The American Dream
Floor Speech
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity today to talk about some things that are really important to America. I want to start really with this quote by Franklin Delano Roosevelt which kind of talks about where I am coming from and where I think we ought to be going as a Nation right now. I will try to explain this in a few moments, and then move on to really deal with this problem that we have in our Nation of income inequality, lost opportunity, or the absence of opportunity.
FDR said:
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is rather whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
In America today, there are many, many Americans that have far too little. One out of four children in America goes to bed hungry at night. Unemployment remains at a peak level, somewhere north of 7-8 percent. Real unemployment, that is, the unemployment of people who would like to work more, would like to have a full-time job, remains very, very high. What can we do about it?
Well, we can think about the great American ideal, the American Dream. This gentleman pretty well laid it out. This is Bill Clinton talking about the American Dream. He said:
If you work hard and play by the rules, you have the freedom and the opportunity to pursue your dreams and leave your kids a country where they can chase theirs.
So between these two Presidents, I think we lay out a philosophy that is well worth our attention: make sure those who have little have an opportunity, that we pay attention to their needs, and that we make sure that the American Dream is always in place.
Let's talk about that dream. How about the dream of going to college, college education. The ideal is college education is open to everyone. In reality, in 2007, one-half of the children from wealthy households completed college. Only 9 percent of the children from low-income households completed college. This gap is widening and has continued to widen since 2007, and obviously since 1989. The American Dream.
How about this dream: FDR also talked about the four freedoms and one of them had to do with freedom from want. Part of the American Dream, it has been denied. As a result of the Great Recession, in 2010, a total of 46.2 million Americans were below the poverty level, the highest number of 52 years. The American Dream denied.
When we talk about the American Dream and we talk about what Roosevelt said about those who have much versus those who have little, so what is going on in America? In America today, income inequality is growing. The ideal is you work hard, you will do okay. In reality, the U.S. ranks 93 in the world in income inequality, behind Great Britain, Australia, Nigeria, Argentina, and Japan. The American Dream: you work hard, you will do okay. The reality: income inequality in the United States is greater than the income inequality in Nigeria. Yes, it is.
So what are we going to do?
Well, here is what we are doing. Since the Great Recession, the recovery has been slow. We Democrats have some answers on what to do about that recovery, and we will get to that in a few moments, but I think we need to understand what has happened in the last 5 years.
We have seen the economy grow. Every quarter since 2009, the economy has grown. The private sector economy has grown. Where did that wealth go? Where did the wealth of this Nation go? Well, 95 percent of the wealth generated in this Nation since 2009 has gone to the top 1 percent of Americans. The remaining 99 percent have had to split what was left. During the Clinton economy, it was reversed. The top 1 percent took 45 percent, and the bottom 99 percent took the remaining. So 1 percent took 95 percent, 99 percent were left with 5 percent.
Income inequality: What do we do about it? How do we achieve the goals of President Clinton when he talked about the American Dream? How do we achieve the goals of FDR when he talked about our purpose, not to provide more for those who have great but to provide for those who have little? How can we do it?
Well, one way we can do it is a long American tradition dating back to George Washington. In his first year in office, George Washington called upon Alexander Hamilton, his Treasury Secretary, to figure out how to grow the American economy. They were interested in manufacturing. The United States was basically exporting raw materials to Great Britain. George Washington wanted to build the American economy. So he said, Alex, give me a plan. So Alexander Hamilton came back a few months later with a plan, an economic development plan, based on manufacturing, and in that economic development plan, he said we need to do about a dozen things.
He said we need to build the infrastructure of the United States. He said we need to build the canals, the roads, and the ports. He said we needed to protect American manufacturing, so make sure that there are proper duties and tariffs on imported goods so that they would not overcome American manufacturers but, rather, level the playing field so that American manufacturers would have a shot. He said we needed to also make sure that we had good international trade agreements and use the American taxpayer money to buy American manufactured goods. It is all there. So for those who want to pay attention to the Founding Fathers, they ought to pay attention to what George Washington and Alexander Hamilton talked about in the first days of the first administration of this wonderful democracy we call America.
Let's talk for a moment about infrastructure. Let's talk about those roads that George Washington described, Alexander Hamilton talked and wrote about in his report. Where are we with our infrastructure today?
Joining me today is my colleague from Oregon, who has been working on the infrastructure issue now for more than a decade. He understands the problems that we have in our transportation systems and has a proposal.
I now yield to Earl Blumenauer of Oregon.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Blumenauer, there is no doubt that you are taking up the responsibility. You have been a leader for many years on this issue of transportation, how we can fund it, what we must do.
I guess I knew, but I didn't realize it was coming so quickly, that we would fall off the transportation cliff, that the next fiscal year, 10 months from now, the transportation programs funded by the Federal Government simply run out of money. Isn't it 90 percent or more of the funding that will be gone? Did I understand that correctly?
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Blumenauer, there is no doubt that you are taking up the responsibility. You have been a leader for many years on this issue of transportation, how we can fund it, what we must do.
I guess I knew, but I didn't realize it was coming so quickly, that we would fall off the transportation cliff, that the next fiscal year, 10 months from now, the transportation programs funded by the Federal Government simply run out of money. Isn't it 90 percent or more of the funding that will be gone? Did I understand that correctly?
Mr. BLUMENAUER. If we rely simply on current cash flow in the next fiscal year, we will see a 92 percent reduction in highway funding, and the transit budget will be zeroed out. And over the next 10 years, with the current revenue level, we will see a 30 percent reduction below the current inadequate levels.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Just before we came on the floor to
talk about this issue of inequality in America and how we might deal with it, we heard our colleagues from the State of New York talk about the tragic transit accident that occurred. In listening to them, a couple of the Members talked about the need for rail improvement, upgrading the rail system in New York. If I am to hear you correctly, unless we provide additional revenue in the transportation funding program, there will be no money to upgrade the rail systems in New York or anywhere else around the United States.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. We do not have a current revenue stream that is adequate for rail modernization. Simple. We had some additional money, again, in the Recovery Act. Although modest by international standards, it was a significant shot in the arm; but as you pointed out, that is running out.
What is interesting is that I had an opportunity, a few years ago on a trip to China, to ride their high-speed trains. In 2009, there were no high-speed trains in China. Next year, they will carry more passenger traffic than the entire American aviation system.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Amazing.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. This can be done. Other countries are doing it. I was referring here just to the surface transportation fees, but there are certainly needs for rail modernization and safety. And, frankly, what is underground is in worse condition than what we see on the surface. We leak more water in America than we drink. Every day, it is the equivalent of 6 billion gallons of water, enough to fill Olympic-sized swimming pools, 9,000 of them, from Washington, D.C., to Pittsburgh.
I deeply appreciate your courtesy in permitting me to share a few minutes with you on the floor this evening. I deeply appreciate your unstinting advocacy for making it in America, for doing it right, putting our families back to work, strengthening the economy, and making our communities more livable, our families safer, healthier, and more economically sound.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Blumenauer, you are bringing about a very important piece of legislation that will help us finance the systems that we need to build.
We talk about immediate jobs. In talking about those immediate jobs, for every dollar that we would invest in transportation infrastructure, you get $1.59 of economic growth immediately back.
Mr. Blumenauer, I know you have to go. You have another meeting. Thank you very much for bringing this critical issue to our attention.
Now let me carry on for a few seconds about the infrastructure issue.
If we make that critical investment, if we follow the leadership of Mr. Blumenauer, where we actually collect the money that is needed for our systems and put those dollars to work in America, several very important things will happen in the American economy.
First of all, you lay down the foundation for immediate and future economic growth. You cannot grow the economy if you cannot move goods, services, and people across the Nation. In my State of California, we understand what gridlock is. We have got gridlock here in Congress. That is political gridlock. In California, when you are talking about gridlock, you are talking about sitting on a freeway and going nowhere; you are talking about the shipments of goods in and out of the ports that are delayed because they cannot get to the rail systems. They cannot get to the highways of America because of gridlock at the ports. We have an enormous necessity to lay in place the transportation infrastructure that can then allow the American economy to grow. That is point one.
Point two is, in doing that infrastructure improvement, if we use the American taxpayer dollars--in this case, collected from the excise tax on gasoline and fuel--if we use that money to buy American-made equipment, we generate an additional economic growth model, and that is the reestablishment of the American manufacturing system.
Twenty years ago we had about somewhere between 19 and 20 million Americans in manufacturing making all kind of things, from Caterpillar bulldozers and graders and loaders, to farm equipment, to airplanes, and technology systems from computers and the like. That was 20 years ago.
Today there is just over 11 million in the manufacturing sector. We have lost 9 million manufacturing jobs in America. Those are the heart and soul of the American middle class. That is where a mother or a father could get a job, provide the income for their family, buy a home, buy the car, the boat, take the vacation, send their kids to college.
That was where the American middle class found its foundation. It has been decimated by a number of policies that were enacted by previous Congresses and by a lack of attention all across this Nation to the foundational imperative of manufacturing.
So we have been talking here for more than 2 1/2 years now about a Make It In America agenda. If we are going to finance our transportation systems, then add to that a clause that says, the material, the bridges, the steel, the concrete, the equipment, will be American-made. It will be made in America.
In doing so, we can go right back to Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, who wrote the first economic development plan for this Nation, and said use the American taxpayer money to support American industries.
Hey, I am with Alex and George. They were correct. Use our taxpayer money to support American businesses, buy American, make it in America.
It works. Let me give you an example. In Sacramento, California, near my district, is a manufacturing plant that was expanded, actually doubled in size in the last 2 years. It was doubled in size to build electric locomotives for Amtrak on the east coast corridor, between Washington, DC, and Boston.
About 80 new locomotives are going to be built in Sacramento, California because, in the stimulus bill, the Recovery Act, somebody, probably a staffer, maybe a Senator, maybe a Member of Congress, wrote in one sentence and said, this 700-plus million dollars for the locomotives will be spent on American-made equipment, 100 percent American-made.
American companies looked at that, shrugged their shoulders. A German company, Siemens, said, oh, $700 million contract, we can do it.
Siemens took their light rail manufacturing plant in Sacramento, took that contract, doubled the size of their plant, doubled the size of their workforce, and is now building 100 percent American-made locomotives in Sacramento, California. Where 100 years ago they used to build locomotives, now they are doing it again.
Why?
Because somebody went all the way back to the very first President, took something that he said, and it was, we are going to spend American taxpayer money on American-made goods, in this case, American-made locomotives.
Think about it. Think about the potential. Think about the potential if we were to really invest in infrastructure, if we were to follow Mr. Blumenauer's piece of legislation, take the money, invest in the roads, invest in our freeways, rebuild the bridges, of which more than 6,000 are about to fall down or could fall down in the United States.
Repair, rebuild, expand, allow the foundation of economic growth to grow, and use that taxpayer money for American jobs, buying American-made equipment.
Think of the possibilities. Think of the possibilities. Think back to where we started this conversation, about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that it is our task not to add more to those who have much, but, rather, to add to those who have little.
Those men and women in the construction trades that have lost their job, where unemployment is well over 30, 40 percent, think about them being able to get that middle class job building the infrastructure.
Think about the manufacturers out there, the small businesses, the large businesses, the supply train that Siemens has set up all across this Nation to provide the electronics, to provide the electric motors and all of the steel, that huge supply train.
Think about what could be done if we put in place policies today, here in the United States Congress, to build our infrastructure, to use our taxpayer money for American jobs; that unemployed individual that is now on food stamps, perhaps on a welfare check, getting a job in that manufacturing sector that is providing that tool that is going to be used on that locomotive.
Think about that unemployed family, that construction worker, the operating engineer who has been sitting on the sidelines, surviving on food stamps and on assistance, able to go back to work, sitting on that Caterpillar tractor that is manufactured in America, providing the income necessary for his family and providing the taxes necessary for the growth of this Nation's ability to reduce its deficit.
It is possible. We can do this. We can rebuild America. We can compete with anybody. There is no other culture in the world that is so entrepreneurial, so driven to succeed.
But here we are, 435 of us, caught up in a gridlock where we can't do anything, where the transportation bill languishes, where the farm bill languishes, so that our farmers don't know what to plant next year. This has got to end. We have got to stop this.
We need to think back on those giants of America's past. George Washington told Alexander Hamilton, give me a manufacturing program for the United States, an economic development program.
Alexander Hamilton came back; we need to build ports, roads, canals. We need to protect American industry with wise laws and trade laws. We need to have a tax policy that encourages investment, and we need to make sure that we are using the tax money to buy American-made.
Think back on Jefferson, who told his Treasury Secretary, give me a plan for the next century, the 1800s, an economic development plan.
Teddy Roosevelt, and then Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, men of vision, leaders of vision that were willing to step forward, willing to use the resources of this Nation, collecting those resources and dispensing those resources across the Nation to build the foundation for economic growth.
The Make It In America agenda is available to us today. That agenda is a trade policy that protects American industry, not a free trade that gives it away, but a fair trade policy that protects American industry; a tax policy that encourages economic growth here in the United States, that rewards corporations for bringing it home, and ends tax breaks for corporations that ship the jobs offshore, an energy policy that utilizes the great energy capacity of this Nation, everything from conservation and wind and solar and, indeed, the petroleum products.
We need that energy policy in place today so that the wind industry in the United States, which is a huge industry in my district, can count on tomorrow's tax policy, which will end in less than a year, so they are not building.
When we give a tax credit for solar, and when we give a tax credit for wind, or to the oil industry, we tell them, you only get that tax credit when you buy American-made solar panels, wind turbines and the like, because, after all, you are using American taxpayer money.
We need a labor policy so that we can re-educate those men and women who will no longer have a job in an industry that is no longer in existence. We need to make sure that labor has a fair shot, and in the labor policy we absolutely must raise the minimum wage. That holds up the floor, and deals with the issue of poverty in America.
Education, research, infrastructure. This is the Make It In America agenda. This is the agenda that we can grow jobs in America. This is the agenda that can address the American Dream.
This is the agenda that goes back to what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said when he talked about freedom from want. Freedom from want means that you must be able to get a decent job in America to support yourself and your family, so that the working men and women of America have a shot at the generation of wealth that this country can produce.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt said it is our task not to provide more for those who have much, but to provide for those who have little. So when you find that the policies of America have allowed this kind of wealth distribution to take place over the last 5 years, you know that those policies need to change. Those policies have to change.
When 1 percent of the American population is able to gather 95 percent of the wealth generated in this Nation between 2009 and 2012, something is terribly wrong with the policies of this Nation. That is what happened.
That is what Americans have labored for, so that 95 percent of the wealth generated by the men and women who work in America winds up in the hands of 1 percent of this population.
We have got some policy problems. We have to deal with this.
If you believe what Bill Clinton said about the American Dream, being able to provide for your family, being able to provide that education, being able to make things better not only for yourself but for the next generation, then this kind of issue has to be dealt with.
This is a fundamental economic problem. The growth of this economy is dependent upon the ability of the American workers to have an income so that they can pursue their dream, and when the wealth winds up with this kind of a skewed situation, the 95 percent are not able to become the consumers to buy the home, to buy the car, to develop the opportunities that they need for their family.
How can we deal with this?
Well, one way we heard about today. We heard from Mr. Blumenauer about the necessity of building our transportation system so that the foundation for economic growth is in place, the transportation system. We need to do that, and doing so will put Americans back to work with those good, middle class jobs for working American families.
We need to put in place a Make It In America policy. Trade, taxes, energy, labor, education, research infrastructure, that is our agenda. That is our agenda for growth in America.
It is also our agenda for dealing with the deficit. You want to deal with the deficit, put Americans back to work. Watch that tax money come into the coffers of this Nation's treasury. It will happen.
But you keep a large percentage of Americans out of work, you keep them at low wages, and you keep them unemployed, you are not going to able to deal with the deficit. Go back to work Americans--and you deal with the deficit.
How do you do that? Infrastructure, trade policy, make sure your tax policy is in place that encourages economic growth and investment and all the rest.
We can do this. We can do this. We are America. We have done this in the past. We have had leaders in the past that have talked about these things and done them. We have had a Congress in the past that has listened to their own leadership, to those among their caucuses that said, Let's get on with it. Let's build for the future. Those leaders are here--not at this moment, but they are here on this floor day after day. They know. They understand, If you want to deal with the deficit, put Americans back to work. If you want to deal with the American Dream, give them a good job. Raise the minimum wage so that every working person at least can provide food on their table and shelter for themselves and their families. It is all possible.
This isn't something new to America. This is what America has done before. And this is our job. This is our job. The Congress of the United States, the Senate, the administration, that is what we are here for. That is our job.
Mr. Speaker, before I yield back, first I have got to talk about one other thing, and that is another challenge that we face, and that challenge is about climate change. This is real, folks. This is not something that a bunch of scientists have dreamed up. This is a very, very real issue for this world. Many of the policies we talk about here can directly go to the issue of climate change.
I represent 200 miles of the Sacramento River Valley, from the very beginning of the Sacramento River at the beginning of the San Francisco Bay, 200 miles up, past the city of Sacramento, past the cities of Yuba City, Marysville, all the way to Chico. It is an area that is one of the most flood-prone areas in America.
Climate change is going to increase rainfall--maybe not the total rainfall throughout the year, but the incidence of extraordinary, heavy downpours will increase.
Not too many people want to ascribe the recent typhoon in the Philippines to climate change, but there is ever-increasing evidence that extreme storms are a result of climate change. And it figures: more heat, more moisture, more storms, more precipitation--it is all there.
So as we go forward, dealing with these issues of economic development, of infrastructure, we need to keep in mind the issue of climate change and its immediate effect: droughts in some areas, where there weren't droughts before; floods in other areas, where there is a need to put in the infrastructure.
In the case of my district, the infrastructure of levees. My constituents are at risk. My constituents need the Federal Government to pass a Water Resources Development Act that provides the foundation and the authorization for levee improvements, and they need the appropriations. They need the money.
It is our task to keep America safe, whether that is from some military threat from somewhere in the world or from some natural threat, for example, extreme storms, extreme flooding, making sure the infrastructure, the levees, and the protections for our citizens are in place.
I want us to deal with that; and as we put together the Water Resources Development Act, where I have the privilege of being on the conference committee, we intend to do our best to make sure that the authorization for those projects necessary for water development, as well as flood protection, are in place. And then we must go about the task of finding a way to pay for it.
Mr. Blumenauer is introducing a bill tomorrow to find a way to pay for the transportation systems. We need to do the same for the water infrastructure systems. We cannot neglect this task. It is our job.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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