August 17th, 1999
LULING, Texas — More than 300 people participated in this weekend’s Hill Country Job Fair, hosted by US Rep. Ron Paul in conjunction with the Luling Chamber of Commerce and Texas State Rep. Rick Green.
“I’m very pleased that so many people were able to participate,” said Rep. Paul, who has hosted similar events three times in the past — twice in Matagorda County and once in Refugio. “Our goal was to bring together employers and potential new employees — it looks like our goal was met and exceeded.”
State Rep. Green added that he was glad to “participate in events designed to boost the local economy.”
“By the looks of the crowd, it appears to be working,” he said.
Trey Bailey of the City of Luling said the event “exceeded my wildest expectations.”
Employers were also pleased with the turn out. Said Wayne McCrary of Labor Finders, “I came with 60 positions to fill and I’m leaving with 40 applications. That’s not bad for three hours of work. I would never have been this productive without this event.”
Several state and federal agencies were invited to the event, including Nell Alexander of the state Department of Criminal Justice.
“I travel the state to recruit for the department, and I haven’t seen an event as well organized or attended in a long time.”
Likewise, the US military recruiters were pleased with the response they had. Staff Sgt. Kelvin Mayfield of the US Army recruiting office in San Marcos said “it’s truly an honor to be here.”
The highest praise for the event, though, came from the men and women who were there looking for employment opportunities.
“I’m not unemployed, but I’m looking for a career change,” said one man from Luling. “I handed out about half a dozen resumes inside and I think I’ve got some great leads.”
Rep. Paul said he has instructed his staff to work with other communities around the 14 th District, so similar events can be held in those locations, as well.
“The problem is often not that jobs are unavailable, it is just that employers and applicants cannot find each other. It is an honor to be able to bring them together in this kind of setting.”
Posted in Press Releases | Comments Off
Similar posts:
August 5th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my support for this rule. It is a fair rule. There is plenty of room for debate and room for amendment.
I would like to congratulate the Committee on Appropriations for doing something very important in this bill by deleting all the funding for the Selective Service System. I think that is very important.
As was described by the gentlewoman earlier, there will be an attempt early on. The first amendment that will come to the floor will be to put that money back in.
I would like my colleagues to consider very seriously not to do that, because there is no need for the Selective Service System. There is only one purpose for the Selective Service System. That is to draft young 18-year-olds. That is unfair.
There is no such thing as a fair draft system. It is always unfair to those who are less sophisticated, who either avoid the draft or are able to get into the National Guard, or as it was in the Civil War, pay to get their way out.
The draft is a 20th century phenomenon, and I am delighted to see and very pleased that the Committee on Appropriations saw fit to delete this money because this, to me, is reestablishing one of the American traditions, that we do not believe in conscription. Conscription and drafting is a totalitarian idea.
I would like to remind many of my conservative colleagues that, if we brought a bill to this floor where we would say that we would register all of our guns in the United States, there would be a hue and cry about how horrible it would be. Yet, we casually accept this program of registering 18-year-old kids to force them to go and fight the political wars that they are not interested in. This is a very, very serious idea and principle of liberty.
So when the time comes in September to vote for this, I beg that my fellow colleagues will think seriously about this, the needlessness to spend $25 million to continue to register young people to go off to fight needless wars. They are not even permitted to drink beer; and, yet, we expect them to be registered and to use them to fight the wars that the older generation starts for political and narrow-minded reasons.
So when the time comes in September, please consider that there are ways that one can provide for an army without conscription. We have had the reinstitution of registration of the draft for 20 years. It has been wasted money. We can save the $25 million. We should do it. We should not put this money back in. We do not need the Selective Service System.
Posted in Speeches and Statements | Comments Off
Similar posts:
August 2nd, 1999
Mr. Chairman, this amendment provides that no funds for new obligations, guarantees, or agreements can be issued under the Export-Import Bank under OPIC or under the Trade Development Agency. This again is an attempt to try to slow up the amount of dollars that flow into corporations and for their benefit specifically as well as our foreign competitors.
China, for instance, receives the largest amount of money from the Export-Import Bank. Outstanding liabilities for the Export-Import Bank is now $55 billion. There is $5.9 billion that have been granted to the Chinese.
Last week we had a very important vote on trade. It was hotly debated over human rights issues. I voted to trade with China because I believe it is proper to trade with people. We are less likely to fight with them. And in this institution, too often we use our terms carelessly and we talk about free trade as being something which is managed trade. Free trade here generally means that we will have the NAFTA people managing trade, the World Trade Organization managing trade, and we will subsidize our businesses.
Just this past week we had the World Trade Organization rule against us saying that we grant $2 billion worth of tax benefits to our own corporations and they ruled that that was illegal. This is all done in the name of free trade.
I say that we should have free trade. We should trade with our friends and with anybody who would trade that we are not at war with. We should really, really be careful about issuing sanctions. But here we are, last week we had the great debate and a lot of people could not stand the idea of trading with Red China because of their human rights record and I understand that, although I did not accept that position. But this is the time to do something about it.
Trading with Red China under true free trade is a benefit to both of us. It is a benefit to our consumers and it benefits both countries because we are talking with people and we are not fighting with them. But it gets to be a serious problem when we tax our people in order to benefit those who are receiving the goods overseas.
Now, if there is a worldwide downturn, this $55 billion of liabilities out there could be very significant in how it is going to be paid back. The Chinese right now, their economy is not all that healthy. They are talking about a devaluation.
So this is a liability that the American taxpayers are exposed to. If we do have a concern about Red China and the Chinese, yes, let us work with them, let us trade with them, but let us not subsidize them.
This is what I am trying to do. I am trying to stop this type of subsidies. So my bill, my amendment would stop any new obligation. It does not close down Export-Import Bank. It allows all the old loans to operate and function, but no new obligations can be made, no new guaranties, and no agreement, with the idea that someday we may truly move to free trade, that we do not recognize free trade as being subsidized trade as well as internationally managed trade with organizations such as NAFTA and World Trade Organization.
Those institutions are not free trade institutions. They are managed trade institutions for the benefit of special interests. That is what this type of funding is for is for the benefit of special interests, whether it is our domestic corporation, which, indeed, I would recognize does receive some benefit.
Sixty-seven percent of all the funding of the Export-Import Bank goes to, not a large number of companies, to five companies. I will bet my colleagues, if they look at those five companies in this country that gets 67 percent of the benefit and look at their political action records, my colleagues might be enlightened. I mean, I bet my colleagues we would learn something about where that money goes, because they are big corporations and they benefit, and they will have their defenders here.
It is time we look carefully at these subsidies.
….
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that it is truly a subsidy to a foreign corporation, a foreign government. For Red China, corporations and governments are essentially identical. They are not really quite in the free market yet.
But the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. CALLAHAN) points out that, no, that is not true. The money does not go to Red China and they buy things; we just give it directly. We do not even send it round trip. This is true.
We take taxpayers’ money. We take taxpayers’ guarantee. We give them to those huge five corporations that do 67 percent of the business. We give them the money. But where do the goods go? Do the goods go to the American taxpayers? No. They get all of the liabilities. The subsidies help the Chinese.
So, technically, yes, we do not send the money there. But who is going to pay it back? The Chinese pays the loan back. If they default, who pays the bill if the Chinese defaults? Who pays the bill if they default? It is obviously the taxpayers.
What I am pointing out is that $5.9 billion that the Chinese now had borrowed from us, from the Export-Import Bank, is a significant obligation that, too, is on the backs of the American taxpayer.
So I urge support for the amendment because, if we are serious about free trade, just please do not call it free trade anymore. Call it managed trade. Call it subsidized trade. Call it special interest trade. But please do not call it free trade anymore, because it is not free trade.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Posted in Speeches and Statements | Comments Off
Similar posts:
August 2nd, 1999
Mr. Chairman, the amendment is straightforward. It prohibits the use of any money for population control, family planning, or abortion of any funds authorized in this bill, appropriated in this bill.
Mr. Chairman, the question really is this: Should the American taxpayer be required to pay for birth control pills, IUDs, Depo-Provera, Norplant, condom distribution, as well as abortion in foreign countries. Those who believe this is a proper and legitimate function will vote against the amendment. Those who believe that it is not a proper function for us to be doing these things around the world would vote for my amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I mention abortion because although this bill does not authorize funds directly for abortion, any birth control center that is involved that receives funds from us and are involved with abortion, all they do is shift the funds. All funds are fungible, so any country that we give money to that is involved with abortion, for whatever reason, or especially in a family planning clinic, can very easily shift those funds and perform abortions. So this is very, very clear-cut.
I would like to spend a minute though on the authority that is cited for doing such a thing. Under the House rules, the committee is required to at least cite the constitutional authority for doing what we do on each of our bills. Of course, I was curious about this, because I was wondering whether this could be general welfare. This does not sound like the general welfare of the U.S. taxpayer, to be passing out condoms and birth control pills and forcing our will on other people, imposing our standards on them and forcing our taxpayers to pay. That does not seem to have anything to do whatsoever with the general welfare of this country.
Of course, the other clause that is generally used in our legislation is the interstate commerce clause. Well, it would be pretty tough, pretty tough, justifying passing out condoms in the various countries of the world under the interstate commerce clause.
So it was very interesting to read exactly what the justification is. The Committee on Appropriations, quoting from the committee report, the Committee on Appropriations bases its authority to report this legislation from clause 7, section 9 of Article I of the Constitution of the United States of America, which states “no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriation made by law.” “Appropriations contained in this act,” the report says, “are made pursuant to this specific power granted by the Constitution.”
That is not a power. That was a prohibition. It was to keep us from spending money without appropriation. If this is true, we can spend money on anything in the world, and the Constitution has zero meaning. This cannot possibly be.
So all I would suggest is this: Be a little more creative when we talk about the Constitution. There must be a more creative explanation on why we are spending these kinds of monies overseas.
…
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman makes the point that we should not use the abortion issue to talk about fungibility and I believe that she is correct. I think it should apply to everything. This is the reason I do strongly oppose Export-Import Bank money going to Red China. Their violations of civil liberties and abortions are good reasons why we should not do it, and yet they are the greatest recipient of our foreign aid from the Exim Bank. $5.9 billion they have received over the years.
So I would say, yes, the gentlewoman is correct. All of these programs are fungible. And I agree that the wording in the bill says that our funds cannot be used. But when we put our funds in with other funds, all of the sudden they are in a pool and they can shift them around and there is a real thing called fungibility.
So once we send money to a country for any reason, we endorse what they do. Therefore, we should be rather cautious. As a matter of fact, if we were cautious enough we would not be in the business of taking money at the point of a gun from our American taxpayer, doing things that they find abhorrent around the world and imposing our will and our standards on them.
Mr. Chairman, birth control methods are not perfectly safe. As a gynecologist, I have seen severe complications from the use of IUDs and Depo-Provera and Norplant. Women can have strokes with birth control pill. These are not benign.
And my colleagues say we want to stop the killing and abortions, but every time that the abortion is done with fungible funds, it is killing a human being, an innocent human being. So for very real reasons, if we were serious about stopping this and protecting the American taxpayer, there is nothing wrong with some of these goals. I agree. As a gynecologist, I would agree with the goals, but they should not be done through coercion. They should be done through voluntary means through churches and charities. That is the way it should be done.
Mr. Chairman, we do not have the authority to coerce our people to work hard, pay their taxes, and then take the money into foreign countries and impose our will on them.
Posted in Speeches and Statements | Comments Off
Similar posts:
August 2nd, 1999
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support for this amendment. If it were true that this agency (OPIC) is profitable, we would not be here. They would be making profit, and OPIC would not need to come here every year.
They are asking for $55 million. Where does the profit come from? It was stated earlier very clearly; from the interest they earn. They have a portfolio of $3 billion of U.S. securities.
But these did not reduce the national debt. That is part of the national debt. We pay interest on that $3 billion. And this agency gets $194 million from it, four times the amount of the requested appropriation.
No wonder on paper it looks profitable. And they say, well, the private companies will not insure some of these projects. That means it is probably risky. Why should the taxpayer assume the risk? Why should these corporations be protected with this corporate welfare?
This is the reason why jobs are exported at a cost to the American taxpayer. It is bad economics. And it is a lot of twisting of the facts if we call this agency profitable at the same time they are getting $194 million that we barely talk about.
How many other agencies of government get interest like this? This is almost a government unto itself, the fact that it has that much financing without even a direct appropriation because it is paid out of the interest budget.
This is indeed a very important amendment. I believe that we should definitely vote for this. If we care at all about the taxpayer of this country, we should expose what is happening with corporate welfare.
The little people are not coming to us today begging us to vote against this amendment. It is the corporations, the giant corporations, not our small mom-and-pop businesses. They are not coming and saying, please, please protect OPIC. No, it is the giant corporations that have been able to manipulate and get benefits from programs like this.
Posted in Speeches and Statements | Comments Off
Similar posts: