Secure Fence Act of 2006 - Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
SECURE FENCE ACT OF 2006--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - September 20, 2006)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. REED. Madam President, I am very pleased to join my colleague, Senator Stabenow, and my colleague, Senator Sarbanes, to talk about the reality that is confronting the American family across the country. That reality is, they are being squeezed, and they are feeling every day increased pressure from an economy that is not resulting in higher wages and income but is demonstrating increased costs to every family in the country. Between flat, stagnant incomes and increasing costs, they are seeing their dreams shredded.
It is our obligation, our duty to respond. This administration has not responded. The President tries to paint a rosy picture of the economy, but the American people know better because every day they see the high gasoline prices, and increased costs of education. They look at their paychecks and see no significant increases. And they wonder, really, for the first time in my lifetime, whether their children will have a better life than they enjoyed.
It was taken as an article of faith in America when I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s that your children would do better than you did. They are probably going to college, if you hadn't gone to college. If you were fortunate to be a college-educated person, they certainly would go to college and maybe on to professional school beyond. They would be able to enjoy a home in a good community. They would be able to use their talents and their energies to provide for their families and to build a strong America. But, again, for the first time in generations, many, many people are wondering whether their children will be able to afford what they did, and be able to accomplish what they have done. Can they afford a home in the same community they grew up in? In many cases, that is not true in America today. Will they have a pension that they can depend on when they get older 40 or 50 years from now? Will they have the ability to send themselves to school, to educate themselves, not just through college but throughout their lifetime?
This is not something that is just the impersonal effect of the world economy and globalization. This is something that Government has a duty to respond to, and this administration has not responded to it.
The facts are very clear. After adjusting for inflation, the income of the typical family is lower than it was when President Bush took office. The typical family has fallen behind in the last 6 years. The economy has gone through the most protracted job slump since the Great Depression. Even though job creation has turned positive, the pace of job creation has been modest and real wages are not growing.
The administration likes to point to statistics that show an increase in average income or compensation. But it seems pretty clear that these averages reflect gains by highly compensated individuals who receive bonuses, who exercise stock options, while ordinary workers see their wages falling behind with rising living costs.
When you talk about an average, if you have a lot of poor people and you have several highly compensated individuals, that average moves up. That is what the President is talking about.
What we should be looking at is, how do we help those low-income Americans see more in their paychecks? How do we help them protect against rising prices in so many critical areas?
This first chart demonstrates what has happened between 2000 and 2004. This is the median inflation-adjusted household income. This is the centerpoint of households in the U.S., 50 percent below, 50 percent above. So it takes away the distorting effect of a few, a handful of terribly wealthy households in the country. This is the most accurate view of what has been happening. You can see in 2004, the median income was $47,399; in 2005, in inflation-adjusted terms, $46,326, a fall of $1,273. Median household incomes fell. That is not the sign of a good economy. In fact, that is the sign of a failing economy.
This is accompanied by another phenomenon. The second phenomenon is that prices are increasing. In fact, they are rising dramatically in critical areas.
This is a chart that shows the middle-class squeeze under the Bush administration. College tuition, room and board, up 44 percent; households have $1,300 less at the median; their expenses for college are going up 44 percent. Health insurance premiums, if you can afford them or you have access to health insurance at all, because there is a growing number of Americans who can't buy health insurance; those premiums are going up 71 percent.
Gasoline prices, up by 104 percent. Even in the last few weeks of lower prices, they are still extraordinarily high given the prices in 2000.
What you have seen is a situation--this is just arithmetic--income goes down, costs go up, families are squeezed. They have to put on hold a lot of their dreams and hopes for the future--for college, in some cases.
They have to worry about whether they will be destroyed financially by a health care crisis at home because they cannot afford health care coverage.
Certainly we are all seeing throughout the economy how expensive it is just to get around because of the price of gasoline. For upper income Americans, the people who are certainly above the median income, this is a problem. For the vast majority of Americans, low-income Americans, the extra $10 or $15 per fillup means they cannot take the kids out for even a modest meal. They can't do things that they took for granted. They certainly cannot save.
One of the other phenomenons we have seen is virtually a zero savings rate for households in the country. They are not getting ahead.
I can recall--I think we all can recall as children--when parents talked about trying to get ahead, trying to get a little bit ahead, something that will give them not only some financial security but peace of mind. For some families in the last 6 years they are not only not getting ahead but they are falling behind. It is not predestined; it is not inevitable. It is because of the policies of this administration.
One of other startling aspects of the Bush administration is that employment has not grown. This is a chart showing the growth of nonfarm employment throughout administrations in the country going back to Herbert Hoover. The Bush administration has the worst nonfarm employment growth of any administration since Herbert Hoover. That is not a comparison anyone would like to entertain.
We have seen it go up and down through administrations, but this is the worst. Under the Clinton administration, there was a 2.4 percent per year growth in nonfarm employment. That has been reversing.
This is a situation where people are looking around, again despite all the happy talk of the administration, people just have to look around. The jobs are going away and they are not coming back. Pick up the paper. About every day you see a big American company announcing 20,000 jobs being let go, changes, restructuring, et cetera. That causes people great concern.
Again, we have to do something, and nothing of consequence is being done by this administration. It is the worst job record since Herbert Hoover.
That is a damning epitaph for the economic policies of this administration.
Coupled with the anemic job growth has been a similar anemic growth in earnings. Here again is a comparison. Between 1995 and 2000, under the Clinton administration, and between 2000 and 2005 under the Bush administration. What you see in the Clinton administration is a strong growth in earnings, weekly earnings, for every category of worker, from the lowest to the highest.
In fact, I should point out that the highest-income Americans did much better under the Clinton administration than they are doing under this administration. But what is startling is that this picket fence of the Clinton administration of growth in every income level, strong positive growth, is not the case in the Bush administration. In fact, in the lowest 10 percent you are seeing negative growth, a loss in terms of weekly earnings. The poorest Americans are not only not keeping up, they are falling behind. It is not just at the bottom, it is all the way up to the 50th percentile. Half of American full-time workers have seen a loss in the last 5 years in their usual weekly earnings. They are losing ground, and they know it. They are not getting ahead. They are falling behind.
You see at the upper income levels a slight increase. It was much, much better under the Clinton administration.
One of the ironies here is that the economic policy, relatively speaking, is benefiting the wealthiest Americans, but it is not benefiting them as much as under the Clinton administration.
Again, these are weekly earnings. This figure would be much, much different if we put in all forms of compensation. There you are seeing even a more pronounced view of the upper income Americans because of stock bonuses, because of all sorts of compensation that is not in the form of weekly earnings.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SARBANES. If I understand that chart correctly, the people up to the 50th percentile in the last 5 years have actually fallen behind. They have not had an increase, they actually have had a decrease in their real weekly earnings. Is that correct?
Mr. REED. That is absolutely correct.
Mr. SARBANES. Then beyond that, while there has been some increase, it is far less than what occurred in the previous 5 years of the Clinton administration? Is that right?
Mr. REED. That is right.
Mr. SARBANES. Of course, that helps to explain what people are thinking about the economy. I know our distinguished colleague from Michigan talked earlier about the increase in health care costs, the increase in tuition costs, education costs, and the increase in energy costs. That is one side of the squeeze on the middle class and working America. But this is the other side of the squeeze on the middle and working Americans. They are being squeezed down in their earnings and they are being squeezed from the other direction by the increase in costs. So they are really caught in a vise. Their income is not as good and key costs are going up--and at a rather rapid rate. Will the Senator agree with that?
Mr. REED. The Senator is right. It is absolutely a phenomenon between being crushed by falling real income and rising costs. It is not a situation where incomes are falling and being compensated by falling prices. It is a situation where they are being caught in this vice. The pain is palpable to working families throughout this country. These are all of our citizens. These are the people we all say we are here to help. And we are not helping them--not this Congress, not this administration. Not only are we not helping these individuals but it turns out the very policies of this administration and this Congress are rewarding those people who are doing the best, not those who need the assistance. That is evident in the tax policy being pursued by this administration and supported by this Republican Congress.
This is the average amount of capital gains and dividend tax cuts by household incomes in 2005. This is one of the centerpieces of the administration's proposal. They have to cut capital gains taxes. They have to cut dividend taxes. Here is where the benefits go. If you make under $50,000--that is an awful lot of Americans--you get $6 in benefits
If a person is making between $50,000 and $100,000--most Americans within that range are considered to be pretty prosperous folks--they get $55 in benefits. If a person makes over $1 million, they get $37,000 in benefits. One of the reasons for this is the fact that most working Americans, if they hold stock, they hold it in their retirement accounts. These retirement accounts do not benefit directly from these capital gains and dividends tax cuts. So for the vast majority of Americans, we are seeing virtually no direct benefit from these capital gains and dividends tax cuts. Of course, for the wealthiest, it is a bonanza.
Now, if this somehow stimulated a huge spurt in economic activity, growth, job performance, and increased employment, that might be a justification--not the most compelling, but a justification. We are not even seeing that.
What we are seeing--because, again, ultimately this is about arithmetic as much as anything--we are seeing a decrease in the resources and revenues of the Federal Government. So we can't compensate for increased cost of tuition. In fact, this administration, as the Senator from Michigan suggested, is sending up a budget that has record cuts in Pell grants and Stafford loans and those supports for education that are so critical at a time when everyone reflexively says we have to be the best educated country in the world because we must compete today with an emerging India and an emerging China.
We can no longer sit back on our laurels saying we have the best educated people. We have to keep investing in education. We have dissipated those resources in a way that does not benefit the vast majority of Americans but benefits very few. As a result, not only are the costs of education going up, but our Federal support for education is going down.
I should say something else, too. The last several weeks the, President hasn't missed an opportunity to remind the American people that we are at war. We are. And we have to support our forces in the field. I saw a figure today that to keep an Army division in operation in Iraq for 1 month costs $1.5 billion. Those costs have to be met.
With the tax policy rewarding the wealthiest Americans without benefiting the rest of America, without contributing in a demonstrable way to significantly increase employment, without contributing to supports and programs so essential to investments for the future of this country, we are not only dissipating our resources, we have also engaged in an international policy that requires spending that is very difficult to avoid, nigh impossible. Who is bearing the burden? It is all being rolled into the next generation of Americans as we accumulate a huge amount of debt going forward.
This is the most reckless economic policy I have ever seen. It is ``credit card economics,'' borrow as much as you can to fund military operations abroad, but we cannot afford domestic programs. What resources we have we give away in the form of tax cuts that are not strengthening the economy.
It is a massive shift of resources from the vast majority of Americans to the wealthiest Americans; from a generation in the future that will pay for it, to a generation today that seems to be consuming it.
Ultimately, these policies will catch up with us. They have already caught up with the families of America. As we debate these issues today, they are looking at sticker shock in health care, education, at the gas pumps, and housing. And they are looking at their stagnant paychecks.
Not only can we do better, we must do better. This Government has in the past been able to sort these problems out. We have a record over the last 5 years of the preceding decade of growth across the board in terms of income at robust levels, of significant employment gains, of fiscal responsibility. All of that today is history.
Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. REED. I yield.
Mr. SARBANES. As I understand it, we have had this tremendous runup in the debt. We are just saddling this burden on the next generations.
One of the things that has happened and needs to be underscored, at least as I am informed, is that the amount of the debt that we are borrowing from overseas has escalated tremendously. In fact, we have borrowed more from overseas--in other words, foreign-held debt--under President George W. Bush than all of the previous Presidents combined.
It is not only that we are incurring the debt and the problems that go with that in terms of the future burden, but more of that debt is being held externally by people overseas rather than being held internally. Before, we were paying it to ourselves. It meant working people were paying money to people who held the Government bonds, but at least it was all within the country. Now there is a tremendous tariff on working people to send this money overseas to the debt that is being held abroad.
Isn't that the case?
Mr. REED. That is absolutely right. The Senator is right.
We have extraordinary debt being held by countries such as China. Even Mexico is a creditor of the United States today. That debt has to be serviced. That money goes overseas. It is not kept within the United States for investment here.
It also not only economically weakens us, it puts us into a position internationally where we do not have the kind of leverage we used to have when we were an economic
power that did not have these huge debt burdens, and we did not rely upon the kindness of strangers. We are relying on the kindness of lots of countries who, sometimes, are not our friends.
We can see that manifested in situations such as our relations with North Korea, China and our relationship with Iran. The Senator is a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee. We are struggling now to control the Iranians' race for nuclear technology. A key player is the Chinese. We cannot push them hard to take a tough line, in some cases because they hold a lot of our debt. That is a reality not only economically but also in terms of international affairs.
Mr. SARBANES. If the Senator will yield, as the Senator points out, we have become dependent, as Tennessee Williams said, on ``the kindness of strangers.''
On the one hand, we say we are the world's superpower. In many respects, that is quite true. However, economically, the foundations are weakening. They are not as solid and as strong as they once were.
In the last years of the Clinton administration we were running surpluses and paying down the debt. The Bush administration came in and made these very excessive tax cuts at a time when we moved into a war footing. We have never done that before in this country. When we have gone into a war footing we have always concerned ourselves with how to meet the budgetary demands of the war. That did not happen here. All of a sudden we have switched from running surpluses to running these large deficits, year after year after year. The projections are that they will go out into the future as far as the eye can see.
The Bush people say: We will lower the deficit a little bit. As long as we are running the deficit, we are still building up the debt. We are adding to the debt every step of the way. As we noted previously in our discussion, more and more of that debt is being held overseas. To the extent that happens, we are subject to the kind of leverage that others have.
The United States has gone from being the world's largest creditor nation; now we are the world's largest debtor nation.
Mr. REED. The Senator is absolutely right. He realizes, as I do, when the Bush administration came into power, we were running a surplus. We had a projected surplus over several years in the trillions of dollars, an opportunity to do lots of critical and important tasks for America: to try to reform our health care system which will require not only changes in rules, regulations, and procedures, but probably additional resources; to try to reinvigorate public education at the elementary and secondary level and try to make college more affordable. These were investment goals. At that juncture we had the resources to do it.
The Senator listened, as I did, to proposals which we thought were fanciful: the suggestion that if we did not cut taxes, our surplus would grow so great it would be unmanageable. What has grown so great and what is unmanageable now is not a surplus but a deficit.
The Senator also recognizes, as we look ahead and as we see this continued deficit finance and growing debt, there are structural issues which will drive the deficit further. For example, we have to somehow come to grips with a longer term solution to the alternative minimum tax which will take additional revenues and resources away from the Federal Government.
There are proposals, and we have heard them, of a full-scale repeal of the estate tax. Again, that would be an additional denial of revenues and resources to the Government at a time when we are running a huge deficit and we are fighting a war.
All this adds up to what the Senator pointed out: not only annual deficits but a hugely increasing debt funded by foreigners, leaving us vulnerable not only to economic shocks but also to the fact, as the Senator suggested, that we are dependent. Dependency, in many respects, is the opposite of strength. We have surrendered a great deal of economic strength through these policies.
The bottom line of this discussion is that this is not some theoretical macroeconomic research topic. This is reflected in the daily lives of Americans who are struggling, and in the future they are seeing every day a decreasing sense of confidence that they can provide their sons and daughters at least as good a quality of economic life, family life, and support as they have enjoyed. That is distressing the American public.
Mr. SARBANES. If the Senator will yield, furthermore, we have an opportunity to strengthen the economy in so many ways, including addressing the Social Security system which can be done with a number of relatively sensible steps.
The Bush administration, of course, has been pressing this privatization. For the moment, they have been beaten back on that and people are turning their attention elsewhere, but it is very clear they have not given up.
The President, at the end of June, said:
If we can't get it done this year I'm going to try next year. And if we can't get it done next year, I'm going to try the year after that.
The majority leader in the House of Representatives says:
If I'm around in a leadership role come January [this coming January], we're going to get serious about it [privatizing of Social Security].
And the chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security said that privatization would be a top priority in the Congress in 2007.
The American people have to understand this is still very much on the agenda of this administration and its supporters.
Now they want to abolish the estate tax. Why not keep the estate tax and devote the revenues from the estate tax to strengthening the Social Security system?
Then there would be a better retirement for everybody.
Mr. REED. Well, I think the Senator has a very valid point about Social Security, that, yes, you are right, from what I read into those comments, the President and the Republicans in the House of Representatives are committed to, once again, going after Social Security. It seems to me to be contradictory to everything that Americans are experiencing today.
The one phenomenon that is frightening everyone is the loss of defined benefit pensions, left and right. Thinking back to when I was beginning to enter the workforce, in the 1960s and 1970s, if one of my colleagues had said: I have just taken a job as a machinist at United Airlines--you would say, you are set for life, just like your father was. You are going to work for 30 years, and you are going to retire with a nice pension and have benefits like health care. You, financially, are in a good position.
Now we are hearing stories about machinists' pensions being abrogated because of bankruptcy proceedings, companies that we took for granted as being solid trying to get rid of their pension liabilities. The only thing left for most Americans is Social Security.
Now, we hope they all have 401(k)s and private investments. But there is that credit card commercial about how something costs $50 and something costs $80, but at the end there is that priceless element. The priceless element, when it comes to pensions, is Social Security because at least you know every month you will get a certain amount of money, you will have something, you will know what it is. And that is worth a great deal because it gives a certain peace of mind. For most Americans, it is very modest, but at least it is something they can say they will have as long as they live.
This administration wants to eliminate that. They want to put every American into a market which has great ups, but also great downs. It has cycles where everyone is doing well and cycles where people are not doing very well at all.
That cannot be the bedrock of retirement. We have to maintain Social Security. So it is shocking to me that despite what America said over the last several months--essentially, take your hands off my Social Security--this administration is going to try again.
And, of course, there are ways we can fund Social Security. I think we did that under the leadership of you and your colleagues in the 1980s, where changes were made to the formulas, changes were made to the rates of taxation, changes were made to strengthen Social Security.
They are not interested, I think, in strengthening it because their objective is not making sure that American families have something to rest their dreams on in retirement. This is, in some respects, simply another example of catering to the market, of letting these investments be turned over to private markets. And there is some advantage to that, but not fundamentally with respect to Social Security.
I am afraid we are going to have to fight this fight again.
Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield on that point?
Mr. REED. Yes.
Mr. SARBANES. In fact, the administration states the problem in such a way I think to sort of panic people, and then use that panic to push them toward the privatization of the Social Security system.
For example, the administration says the Social Security system is bankrupt. The Social Security system is not bankrupt. The Social Security system, at the moment, is taking in more money than it pays out in the trust fund. Of course, the administration then borrows that money to cover its deficits. That is a separate issue. But there is more flowing into the system than is flowing out. That will last until about 2020.
After that, they will start paying out more than flows into the fund, so they will start drawing down the fund. And they can continue to pay out all the benefits until 2046--in other words, 40 years from now, under the projections; of course, the projections are all problematic because it depends a lot on how the economy functions--but under their best projections, before they draw the fund down. At that point, they will still be able to pay 75 to 80 percent of the benefits from what is coming in to the Social Security trust fund. So the worst scenario is a 20- to 25-percent shortfall 40 years from now.
Now, there are many things you can do now, next year, the year after, with an administration that really wants to support the Social Security system, to take care of that problem. The magnitude of that problem is not out of bounds in terms of being able to address it.
But it has been dramatized as though it is an immediate crisis I think to sort of help scare and panic the American people and then have them be more open to these privatization proposals, which, as the able Senator from Rhode Island points out, would be to shift people from a guaranteed benefit--where they are told, as they are with Social Security: You are going to get so much a month and that is guaranteed to you--to a defined contribution plan, where you do not know what you are going to get.
The people who worked at Enron and WorldCom thought they had wonderful retirements. They had these 401(k)s and everything--they thought they had company plans--they thought they had wonderful retirements, and they were going to be living quite well in their retirement years, and it all collapsed. But they still have----
Mr. REED. Social Security.
Mr. SARBANES. Their Social Security, with its guaranteed benefit every month. So at least they have that basic form. People need to understand how important Social Security is to more than half of Americans who get more than 50 percent of their retirement income from Social Security. And 20 percent of retired Americans get more than 90 percent of their retirement income from Social Security.
So Social Security is really essential to providing that base. In fact, it has helped to lift the seniors out of poverty. It used to be that the age group most in poverty was the elderly. Because of Social Security, essentially--and other things--but because of the improvements we have made to it now, that is the age group least in poverty. So we have made a substantial change. But Social Security is essential to achieving that.
And I do not know why the administration put it out there. The country rejected it, clearly. And it was reflected by Members of Congress from both parties who said: No, no. And now they continue to talk about coming back to this issue and privatizing. They have not given up on privatizing the Social Security system.
Mr. REED. Well, I think the Senator is absolutely right in terms of his analysis. He has stated very eloquently and accurately about how many Americans depend upon Social Security; how, over the long term, it is a program that will be solvent--with no changes--for 20-plus years, and 50 years even if it is not paying full benefits.
Frankly, I cannot think of another Federal program where we can say we can guarantee 25 years from now you are going to get what we told you you are going to get. That is one of the few programs of the Federal Government that will do that.
I think the other point that should be made is that these actuarial assumptions are rather conservative. So this is not a situation where we are trying to, with smoke and mirrors, create an artificial picture of the funding stream going forward. And I have the same shock that you have, in a way, at these proposals because right now Social Security is even more important.
There was a period in our economic history, from the end of World War II up until fairly recently, where many Americans were looking at and anticipating not only their Social Security but a defined benefit private pension--a rather good private defined pension--and their private investments. Frankly, we all understand that the best retirement plan has, as a foundation, Social Security, but it is not only Social Security. It has to have private savings, private investments over time.
Sometimes--I am sure the Senator might have some of the same feelings I have--if we have all these proposals--benefiting the wealthiest Americans, why can't we give incentives for average Americans--more incentives--to save for their retirement, to put money away? We have some, but they are not enough. We can do that. But that is a conscious choice to favor, in this respect, the wealthiest over the vast majority of Americans.
I do not think it makes much sense in terms of economic policy, fiscal policy, and also social policy. But today we have seen those private pensions too often disappear. Today it is more important to maintain the defined benefit program of Social Security, and I hope we can.
But again, I say to the Senator, like you, I am concerned there is another movement afoot. Just listen to what the President says and what the chairman of the relevant subcommittee in the House and also the House majority leader say. If they get a chance, next year, they are going right back after Social Security, despite, as you point out, the rejection by the American people. And this was not some type of narrow, close call. Seniors, middle-income Americans--all Americans, I think--were standing up basically saying: This is not a sensible approach.
Mr. SARBANES. If the Senator will yield further, I think this does much to help explain the anxiety that Americans are feeling about the workings of their economy.
Now, as the Senator so ably showed earlier, working people are being pressed from two directions. Their wages are not going up to keep pace with inflation, and key costs are increasing. That is compounded by the fact that the retired people are in a state of anxiety because they are constantly being told: Social Security will not be there for you--although I think that is a false cry.
Furthermore, as the increase in educational costs indicates, younger people--not yet in the workforce but moving in that direction--see the opportunities for education and training not opening up but closing down. Senator Stabenow pointed out earlier, we have the most significant cuts in Federal aid to education that we have experienced since the Federal Government began to try to provide assistance in that area.
So through every age group, as they look at the situation, they find themselves being constrained, to deny them the opportunity--the young people--to get an education. Working people are being squeezed badly. And our retired citizens are kept in a constant state of agitation about the safety and the security of their retirement income.
I think that explains why you are getting all these articles now in the major periodicals and in the major newspapers about this sort of anxiety that is running through the society about the workings of our economy. And when they look at it, it is very clear what is happening: the benefits are all being--as that chart indicates--focused right up at the top of the income and wealth scale. And everyone else is left in a state where they are really quite concerned about their future.
Mr. REED. I think the Senator is absolutely right. I think what Americans are seeing is a bifurcated society. That is a fancy term for the haves and the have-nots. The haves are doing quite well.
I remember Warren Buffett once said: ``If this is class warfare, my class is winning.'' And it is not class warfare. What it is is a series of economic policies that are not creating the jobs, that are not creating circumstances so that those jobs provide growing compensation to workers, and then on top of that, developing tax policies which favor the very wealthy and do not do enough to help those who do need assistance. Then it is complicated further by budget policies that are undercutting education and health care. We are debating a cut to physicians in terms of their compensation which goes into the overall effect of the health care system.
One point I would make, in addition to this issue about education, is that one of the reasons we saw a spectacularly productive decade in the 1990s and previous decades is not because anything was done in the 1990s, it is because of the Pell grants and Stafford loans of the 1960s when Americans with talent and ambition could go to college. Twenty-five years later, they were inventing new products. They were developing new ways to develop and provide services. They were leading the world economy in every dimension--health care, business, all these things.
If we stop investing in education now, we will lurch along for a few years, but we will start slowing up in terms of momentum, and we will ask ourselves 20 years from now: Are we still the preeminent economy, the preeminent area of scientific research? And that is a question mark.
People understand that. I think it goes back to the point we have all tried to make, which is that these charts are illustrative of what is going on from a statistical and analytical point; but just ask the average family and they will say simply: My wages are stuck, my expenses are going up, I cannot provide for my children the way I thought I could, and I need help. We should be giving them help and we are not.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source