The Occupy movement says big government is in bed with big business. But House Democratic Senior Whip Mike Honda [Japanese-American], who represents California’s Silicon Valley, says he advocates for the 99 percent. The six-term representative from the Golden State’s 15th District serves on the House Appropriations and Budget committees, is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and chairman emeritus of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. He recently spoke with U.S. News about his education bill, bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States, and standing up for Muslim-Americans. Excerpts:
Are there jobs open in the Silicon Valley?
Oh yeah, lots of jobs. There are probably a couple of thousand at least. I talked to Oracle and they said they had something like 1,500 jobs globally, and a good part of that was located right in the Silicon Valley.
Can these positions be filled?
The kind of jobs we have available require more training and education.
Are the needs of the high-tech job market not being met?
There’s two things. One is how we view education, and that’s why the bill I’m pushing out there addresses making sure that our youngsters get exposed to science, technology, engineering, math [STEM] issues and processes. Two, the immigration system is so screwed up right now. Ever since 9/11 we have stopped inflows of graduate students, scholars, professors from other countries. People who wanted to go to our graduate schools are now opting to go to other countries.
What is the purpose of the STEM bill?
To produce youngsters who are STEM-ready, to start in pre-kindergarten and make sure that every child has an opportunity to understand that science and technology happens every day in our homes. When you freeze water or you boil eggs, you’re doing chemistry. When kids fix their cars, they’re doing physics, putting cars on bricks rather than using jacks. You’re doing science all the time and [kids] start to readjust their understanding of what they do on a daily basis, and all of a sudden science is not a mystery anymore, and that’s the key for STEM.
You have authored several federal education proposals. Meanwhile, some members of the Tea Party have advocated to shut down the Department of Education.
Of course they want to, because they don’t want an electorate that’s going to think, that’s going to be able to be more critical.
Is the Department of Education functioning the way that it should?
You know, [Jimmy] Carter started the Education Department because our society had reached a point where we needed to look at our public school system in a comprehensive way. We had achieved a society that’s able to communicate in real time across this country and yet we’re not achieving the equity that we need for each child. And now because it’s not been as successful, the Tea Party people want to give it up rather than achieve that dream that each child will have the right and exposure to equal opportunity education. And that should be our goal.
Is there a future for manufacturing in America?
Our companies started looking overseas to get cheaper labor and thinking that cheaper labor will give us cheaper products, and we can export our jobs overseas and then import the products. OK, that was a start, but also our country did not make [the business] environment the most productive and the most friendly because we were concerned about the environment and all that stuff. Well, we’re at a point where we understand all these things and so we can make it more streamlined.
How would you bring manufacturing back?
We can encourage manufacturers to stay in this country by providing tax credits for those companies that want to build their products here. And if we give them the proper incentives, they will stay here. If we make the environment in this country more amenable for manufacturers, then we should be able to do that.
Is this a realistic goal in an innovation-focused economy?
What Steve Jobs had done, and he’s a good example of keeping the innovation here, he created the iPod, then next came the iPhone, then next came the iPad. So he kept the innovation here, but the production of these things went overseas. So what would happen if we kept it all here—the innovation, the product development, and the manufacturing? If we kept it all here, then we’d have more jobs created here and we’d become more globally competitive.
How did the Congressional Progressive Caucus come up with the People’s Budget?
We went out and gathered information from all these viable polls that people took and we looked at it and we started hammering together a budget that was reflective of the needs of the people. Because a budget is a product and reflection of our values, and so those values are the motivation for putting the People’s Budget together. And so we put together our own budget and said this is a product that’s based upon the response of people.
Does it address entitlement programs?
We’re not going to minimize, we’re not going to voucherize, we’re not going to privatize the three things that people really don’t want to see touched. We don’t want to minimize, but strengthen Medicaid. We don’t want to voucherize Medicare, we want to build it up and make it stronger. And we don’t want to privatize Social Security. Those things remain intact because they are a contract between the people and its government.
Why is President Obama’s jobs bill stalled?
The Republican leadership don’t want him to succeed. That’s a quote from [GOP] Sen. [Mitch] McConnell. He says our goal is to make sure that President Obama is not successful. Well, if you have that in mind as the motivation, then people in this country are not part of their motivation. Their job is to make sure there’s a barrier and obstruction to what is good for this country. So everything that’s coming out of the Senate under their leadership, we can expect that it’s not going to be good. Because whatever’s good for the country is good for the president’s reputation, and something they therefore don’t want to support.
You’ve recently called attention to the congressional hearings on Muslim-American radicalization. Why?
The Japanese-Americans in 1942 were vilified because of the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor. We became targets and they looked at us as enemy aliens. And they wouldn’t let us be in the military and they called us the enemy within. Now this is the same thing that [Rep.] Peter King is espousing through his use of this office and inciting fear, hysteria, and mistrust towards people who are different. A commission in 1986 said the reason why the Japanese-Americans were incarcerated was because of racial discrimination, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. And I’ll be damned if this happens under my watch.
Any advice for the 99 percent?
The people have to go to the polls to really exercise their franchise. Every citizen has that responsibility to make sure that they cast their vote, and their voice is going to be the conscience of this country.
U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | December 16, 2011
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