THE HEALTH OF OUR ECONOMY
Mr. Speaker, the health of our economy is not just onenumber, like Wall Street profits. It's not just our budget deficit.There are so many more aspects to our economy that weigh heavily on howprosperous America could be. Those aspects include having grown moredependent year after year on foreign products.
This first chart shows since the 1970s how deeply into debtwe have fallen in terms of more imports coming into our country thanexports year after year for so much of what drives this economy. Threequarters of a trillion dollars more imports in here than our exportsout. More foreign imports into the United States means less U.S. jobs.More of our exports out means more jobs here.
Our trade deficit has been driven up to nearly 5 percent ofwhat's called the gross domestic product--a shocking number by anymeasure--by this growing dependence on foreign goods starting with oil,which consumes over half of this deficit, and bad trade deals. In fact,when you look at this chart, it's hard to imagine that almost half atrillion dollars is related to imports of energy.
With high gas prices and bad trade deals have come growinglegions of the unemployed with climbing rates higher and higher.There's been a steady pattern of this deepening crisis over the lastseveral years. In fact, it's interesting to look at this chart whichshows the relationship between unemployment, rising oil prices, andunemployment.
And going back to the 1970s, with the first embargo of oilfrom the Middle East, we saw a huge peak in price and then a huge peakin unemployment. And the same is true in every succeeding decade in the1980s, in the 1990s, and certainly now. There has been a steady patternof this deepening crisis over the last 20 years.
In 1993, when NAFTA was rammed through this Congress, theysaid it would create jobs. It did just the reverse. There's been a hugenet job loss for our country.
In the late 1990s, when they passed PNTR for China, theysaid, Oh, that will create more jobs here. Well, no. It did exactly thereverse net; more jobs were outsourced.
At home, in places like Toledo, Ohio, 15.6 percent of ourpeople are officially unemployed as foreclosures continue, deep, hugepayouts to Wall Street continue, and now 12 percent of our housingstock foreclosed. The gap between the super-super rich and the rest ofus is getting wider all the time, and those numbers threaten the futureof our Republic.
At a recent job fair in Toledo, unemployed workers wereable to post video resumes courtesy of local television stations. Oneman, a CVL licensed truck driver in his early sixties, said he waslooking for anything, ``even something in fast food.''
We don't lack for a work ethic in our area, we lack for jobs. But with so many outsourced jobs, from televisions to clothing to automotive tocall centers, for heaven's sake, American consumers are abdicatingtheir buying power abroad and losing millions of jobs. Unemploymentbenefits are starting to run out. Food pantries are seeing recordincreases, and people are getting desperate. The wealth disparity growslarger every day.
Don Monkerud wrote in the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin,the 400 richest Americans, who now own more than the bottom 150 millionAmericans, increased their net worth by $700 billion during the 8 yearsof the Bush administration. I think one can ask, isn't that enough? Arethey filled up yet?
In 2005, the top 1 percent claimed a quarter of ournational income and the top 10 percent of earners in this country tookfully half of the entire national income. It's even worse now. Thesuper rich taking the largest share of our national income since--areyou ready for this?--since 1928, the year before the Great Depressionstarted, the wealth gap.
And yet we're listening to the super-super rich whiningbecause they want them to help pay for a health care system that willhelp make our Nation competitive in the global marketplace so we canhelp recapture some of the lost jobs.
We can't fix our country by simply fixing things on WallStreet for those who are super rich or pandering to the complaints ofthe richest of the rich or the Wall Street bankers that have outsourcedso many of our jobs. That's how we got here in the first place.
We need to fix this country by reducing our trade deficit,cutting our dependence on foreign oil, helping hardworking Americanswho are doing their best to make ends meet and who want to work andputting our accounts back in order.
Listen to the over 250 million Americans, not just the topfew, who are asking us to make America, all of us, rich again as aresult of our hard work. It's time. Our people have earned it.