Congressional Black Caucus: Wealth Creation and the Opportunity Gap

Floor Speech

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Mr. HORSFORD. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my good friend, my colleague, the gentleman from the great State of New York (Mr. Jeffries) for his leadership and for coanchoring this hour, and for focusing the efforts of the Congressional Black Caucus and the attention on such an important and pressing matter as the issue of the decline of opportunities for millions of Americans.

So often people ask the question, why do you have to talk about race?

Why do you have to raise issues in the context of the disproportionality of issues as it applies to race?

If there is any question about why that is the need or why there is a need to do that, unfortunately, the events over the last week and the comments by individuals over the last week indicate why these issues are still so prevalent in our country.

They talk about the original sin being slavery in this country, and the fact is so much of the disparate treatment of color is based on some institutional issues that are so pervasive in a number of different areas.

For me, it is necessary because I represent a district that is very diverse, like many Members in this body. My district is home to Cliven Bundy, the rancher that has received so much national attention, not just because of the issues around his use of public lands, even though he had failed to pay the grazing fees and was prohibited from being on that land, but because of the racist, hate-filled words that he talked about pertaining to African Americans.

The fact that he said that people didn't take the time to understand his way of life in a town in Nevada's Fourth Congressional District, but yet he would profile another community based on the fact that he just drove by and looked and observed their situation and then judged and made the judgment that maybe they were better off under slavery.

Maybe it is the recent remarks by the owner of the L.A. Clippers, the fact that, in a private conversation, he would talk about what his true feelings are about the people who have made him such a wealthy individual; and yet it is that hate-filled racist view that we are here to expose today.

So when we talk about opportunity, it is fundamental. It is a fundamental tenet of our great Nation, and we still are trying to live up to that ideal of an equal opportunity for every individual.

So just like I advocate for constituents who live out in Bunkerville and Mesquite, in Moapa Valley, in Virgin Valley as part of my congressional district, in rural areas that may not have a lot of diversity, just as they are concerned with the armed militia that are still in their communities tonight--and I have spoken up and asked law enforcement agencies to help remove those armed militias from that local community that just wants to return to normal--I am also here to speak up for communities throughout my district that are very diverse, that have Latino communities and African American and Asian American communities that are faced with this opportunity gap issue that we are here to talk about.

This is not a one-way conversation that we are having. We want to invite those of you who are watching on C-SPAN or those of you who are following us on Twitter at #CBCtalks to get involved in the conversation. Tweet us your comments about what this opportunity gap means to you.

The ability to work hard and achieve success, no matter what part of society you were born in, this is what has produced the world's largest middle class and has propelled all of us to be the most powerful and wealthy country in the world; and it has also been an economy that works for everyone, in that it grows wealth from the middle out. That has produced our country's most prosperous times, and that is what we are here to defend tonight in this conversation.

But in the past two decades, in particular, and particularly during our Nation's recovery from the great recession, as my colleague from New York (Mr. Jeffries) illuminated, the promise of opportunity is not materializing for millions of Americans.

It is not because these individuals don't want that opportunity. It is not because there is a lack of willingness or hard work on behalf of individuals. The question is: What is keeping so many people from that same opportunity?

More and more Americans are falling out of the middle class and into poverty while those in poverty are unable to climb beyond the first rung of the economic ladder.

Just last week, we learned from The New York Times that America no longer has the wealthiest middle class in the world, falling behind our neighbors to the north, Canada; and this should not come as a shock to anyone, given the troubling economic trends of the past decade or so.

We have to recognize that these income inequalities and a shrinking middle class is a crisis for our Nation and one that will not go away if we do not act. In fact, it is a crisis that will only grow worse and will ultimately catch up to our ability to sustain our position as the world's wealthiest country.

Now, as my colleague from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), the ranking member, just said, it is not an easy crisis to solve, and no single policy will address all of the factors that are contributing to the growing opportunity gap, but one issue that I want to speak about specifically is the fact that experts have consistently and nearly universally identified the area that will go the furthest in providing expanded opportunities for all, and that is education and particularly early education.

Positive social and cognitive development starts very early, and children who are encouraged to actively learn, starting from when they are as young as 3 or 4 years old, experience tremendous long-term benefits.

Research also shows that high-quality early childhood education can provide children from poor working class backgrounds with the similar early learning experiences as children from wealthier backgrounds.

Now, why is this important? The enrollment and graduation rates by race matter. For those individuals who belong to the Asian American community, they have the highest graduation rates, at nearly 70 percent. Among the White population, it is about 62 percent. Among the Latino community, it is 51 percent.

But for African Americans, according to the 2005 cohort, we have just a 39.9 percent graduation rate compared to enrollment. So if we are going to change these statistics, we have to start at the beginning, and that is an investment in education, in early childhood education.

Now, we can't do that by supporting the budget by Congressman Paul Ryan, which would cut investments in Head Start, which we know greatly helps all children develop social and cognitive skills that they otherwise might not receive at home.

In addition to early education investments, it is critical that we invest in our middle schools and high schools, so that every student has an opportunity to succeed and to be prepared to go to college and ultimately graduate with a college degree.

Still, to this day, schools are not even close to receiving equal amounts of funding; and that is why groups, such as the Children's Defense Fund, talk about be careful what you cut and that our budgets reflect our values, that if we don't invest properly in education, in early childhood education, then we are not going to get the type of return on investments and improved outcomes through high school graduation and college. Low-income African American students, in particular, suffer the consequence from these circumstances.

If I could talk about this chart for just a moment, dealing with the access to a full range of courses in math and science among the White, Asian, Latino, and African American population--again, this is an issue of access.

If students aren't being exposed to a curriculum in science, technology, engineering, and math, then they are not going to be able to learn or perform or graduate in these areas.

In this chart, we see an incredibly reduced rate for African Americans when it comes to math and science courses. Only 57 percent of African American students have access to a full range of math and science courses. These are subjects that have major impacts when it comes to college readiness and achievement scores on standardized testing.

Now, in my home State of Nevada, the graduation rate discrepancy between White students and students of color is striking: 72 percent for Whites, 55 percent for Latinos, and a staggeringly low rate of 48 percent for African Americans.

Nevada's high school graduation rate is the lowest in the Nation. In fact, today, they just released the most recent high school graduation statistics for every State in the country, and Nevada was at the bottom.

It contributes greatly to our State receiving the lowest opportunity score in the country by Opportunity Nation, which factors in economic, educational, and community conditions that affect people's ability to succeed and climb the economic ladder.

So if we don't address education and invest in education, then we are never going to really be able to truly close this wealth gap that exists.

That is why the CBC and the Democratic alternative budgets both propose investing billions of dollars--in fact, reinvesting because, under the budgets that were passed when we were in the majority in this House, the funding was there for school and the training of our teachers to properly address the growing opportunity gap between high-income and low-income students; but under the GOP here in the House, they have slashed those budgets. It is time for us to reinvest.

The Republican budget ignores the long-term opportunity gaps that arise in our Nation's low-income schools. It would pull the rug out from under as many as 3.4 million disadvantaged students and 8,000 schools across the country. It cuts 29,000 teachers and teacher aides, educating disadvantaged students by 2016. The GOP budget cuts 170,000 vulnerable children out of Head Start, as I said.

So it is pretty clear to me that the differences between the House Republican budget and the Democratic priorities stand when it comes to investing and providing opportunities to the next generation of middle class workers, but it starts with education. That is why we need to fulfill that promise of opportunity for all and allow those who work hard and who play by the rules to climb that economic ladder and to achieve economic stability in their lives, no longer living paycheck to paycheck.

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