Marcy Kaptur: “I rise tonight on the topic of jobs in America and the trade deficit, an issue which, after 10 years of very hard work…”

“I rise tonight on the topic of jobs in America and the trade deficit, an issue which, after 10 years of very hard work, has finally made it into the headlines during this Presidential primary season, and it could not have come too soon. Last week, in our local newspaper, the Toledo Blade, one of the headlines read, ``Trade Deficit Highest in 7 Years.'' In fact, last year, 1995, the amount of imports coming into this country versus exports going out ballooned to over $111 billion, the worst performance of this economy since 1987, and, in fact, last year's goods deficit, that means the part of the trade deficit that deals with hard merchandise, grew to $175 billion, an increase of over 5 percent from the prior year. That means we are digging ourselves deeper in the hole. Trade deficits like these have turned our country from being the largest creditor in the world, that means that people borrowed from us, rather we have become the largest debtor nation in the world, importing much more than we export and having to monetize, pay for those imports with our hard-earned dollars. Is it any surprise that the kind of lingering trade deficit has served to act as a downward push on wages in this country, contributing as well to the loss of millions of jobs across our country as we see not just low-skilled jobs but high-skilled jobs moving abroad and a general decline in our own living standards?”