Thoughts on Addressing Economic Disparity

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman, Chair Himes, for yielding, and I thank him for bringing the committee to Lorain, Ohio.

Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to offer my strong support for pending new investments in our workers, our families, and our communities.

As was highlighted during the hearing in Lorain, our region has been battered by an economy that rewards the 1 percent and billionaire investors at the expense of workers of the middle class. Thankfully, right now in northern Ohio we are seeing the possibility of restoring new hope and new opportunity not just for billionaires but for workers. The parents and grandparents of nearly 150,000 children from working families and struggling households in our district are seeing their taxes cut through the child tax credit.

Unlike the trillion-dollar giveaway aimed at the wealthiest and transnational corporations that outsource jobs to penny-wage nations, our hardworking families are seeing their tax dollars returned directly to them.

Looking at how working mothers struggle, a recent study from the United Way of Greater Toledo shows that more than one-third workers are not eligible for paid maternity leave. In the richest nation on Earth, our workers should have access to paid family leave that is available elsewhere on the globe. This is what we are working to deliver.

Further, significant new investments in physical infrastructure will create living wage jobs and help level the playing field as America creates new wealth beginning right where we live by rebuilding our roads, bridges, ports, and investing in renewable energies like hydrogen and electric vehicles to spur a real revival of our industrial heartland.

It is time to deal in workers and their families by rewarding hard work, not just capital. It is time to deliver for the families in Toledo, Sandusky, Lorain, and Cleveland. Investments in our workers, families, and communities will help restore faith that hard work matters. It will rebuild the middle class and provide a path to fully realize the American Dream.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source