And it's important for us to think about that.

In the major city that I represent, we have had a string of arsons and fires--another one last night--across our community. Innocent lives threatened as these abandoned homes are burned down. Imagine if those who are doing this could be put to constructive ends. It isn't so complicated because all of the destruction takes money, in one way or another. And yet we could do something to help people reposition in this very difficult economy.

I favor all of the programs, as a member of the Jobs Now Caucus with my dear colleague Bobby Rush of Chicago and Congresswoman Candice Miller of Michigan, all of those programs that we can't get through here dealing with the re-creation of a Civilian Conservation Corps so any person who'd want to make a positive contribution to our country would be given that opportunity. They wouldn't make wages like the head of those big banks on Wall Street. Nothing close to it. But they would get a living wage. They could at least, like Peace Corps, like VISTA, they could get a wage and maybe opportunity for education beyond. And they could do something constructive.

One of the last images I had this morning as I drove through Toledo, Ohio, we have a Mission right in the downtown area that tries to help people who are just falling out of regular society. And right next door they've now built an education and training center. It's small, but they're dealing with some of the most challenged human beings that are residing in our community now. But they're saying we're not giving up on anybody because everybody counts. Everybody has self-worth. Everybody should have self-worth. It isn't net worth, it's self-worth. And America, after all,

isn't that what we're supposed to be as a country? We're supposed to be a place where every person matters.

Now I wanted to say on the jobs programs that are stalled over in the Senate--and it was embarrassing to watch the laborious effort that the Senate had to go through just to pass extended unemployment benefits--which the people earned. These are benefits they worked for. This is no manna from heaven. I mean, this is something that people paid for.

In addition to the troubles they had over there, I'm getting a little bit worried about the trade agreements that we hear rumblings about. If we look back to agreements like NAFTA, China, we outsourced so many jobs to foreign places. If every label in America read ``made in America'' again, we'd have so many jobs we wouldn't know what to do. We would be so full up with production, with purchasing.

But we keep handing off jobs to all of these other countries where people work for slave wages. I just had another business person tell me yesterday that he will no longer go back to certain parts of Asia because he has to have a lot of protection when he goes there, and that the products that people are making are of more inferior quality, but they can't afford to buy what they make. Certainly in China, certainly in Malaysia, certainly in Indonesia.

How can we as a country make lasting friends in these other places when that stuff is sent over here, they don't even make a decent wage there. And they undercut our markets, these companies, by outsourcing our jobs and paying the people over there nothing. That doesn't seem like a long-term recipe for success for our country as a Republic as it makes its way felt in the world.

So I wanted to say to my dear colleague from Cleveland, we know what Mr. Coffee's loss of jobs in Cleveland meant. We know what the loss of jobs in Sandusky, Ohio, and Dixon Ticonderoga's move to Mexico, we know what that means. We know when Whirlpool jobs are outsourced to Mexico, we know what that means for Ohio's workers. And the list is endless of all of these products and services that we've outsourced.

This Congress should be renegotiating trade agreements. We should not be approving other trade agreements until we fix what's wrong with the ones we already have. And that's part of the jobs agenda as well because this year America will exact a $1 trillion trade deficit with the world. All of those jobs gone. Somebody else making what we used to make here. And this is costing us dearly.

So I want to thank the gentlelady for allowing us to put on the record the number of unemployed, the difficulty we've had in trying to get the Senate to pass its bills, the bills that we've sent over there, the impact of the job loss on people's self-worth and what that means to us as Americans. And finally, what this trade deficit means, over a long, long, period of time with the continued outsourcing of jobs and the efforts that we as a Congress are going to put forward even more for made-in-America again.

I think the American people will cheer for that coast to coast because they know that needs to be done.

So I want to thank the gentlelady for allowing us to convene this evening. And I know the Cleveland area and Parma and areas that you represent are just as challenged as those over in northwestern Ohio and northern Ohio, the parts that I represent. And our people deserve more fair treatment by their own government.

Thank you for allowing us this time this evening.

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Ms. KAPTUR. If the gentlelady would yield one second, there is one figure I could put on the record, that is, during the first 18 months of the Obama administration, we have already created more jobs than in the entire 8 years of the Bush administration, 18 months versus 8 years. We're digging ourselves out of that hole, not as fast as we would like in Ohio, but the damage was so great. We're moving in the right direction, and we need to keep your shoulder to the wheel; and I thank the gentlelady for yielding me the additional time

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