Labor Day 2006: Tough Times In America's Heartland

LABOR DAY 2006: TOUGH TIMES IN AMERICA'S HEARTLAND -- (House of Representatives - September 06, 2006)

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, the United States is spending $250 million a day in Iraq, over $11 million an hour. This week, as we celebrated Labor Day across this country, President Bush continued to proclaim the strength and health of the U.S. economy.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, whom he appointed, said recently, the American people are clearly better off as a result of strong economic growth and job creation. Well, for the wealthiest 1 percent, that tiny slice that President Bush has called his core supporters, things might be looking up. But for everybody else, we are having to work harder for less.

As someone said to me, not only have we had the race to the bottom, we are now bouncing off the bottom. So as Congress left Washington for an entire month, the economic anxiety felt palpably by the American people increased. The debt piled up more, now over $5 trillion. Interest rates are up as a throttle on economic growth.

Unemployment is up, surely, in America's heartland. According to the Census Bureau, working families fell even farther behind in the past year as they have every single year since this president took office. President Bush's own Census Bureau reports that the median income of working age households fell by another half of a percent last year.

According to the University of Michigan, consumer confidence hit a 9-month low in August, and authors of a confidence report say the gap between rich and poor in the United States is quite different than anything else observed in the prior half century. Truly America is in uncharted economic waters.

According to The New York Times, for the first time since World War II, though productivity is up by our people, real wages have failed to increase for most workers at a time when the overall economy was even growing. Even though President Bush and Secretary Paulson might claim the American people are better off, working people know better. They trust their real life experiences, not White House press releases.

The reality for America's families is that high gasoline prices, higher natural gas prices, rising health care costs, credit card debt increasing and borrowing against home equity have topped out. They are eating away at disposable income, and everywhere they turn, many middle class families are getting squeezed.

Job losses due to more outsourcing and foreign competition have left working families wondering, what does the future hold? Does work have a value in America anymore?

The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003 despite their increased productivity. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that real median income for households headed by someone under age 65 has declined 5.4 percent since President Bush took office. Is anybody here in Washington paying attention?

The net result, according to the New York Times, is that wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the Nation's gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947. But yet corporate profits represent the larger share of gross domestic profit since the 1960s.

There is a little imbalance there. The Times quoted a report from economists at Goldman Sachs. The most important contributor to higher profit margins over the past 5 years has been a decline in labor's share of national income.

Our mother used to ask the question for the super wealthy and the super rich, did they ever fill up? When is enough? How many homes? How many cars? How many chauffeurs? How many trips? How much do you really need? How much? So the bottom line on Labor Day 2006 is this: The strong economy that President Bush and his Secretary of the Treasury keep talking about has benefitted big business, but it has clearly bypassed the vast majority of the American people. It is time we change this Congress.

It is time we have people here in Washington who again represent the vast majority of the people of the United States who believe in hard work, who want to follow the rules, and they have a right to live a better way of life for investing themselves in the beliefs of this country and for putting their lives on the line for it. Mr. Speaker, America, this Congress, and, frankly, this President simply have to do much better.

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