Economic Populism

Floor Speech

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for leading this conversation about how we can stand up for our people and unrig the economy. That is economic patriotism.

I want to be very clear. Our economy has been rigged by giant corporations and the wealthiest for way too long, and as these corporations consolidate more power, the rich get richer, and everyone else is just struggling to get by just on the basics. They need groceries, housing, healthcare, basic medications.

Private insurance companies are now buying up your local healthcare clinics and doctors' offices. In my home State of Washington, a handful of healthcare systems control 90 percent of hospital beds. What does that mean? It means that people are seeing their costs triple while the quality of care goes down all so that Big Pharma and corporate CEOs can pad their already overflowing pockets.

Mergers are pushing independent grocery stores out of business. Today, just a few supermarket chains control all of the grocery stores in the country. Albertsons and Kroger, two of the big grocery chains, actually tried to merge, and I was so proud to lead the amicus brief with other Members of Congress to actually oppose that merger. Thanks to Democrats and the FTC under Lina Khan, we were able to stop that merger because we know and we have seen that when these mergers happen, corporations shut down stores, they fire workers, and they raise prices.

Look at the housing market. When rents are sky high and there literally is not a single place in the country where someone can afford rent on minimum wage, private equity is coming in to buy up the apartments and colluding to drive up the rents so it is even more unaffordable to keep a roof over your head.

It wasn't always this way.

From World War II to the late 1970s, we actually rigorously enforced our antitrust laws to ensure that mom-and-pop businesses had a chance to compete against these megacompanies. Consumers had choices, and workers had good jobs. You know what? Our economy actually grew.

Starting with Republican President Ronald Reagan, that antitrust enforcement dwindled down, and large corporations took over. Today, income and wealth inequality are higher than they have been in a century.

Mr. Speaker, 2 months into the Trump administration, wages are still low, and prices are still high. It does not need to be this way. In the richest country in the world we do not suffer from scarcity, we suffer from greed, and we have to be willing to take that on. We must take on corporate power and corruption and make a meaningful difference in the everyday lives of working people.

We have to lower prices so that everyone can have a roof over their heads, put food on their table, send their kids for an education, and retire with dignity. We have to have living wages for every worker, and we have to tax the billionaires so that they just pay a little bit more of their fair share like everyone else is doing.

We can and have to break up the largest corporations so they can't keep screwing regular people. We have got to stand up and fight back against corruption, against greed, against consolidation, and for the American people to have that American Dream.

That is economic patriotism. That is what we are going to fight for, and I am so grateful to my colleague from Pennsylvania for making sure we put that out there.

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