Equal Opportunity in America

Floor Speech

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, it is good to be back on the floor once again as we have for most every week to talk about jobs in America, to talk about the unemployed, to talk about those who are less fortunate and those who need a strong Federal program to create jobs.

I often start with this because it is kind of the compass, the touchstone of what, at least, I would like to think we ought to be doing.

This is from Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This is actually on one of the marble slabs at his memorial here in Washington, D.C. It reads this way:

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

All across America today there are far too many that have too little. A couple of weeks ago, I did a jobs fair in Fairfield, California. It was about 38 degrees outside that day, and we had just under 1,000 people come to that jobs fair--there were about 50 employers--and maybe 50-70 people actually got jobs.

This is a picture of the men and women that were lined up waiting to get in to have a very quick interview with one or more of those 50 potential employers.

I have used this photo before here on the floor to point out the need for a jobs program here in America. The President 2 years ago in his State of the Union put forth a proposal. It had several elements--and we will probably cover some of those today--but it has not been enacted. The Republican leadership in this House has refused to pass even one of those jobs programs. There was infrastructure, education, reeducation; there were programs to provide for the opportunity for men and women to get jobs here in the United States.

But I was looking at this photo just today and I said, I am going to use this again, because in this photo approximately half of the people lined up, 1,000, just under 1,000 were women. It caused me to think about another program that the Democratic minority here in the House has been working on for some time, that is, the issue of women in the American economy.

I know that in my own district there is this issue of equal pay for equal work. A woman doing stenography work next to a man doing stenography work would be paid 85 cents while the man is paid $1. So it is 85 cents when a man would have the same job, same skill set, same tenure, would get $1. That is wrong. It is one of the issues we want to address.

Also we know that many of the women that are searching for work here are going to be finding minimum-wage jobs. Now, California is different. We have already passed a minimum-wage law in California that in another year and a half will be $10 plus a little. But the national is still at $7-plus; way, way under what anybody working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year could possibly support a family on. So the minimum wage is another issue for women, as it is for men; but I dare say more so for women than for men.

There is a multitude of issues that we need to consider as we talk about jobs, employment, increasing the employment opportunities in the United States for these people; men and women, and particularly women, that are lined up wanting to get a job.

Joining me tonight is an extraordinary group of people who have been working on this issue of women and jobs, employment, equal employment opportunities, daycare, family care programs.

I would like to start with Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, who has been one of the leaders throughout this entire Nation, often seen on television speaking to this issue and the issue of opportunity in America.

JAN, would you care to start us off on this 1-hour and talking about women and jobs.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Those statistics are a wake-up call for America. More than half the population are female, and yet our policies are not women-friendly policies. Our laws are not women-friendly laws, and we need to change that.

I would like now to yield to my colleague from California, Janice Hahn, a longtime city councilwoman in the City of Los Angeles, a woman who knows these issues from her experience representing the communities in that area and now an outstanding Member of the Congress.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Representative Hahn, thank you so very, very much.

This chart here, When Women Succeed, America Succeeds, picks up a handful of the bills that have been introduced by the Democratic Caucus, many of these bills by women, a few men along the way. These are the kinds of things that we really ought to be dealing with here as we move--or, unfortunately, fail to move--legislation.

Paycheck fairness, this is the issue of that 77 percent in California, my district being about 85 percent.

The minimum wage, which we talked about here. The issue you raised Representative Hahn about paid sick leave and the problems that occur. Make permanent the child tax credit, which is exceedingly important in providing that income necessary to support the kid. The education issues, and I notice one of my colleagues, Mike Honda, will talk about that in a few moments.

I would like now--and we will pick up the rest. This one down here is one really at the bottom, Alzheimer's, and you mentioned this. The children are now taking care of their parents. Of course, the children are now in their fifties, sixties, and the parents are in their seventies and eighties and beyond. And this issue of Alzheimer's, an overwhelming tidal wave is coming on us.

I know in our own home, the last 2 years of my wife's mother's life was spent in our home. She and I, my wife had night care taking care of her. Fortunately, we were able to have day care come in. This is a huge, growing issue, one in which we need to find ways to support the children taking care of their parents in their homes.

I would like now to turn to another colleague from Ohio, one who has often joined me here on the floor. And thank you so very, very much, Marcy, for joining us, MARCY KAPTUR, who has a great deal to do with the appropriations process. Congratulations on the omnibus bill just coming up.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Representative Honda, thank you so very much.

Among the many pieces of legislation that the Democratic Caucus has put forward on this issue of when women succeed, America succeeds is the issue of universal pre-K. Head Start is one part of that. There are many other kinds of programs, but it is absolutely clear that if we have universal educational opportunities before kindergarten and beyond that the chance of a kid making it in this economy is going to be substantially greater.

This is just part of the agenda over the next several months. We will be talking about the remaining portions of the agenda that we are putting forth.

We know that if this Nation is to succeed, we better make sure that the majority of our population, the women in our society--girls young and old--have every opportunity to succeed. There are barriers, some legal, some historic, and some custom, that make it very difficult for women to have an equal chance in our economy.

So we are going to address those. We would like to have the Republican side of the House work with us on those issues. We know that one of the major parts of that is the minimum wage issue. That is front and center.

I would like now to turn to my colleague from New York, who has joined me all so often, but never quite enough, on the floor.

Representative Tonko, you have been on this issue of economic development for so long. I think it is almost 4 years now we have been dealing with this, not every week, but often talking about jobs in America, economic growth, and what we can do.

Why don't you pick it up and carry the ball for a while, and then we will see where we are.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, I knew that I would enjoy listening to you. The passion, the knowledge, the intensity that you bring to this issue is critically important. You have worked at these issues for a long time, and I want to talk, just wrap up the unemployment insurance issue with going back to where I started here some time ago.

Again, in early December, a jobs fair in Fairfield, California, nearly 1,000 people came to it, 50 employers. More than half of the people in this line are women. I could probably go down through this line. I remember a conversation with a couple of the women here, and they were on unemployment insurance.

Now, unemployment insurance actually started with the New Deal. It was part of the effort to deal with poverty in America, and it was an insurance program, a program into which the employer and the employee pay for insurance for the employee should there be a layoff, should they be unemployed, should that individual be unemployed. It is an insurance program. It is not a welfare program. It is an insurance program.

But if I were to go back down this line and talk to each one of these individuals, probably, maybe, 15 percent of them have lost their unemployment insurance because the House of Representatives has refused to extend the long-term unemployment insurance.

So where are they today?

They are without a job because, as you said, Mr. Tonko, for every job available in America today, there are three people looking for that job. So two are going to go without the employment.

Minimum wage doesn't count because they yet don't have a job. We need to develop a jobs program, and we need to extend that unemployment because these women are mothers of children that now have a family with no income, no unemployment insurance.

The food stamps, the proposal on this floor by our colleagues was to cut the food stamp program by $40 billion. So where will the food come from? Not from SNAP, which is the new name for the food stamp program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That is going to be cut.

Hunger in America among children--one in four children go hungry, and we are adding to it. We are adding to that number today by the refusal to extend the unemployment insurance.

Some 72,000 people will lose their long-term unemployment insurance each month as this rolls along--each week.

Thank you, Mr. Tonko. You are welcome to interrupt me whenever, and we can have a dialogue here. So thanks for the lipreading.

Each week 72,000 people. At the end of the year, another 3 1/2 million will have lost their unemployment insurance. Will they have a job? They could have a better opportunity for a job if we carried out the President's jobs program.

I think we have got about 10 minutes or so. Let's spend some time on that.

I am going to put up one of my favorite and often-used charts here. Mr. Tonko, you will recognize this.

Mr. TONKO. Absolutely.

Mr. GARAMENDI. It is the Make It in America chart. It is the revitalization of manufacturing in the United States. And I could probably give your speech on the industrialization of the State of New York. I will let you do it, however.

But these are the issues that we think are critical. We have spent most of this night talking about this one--labor. Last week I said we would pick this up, and we are, and particularly focused on women in the labor force. But here it is, trade policies, international trade.

I gave a speech this morning on the maritime industry, the decline of the maritime industry, the necessity of maintaining it. We are a maritime Nation.

We have oceans surrounding us, whether it is the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean, or the Atlantic Ocean.

So it is trade issues.

Tax policies, why do we continue to subsidize the wealthiest industries in this world? The oil industry, why do we continue to subsidize the oil industry? Energy policy. Fortunately, we are having a good run on the energy issues, and we will come back and talk about that.

Mr. Honda talked about educational policy, research and infrastructure. These are the elements of the Make It In America agenda. And when we use our tax money to buy American-made equipment, really good things happen. Americans go to work.

In my district, or just on the edge of my district, in Sacramento, Siemens, that huge German manufacturing company, opened a manufacturing plant to build 100 percent American-made locomotives for the first time in generations because, in the stimulus bill, a sentence was added to the support for Amtrak, and that sentence said these locomotives will be 100 percent American-made.

A German company said, oh, $600, $700 million contract, we will make them in America. And so all across this Nation, manufacturing companies are now participating in the construction of 100 percent American-made locomotives using American taxpayer money.

That is the key here. Mr. Tonko, I know you get really excited about this issue, as you were about poverty and equality in America just a moment ago. Why don't you pick this up and carry it for a while?

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Representative Tonko, once again, you have laid it out very, very clearly, the challenge that we have. There are 435 of us here in the House of Representatives. I think we are a little lower than that because of some retirements, but let's just say 435, and 100 Members of Congress. Together with the President, we set the national policy. We set the national agenda. And frankly, at the moment, the agenda is one that has stalled out. Really, we have been prevented from pushing forward an aggressive agenda such as you have described. Those elements, research, education, manufacturing, infrastructure, the role of labor, particularly the role of women in the labor force, those issues are roadblocked.

There is a stop sign that has been put up here in the House of Representatives that basically says we shouldn't do any of that, that government has no role in any of those issues. I would challenge that philosophy. I would challenge that philosophy with the Founding Fathers.

Our colleagues on the right often talk about we ought to do what the Founding Fathers did. Well, one of the things that George Washington, one of the Founding Fathers, did was to turn to Alexander Hamilton and say, Develop a strategy for American manufacturing, for building the American economy. So Hamilton went off, probably talked to a few people, and came back with a lengthy report, which you would never see nowadays, which was like 30 pages. And in that document, he laid out a strategy for building the American economy.

Interestingly, guess what he talked about. He talked about trade. He talked about infrastructure. Among the infrastructure that was specifically in the plan that Hamilton presented to George Washington, who then presented it to the Congress, was canals. And shortly thereafter, about 30 years later, the Erie Canal.

Here in Washington, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the canal on the Potomac River. It also talked about roads. It talked about ports. Those were the infrastructure projects of the day. The Constitution, by the way, says that the Federal Government must maintain and build postal roads. Infrastructure, we talk about that nearly all the time we are here.

Research. At that period of time, Thomas Jefferson--not exactly in league with the representatives from New England, but nonetheless--was pushing forward the research agenda and the education agenda. Go back to the Founding Fathers, pick up those elements of economic growth that they put on the American agenda in the very earliest days of this Nation, and carry those forward.

We are not a shy country; but if one would look at the policies emanating from the Congress today, you would think that we are a country that does not envision the necessity of grabbing the strength of the past and using those elements that have created the economic growth and pushing them forward.

We can, and we must, do this. And as we do it, I want to go back to where we started today's discussion, and that is, we started this discussion with the role of women in our economy. 77 cents. Equal pay? No, no. A man will earn $1; and a woman at the same job, same skill sets, same tenure on the job will earn 77 cents across this Nation. In my own district, it is 85 cents.

A woman working full time at minimum wage cannot earn enough money in this Nation to feed her child and pay the rent. A woman in this Nation with a child, she has a job, the child gets sick: she is faced with a dilemma.

We need to address these issues; and we must keep in mind the Make It In America agenda, the jobs agenda that we push forward; and we must always remember that when women succeed, America will succeed.

And with that, I thank my colleagues Mr. Tonko, Mr. Honda, the three women that joined us earlier, Ms. Kaptur, Ms. Hahn, and Ms. Schakowsky, for bringing this message to the American people and to our colleagues here on the floor.

And I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko) to wrap up.

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