30 Something Working Group
30 SOMETHING WORKING GROUP -- (House of Representatives - May 10, 2006)
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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, thank you.
It is so great to be here with my 30 Something colleagues once again; and just to take off from where you left off, we try to help illuminate things during our hours and underscore for the American people, Mr. Speaker, what is really going on inside this Chamber and inside this Capitol and the debt, the colossal debt, that we are literally caving in under.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Just like that.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Just like our poster here, the colossal debt that we are caving in under that Mr. Meek just described.
Sometimes it is hard to get your arms around, or mind around, what 1 billion is. One billion is a very big number. So we took the time to analyze or break down for folks the things that are analogous to 1 billion, and let me just walk people through that, Mr. Speaker, and this might be helpful for you, Mr. Speaker, as well.
The question is, how much is $1 billion really. Well, for example, 1 billion hours ago, humans were making their first tools in the Stone Age. One billion seconds ago, it was 1975 and the last American troops had pulled out of Vietnam.
Gee, I guess we sort of wish we were 20 years in the future and we could be saying that about the troops in Iraq, but I digress.
One billion minutes ago, it was 104 A.D. and the Chinese had first invented paper, and $1 billion ago in Republican terms, Mr. Speaker, that was only 3 hours and 32 minutes at the rate that our government spends money.
So when you talk about people who live paycheck to paycheck, people who are struggling to make ends meet, people who are desperately trying to not live off of their credit cards, it does not appear to matter to the Republican leadership here, Mr. Speaker.
My colleagues, it really is astonishing to me. I have only been here 14 months. Both of you are more senior than me, but I am really surprised that some people actually believe what the Republican leadership says when they say they are the party of less government and more fiscal responsibility. Is an $8 trillion debt fiscally responsible? Is being in debt to OPEC responsible? I mean, where is the fiscal responsibility in that?
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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You know, Mr. Meek, I can understand why you would have trouble seeing past that giant rubber stamp. That is simply because this Chamber, through the Republican caucus and their Republican leadership, have been engulfed by the rubber stamp.
You know, had our bobble-head Republican not turned up missing, we would be able to use that as yet another example of why you continually have these policies that are put forward by the Republican leadership, as rubber-stamped by the Republican majority, because their heads only move in one direction. I guess there is no hinge in this direction, only, yes, absolutely, we are glad to do whatever you say, anything you want, Mr. Speaker.
I mean, it is just unbelievable. Fourteen months here and, ``No, sorry, my conscience won't allow me to do that'' is just not part of their vocabulary. And like I said, the joints just don't seem to work in this direction as they do for the Democrats.
Now, you know, what makes matters worse about all of the things that we have been talking about, about the debt and the deficit and the bobble-head, rubber-stamp Republican majority that we have here, is that there are consequences. This stuff matters. It matters in real people's lives.
And what the Republican leadership would have you believe, especially in recent days, their new thing now is that the economy is doing great. Now, obviously they are now trying to shift to a new frame and help everybody understand that in spite of an $8 trillion deficit, in spite of the colossal debt that we are in to foreign countries across this globe, in spite of the fact that we have disproportionate trade deficits with many, many countries, Americans are doing great.
Really? Really?
Okay, well, let's examine that. I have here what the consequences actually are. We came up with a top ten list that describes the consequences of Republican economic policies. Since they raised the subject, they have brought it up recently and said, everything is rosy, red rosy, and so let's just take a walk down memory lane here in terms of what is really going on in the United States of America.
Number 10. I am Danielle Letterman this evening. Number 10, we have a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion that has vanished. It was replaced by a deficit in 2004 of $413 billion, which is the largest in our Nation's history, and a deficit of $318 billion in 2005, an almost $3.5 trillion deficit over the next 10 years.
Number 9. The Bush administration is the administration with the greatest average annual decline in household income. We are talking real people here. Since Bush took office, household income has declined by $1,670.
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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Number 8, 45.8 million Americans have no health insurance at all, 6 million more than in 2000.
Now, if things were getting better, that number would be, oh, I don't know, smaller, Mr. Speaker, not bigger, smaller. And you have, since then the cost of health insurance has risen nearly 59 percent. Yet workers' wages have only increased by 12 percent.
Now, we all do different things in our lives every day. We go to the supermarket. I am out on the soccer field or at dance class or on airplanes back and forth.
I am sitting next to a couple, a middle-aged couple, on the plane the other day from Tennessee. Not exactly a bastion of liberalism. They are from Tennessee. And do you know what they wanted to talk to me about when they found out I was a Member of Congress? What were we going
to do about the cost of health care?
They owned a small business. They employed quite a number, 75 people. They employed 75 people and he literally said, the husband, the husband and wife team literally told me that within the next couple of years, if health care costs continue to go in this direction as they have since 2000, they would probably have to close their business. I mean, that is how bad it was getting.
So the garbage that the Republican leadership and this administration are trying to feed the American people, you know, that 31 percent, that number, I would expect would continue.
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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Delahunt, I guess they follow the philosophy and the idea that if you say it enough times, people will believe it. Maybe if you say it enough times, actually our governor, it must be in the genes, also subscribes to that theory in Florida, and really believes that if you say something enough times, then it will come true.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Number 7?
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Yes, Number 7. Thirty-seven million Americans are living in poverty. We have a 12.7 percent poverty rate, which is on the rise, and 5.4 million people have fallen into poverty since the beginning
of the Bush administration, 5.4 million people.
You know, if they are going to talk about who is doing better, it is the wealthiest that are doing better. Their income is on the rise. Their life is getting better. Their lives are improving and their outlook is more rosy. The poor are getting poorer.
Number 6.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, please just don't say it is the poor. It is not the poor. It is the middle class.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You are right.
Mr. DELAHUNT. It is even the relatively affluent. They are not doing anywhere near as well as the top 1 percent.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Delahunt, when I have to pay $56 to fill up the gas tank in my minivan, believe me, you are right. It is not just the poor.
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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Not be able to get to work. How do people who are living paycheck to paycheck factor in $53, $56 into their weekly budget? And we have shown those charts, before too, and we can again. When your bottom line gas tank, filling-the-gas-tank cost goes from $20-something to $50-something every time you fill up, and people who have to drive any distance, I mean, we are from an urban community, a suburban community, as are both of you.
You just cannot zip around these communities in 2 seconds. You have to drive to get to most places. We are going to get to a point where people will lose their jobs because they will not be able to get to their jobs.
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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. There is no end in sight. No end in sight to the rising gas prices. What will happen with number 7, where we have a 12.7 percent poverty rate that is on the rise and 5.4 million more people who have fallen into poverty. That number is going to get bigger. It is costs like these that send people into poverty.
You have number 6 here that talks about the Consumer Confidence Board's index. Its expectation index is the lowest it has been in 3 years.
Number 5, Congressional Republicans defeated a Democratic amendment recently to increase the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25. If the minimum wage kept pace with inflation, it would be $8.88 right now. It hasn't been increased since 1997. That is 9 years ago. 9 years?
I mean, if you are a person who is living on the minimum wage, struggling to pay, to fill your gas tank, struggling to put food on the table, you have no health insurance, do you really want the Bush administration and the Republican leadership to tell you how great the economy is? Do you believe them?
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Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is an insult. The more I think about it, that is a real insult.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It is a slap in the face, and, really, a bigger and bigger percentage of the population is being engulfed by the struggle just to make ends meet.
Let us go to number 4.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. You know what, it would be nice to represent a district where the economy is going great, would it not? Yes, it is going great. Look around, everybody is having a nice time. That will be great. Fortunately, I think in most districts that is not the case.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Maybe they live in an alternative universe, bizarre world.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Maybe this is a supernatural thing.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I know, maybe they watch Star Trek.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Maybe it is supernatural. That is what we all know.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Maybe it is.
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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Ryan, I think I have figured it out. You have broken the code. The Republicans are the party of the cavernous abyss. They don't mind sending people right off the cliff into it, whether it is expanding poverty, sinking job growth, increasing the number of uninsured by millions each year.
The party of the cavernous abyss is the party that created this Medicare prescription drug program with another cavernous abyss that senior citizens fall into just after they spend a little amount of money on their prescription drugs. So you have to ask where the American family is. They are engulfed by the Republican cavernous abyss.
Number 4, I think we are on now. Yes, number 4. There are now 1.3 million more unemployed private sector workers than there were in January of 2001, the beginning of the party of the cavernous abyss. The long-term unemployment rate, which is people who are unemployed for more than 26 weeks, has nearly doubled since that time.
This is the rosy economy that we are living in, Mr. Meek. This is how great we are doing.
Mr. DELAHUNT. But the economy is growing, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, the economy is growing.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The economy is growing so well that we have number 3, in which the Bush administration, it has become clear, has the slowest job growth of any administration in over 70 years. Since January of 2001, 2.9 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. That is entire towns in Mr. Ryan's district.
Mr. DELAHUNT. But the economy is growing. But the economy has grown.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Rosy, rosy. Things are rosy, rosy. Number 2, since President Bush took office the economy that is rosy, rosy has posted only 15 months of job gains of 150,000 or more. That is since he took office, that is in 6 years. That is the number of jobs needed to keep up with the population growth. So we are not talking about anything to write home to talk about.
Finally, number 1 of the top 10 worst consequences of Republican economic policies, 7.2 million Americans remain unemployed today with an additional 4.2 million who want a job, but are not counted among the unemployed because they have been looking so long they get taken off the rolls. The economy is rosy.
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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you.
The only thing I want to add to tie a ribbon on this whole discussion is that what we have all noticed, whether we are in our districts with our constituents or talking to people across the country, when we interact with them, is that people have reached the breaking point. They don't buy it. They don't buy the garbage that is being fed to them by this administration that the economy is rosy, that everything is going well, that everything is hunky-dory.
They are falling off the cliff into the Republican cavernous abyss, and they are tired of it, and they want to have the Democrats or someone other than the people who are taking them in this direction that they no longer are willing to go, to fix it. Even their former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that they are seen by the country as being in charge of a government that can't function.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of this House.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It is time to move this country in a new direction and restore America's confidence in their government. We know we have a plan that we can do that.
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