Restore the American Dream

Floor Speech

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Mr. DELUZIO. Mr. Speaker, the American people are sick and tired of powerful corporations ripping us off, junk fees, small businesses struggling, union busting, price gouging, bad trade deals, all of it.

I am convening this Special Order hour today because I am committed to fighting back. I am here because we need to revive and restore and strengthen the American Dream for all who are willing to work for it. I know my constituents are. I know the American people want more from this body.

In the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt confronted these same forces in a different time head-on, saying: ``These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power.''

Absolutely. There is no freedom if families are struggling to meet basic needs. There is no liberty if we are ruled by oligarchs. No one is going to say that profits don't matter; they do.

Something else has to matter more: Our safety has to matter. Our jobs have to matter. Our communities have to matter. This country has to matter.

For those things to matter, we have to break this corporate stranglehold on our economy and our country. The American economy works just great if you are a billionaire or if you are a giant corporation, but too often our system fails hardworking people.

We need an economy and a government that rewards hard work, not just extreme wealth.

Where I come from and where I grew up, that is something that we value. I represent the good people of the 17th District of Pennsylvania, western Pennsylvania. We believe in hard work. We believe in patriotism. We believe in sacrifice.

We are the folks who made the steel that built this country. We have answered the call in every war. We have done hard work, like so many across this country have done. We saw a story that rewarded that sacrifice with trying to strip us for parts; shipping good jobs away overseas; gobbling up small businesses, squeezing them; seeing big, powerful corporations put their lust for profit ahead of our safety.

We have to stand strong against those forces, a lot of them created by corporate power that are making life worse for people. It is making life more expensive and too expensive.

If American capitalism is going to succeed, we have to have competition. We have to take on anticompetitive monopolies, give small businesses and entrepreneurs a shot to succeed and compete, and make sure that our safety and our communities aren't collateral damage in the way of profits and make sure that workers have some say and dignity on the job and the freedom and forum to join a union.

The American Dream has been snatched away from far too many Americans who are hardworking, who are good and decent people, who want to have a shot at dignity and security. It is a devastating reality for folks to live with. It is unacceptable to me. I know it is unacceptable to many in this Chamber.

Some folks are angry about it. They are sad. They should be. They should expect more of this body, and they should expect more of their government.

I think we need to lay a path back to the American Dream. I am honored to be joined by so many colleagues tonight who will join me in this fight to restore and strengthen the American Dream. With a strong economic message of taking on corporate power, local action, being unafraid to fight the bad guys when we need to, we can deliver for the American people to bring down costs, to reward hard work, and to make life better and cheaper.

We can make sure the American Dream is revived and strong for generations to come.

I am proud to yield time to one of my colleagues from just next door, the great State of Ohio (Mr. Landsman).

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Mr. DELUZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his words.

The gentleman is right. We have to confront this corporate power. We have to build an economy and a government that rewards hard work, not just obscene wealth. We talk about how we all feel that squeeze. We feel that power hurting us.

We all hear from our constituents about the cost of groceries and the cost of food. They don't have a choice to not feed their families. We are feeling it and we are hearing constantly about the pressure folks are under to make ends meet and to put food on the table.

People's paychecks aren't going as far in the grocery store and the checkout line. It hurts budgets. It hurts families.

They are asking: Who is responsible? Why is this happening?

No doubt, a few years back, food and grocery supply chains were affected by the pandemic, but a Federal Trade Commission Report made clear that the disruptions from the pandemic disproportionately impacted small firms because larger companies tried successfully to protect their power and their market share.

There is very little competition across much of the grocery sector. It is not marked by heavy competition. The four biggest grocery retailers account for nearly 70 percent of sales across the country.

Among food suppliers, four firms control more than 60 percent of sales in most grocery categories. That is not terribly competitive.

Without real competition, large grocers and retailers have got power to--guess what--set prices that we all pay for. We have seen price gouging by these corporations well above the level of inflation.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), who I acknowledge and know has been fighting hard against not just corporate power, but to bring down costs for folks, especially in the grocery stores.

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Mr. DELUZIO. Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank the gentlewoman from Washington for her strong leadership and fight against these horrible mergers that are anticompetitive that we are all paying for and for so much fight on behalf of working people across this country.

We know that when corporations throw their weight around, all too often our constituents are hurt, small businesses are hurt, and workers are hurt. It is also dangerous at times. We know that when there are monopolies, our supply chains are weaker. There is more likely to be something that happens that might hurt us.

I am reminded of the baby formula shortage we saw in this country in the early part of 2022. It was set off because Abbott Labs, a company that dominates that industry, had a recall of its formula due to dangerous bacteria outbreak in one factory. Multiple babies died.

They had to shut down their factory in Michigan. It was a horrible situation. Shutting down just one factory, one, caused a nationwide shortage. In many places, store shelves were bare. Families were scrambling across the country, particularly families with babies that had special dietary needs. Delaware, Kansas, and Tennessee reported to be the hardest hit States. We felt it in places like Pennsylvania. My then-young son wasn't quite a year old. My own family worried about whether we could find formula and thank goodness we could.

There is research saying that some of those impacts might be still ongoing, that infant health suffered during this shortage, that babies may still feel the effects of that. Our supply chains can never be so weak that one single factory can cause such havoc all over the country.

It is not just that these powerful companies make our supply chains weaker, they distort our democracy. They weaken faith in our elections. They corrupt with the money through our elections and our campaigns.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Ramirez), who I know is a hard fighter for campaign finance reform and to protect this democracy.

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Mr. DELUZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Illinois for her powerful words.

This democracy is not for sale. That should not be something that is controversial in this Chamber or anything else. Our constituents expect us to fight for all of them.

One of the places that we have seen this consolidation, this concentration, this raw power really hurt folks is in agriculture. We see it because we know that food production is a key step in that grocery supply chain, and we know we hear from our constituents that the cost of groceries is too high. We are all paying too much for food because of this consolidation that we see in agriculture. Folks are getting ripped off. They are tired of it.

This increased consolidation also puts the squeeze on smaller, local farms, family farms, small businesses, people often deeply rooted in their communities, in my community, the communities of so many of the Members of this Chamber.

This summer I visited a farm in my district and met with farmers from the Beaver/Lawrence Pennsylvania Farm Bureau roundtable. Some of them are livestock producers. They sell their meat or poultry to be packed and processed. The meatpacking and processing industries are some of the most heavily consolidated in the country, and they have very little competition.

For the past decade, the four largest meatpacking and processing corporations in the United States have maintained about two-thirds of the country's market share. Some independent research has found this consolidation to be even higher with the largest four firms holding up to 85 percent of the market share in beef processing and around 60 percent in poultry. That is not very competitive. It doesn't meet the spirit of competition that we want and need for American capitalism to succeed.

I heard at that meeting in Beaver County, that compared to larger competitors, these folks had to wait longer to get their livestock in, to be taken in by these giant processing corporations. They are having a hard time negotiating fair prices and fair compensation.

We are all going to pay for the squeezing of those farmers and those small businesses. It may also be a violation of Federal law, the Packers and Stockyards Act.

After hearing from these constituents, these farmers, I wrote to the Agriculture Secretary and called for action. That high level of consolidation, once again, is driving up costs for all of us. That market power also means that processors have increased buying power that they can use to dictate prices to smaller farmers who struggle to stay afloat.

Mr. Speaker, we need a strong agriculture industry. We need family farms that make it to that next generation. We have got to promote competition for the food industry, for the farm, the grocery store, every part of that supply chain.

That also means we need antitrust enforcement with some teeth, with some muscle behind it, and with real consequences for violations. This next Congress and administration should be willing to do that work, to take on rip-off monopolies, and to create an environment that fosters competition.

That is the spirit of American capitalism that I think we all want and that our constituents expect of us. It is one where small businesses and farms can grow and thrive.

Mr. Speaker, one place we have really seen small businesses feel the squeeze are local pharmacies. If you walk across any Main Street in most of our districts, any of our districts, they are great small businesses that anchor our communities. They may be multi-generational businesses. Pharmacies are one of those places that people like; pharmacists get to know their patients. Those are relationships that are important for people's health, and they add to the vibrancy of our communities.

People suffer when they lose competition, when we lose those small businesses across our communities. I visited Towne Drugs in Aspinwall, an independent local pharmacy. I was there with other pharmacists, as well as small business owners. I heard stories about how pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, are frequently steering customers toward their own chain pharmacies. It hurts the bottom line of independent pharmacists.

Many of these PBMs are often vertically integrated, where they have a mail-order pharmacy, a retail pharmacy, and maybe an insurance business on top of that PBM or pharmacy benefits manager business. They often charge high or ridiculous fees for paperwork errors as a way to not pay those pharmacists and those pharmacies full price.

I heard about inconvenient higher prices for customers. I heard about patients being steered toward more expensive medications or specific pharmacies dealing with relationships and networks and all the rest.

In Pennsylvania this year alone, estimates are around 80 local pharmacies have closed. Those are options that are now gone. It is not just smaller, independent pharmacists. The big chains are feeling the squeeze, too. It means fewer options and worse service for patients who need a prescription, who need to get their drugs filled. It is not good for our economy.

Mr. Speaker, once again, it is that out-of-control corporate power that is making people's lives worse, hurting small businesses, hurting patients, hurting our communities and our Main Streets.

We need action on PBM reform. I am a cosponsor of several measures here including the HELP Copays Act, and the PATIENTS Act. These are just some examples of bills that I think this Chamber should pass in advance to fight back, to protect local pharmacies, to protect patients, to protect competition that we need in the healthcare economy.

We have got to keep up that fight against this out-of-control corporate power to lower healthcare costs, a place that we hear from our constituents all the time, and to protect small businesses.

Another example here where we see corporate power making life worse is not the healthcare problem. We see it in the Golden Arches, McDonald's. People don't think of McDonald's as a small business. Of course, it is a big corporation. It operates as a franchise system. Many franchise owners are small business owners.

Yet, the internet reminds us that those franchise owners for a long time did not have the ability to fix their own ice cream machines. You would see the out-of-order signs. It was impossible to get a McFlurry. The reason why is only the technicians licensed by the company that was making McDonald's soft-serve ice cream machines were allowed to do the repairs. They limited the number of technicians so there were long waits for servicing. That is why those machines were broken. That is why you couldn't get a McFlurry. This shouldn't be that be hard.

Finally, we saw the Federal Trade Commission take action and call out the bad guy here. Now the U.S. Copyright Office has issued a new set of exceptions, allowing restaurants to repair their own copyrighted equipment used in commercial food preparation at the retail level. That means finally McDonald's soft-serve ice cream machines should be getting back online. Those repairs should be moving. We will see those McFlurries flying through again.

Again, this is that same problem, the right-to-repair policy, which is what we are talking about. A right to repair is about the freedom across industries to fix stuff and not let big companies and corporations gatekeep the information that people need to fix things.

The American people work hard. They have ingenuity. We know how to make repairs. This is about freedom in our economy. This is about making sure that small business owners, whether it is auto shops, in this case McDonald's franchise owners, can make repairs.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is fundamentally American to see that competition and to make sure that we are not seeing gatekeeping over who can fix things, whether it is a tractor or an ice cream machine.

We have also seen powerful companies use that power--not just greed-- power to jam us with fees, junk fees that are often very deceptive. Hidden at the end of a transaction, you see an advertised price. All of a sudden, there are fees at the end of the transaction as you go to check out, from tickets to flights to hotels, credit card fees, food delivery apps. This has become pervasive in our economy.

I was on one of the main streets in my district, Lincoln Avenue in Bellevue, about a year or so ago, talking with small businesses about these junk fees.

I heard from the general manager of a pizza shop who told the story of how his customers in the business were suffering because of third- party delivery apps. They were seeing inconsistency between what was available on the menu and what customers were seeing. They were seeing big fees taken out of their orders. Customers were mad because service was getting worse. It wasn't working out for his business.

In fact, I went next door to the ice cream shop. I told them what I was there to work on at the pizza shop. They told me the same story. These apps were hurting their small business, as well.

In fact, that pizza shop had to rename. They hired their own delivery driver to bring it in, which was an expense, but it made their business better.

It tells you how impactful and bad those hidden fees are on a small business owner like a restaurant, like a pizza shop, that they were willing to defend their reputation, defend their business, make an investment, hire in-house, and change the name. Ultimately, it was worth doing that because of these predatory junk fees that we see from middlemen.

It is unfortunately, though, the newest version of a story we have seen for far too long: a big corporation hurting a small business, and third-party middlemen using these hidden fees to deceive customers into paying more. Again, it might be tickets, a flight, or a hotel. Those junk fees often have very little connection to the service or the product being provided.

I think they are a lose-lose for our local economy and working families, but those junk fees might be a great profit source for a third-party middleman or a powerful corporation.

I will give an example, and most sports fans will be familiar with it, Mr. Speaker. This past summer, I used StubHub to buy tickets to a Pittsburgh Pirates game. It was actually Paul Skenes' debut. I was pretty excited to see him show up for the Buccos. I took my family. We got jammed and slammed with junk fees, like everyone else who buys tickets these days.

The fees were more than a quarter of the overall ticket price. Those fees are often hidden until the very end of the transaction. It is not the advertised price.

Companies like Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation, control the market from tickets to venues to music promotion. Live Nation directly manages more than 400 artists and controls about 60 percent or so of promotions of major concert venues across America. They control more than 265 concert venues in North America alone.

Through Ticketmaster, Live Nation controls about 80 percent or more of major concert venues' primary ticketing for concerts. That is not competitive. It is not a competitive market, Mr. Speaker.

What are they doing with that power? They are driving up prices with things like junk fees. They are making activities like concerts and going to a game out of reach for too many families. These are important events, games, competitions.

I mean, my goodness, I am from western Pennsylvania. A Steelers game, a Pens game, or a Pirates game is a big deal for people. We love our teams. I know I am not alone in that in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker. Fans are all paying for this.

When these powerful companies cut exclusive deals that hurt venues, that restrict other venues, that rip off performers, it hurts a lot of people and hurts the fans. This behavior seems to be more than just a rip-off. It is probably also illegal.

The Justice Department has filed suit to split up Ticketmaster from Live Nation. That case remains pending in the courts.

Folks are tired of getting ripped off. They are tired of congressional inaction here. They expect us to take on this corporate power.

We know that when massive corporations are allowed to take on small businesses and deceive their customers, we all pay for it. Western Pennsylvania certainly knows that story. We are not alone in that.

As I heard that day in Bellevue and across my district, small businesses are strong. They are resilient. They are flexible. They adapt. They need our help here in the Congress. It is about their workers, and it is about our communities. I know that we can step up to it. We have to do more.

According to a 2019 study, 85 percent of Americans experience a hidden or junk fee for service. That was in 2019. That was before the COVID pandemic, where we saw much more reliance on, say, food delivery. I know we have to do more.

I will quote the general manager from that pizza shop that day who told me: ``These fees may seem small, but they really add up.''

That is what it is all about, Mr. Speaker, those fees hurting folks, hurting small businesses that we have to stand up for, that we have to fight back on.

Mr. Speaker, I want to also talk about our national security, which is maybe not a place we think that consolidation affects us, but it does.

I have the great privilege, Mr. Speaker, to serve on the Armed Services Committee. I wore the uniform earlier in my life, before I came to this Chamber. I will tell you, we have challenges with the defense industrial base. We need it to be strong and resilient to meet the challenges not just of today but of tomorrow.

When it comes to our defense industrial base, the suppliers, the manufacturers that make stuff here, we need to have them do better. We need to better protect public money and make sure our Department of Defense is ready and equipped to answer whatever our country might require of our servicemembers. We have seen the same trends across our economy in our defense industrial base.

In 1990, there were more than 50, 51, prime contractors in our defense industrial base. That number now is down to five. That is heavy consolidation. You see it right here, 51 to 5. These are the companies that make ships, missiles, rockets, you name it, all the things that we need that are central to our national security and our defense. We have gone from 51 to 5.

This reduction is depriving the American people of competition for key elements of our defense. I hear it from military leaders in the committee. I have seen it in reports that the Pentagon has penned that too often the current defense contractors are delivering not on time. They are behind schedule, and the costs are too high. The quality isn't what it should be, what the American people expect.

We have to fight back against this consolidation, Mr. Speaker. I think we need more competition in our defense industrial base. It is ripping off our military, which means ripping off the American people. There is public money we have to protect.

I think there is support building in this Chamber on both sides of the aisle to strengthen competition here to make sure our defense industrial base is stronger and to protect public money.

I have taken action along with colleagues. This year's National Defense Authorization Act, the defense bill, included my Best Price for Our Military Act. That is an important measure. It is a bipartisan bill. It closes a timing loophole that defense contractors are using to delay providing critical certified cost and pricing data to the Pentagon.

My bill now requires these contractors provide this data before contract agreement so that we can see whether we are getting the best deal or whether we have to go back to the negotiating table. It lets officers do a more informed analysis and be better stewards of public money.

I hope to see this included in the final version of the defense bill that we will pass and send to the President.

I know defense contractors and others lobbied to increase the threshold point where they are required to report their pricing data to the Department of Defense under the Truth in Negotiations Act. In 2018, this threshold jumped from $750,000 up to $2 million. That meant, below that threshold, they didn't have to provide that data. That is less oversight. I think we need more.

The goal of our Defense Department is to provide security, defense for all of us, for the national interest of the United States. It never should have and doesn't have the goal to enrich giant defense corporations that produce products that are too often behind schedule, overpriced, and don't meet the quality that we expect, that we in the Congress require.

We need to ensure that our sailors, soldiers, airmen, marines, and guardians are equipped with the very best. That is patriotic, that we protect public money.

Strengthening oversight enforcement within DOD, taking on price gouging, working with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, all of that is about fostering more competition that we need in our defense industrial base.

Corporate power doesn't just hurt competition in defense. It doesn't just lead to higher costs. It does those things, but it puts our safety at risk. We saw it with the impact to families who were worried about finding baby formula, infant formula. We see it in sectors of the economy all over the country that when corporate power grows too strong, it can put us at risk. It can treat us and our communities like collateral damage in the way of their profits.

We saw that on February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, across the border from my district and my constituents in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. We saw it on the news, a flaming pile of train cars, a horrible derailment caused by incompetence and greed at that railroad.

We saw brave first responders rush in to help. That is what people do, they rush in to help and serve others. They didn't know what chemicals they were dealing with, which is its own problem. The local communities felt like they were left out of the loop. They didn't know what was happening.

Then, we saw a decision to do a controlled release, sending a toxic fireball into the sky that we now know was chemicals, including vinyl chloride. That was later deemed to be unnecessary.

The findings of the National Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB, included concerns that Norfolk Southern and its contractors intentionally misled the on-site incident commander and local and State officials, pressuring them to order the vent and burn that sent that fireball flying into the sky. They were toxic chemicals. That is corporate power run amok. It hurt my constituents, and it hurt our neighbors in Ohio.

It seemed to me that railroad and its contractors pushed that vent and burn because they cared more about their profit than our safety. They cared about getting rail operations moving more than they cared about making sure we were safe. That is unacceptable.

It is not just my community in western Pennsylvania and our neighbors in Ohio. We know there are tracks across this country. Communities like mine live near and along the tracks. This happens again, and it happens a lot in this country, unfortunately. We have to make rail safer. We have to bring down the rates of derailments and require more of these railroads.

He is with us to make sure that we protect communities like ours.

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Mr. DELUZIO. I thank the gentleman from New York for his strong words and his commitment to his constituents, to safety, for hardworking people having a shot at the American Dream, which fundamentally is what I think we all want here.

We heard from Members representing districts across the country, a broad ideological spectrum of folks tonight, all talking about ways that corporate power has hurt their communities or hurt their constituents--it has hurt competition--and expressing their willingness, our shared willingness, to fight, to fight back for our constituents.

I represent a competitive district. I will say, Mr. Speaker, I have the best district in the country. I might get some argument from my colleagues about that. This is a place, like so many others, where folks want the American Dream to be strong. I think every Member here would say the same of their constituents.

If you work hard, you play by the rules, the American Dream is within your reach. That is what we are trying to do. I have been laser focused, as have so many of our colleagues here, about lowering costs, taking on corporate power to protect small businesses and workers, fighting against lousy trade deals that hurt places like western Pennsylvania, making stuff more in this country, more manufacturing, cracking down on junk fees, on price-gouging. That is really hurting folks and really hurting our Main Streets.

These economic priorities, they are good policies, and it is popular because the American people want us to fight for them. They don't want to get ripped off. They want to see real American capitalism that is marked by competition.

The survey data here is clear. This is a poll from ABC News and The Washington Post from July, 85 percent of Americans say higher costs are a very important issue, one of the single most important issues they feel that we should confront.

There is a tendency by some in politics to try and please everybody. Okay. You know, I am a little sick and tired though of folks around here, whether they are in this Chamber or out in the think-tanks looking for a win-win in every situation.

You know what? Sometimes, there isn't.

Sometimes there is a toxic fireball shot up into the sky near your community when there are small pharmacies getting killed, when there are junk fees hurting your constituents. Sometimes there is a bad guy, and you have got to fight them.

The American people want us to fight for them. I am proud to see so many of my colleagues join me in that fight. The goal here is simple, and it is popular. Make life better. Make it less of a rip-off. Take on the corporate power that has been hurting so many of us.

I think that is the path back to the American Dream, along with strengthening and revitalizing our American manufacturing. Sometimes you call it the villain. I know we need more competition across our economy. We need to be unafraid of the fight, and we have to do it.

We are ready to go to the mat for the American people, for our constituents, to strengthen the American Dream. That is the vision. That is my vision. I know I am not alone in that. It is one that I know will resonate in the Rust Belt, the Sun Belt, the Coast, all over this country.

I thank my colleagues, my caucus members who joined me, I appreciate your leadership.

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