The 30-Something Working Group, 2/28
THE 30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. And it is quite an honor to be able to share the floor with a gentleman as articulate as yourself.
I know where you are from, and I can imagine that you have a lot of families, probably including your own, that shares the story of my family. My great-grandfather and my grandfather both worked at Fafnir Ball Bearing, which was a massive ball bearing factory in New Britain, Connecticut. It employed thousands of people in the New Britain area and partnered together with the Stanley Tool factory. Those two together employed over 10,000 people in New Britain in its heyday.
The city looks very different today. Those sites are either brownfields with nobody in them, or now sort of struggling office parks. My office, which I inherited from Congresswoman Johnson, is in actually a site that used to be owned by those manufacturers.
But the story that we are talking about today is not necessarily a story of manufacturing, it is a story of the workers that were there. It is no coincidence to me that as you chart the history of our middle class in this country, as you chart the growing disparity between those that are doing very, very well and those that are struggling just to get by and cope with the daily cost of their lives, I don't think that it is just a coincidence that during that time, as we have seen a middle class vanish before our eyes, or at least become on the precipice of vanishing, and you see that disparity, that gap between rich and poor grow bigger and bigger, that that has happened during the same time that we have seen unionization rates drop through the floor. Because the middle class that my family came up through, which is that working-class middle class, the folks that are making enough money to get by, enough money to give their kids a little bit better chance at life than they had, but they are not doing enough to buy a second home, they are not doing enough to buy many luxuries, that group of Americans, diminishing by the year, doesn't have a lobbyist up here. That group of Americans doesn't have a pool of money in which they can employ people to advocate on their behalf here in this Chamber.
The group that has done that historically over time have been unions. They advocate to make sure that their ranks are swelled as well, but they also have been, frankly, the people that have been advocating year in and year out up here in this House to make sure that we have a healthy middle class.
And so I am fairly unapologetic about my support for the bill tomorrow, that we are going to basically level the playing field. I think that is what you were talking about, Mr. Ryan, is that we are not giving any unfair advantage to workers, we are simply saying that we want to level the playing field when it comes to organization in this country. And I think that is the right thing to do for workers. But as a member of a family that only has survived because of a society and an economy that once produced jobs that had real pensions and real health care benefits attached to them, we need to start figuring out a way to make sure that those folks get advocated for here in this House.
And as you recited that long and important list of achievements here in the House during the first 100 hours, that is all about that group of people. That is all about making this House a place where those middle-class, working-class folks get a voice: again, minimum wage; taking away the big tax breaks for the oil companies; starting to lower the cost of health care; investing in life-saving research. That is bread-and-butter work for the middle class.
The gist of it is this: This bill, the Employee Free Choice Act, tomorrow is going to level the playing field to allow some of these folks that have been before Congress fighting for a very long time for that healthy middle class to be able to continue to emphasize and increase that voice. And that is as important as anything we do here because, as Mr. Ryan and Mr. Meek and Ms. Wasserman Schultz have been talking about on this floor night in and night out for far too long, the voices that have mattered here have been the folks that have the big wallets that can pay the high-priced lobbyists to come in this building. And we don't begrudge the work that people who advocate on behalf of people do here, but frankly, we need advocates here for folks that don't have those dollars. And whether we like it or not, unions in this country have done that job, and they have done it well with decreased numbers because of a system we have set up that ends up making it very difficult for workers to organize.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Here is what we are talking about here. So how do we take that chart that you are showing there, which I agree cannot continue to be the way that our society operates. We cannot be a flourishing democracy, we cannot be a flourishing economy if we have so many people doing so poorly and a small group of people doing very well. So how do we go about changing that?
And I think the message is that we are not talking in this Chamber about big new government programs. We are not talking about creating new departments and new bureaucracies. All we are talking about is take the existing programs, take the existing set of rules and make them fair. Make them fair. Give everybody a chance to compete. That is what increasing the minimum wage is. I mean, 10 years, while every other cost goes up and the minimum wage stays where it is? Just bring it up to where it needs to be. Just match inflation with your minimum wage.
Student loan rates. As the cost of college goes up 41 percent since 2001, well, let's help families match that increasing cost of higher education.
And the same thing with the Employee Free Choice Act.
Let us have our eyes open to what the reality is on the ground for those who want to organize. Let us recognize how employers have changed some of their tactics, and let us give employees the opportunity to operate on that same level playing field.
That is what this is all about. This is about taking the rules that we have and making them fair, not coming in and creating big new government bureaucracies to help these folks.
One of the most important things we did here was the bill in the first 100 hours that allows the Federal Government to negotiate lower prices with the drug companies. That is a great example of one of the few instances where this Congress did create a new bureaucracy, and when they created it, they set rules that disadvantaged regular, average taxpayers and the senior citizens who were supposed to benefit. They created this big new health care program and created the rules to tilt the playing field in favor of those people who needed no extra help.
This Congress has to be about taking those programs that are right there in front of our faces and making them work again. I think if we do that, we will live up to your mandate that we cannot let this stand.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. You spoke earlier about the need for unions to be flexible. I couldn't agree more. This is an inexorable march to a very new global economy, and nobody can deny that is happening, and we have to ask our workers and the unions that represent them, just like we ask our employers, to figure out a way so America can compete in that new environment.
You talked about the steel industry. That is a remarkable instance. Actually, not that remarkable; it happens more than I think people are given credit for, of workers and industry really coming together before this body and singing a very similar tune.
We have to remember that as much press might be given to unions and the companies that they work for fighting over contracts, when it comes down to it, both of them only are able to prosper if the economy is strong and if their company is strong. So on the vast majority of this that they are going to come and talk to this Congress about, they are going to advocate in their communities for, they are going to be on the same page.
When you talk about that, maybe there is no better example than our health care system. You are talking about it in the context of our new Medicare prescription drug program, but if we want to figure out a way to compete in this world, we have to figure out why $1,500 of every car sold in this country goes for retiree health care benefits compared to only a couple of hundred dollars in Japanese manufacturing plants. We have to figure out a way to deal with the fact that 16 percent of every dollar spent in this country goes to health care costs compared to 9 or 10 cents in most of the countries that we compete with. We put an exorbitant amount of money into employee benefits and health care in general, which puts us at a tremendous competitive disadvantage compared to the rest of the world. That is something that employers, workers, government officials, we should all be able to agree on. We should all sit here and try to tackle that very grave question of how do we get health care costs under control. That is the salvation of American manufacturers and American small businesses. Frankly, it is also the salvation of American workers and unions. If we can figure out a way to have that conversation, that benefits everybody.
We have given a lot of emphasis and put a lot of light on the fact that everything we have done here as part of that 100-hours agenda has had very large numbers of our friends from the Republican side of the aisle supporting us here. You have the numbers right in front of you. You can tell the story, Mr. Ryan.
Sometimes government gets shed in a light that tries to accentuate controversy, just as sometimes the relationship between workers and their employers tends to be told in a manner that accentuates adversity and strife.
Well, in this Chamber, in my first 8 weeks as a Member of Congress, it has been remarkable the amount of bipartisan cooperation we have seen. It shows in the vote totals. Maybe it doesn't show in the headlines, but it shows in the vote totals.
I think the same story can be told about the relationship between workers and employers in this country. I think there will be a bunch of people grousing about what comes out of this House tomorrow, but I think in the end, by leveling that playing field, we will stimulate a lot of productive cooperative relationships in our economy.
I thank the Members of the 30-something Working Group who have over the last 2 to 3 years stood up on this House floor to talk about the fact that this place had to work together. I think a lot of sectors of our economy, a lot of members of our community takes cues from what happens in Washington. I think to the degree they see this place just being about Democrats and Republicans fighting, then I think they may reflect that in their operations and in their daily life. I thank members of the 30-something Working Group and other Members who have talked about bipartisanship. I think what has happened here in the past several weeks is going to be instructive to a lot of relationships in our country and in our economy going forward.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I was asked a question at a Chamber of Commerce meeting that I went to back in my district last week. Someone challenged me and asked a question that went something like this. They said if you had the choice to take a dollar and put it back into the economy through the private sector or through the public sector, which one do you think does a better job at stimulating our economy. I kind of didn't understand the gist of the question.
What he was getting at was this idea, I think, that he thinks that people on this side of the aisle somehow think that government spending should be done for the purposes of stimulating our economy. Listen, that couldn't be further from the truth. What we want to do is decide on a set of services and a set of priorities that the government will be a part of, and then find the money that is sufficient to pay for that.
We all agree that if we have our choice, every extra dollar goes right back into people's pockets. Every extra dollar we have goes right back into the economy. All we need to agree on here, and it is a big all, is what those set of priorities and services are. People in my district think one of them should be investing in stem cell research. That is just my district. But they think you know what, one of the things that we can probably do better together rather than separately, rather than simply through philanthropic contributions, is to take on some of the most insidious and terrible diseases known to man. That is something they think we should do.
It wasn't agreed upon by this Chamber until the Democrats took back this House and Nancy Pelosi took over the Speaker's chair, but now we include it in the group of things that we think we are going to do better together.
I think we all agree that every extra dollar we have goes right back into this economy. But let us think about this. When we are talking about putting dollars back into the lands of middle class folks, lower middle class folks, working class folks, whether it is through tax breaks to small businesses that employ them, whether it is through a cut in the student loan interest rate, or whether it is through a minimum wage bill that gives them a little more every week, we know that every single one of those dollars is going right back into the economy.
Now that is, in part, because there is not a lot of flexible income for people in that situation today. Every dollar they get has to go back into the economy. When you talk about tax cuts and where they should go, you talk about new government programs and whether they should benefit the pharmaceutical companies or whether they should benefit senior citizens, I will take middle class workers, I will take senior citizens every time, not just because I think they are who we should be here sticking up for, but because I know that every dollar we put back in their pocket is going to end up at the local florist, is going to end up at the local grocery store, is maybe going to end up being put into a local charity or community group. We are talking about recycling good community money when we are talking about trying to give a leg up, Mr. Ryan.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. You are exactly right, and that is where the American people are. There are folks out there that are far to this side of the political and ideological spectrum, and there are people out there that are far to this side, but you know where the majority of bread-and-butter Americans lie. They lie in that place where they are seeking some solutions here that are part of that middle way, a part of that third way.
In Connecticut, I spent 4 years as the chairman of the Health Committee. In Connecticut, we have a lot of pharmaceutical companies, and we found a way to try to mitigate some of the deleterious influences that that structure imposes on citizens, while trying to partner with them to do some of the good work that can grow that new economy.
I disagreed day and night with the pharmaceutical industry when I tried to get Connecticut to be part of reimporting prescription drugs from Canada, but you know what, we fought hand in hand, arm in arm, linked together when we were trying to make Connecticut one of the first three States to invest in stem cell research because we knew that our pharmaceutical industry, we knew that our biotech industry were going to flourish if we helped plant some of the seeds with government funding because we know in today's economy that venture capitalists are not terribly interested in funding some of those new biotech ideas, funding those new baseline pharmaceutical research. So government in that instance can spend a couple cents to grow a couple private dollars.
So there is that way to sort of say enough is enough, we are going to do something about trying to help citizens get some cheaper drugs from Canada, we are going to talk about trying to use the power of the Federal Government to negotiate lower prices, but there are so many places we can cooperate. There are so many places that you as a pharmaceutical industry, you as an information technology industry can be part of growing this country.
You know as well as I do that the reason that businesses are still here in the United States and the reason why businesses come to a high-cost area like the Northeast is the workforce. We still have the best trained, most highly educated and, most importantly, most productive workforce in the Nation. So when we are investing in the minimum wage, when we are investing in higher education funding, I mean, we are investing in what is the current and the future of this economy.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I like sharing stories, an Irish story from my Polish mother.
She tells a story about she was going back to school to get some classes for her degree in teaching. She was getting some classes at the local community college, and she told this story to me when she came back from registration.
She was in a line to register for her course, and there were a number of different lines to register for different courses. About three or four lines down from her, there was a gentleman who was waiting in line sort of nervously, thumbing through his pockets, sort of counting the money in his pockets. He got to the head of the line, and she could sort of see what was happening over there and realized that he was maybe $30, $40 short of the cost of that particular class. He fumbled through his pockets. A couple of people behind him tried to help him come up with the money. He did not have it and walked away, walked out that door.
What my mother said, and I agreed with her, was you can imagine the courage that it took that young guy who maybe had not been to school in a very long time, decided this is it, I am going to go back, I am going to start down that path again, I am going to go to my local community college, I am going to have the courage to step up and restart my education, and gets in the line and realizes he does not have the $380 that it costs to get that class. That right there, that could be that welder. That could be that information technology worker. That could be somebody using the stepladder of education to become part of this incredibly productive economy.
Because we still have barriers to increasing your educational opportunities, to being a more productive member of our workforce, we handicap ourselves. We handicap ourselves.
And I think of the story of that guy over and over again when I think about higher education funding, when I think about not only what that would mean for him personally, but what that means for our economy in general. Our strength is our workforce, and if we do not start investing in it, we are going to have even more trouble than we are competing in this global economy.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Thank you, and I do not know how long my career will last either, but it is starting here in my first 8 weeks in the House only because me and 100,000 other people in northwestern Connecticut decided things had to change, there was no choice; that we could not sit back any longer and let the status quo go on; that we could not watch the disparity between rich and poor, those doing well and those struggling to make ends meet, could not watch that get any worse.
So what this election was about, what this first 100 hours was about, what everything that comes after that is about is about restoring that balance. So for all of the challenges that we put before this House during the time we spend here, for as many charts that paint a gloomy picture, I mean, there is light on the horizon. The work we have already done here means something.
You talked about the 400,000 kids that did not go to college because they could not afford it. Well, if we can get this student loan bill through the Senate and to the President's desk, that is almost $5,000 in savings. I bet you there is a good percentage of those 400,000 families that if they knew that college ultimately, after they paid back all their loans, was going to cost $5,000 less, they would make the choice to go.
Things are happening here which are going to make those concerns of middle-class families tomorrow with the Employee Free Choice Act and later as the bills in the 100 hours come through this process, they are going to make a difference.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
http://thomas.loc.gov