Mr. ZEFERETTI. Should we do the same with the other countries we're importing products from? Mr. DAY. You want me to tell you what we should do with Japan? Mr. ZEFERETTI. I'm talking about all products. Mr. DENT. Let's leave countries out of it. Mr. ZEFERETTI. Let's talk about all products. Mr. DENT. Do you think a nation that is capable of producing all the goods it needs ought to provide for full employment in its own country? Mr. DAY. Within reason. Mr. DENT. That's the point. There is no line of demarcation with that philosophy because that's how we built this nation. We had as high as Mr. DAY. Mr. Dent, we've got a lot of different circumstances today than we had years ago. New York is going broke. In Detroit we're laying off policemen. We're doing away with mental health hospitals and shoving these people out on the streets that should be in mental health hospitals because we can't afford to keep them in there. Mr. DENT. Why? Why can't we afford it? Mr. DAY. Because we don't have enough money in the till in the State of Michigan. Mr. DENT. How do you create money? Mr. DAY. Jobs, non-Government jobs. Mr. DENT. How do you get jobs if you've got other people making products. You see, the only initial job in any enterprise or any economy is the product of somebody's work, You have to make something. You can't have a service community and that's our problem. We're making jobs with the Government here and they don't last. There is nothing to sell. Mr. DAY. Never mind Government handouts for guys like me who are losing money. Let's put it on an equal basis so I can compete with somebody and I can give people jobs, meaningful jobs, not Government jobs. Government jobs don't mean a damn because of the income that comes under Government jobs. A tax is paid and the balance comes from the taxpayer. I'm talking about jobs at the industrial, commercial, private sector lével. Mr. DENT. There is only one way you can do it, and that is via production jobs. I just can't sit by and watch plants close, and they are closing every day. On this list you will find more of my people than any other State in the Union. Mr. DAY. Open them up. Mr. DENT. With what? How are you going to sell them? Mr. DAY. By doing what I'm telling you today. Let's take Japan, for instance. I'll touch on this and I'm all through. Japan charges a 200-percent duty on an American car in Japan, and we charge 3 percent. Would you say that is an inequity? Mr. DENT. We know that. Mr. DAY. I say let's make it a 50-percent reciprocal duty. In other words, if Japan says Mr. DENT. Mr. Day, understand that this reciprocal trade agreement was misspelled and misnamed. There is no such thing as a 200-percent duty. For example, we took a Chevrolet in this country and followed it straight through to the port, off the ship, into Jaj We found why an automobile selling for $3,200 in the United St ended up at over $13,000 when it got to the Japanese consumer. Mr. DAY. This is simple. Let them keep their 200 percent. Mr. DENT. It's not a tariff, and under international agreeme we cannot move on it. We can't do anything. We have tied oursel The Congress has abdicated its position on customs and duties tariffs, and turned it over to the executive branch. All we have veto right, exercised within 30 days after an agreement, and tingent on securing a two-thirds vote in this free-trade-orier Congress. You can't do it, I'm telling you. I'm at the end of string. I've been at it 20 years, but there is no way we can ad our laws to meet the problem you're talking about. Mr. DAY. No way unless we change the laws. Mr. DENT. That, my friend, would be the millennium wher comes. I don't like to be a crepe hanger, but when you've been a for 20 years, you have to get some taste of death. Mr. DAY. This is a great campaign issue for Carter and Reag this inequity. Mr. DENT. For 20 years I've said it would be a campaign iss but it's awful slow getting off its feet. I understand your problem very well because, maybe not to y knowledge, most of the witnesses that have come here before t committee since our hearings have started in 1961, have been sm businesses. I made a check of 100 of those who came before 1 committee, and the majority of them have long since perished, they said they would if they didn't get some relief from impor Others were gobbled up by bigger corporations. Now, Detroit will not face up to this issue. If you've got 130,000 140,000 workers, the highest paid workers in that city unemploy and not paying any taxes, you've got to go bankrupt. You've to lay off policemen. There is no other way out of it. It's just th simple. There's only one ingredient that makes an industrial and agric tural economy work, and that is the job, in the first instance. Not t service jobs. Production jobs create the service jobs. Mr. DAY. I agree. I'll go to Hawaii or Tahiti because I've been all through Southes Asia and there are some fine countries there and they are growing al there is a lot more opportunity there than in Canada. Mr. DENT. I was just using that because that happens to be t subject this morning. Mr. DAY. I'm a citizen of the United States. I believe in the Unite States, and I want to work in the United States. Mr. DENT. I admire your spunk. Mr. DAY. Can the record be kept open so I can make a fu statement? Mr. DENT. The record will be kept open for 30 or 40 days. If yo need any more time, just send a letter back. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for coming. W have to go down and make a quorum again. I know there will be quite a few of the members that weren't her that will read your testimony and get the advantage of knowing bot sides of this picture. Is Mr. Lavelle here? You don't want to appear? Mr. LAVELLE. We have submitted a statement, Mr. Chairman. Mr. DENT. Thank you very much for coming. Mr. Day, we want to again thank you for coming and giving us the benefit of your experience and your opinions. [Whereupon, at 12 m. the subcommittee recessed.] APPENDIX 94th 1st Congress} COMMITTEE PRINT CANADIAN AUTOMOBILE AGREEMENT UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNITED STATES-CANADIAN AUTOMOTIVE AND THE NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE CONGRESS ON THE OPERATION OF THE AUTOMOTIVE PRODUCTS TRADE ACT COMMITTEE ON FINANCE RUSSELL B. LONG, Chairman JANUARY 1976 Printed for the use of the Committee on Finance U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1976 (133) |