America Is Not Broke

Floor Speech

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I have listened to a lot of Republicans here on the House floor and back in Connecticut talk about how they think that the only way to build up America is to tear down government and start divesting from our public institutions. That's simply not the history of this country. Over the last 100 years, we've become the world's leader by layering massive private investment on top of massive public investment. And yet day after day, I listen to the right wing come down to this floor and tell the American people that we can no longer afford to make these kinds of investments that we used to make in roads, in rails, in schools, and in new technologies.

And, so, it's time that the rest of us stood up here and told them that they're simply wrong, that America is not broke. We have all of the resources and all of the willpower necessary to make the investments we need in order to regain our global competitive edge, but only if we start dealing with facts rather than just with political rhetoric.

So, over the next few minutes, I want to show you four pretty simple charts that debunk this myth that our Nation is broke and that we can't muster the resources necessary to meet the challenges of a global century.

Let's start here. The United States is still the richest country in the world. In fact, our GDP ranks us at the top of the list among G-20 countries. And for all of the talk about the rise of China, India, and Brazil, our country is still wealthier than all three of those nations combined on a population-adjusted basis.

And, so, we have wealth in this Nation. What we have done, though, is make a conscious choice to make our government poor. We are going to spend about a million dollars a year more than we actually take in in revenue. And it's important to talk about why that is. First of all, the notion that discretionary spending is out of control, which is the popular belief, just isn't true. In fact, discretionary spending since 1980 has remained pretty static. If you don't believe that, then think about this statistic for a second. If you thought that government spending was running amok, you would expect that Federal employees were increasing, as well. Well, that's not true either. Since 1970, we actually have 16,000 less Federal workers than we did then.

Now, this doesn't mean that the government can't get leaner and that it can't get meaner. It just means that there's another culprit at work when we talk about why our government is so broke, even if our Nation is not, and that's revenue. Today, as a fraction of GDP, this country is collecting less taxes than it has in 60 years. In fact, today, we are collecting only about 15 percent of taxes as it relates to GDP. Now, we're spending more, but the bigger problem is that we're collecting less revenue.

So, if the problem is that the government is broke but that our Nation isn't, why does it feel like so many people are out there that are broke? Well, let's explore that with the last chart. Here is the essential problem. Over the last 30 years, the incomes of the bottom 90 percent of Americans have remained virtually flat while the incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans have grown by 300 percent.

This is a recipe for economic disaster because, if the bottom 90 percent of Americans don't have enough money to spend, then pretty soon they're not going to be able to buy what the top 1 percent are selling. Everybody fails if this economic equation continues.

And the economic history of the last 100 years tells us one thing--that government has a pretty important role to play in helping to create wealth among the bottom 90 percent. We create real, widespread wealth when we invest in education to move more kids more quickly through quality higher education. We create real, widespread wealth by investing in businesses that create technologies before they become commercially viable. And we create real, widespread wealth by investing in infrastructure so that once again people and goods in this country can move from economic center to economic center without delay.

Yes, these investments cost money, but this country isn't broke. Prosperity in this Nation has never appeared out of thin air. It's never come from gutting consumer protection or environmental regulation, it's never come through slashing taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and it's never come from government just sitting by on the sidelines and letting other countries eat our technological lunch. It's come through an innovative partnership between public investment and private ingenuity.

Now, America can recommit ourselves to this partnership, but only if we wake up to the reality that we are not broke.

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