Make it in America

Floor Speech

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, earlier in the session today, we paused in remembrance of those who were killed here in Washington, D.C., yesterday, yet another tragedy for this Nation, another shooting, senseless rage by some individual. We heard on the floor here a few minutes ago a plea by some of our colleagues to call us to action so that we who represent the millions upon millions of Americans would find within ourselves the courage to take action on wise gun safety legislation, mental health, and other things that we know can help to address the problem that plagues this Nation. So today, as we start this one-hour, I want to just remind ourselves that we have work to do here.

Joining me tonight is Paul Tonko, a Representative from the State of New York. We often have had the opportunity to speak on the floor about the issues that confront us. Perhaps, PAUL, you may want to comment on this tragedy, and then we'll turn to the other issues that we want to take up today.

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Garamendi, and thank you for bringing us together on what will be thoughtful discussion in how to invest in America and grow the economy and grow job opportunities, create that climate that best cultivates job action and job growth in our society.

Just moments ago on the House floor, we held a moment of silence in recognition, in commemoration and respect for those who gave it their all, as many were Federal employees in that situation. I also want to attach my comments to those of yours in extending my condolences to the many family members and friends who are so impacted by this tragedy, this horrific act that wiped out their lives prematurely. May they rest in peace.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I join you in those condolences.

Our subject matter for the evening was really going to be about the economy, about income within this Nation, or the lack of it.

I want to just start by referring to a statement that Franklin Delano Roosevelt made during the economic crisis of the 1930s. In fact, this statement is etched in the marble at the F.D.R. memorial here in Washington, D.C. He said:

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

The test of our progress. Well, what has been our progress over these last several years?

This last week, the economic study of the progress of America since the great crash of 2007 was made public. There has been progress. There has been economic growth. There has been the creation of wealth. We have seen progress, but it's not the kind of progress that F.D.R. talked about in the thirties. What we have seen is exactly the opposite of what he called for: to provide more for those who have little.

Here it is, the tale of two Americans, a stunted recovery, but, nonetheless, a recovery.

Where did the economic growth go? Where did the wealth go that was created? Was it to those who have little? No. No. No. Ninety-five percent of all of the wealth that this economy created since 2007 in the great crash went to the top 1 percent. Ninety-five percent of all of the wealth went to the top 1 percent. The remaining 99 percent wound up with 5 percent of the wealth that the Nation's biggest economy created since the crash of 2007. Franklin Delano Roosevelt would not have stood for it, and he didn't. Nor did Bill Clinton.

From 1993 to 2000, the economy grew very rapidly. The distribution of the wealth that was created during those years went in a remarkably different way than what has happened over the last 5 years. During the Clinton period, 55 percent of all the wealth that this Nation created went to the bottom 99 percent. The top 1 percent did very well. They got 45 percent of all of the wealth. You can say that was not enough for the bottom 99 percent, and I would agree; but compared to what's happened over these last 5 years, it's a remarkable improvement on the distribution of wealth.

What is the distribution of wealth? It's not a class struggle. It's about the men and women of this Nation that work hard, that get up every day, go to their jobs, as did those 12 people who were killed yesterday here at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. They got up. They went to their job. They worked hard for themselves, for their families, and for this Nation.

So men and women all across this Nation are doing what we want them to do: participating in this society, following the American Dream. They work hard, play by the rules, get on the economic ladder and climb.

Here's what happened to them: not much.

Something is desperately wrong here in America that the result of 5 years of labor by the 99 percent, that they would find their reward to be 5 percent of the wealth that was created. We need to address this, and tonight our subject matter is how we can do that.

Before we go to that, I want to put up one more chart and then ask my colleague to join in.

What does it really mean down home? What does it mean out there in the subdivision or in the tenements? What does it mean in America when 95 percent of all of the wealth created winds up in the hands of 1 percent?

Here's what it means:

It means that there's hunger in America;

It means that mothers and fathers are not able to have a job that they can provide their children with a meal, with food on the table;

It means that in this House of Representatives there will be this day, this week, an effort to provide even more hunger in America, more children going without food as the supplemental food program is slashed by $40 billion. That's $4 billion a year for 10 years, $40 billion, so that the 1 percent can have even more.

This is not right. It is not right in this Nation that we have hunger. It is not America as it should be, and it certainly is not the way Franklin Delano Roosevelt said America should be when the test of our progress is not whether we add more abundance to those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

We have a challenge here in America. We need to change things. We need to change the public policies that would deny food to hungry children, to parents, to our seniors, to our children in schools. It's time for us to put in place policies that create a real economic growth, real growth that the working men and women of this Nation can share in the economic progress of our Nation, and tonight we're going to spend some time talking about how we can do that.

My friend from New York, Paul Tonko.

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r. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, thank you very much. You are quite correct that we need to move in that direction. The American economy is about 60-70 percent based upon consumer purchases of homes and cars and all those other goods. Part of that reason that we're not seeing the kind of economic growth that would normally occur in a recovery is the 99 percent don't have money. They lost a great deal of their wealth. Trillions of dollars of their wealth was wiped out in the financial collapse, their pensions, their homes and equity in their home. As the economy has recovered, the creation of the growth, the wealth, didn't go to them so they have not been able to really increase their purchasing power, which has dampened the economy.

Now, there are things that we can do. You were beginning that process. Let's go through them. I'm going to put this back up because this is not just a picture of the distribution of wealth in the economy, that is, the economic growth; it is also a picture of why the economy hasn't really returned. There are other factors, to be sure, but clearly the absence of purchasing power, that is, new wealth in the hands of the 99 percent, the absence of that has retarded the economic recovery.

This is something we have talked about here many, many times, and Mr. Tonko brought this up, many of these issues. We call it the Make It In America agenda. This follows along on President Obama's jobs program. Many of these elements are the same as he proposed. They are displayed a little differently here.

Tax policy; critically important. We need to redo our tax policy. Mr. Tonko talked about the tax policy and the effect that we've seen over these many years. But what I would like to do today is focus on these others issues, the issue of infrastructure, research, education, labor, and energy.

On the labor side, we have talked about that a great deal here. The working men and women, laboring as they are, are they getting a fair share of the economic growth? The answer is categorically, no. Are there policies that can change that? Yes. One of them has been of discussion here in Congress, which is the minimum wage issue. California has a minimum wage law that is before the Governor. He is expected to sign it, and that will push the minimum wage up to about I think $10 an hour, and that will cause the entire wage structure in California to move upward, shifting wealth to the working men and women in California. Whether the Nation will follow that, the President has called for an increase in the minimum wage, and that will certainly be helpful in shifting to the working population of this Nation a larger share, or at least a fair share of the growth of the economy.

Let's talk about infrastructure for awhile. I know this is an issue you were working on, Mr. Tonko, following the floods of a year ago. We see those same floods--different floods, but devastating floods, occurring in Colorado. You were one of the strong advocates for rebuilding our infrastructure. Why don't you pick that issue up, and let's talk about how we might be able to accomplish that.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, we were talking about this earlier before we came up here, and you may want to take up this issue. This is an issue of what an infrastructure investment needs to grow the economy.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. We know there is an immediate return on investment in infrastructure. Mark Zandi laid it out there. You invest $1 in infrastructure now, and you get back $1.57, and you have somebody working immediately. They become a taxpayer rather than a tax receiver. So there are some real opportunities here.

I want to just take a couple of seconds. I was reading The Wall Street Journal as I was flying from California today, and there was an article by Martin Feldstein, who was Ronald Reagan's chief economic adviser, and he focused in his article on several things and growing the economy. How do you get the economy growing? He specifically talked about infrastructure. He talked about infrastructure as a way to immediately employ people. We certainly agree with that. And it's also a way you lay the foundation for future economic growth because that infrastructure is then available for the future.

I was in Fresno, California, I guess 2 or 3 years ago, and went to the high school to talk at an educational conference there, and they are setting this conference in an auditorium that was built by the WPA, the Works Progress Administration in the Roosevelt period, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt period. So we were using this wonderful auditorium 70 years later. You go, wow, there's an infrastructure investment in education.

So it is by building this infrastructure we employ people immediately, and we then have the foundation for future economic growth.

You mentioned the water system, sanitation, electrical energy systems. Roads, highways and the like. And it's jobs today. I want to talk about how we can finance them.

Mr. TONKO. Don't forget our ports, our rail, our airports.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Let's not forget, this is not new economics. George Washington in his first month in office, and this is the first President, folks, his first month in office, turned to his Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, and said, develop an economic policy. Hamilton came back a couple of months later, not with a report that we would have, several thousand pages, but maybe 50 or 60 pages, and he laid out an economic policy. Number one on his agenda was to build America's infrastructure--ports, canals.

I know you're going to launch into the Erie Canal now that I've mentioned canals, which is your favorite subject. And he also talked about roads. He talked about laying down the infrastructure for the growth of the economy.

Before we get to your Erie Canal, I want to talk about something that actually happened. This is a good thing. This is a very good thing.

In the stimulus bill, which by the way did work, not as robust as we would have liked, but it did work, there was a provision to build locomotives for Amtrak. I think it was about $800 million over a period of years would be spent on building locomotives for the east coast.

This is so you can get home, Mr. Tonko, on the east coast here. These locomotives were to be 100 percent American-made. I don't know who wrote that provision, but it was one of the very few provisions in the stimulus bill that said make it in America, 100 percent American-made.

Siemens, a German company, one of the big international industrial companies, said, $800 million. Oh, you have to make it in America. Okay.

Siemens had a factory in Sacramento, California, to manufacture light rail cars, you know, street cars and the like. They got this contract.

This is the first locomotive made in America by Siemens under that stimulus provision. They're going to make, I think, 80 of these over the period of the next several years, 100 percent American-made.

And now, across the United States, as a result of this infrastructure investment, we're beginning to see companies in a supply chain, some that are making the wheels, the truck underneath, which is where the wheels attach to the locomotive, the facility up on top that attaches to the electric lines. All of this, American-made, 100 percent American-made.

And by the way, I have a piece of legislation in that would continue that that says if you're going to spend your tax money on transportation systems, highways, bridges, locomotives and the like, it's going to be your tax money used to buy American-made equipment, just like George Washington said we ought to do it.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, if you take a look at Superstorm Sandy--I don't know what they're going to call the storm that is occurring in Colorado, but we're also seeing the necessity to prepare for climate change and these new very strong, very dangerous storms that we now have seen repeated.

There's going to be a major infrastructure investment rebuilding Colorado, just as there was a major infrastructure investment in rebuilding the east coast following Superstorm Sandy. As that investment is made, we will see the economy begin to pick up as men and women return to work, if we take--what I think we ought to do is to spend that money on American-made concrete and steel and the like. As we rebuild these necessary infrastructure works we will add to the economic potential of that rebuilding.

Now, how are we going to pay for it?

Let's get down to what has been, I think, the most common complaint here: oh, you're just going to borrow the money and we're going to run up the deficit.

Well, Martin Feldstein was very clear today that if you make an investment in infrastructure, you're going to immediately employ people, and you will be making a major step towards solving the deficit problem. You do that now, he said. Begin that investment now.

Yes, you're going to borrow the money, not all of it, and there are ways that we can get, that we'll deal with that.

But there is a necessity of enhancing the economy. His suggestion was the infrastructure as one of the principal ways of doing that.

Now, we have ways of financing this. It's been discussed forever, dating back to the mid- and early nineties, that we ought to have an infrastructure bank.

The Europeans have an infrastructure bank. It's proved to be very successful. The money goes out to build infrastructure. The repayment is made by bridge tolls, by fees on roads, by canal fees, other kinds of fees. That money comes back. It's circulated.

The President has called for an infrastructure bank, taking an idea that's been before Congress for the last 20 years, and he said, let's do it. Let's do it. We can

borrow money at the Federal level still, less than 3 percent, sometimes 2 percent, put that into an infrastructure bank, invite the private sector pension funds and others to become part of that bank, and then lend that money out to those projects that have a cash flow, toll bridges, sanitation projects, waterworks, other kinds of things, so that we can get this economy moving.

We also had a program coming out of the stimulus bill called Build America Bonds, BABs, Build America Bonds. Those lasted all of 2 years, and then our colleagues here refused to reenact the Build America Bonds. These are other ways in which local entities can borrow the money and build the infrastructure and get their economy going.

And, furthermore, laying the foundation for future economic growth: you can't build a city on yesterday's infrastructure. You need to replace it, to be sure; and this is part of the problem in our cities, the aging infrastructure, the waterworks, the sanitation system and the rest. We need to rebuild that, but you also need to expand the infrastructure.

One final way that we can talk about financing this is how we do spend the tax revenue that does come in to the American Treasury.

Right now, Congress is debating on how to spend money for the next fiscal year which begins on October 1, how are we going to spend it.

Part of that appropriation process is to appropriate $87 billion for the Afghanistan war in the coming year, October 1 through the 2014 year, until September 30, $87 billion for Afghanistan.

How much money for flood protection in Colorado, flood protection in my district, flood protection across the Eastern Seaboard to build the seawalls? Virtually nothing.

But $87 billion for Afghanistan. For what? For what? To build facilities that we will either destroy as we leave or will be destroyed shortly after we leave?

Seven billion dollars for the Afghan National Army, $2.5 billion of which is for good things to be done, no line items, no particular knowledge about what they're going to spend that money on. I suspect most of it's going to wind up in some bank account by some crook in the Bahrain banks. $2.5 billion.

What could we do with $2.5 billion here in America?

And by the way, we're drawing down the troops in Afghanistan. We're actually going to spend more money in Afghanistan next year than we are this year, even though we have 60 percent fewer troops in Afghanistan.

We're making choices. Your Representatives, 435 of us, and 100 Members of the Senate, are making choices about how your money's going to be spent.

And by the way, I haven't talked about the nuclear bombs, 5,000 of them. We're going to rebuild them. Now, there's a good investment. Really?

I don't think so, not when the levees in my district can't be rebuilt to protect my citizens from floods, to rebuild a nuclear weapon that we don't need in the first place. I don't think so.

So we're making choices. We're making choices for you, the American taxpayers, about how your money's going to be spent.

For me, I want to spend it in America. I want to spend it on American-made goods and equipment, not on products from China, as happened with the newly reopened San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridge--steel from China, not from America.

I want that money spent here, and I want that money spent on our infrastructure, on our education, on research, energy projects.

We're going to make choices. We're making those choices right now. We're up against the wall. By the end of this month, September 30, the government runs out of money.

Where are we going to spend it?

Or are we going to spend it all?

Are we just going to shut down government?

I don't know. I'm worried. I'm worried about the choices that we're making. I'm worried about more expenditure in Afghanistan and not here at home. I'm worried about rebuilding all these nuclear weapons that, God willing, we'll never use.

Choices. Can we actually build America?

Can we find the willingness to create an infrastructure bank?

Can we find the willingness to bring the money back home and spend it here to build this economy?

Because, ultimately, as our Joint Chiefs of Staff have said repeatedly, it's the American economy. Without that strength, there won't be military strength.

I've gone on too far here. Mr. Tonko, let's begin to wrap this up.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, thank you very, very much. Indeed, our best days are ahead of us. Even in the dismal days of the Great Depression in the thirties, Franklin Roosevelt laid it out very clearly when he said:

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

If 95 percent of the wealth that's been generated over the last 5 years winds up with 1 percent, we've got a problem, because the economy isn't going to grow and what will happen is this: hunger in America.

Later this week, we'll take up the nutrition bill for this Nation. There are those who want to remove $40 billion from the nutrition programs for our children, for our seniors, for those that are unemployed, and for those that are searching for work. We can do better; we really can.

The best days are ahead of us if this Congress and the Senate, together with the President, work together and lay out those plans that have informed us historically that they work.

Investment--investments are those things that make America strong--infrastructure, research, education, those are things that are timeless and work year after year. They're also things that have recently been reduced and cut.

We can't let this happen in America. We cannot allow that to happen.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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