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“LABOR-HHS APPROPRIATIONS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H6584-H6585 on July 10, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
LABOR-HHS APPROPRIATIONS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would say to my good friend that previously spoke on the issue of dealing with the high cost of prescription drugs, I accept the challenge, and I believe it is crucial that this House address this question, and it is a travesty that our senior citizens and others are bearing this enormous burden.
I hope that we can get to work as a House on behalf of the people of this Nation. It seems too long that we have come to the floor and simply acknowledged that we are here either paddling water, swimming upstream, and maybe causing the American people to drown. We are in this boat, leaking boat, because we decided, the majority did, a few months ago, that it was more important to give a $550 billion tax cut of which the richest of Americans will get somewhere about $90,000, and then as we decided to strip our finances to its bare bones, we now come and debate today on the floor of the House in a couple of hours one of the most appropriations bills we will ever see in the course of this season of appropriations.
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And that is the Labor-HHS bill dealing with the neediest of Americans, but frankly dealing with all Americans. And, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to simply call the roll with respect to what we did today. We passed a bill, although very narrowly, that breaks all of the promises to Americans who have worked hard, who have contributed to this country, and who believe that we in this Congress are here to provide them with a big umbrella, the necessities of life that they have helped build in this Nation.
But what did we do? We cut overall education funding. We promised $3 billion, but in this budget we only had $2.3 billion or a 4.3 percent increase. So in essence, we have left many children behind. This bill only provides a $382 million, or 1.6 percent, increase over current funding for the Leave No Child Behind Act. So in essence we have millions of children that will not be served because of the bill we passed today. In real terms this funding is $8 billion short of what we need. Special education that I thought was an issue that all of us can come together around, we absolutely left that standing by the wayside, a $1.2 billion shortfall so the children that need special ed, the teachers that need to be in the classrooms to give our children that extra added lift will not exist. On title I funding for the poorest of our children, $12.35 billion provided in the bill, it is $334 million short. The title I program will eliminate being able to serve 9 million children. It was promised for 9 million children, and yet we will not have that amount of money.
It reduces our commitment to support college education. It reduces the amount of Pell grants compared to 84 percent when Pell grants were first established. This amount only meets 38 percent of college costs. Nearly 5 million students depend on Pell grants. The majority of them have incomes of $30,000 or less. And one of the things that we note in this country is that education is the great equalizer, but we passed a bill today that totally eliminates opportunities for millions of children.
In Houston, in the heat of the summer, Texas and southern States do not get LIHEAP moneys, but every year we face a heating crisis. When I say that, it is too hot and we do not have the resources to provide individuals with cooling dollars. Every year I organize a heat crisis team to go out and solicit air conditioners because my senior citizens and the disabled and others do not have the resources. But yet we can cut the LIHEAP moneys and treat those southern States that may not have the cold weather but have the hot weather in an unfair status. National Institutes for Health moneys have been cut drastically. So we have cut right at the heart the major resources for research that can help save lives.
I heard our President himself speak about community health centers, the need to bring health clinics closer to the people. But what do we do? Our community health centers serve 13 million people who lack access to health care in rural and urban areas, and yet we have inadequately funded those so the very local communities that were trying to bring health care to our rural communities, obviously no help.
Unemployment programs, Mr. Speaker, can my colleagues believe it? Unemployment at its all-time high, 6.4 percent, the highest in 9 years. African Americans at a rate of 1.971 million unemployed African Americans. The number of unemployed has reached 9.4 million. But yet we voted on a bill today, which I voted against, unfortunately it passed by the Republicans, of course, that takes money away from unemployment programs, $150.8 million. We take money away from homeland security. We take money away from helping the nursing shortage.
And then we do things that breaks the camel's back. Just a few days ago, I wrote a letter to the Department of Labor when they were closing the door on comments about their overtime regulation that would cut into the overtime of hard-working Americans. When I said to my constituents, Can you believe it, that they are going to give you time off, that you do not know when you will get the time off, instead of overtime?,'' they were outraged. We put an amendment on the floor to prevent that. Lo and behold, it was defeated.
This Labor-HHS bill is absolutely the worst, Mr. Speaker. We needed to vote it down. We did not vote it down. We need to throw it out and start working for the American people.
The unemployment rate jumped to 6.4 percent in June--highest since April 1994. The 6.4 percent unemployment rate is the highest unemployment rate since April 1994--nine years ago. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data released this morning, the national unemployment rate jumped to 6.4 percent in June from 6.1 percent in May. The 0.3 percentage point jump was the largest month-to-month rise since the September 11th terrorist attack.
The unemployment rate was 6.8% in Texas for May 2003--that is higher than the national average. The Number of Unemployed Has Now Reached 9.4 Million. Similarly, the number of unemployed rose to 9.4 million in June from 9.0 million in May. Just in the last three months, the number of unemployed has shot up by 913,000. Furthermore, 9.4 million is an increase of 59 percent in the number of unemployed since January 2001.
African Americans have cause for real concern because the African American unemployment rate for June 2003 is 11.8%, up from 10.8% in May 2003. There are now 1,971,000 unemployed African Americans.
Since President Bush was inaugurated in January 2001, the economy has lost a total of 3.1 million private-sector jobs--with the economy shedding another 31,000 private-sector jobs in June. Indeed, since the beginning of the year, the economy has shed an additional 307,000 private-sector jobs. It is truly astonishing that more than two years after the recession began in March 2001, the economy is still losing jobs.
No President since World War II has seen job losses during his tenure. President Bush seems destined to break this record. More than halfway through his term, he has lost more than 88,000 jobs per month. The poor economy under the Bush Administration has had a particularly devastating impact on the Nation's manufacturing sector--a sector that historically has provided an important underpinning for our economy. In June itself, the economy lost an additional 56,000 manufacturing jobs. Indeed, overall, 2.4 million of the net loss of 3.1 million private-
sector jobs since January 2001 have been in the manufacturing sector--a staggering statistic.
The unemployment rate for African Americans jumped to 11.8 percent in June--up from 10.8 in May, and significantly higher than the 8.2 percent rate back in January 2001. The unemployment rate for Hispanics stood at 8.4 percent in June--similar to the 8.2 percent in May but significantly higher than the 7.5 percent in April. Back in January 2001, the Hispanic unemployment rate was 5.9 percent.
In June, the number of those unemployed for more than 26 weeks was 2.0 million--up by 106,000 from May. The figure of 2.0 million is more than triple the number of Americans unemployed for more than 26 weeks in January 2001--when it stood at 648,000.
Despite the fact that the recession began more than two years ago, the job market remains remarkably weak. The average length of a job search is now 19.8 weeks--about five months. Indeed, the average unemployed worker has applied for 29 different jobs. It is estimated that there are more than three unemployed workers for every available job. Back in January 2001, the average length of a job search was 12.6 weeks.
In January 2003, House Democrats unveiled a responsible economic plan for creating jobs and jumpstarting the economy. According to economists, the Democratic package would have created more than 1 million jobs in 2003, without increasing the long-term deficit--by putting money and purchasing power in the hands of consumers, giving tax breaks to small businesses and encouraging business investment, and providing adequate help to cash-strapped states in order to avoid tax increases and service cutbacks at the state level. Unfortunately, the GOP-controlled Congress ignored the Democratic plan and instead enacted a fiscally irresponsible $350 billion tax cut package targeted to the wealthest taxpayers--a package that will create enormous long-term deficits, not jobs. Furthermore, the GOP tax cuts will starve key investments to promote economic growth, such as education and infrastructure, and will leave middle-class taxpayers paying a greater share of all taxes.
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