January 8, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 4 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session
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TEPID ECONOMIC RESULTS; Congressional Record Vol. 166, No. 4
(House of Representatives - January 08, 2020)
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[Pages H20-H21] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] TEPID ECONOMIC RESULTS The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for 5 minutes. Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, as we begin the new year and the new decade, economic results feel tepid for working communities across our country. The President touts and newspapers parrot his misguided belief that America is experiencing the greatest economy for everyone. No, not for everyone. Sure, many indicators prioritized by Wall Street and Washington support and reflect this statement, but speak with millions and millions of lower and middle-class workers, Americans across our country--especially in the heartland, in the Midwest--and you will find they feel quite differently. They are falling deeper into debt. Despite President Trump's exaggeration, a soaring stock market is not indicative of a strong economy for all. Most Americans do not have a significant stake in the stock market. They work paycheck to paycheck. They have to pay higher prices for everything. According to fact-checkers at PolitiFact, Americans of modest incomes are significantly less invested in the stock market than wealthier Americans. No surprise there. Other groups, including minorities and those without a college education, also lag in stock ownership, meaning that the stock market rally President Trump and the Republican Party so loudly brag about misses--bypasses--the large majority of Americans. While unemployment numbers are relatively low, tens of millions of Americans continue to live and work below the poverty line. If you take look at their paycheck, many of them have to get food support through the government because they can't make ends meet--working people who are poor, millions of them. Millions more are unemployed and working multiple jobs just to make ends meet for themselves and their families. Others have given up on finding work altogether, especially in towns and cities, where good work has simply disappeared and not been replaced. These families simply exist. Since NAFTA's passage in the early 1990s, communities across America--especially in our industrial heartland--have endured the outsourcing of living-wage, middle-class jobs to Mexico and other penny-wage environments where workers are exploited to produce goods for pennies on the dollar. Because of disastrous trade policies such as NAFTA and lack of enforcement by governments like Mexico, our young people have grown up in the shadows of shuttered factories they have never seen in operation. For too many, the pain of NAFTA's and other trade agreements' broken promises remain raw and real. So, while job creation numbers may be up in one place, one must wonder: What sort of jobs are being created and how many are good jobs? The answer is: not nearly enough. Many of the lost living-wage manufacturing jobs weren't only outsourced to Mexico; others shifted to China. What has the President's unpredictable posturing with China has given our heartland? Desperate farmers and even more pain for manufacturing workers. The 18-month-long trade war with China has undermined business investment. It pushed the manufacturing industry into a recession and cost an additional $42 billion for American consumers who have paid more for needed goods, according to a new Federal Reserve Bank study. This year brings small relief for the 7 million lucky Americans who live in cities and States that will see wage increases; but this is no thanks to the President or the Senate Republicans who still refuse to move the Raise the Wage Act the House passed last year for the millions of workers who live at the lowest level of paid wages in our country. Millions of American workers remain left behind by the $7.25 minimum wage, or $15,080 for a full year's work, because the Federal minimum wage remains stagnant. American workers haven't had the benefit of a Federal minimum wage increase in over a decade, yet the prices of everything have gone up--right?--medicine, housing, food, cars, local taxes. There isn't a single congressional district in our Nation where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford a two-bedroom apartment. How about that? Factor in the rising cost of healthcare and education, and more American families continue to live at the breaking point and are going deeper into debt. This President continues to push for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, despite no plan to replace it. Here is another example of President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's failure to act to support workers: Our House passed the Butch Lewis Act--with bipartisan support, it passed this Chamber-- to address the worsening multiemployer pension crisis. Currently, there are about 1,400 multiemployer plans covering nearly 10 million people across our country who are retired--60,000 in Ohio alone. These plans are certain to run out of money to support those retirees. It is estimated that 1.3 million retirees and workers are set to lose these benefits. Mr. Speaker, the Senate should pass the bill that we passed here for these retirees; and we all, as a country, should work to improve the economic outlook for millions and millions of working Americans who, frankly, are left out of this economy. [[Page H21]] IMPROVING QUALITY OF LIFE FOR YOUNG JUVENILES The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 5 minutes. Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, let me, first of all, say how grateful we are that, as the assessment has been made, none of our brave soldiers lost their lives last night in the Iranian attack and that it is crucial this week that this Congress assert its authority, its constitutional authority as it relates to any declaration of war, which is our authority under Article I, in spite of the unfortunate determination made by this administration putting American soldiers in danger, diplomats making their families have great concern, and, certainly, jeopardizing the security of the American people. Our soldiers, most of all, we respect and honor, but we must do our job. As we do that, it is important, as well, to recognize that our work must go on. Over the years, I have worked on any number of responses to improving the quality of life of our young juveniles. On any given day, over 48,000 youth in the United States are confined in facilities away from home as a result of the juvenile justice or criminal justice involvement. In many instances, they are not assigned a particular sentence and can stay incarcerated or detained until they are 21. Most are held in restrictive correctional-style facilities, and thousands are held without even having had a trial--no sentence. Mr. Speaker, 92 percent of youth in juvenile facilities are in locked facilities. According to a 2018 report, 52 percent of long-term secure facilities, 44 percent of detention facilities, and 43 percent of reception and diagnostic centers also use mechanical restraints like handcuffs, leg cuffs, restraining chairs, straightjackets, with 40 percent of long-term secure facilities and detention centers isolating youth in locked rooms for 4 hours or more. In the State of Texas, we have had a long history with our foster care system and our detention system where young people--juveniles-- have been abused, sexually assaulted, and other indignities, altering them for life. According to selected findings from the Juvenile Residential Facility Census released in December 2018, 46 percent of all facilities reported locking youths in their rooms. Among public facilities, 81 percent of local facilities and 68 percent of State facilities reported locking young people in sleeping rooms. These young people are going to be the future leaders or the future citizens, residents of this Nation. They will have to take their rightful place. This is wrong, and so I intend to introduce an omnibus reformation of the juvenile justice system to reform it so that we can respond appropriately to these 48,000-plus and really restore their lives. I have already introduced legislation to ban solitary confinement, and locking juveniles in their rooms, lockdown, is equal to that. We don't know the altering factor in the development of these young people. Studies have shown brains are not fully developed until the age of 25, and yet we put on the brains of these young people under 25 in the juvenile justice system the kinds of stimuli that would alter their life forever. We also want to address the question of juveniles having a future, to ban the box of having to admit being arrested or in a juvenile detention center. Remember, most of these juveniles have not had trials. They have not had due process. They don't have a sentence. They can remain in that facility until, in many instances, the age of 21 if they came in at 12 or 14 a for nonviolent offense. Then, of course, we need to find alternative places for juveniles to be able to have wraparound services that really restore them to being a full, young person who can enjoy life and get an education. Many times when juveniles are in juvenile detention centers, their educations are spotty, at best. They don't return to the school system, and they are isolated and prone to dropping out. Yes, families need help. Families wind up in the juvenile justice system or the family court system out of desperation because we don't have help for those families. We need wraparound services, support services, that will encourage and enhance family unity and the ability to address the needs of this young person. Maybe it is volatility, immaturity. Maybe it is a response to home life. Maybe it is because there is drug abuse in the family or criminal activity in the family, or maybe there is poverty in the family or one parent struggling to raise a number of children. We cannot abandon 48,000 children every year in this Nation, Mr. Speaker, and so I will introduce the omnibus reform bill of the juvenile justice system to ensure that we save and build the lives of our young people. ____________________
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