Protecting the Troops

PROTECTING THE TROOPS

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last night a group of Senators went out for dinner at Walter Reed Hospital with the soldiers who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom are undergoing important medical treatment and rebuilding their lives and strength to return to their families, and some to return to service to our country. These are our best. These men and women with whom we had the good fortune to eat dinner last night are really some of the finest people you could ever meet. They have given more to this country than any of us will ever give, and they have done it with a sense of loyalty and a sense of patriotism that all of us admire.

As I talked to these soldiers and asked them about their experience, I asked them about their injuries: What happened when you were in Iraq?

The story that comes back more often than not is that these soldiers-many of them-were in Humvee vehicles, which is our modern jeep, traveling in Baghdad and other cities and localities in Iraq, when their vehicle was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade or a homemade bomb that was detonated. Many of them were seriously injured. One brave soldier from South Dakota lost his right arm. The Army captain in the next Humvee was killed, and he believes he was lucky to escape alive. I asked him what Congress could do to help.

He said: We are getting good medical treatment, and our families are being treated fine. But can you do something about those Humvees? The Humvee doesn't have armor plating on the sides, armored doors to protect us and other soldiers.

You think to yourself, of the billions of dollars we have spent in Iraq, we don't have armored doors on the Humvees so that these soldiers can come home safely?

I asked the Secretary of the Army: What is this problem? He came back to me and reported that there are 8,400 Humvees in Iraq that don't have armored doors. The soldiers, last night, said they would improvise. They would get sheets of steel and cut them and place them on the sides of the Humvees so they are not vulnerable in these areas.

We should do better. I said to the Secretary of the Army: Isn't this a priority? He said: It is our highest priority to build the 8,400 doors for these Humvees. He told me that many will be made in my State at the Rock Island Arsenal. I visited the Rock Island Arsenal and saw the first sets of doors come off for the Humvees, and the workers were so proud. They knew they had done something significant.

I said to the commander at the arsenal: How long will it take us now? We need 8,400 sets and we are also doing them at Anniston. He said: We are going to get these doors built in one year.

One year? In World War II, we were building bombers in 72 hours and ships in 30 and 60 days, and we need 1 year to make the armor-plated doors to protect the Humvees so that fewer of our men and women in uniform will have to go to Walter Reed Hospital for prosthetic devices and medical treatment.

I said: Why is it taking one year? He said: Because there is only one steel-fabricating plant left in America, and it is in Pennsylvania. It makes the steel that we can convert into the armor plating for these doors. We are using everything they produce as fast as they produce it.

So when the issue comes up about loss of manufacturing jobs, and loss of American jobs, and loss of our industrial base, it is more than a cold discussion of statistics; it is a discussion about the reality of our economy and the reality we face. Whether you live in North Carolina, where we have lost textile jobs, or you live in Illinois, where we have lost steel jobs, the fact is, as we lose these jobs, we lose our capacity. When it comes to something as basic as steel, that capacity plays out so that our soldiers in Iraq today are more vulnerable to enemy attack because we cannot produce the steel in America.

So we asked the administration: What should we do about all these jobs going overseas? What should we do about the loss of the industrial base? Is this a challenge we need to face and deal with?

Our answer came back this week in a report from the White House. This is a headline from the Los Angeles Times of yesterday: "Bush Supports Shift of Jobs Overseas."

It goes on to say:

The loss of work to other countries, while painful in the short term, will enrich the economy eventually, his report to Congress says.

Like many colleagues, I read this headline and I said: It cannot be true; clearly, this is a mistake. I cannot believe the Bush administration would say that shifting jobs overseas is good for America.

Then we looked at other newspapers around the country, not just the L.A. Times. In the Seattle Times, the same report was analyzed. Their headline reads: "Bush report: Sending Jobs Overseas Helps U.S." The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Bush Economic Report Praises 'Outsourcing' Jobs." The Orlando Sentinel: "Bush Says Sending Jobs Abroad Can Be Beneficial."

Yes, as we read the report, that is exactly what was said.

Mr. N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, said:

Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade. More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing.

Is that a good thing, President Bush and Mr. Mankiw? Would you like to go to Walter Reed Hospital and explain to the soldiers who have been victimized by the loss of steel production in America that this is a good thing? It is not a good thing.

I am one who supports trade. I believe globalization is as inevitable as gravity, but I also understand we need economic leadership from the top, from the White House and the President on down that says we will enforce trade agreements; we will build America's economic base; we will not surrender American jobs willingly.

This report from the Bush administration says that they not only surrender these jobs willingly, they do it with applause. What a good thing it must be that the President's report says to Congress that we have lost so many jobs overseas-jobs to China, jobs to India, and it continues.

In technology, there was a time when we were king; Silicon Valley ruled, and they should-all the ingenuity and creativity that came up with these dramatic advances in technology. What is happening today? A large and growing number of computer-related jobs are already leaving America.

IBM, for example, announced in December it is going to transfer 4,730 programming jobs from the United States to India, China, and other countries. Insurance giant Aetna likewise decided early in the year to begin sending 20 percent of its application outsourcing work to India.

From the viewpoint of President Bush and his economic advisers, this is great news: IBM is sending jobs to India and China; Aetna is going to outsource 20 percent of its jobs to India. From their point of view, from the statement they sent to Congress, we should applaud this: what a great development, that all of the programmers and electrical engineers who work for these companies will now be out of work and someone overseas will take their jobs for a fraction of the pay they were receiving.

That is not good news in my home. It is not good news in Illinois. And I don't think it is good news for most working families across America.

The President yesterday appeared in a plant in Missouri and said: Our tax cuts for the wealthy are working; they really turned this economy around. I am sorry to say to the President that he has the dubious distinction at this point in his Presidency of having lost more jobs as a President of the United States than any President since Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression.

This President has watched these jobs leave, and for a time you would think it troubled him and for a time you would think he was trying to bring these jobs back to the United States or protect the jobs we have. But the report to Congress this week says it is part of a designed plan-a plan by the Bush administration that happens to believe in their wrongheaded way that tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America are good for our future; that happens to believe outsourcing jobs to India and China somehow is positive for America; and that happens to believe Americans who are out of work don't deserve unemployment benefits and those who are working shouldn't be paid for overtime.

That is the economic policy of the Bush administration, and that is why we have elections in America. American families who have seen these jobs go overseas are going to reject this wrongheaded Bush economic policy.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Dole). The Senator's time has expired.

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I think we are going to find soon the American people will respond in resounding terms to this report to Congress.

I yield the floor.

Mr. REID. Madam President, how much time is remaining?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Four minutes seventeen seconds.

Mr. REID. Madam President, before my friend from Illinois leaves the floor, I would like to propound a question to him. I say to my friend from Illinois, the majority leader was on the floor today, and I think the Senator from Illinois heard me remark earlier that he said the tax cuts are working. I have thought about that since I spoke 20 minutes ago, and I think he is probably right, they are working for the elite of this country, people who are in the upper income brackets.

Does the Senator from Illinois know of anyone else who is receiving a benefit from the tax cuts?

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I say to the Senator from Nevada, yes, I will tell the Senator who will benefit from the tax cut: the countries that are loaning money to America to finance the debt that these tax cuts have created. Specifically Japan, which is loaning over $500 billion to the United States to pay for our debt, and China. China, in loaning money to the United States, is earning interest. So the Japanese and the Chinese benefit from the President's tax cuts and economic policy because they are earning interest on this massive debt, a deficit larger than any President has ever created in the history of the United States of America. The winners, as I see it, would be the overseas investors, as well as the wealthiest people in our country. They are the winners.

Mr. REID. Madam President, has my friend reviewed the text of the book, "The Price of Loyalty"?

Mr. DURBIN. I read this book.

Mr. REID. The Senator does recall in that book where Vice President Cheney, when Paul O'Neill said we should take a look at these deficits that are building up, and does the Senator recall-this is almost a direct quote-Vice President Cheney interrupting the meeting and saying: President Reagan proved deficits don't matter?

Can the Senator from Illinois comment on that statement, "deficits don't matter"?

Mr. DURBIN. I remember it. In addition to some other comments in the book, it was the most graphic illustration that this administration is insensitive to the deficits and debt they are creating.

I also recall in that same book Paul O'Neill, then-Secretary of the Treasury, was recommending to the Bush administration to put triggers in the tax cuts so that if the surplus disappeared, then the tax cuts would not continue and drag us even deeper into debt. That was rejected by Larry Lindsey, the former head of the Council of Economic Advisers, the predecessor to the man who came up with this delightful equation that says losing jobs overseas is good for America.

What we have had is a wonderful parade of economic extremists in the White House who advised this administration into the current mess with our budget and with our economy.

Mr. REID. Is that the same Larry Lindsey who was fired because he said the war in Iraq would cost more than $100 billion?

Mr. DURBIN. That is right, he misspoke and, as a result, he was returned to the private sector. Now we see his predecessor, Mr. Mankiw, who now has misspoken, but we have his report. President Bush sent his report to Congress and he said outsourcing American jobs is good for America. I am sure we are going to hear a correction before the Sun goes down in Washington today.