Middle Class Economics

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to
speak. I hadn't intended to talk on Medicare, although I think that the
ultimate reaction to what we just heard is that the Medicare guarantee
that has been the bedrock, foundation, for seniors really will
terminate if this budget proposal that we just heard discussed for so
long continues because it will basically give seniors an option not to
have Medicare. I don't think we want to do that. This has been an
extremely important program for more than 40 years now, and I want to
look really, really hard at the proposal that is being put forth by my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

What I came to talk about today is something that the President
actually spoke to us about here in the Chamber in January, and it was
middle class economics--middle class economics. How is it that we can
grow the middle class which has been stagnant in its economic growth
for the last almost 25 years now, not seen a pay increase, husband and
wife or a single parent struggling to make ends meet here in America?
The President came here and he brought to us this middle class
economics.

Why is it important? Well, basically, if the middle class is healthy,
if the middle class paycheck is growing, the economy grows. It is an
economy that is based upon the consumer, and the consumer really is the
middle class. So it becomes absolutely important that we look at how we
are going to grow the middle class in America.

There are many different ways to do that. Obviously, we need to
strengthen the wages that the middle class have. We have seen very
little wage growth in the last two decades. We need to really make sure
that the men and women that are out there working day in and day out
have the increase in their paycheck. We have seen little tiny bumps now
as we look across the Nation, and as more and more people become
employed and the labor market becomes somewhat tighter, we would hope
to see this. But an important element of this paycheck is the minimum
wage. So we advocate for $10.10 minimum wage all across this Nation. We
hope to get it.

But what we really want to spend time on today is the infrastructure
and how to really see the infrastructure--the foundation for economic
growth--really be put in place in America. We now have until mid-May,
May 15, to put in place a new version of the highway bill. Can we do
it? We have to do it. If we don't put in place and extend the Surface
Transportation Act, we are going to see contractors all across America
shut down their work, new contracts for highways and bridges not go
into effect but, rather, be delayed. So Congress has an enormous task
at its hand, and that is to reauthorize the Surface Transportation Act.

The current one? We kicked it down the road last fall. Well, the stop
sign is right in front of us, so we need to get with it. We are going
to talk about some of the elements in that. We know that if we put in a
robust, full Surface Transportation Act, we are going to see the
American middle class go back to work.

Let me just show you some of the elements that are in that Surface
Transportation Act. Here they are. Last year, the President proposed
the GROW AMERICA Act. I am going to call this the GROW AMERICA Act II.
So we are looking now at how we can do that. The President came out
with a full, 6-year program, a very robust increase in the amount of
money available for surface transportation--fully paid for without
increasing the excise tax on gasoline and diesel. No, you are not going
to see an increase in the pump because of this program. Now, the oil
companies may stick you, but not the government.

And so the President's plan, which we call the GROW AMERICA Act 2,
has all of these elements in it: rail, a full rail program that is a
freight program; how you connect the rail system, the highway system,
and the port system; buses; light rail and the intercity transportation
systems that are so important for our urbanization. We are seeing a
major need for these buses, for the light rail, the metro systems
across the Nation. Ports: 90 percent of the commerce comes through our
ports, and so the ports--Los Angeles, Long Beach, in California,
Oakland, San Francisco, and Sacramento in my district--are critically
important. So there are all of these elements.

We know we need to repair the bridges. We have a nice picture of the
Golden Gate Bridge here. We probably should put the new Bay Bridge, or
maybe we could actually put up this bridge. This actually happened
about 3 years ago. This is Interstate 5 from the Canadian border to the
Mexican border down the west coast, Interstate 5. Well, for about a
month and a half you weren't going to get very far on Interstate 5
because this bridge is right near the Canadian border, and it
collapsed. So bridges across the United States are in desperate need of
rebuilding. Many of them are decades old, some more than 100 years old;
and, finally, highways.

So this is the GROW AMERICA Act Surface Transportation Program that
the President has proposed, about $160-some billion over a 6-year
period of time. It is a large program. It provides a lot of money for
all of the things we need to do: freight, intercity travel, buses,
light rail, metro systems, ports, bridges, and highways. It is all
there. There is a separate bill dealing with our airports. This is our
program. This is what we need to do. When we do this, we are going to
put America back to work.

Now, one of my colleagues from California, the former speaker of the
California Assembly, is here to talk about an element in this program.
I welcome Karen Bass to this 1-hour discussion.

Ms. Bass, if you would like to tell us what is going on in California.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Bass).

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much, Ms. Bass. I really appreciate
your support. You have been a leader in California for many years,
despite your youth. We look forward to this.

I am very familiar with the extensions that you are talking about in
southern California. As Lieutenant Governor, we were working on many of
those projects, and I really like that local hire. That is so
critically important.

We have this issue not just on big transit programs like yours, but
we also have it on our military bases, two of which I represent. All
too often, people are imported from other States to do work in our
local communities, and I am going: No, no, no, hire local, hire local,
buy local.

Let me put one more thing up here, and then I am going to yield to my
friend from New York because this is really his turf. Make It In
America, Buy America. So when you are going to build these projects,
let's do it with American-made products.

I think this one, Ms. Bass, this is, I don't know, a problem that
occurred in San Francisco. When they decided to rebuild the San
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, they decided to use Chinese steel.

Some 6,000 jobs went off to China. The steel came back. It turns out
that the steel had all kinds of problems: welding problems, structural
problems. They are still dealing with this. This is really the ``San
Francisco Made in China Bay Bridge''

On the other hand, my good friend here from New York, Paul Tonko, the
Tappan Zee Bridge, across the Hudson River, both of them about $6
billion to $7 billion. This bridge made in America, with American
workers, and American steel--and it is coming in on budget--not Chinese
steel.

I don't know, Ms. Bass, but when you talk about making it local, hire
local, we ought to have Buy America, Make It In America, and then we
can really see the jobs, not just the local jobs in the construction,
but all of the other parts that go with it.

Where is that train being made? It could be made in Sacramento by
Siemens with American workers, made in America, our tax dollars hiring
local workers and American-made products. It can be exciting. We can
really build this economy. We can grow America, and we can rebuild the
American middle class in the process.

Mr. Tonko, congratulations on your Tappan Zee Bridge made in America
with, as Ms. Bass would say, locally hired workers.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much. You are always
passionate about growing the American economy, making the jobs. Often,
you talk about research and the important role of research and, today,
the important role of infrastructure of all kinds.

Earlier, as I was going through some numbers about the GROW AMERICA
Act II--this is this year's version of the President's infrastructure
bill--I misstated. I said it was about a $167 billion program.
Actually, it is a $478 billion program over 6 years.

It happens to be $176 billion more than we are currently spending at
the same rate, so it is really a terrific boost in the infrastructure.
It does cover all of these things: rails, buses, ports, bridges,
highways.

That is not all that we need to do. The American Society of Civil
Engineers laid it out. If you look at our airports, they are getting a
D; bridges, a C-plus--you go down through the list--drinking water, a
D; energy, a D--just all through the list, all of the infrastructure--
sanitation systems, D; water systems, D.

Many of our communities, New York City and others in your area, are
communities that are two centuries old, and some of the infrastructure
is also two centuries old. We have this enormous need to rebuild our
economy. If we do so, we are going to create a lot of jobs.

One of my favorite publications that came across my desk recently is
this one: ``Infrastructure Investment Creates American Jobs,'' Duke
University. This isn't something put out by the Democratic Party; it is
put out by Duke University.

They say for every billion dollars that we invest, we not only get
the infrastructure--the roads, the ports, the airports--but we also get
21,671 jobs. The economic impact is not just $1 billion or $1; it is
actually $3.54.

You are getting this boost in the economy. You are getting that
thrust growing the American economy and, as the President said,
``growing the middle class'' because these are middle class jobs.

I am sure you see this in your area.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, you are talking about water. In just
looking through the report card from the American Society of Civil
Engineers, they have down here ``water systems,'' with drinking water,
D; energy, D-plus; sanitation is another D; and wastewater, D.

Just across the Nation, in terms of a modern water infrastructure,
both drinking water--potable water--as well as the sanitation systems,
we rank them a D. In other words, we are polluting. We have
contaminated water to drink, and we have contaminated water going out
the other end of the sewer plant.

Let me just take a second to talk to you about a place where there is
not enough water--California. We are in the fourth year of a major
drought in California, Mr. Tonko, and you are talking about all of
those water problems you have in New York. Perhaps you could put it on
one of those tank cars and send it out to California, because we are in
desperate need of water in California. Fortunately, last November, the
people of California took note of this problem, and they passed a $7.5
billion bond to build the water systems of California.

There are many parts to this--rebuilding the community water systems
for small communities like you described. We have problems in
California because communities are out of water. They don't have any
water at all. That is part of it. There is another part in dealing with
conservation so that we would conserve our water. There is another
piece of it that deals with recycling. In fact, the fifth-biggest river
on the west coast of the Western Hemisphere--from Alaska all the way to
Chile--is the sanitation plants in southern California.

You take, for example, water coming from northern California--500
miles, 5,000 feet in the air. You take it into southern California. You
bring it in from the Colorado River--200 miles, 2,000 feet. You bring
it into southern California. You clean it. You use it once. Then you
clean the water to a higher standard than the day it arrives in
southern California, and you dump it in the ocean. Hello. Anybody
thinking? So the people of California said, Let's recycle, so recycling
programs are going to be part of California's future.

We need to build reservoirs. We need to take care of the underground
aquifers, which are rapidly being depleted. Unlike in New York, we are
depleting them in California, not only in California, but in Nevada,
Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Georgia, Florida, and Oregon. All of these
States are seeing a depletion in their aquifers. In California, we need
to get with this.

In doing so, what I would like to see us do here in Washington is to
take our Federal water programs, which are several. We have a recycling
program and a conservation program--title VI is the Central Valley
Improvement Act--available to the entire Nation. We have the EPA with
its water programs, the Department of Agriculture, obviously the Bureau
of Reclamation, and the Corps of Engineers.

For those programs that are California's, we ought to put them right
underneath that water bond and augment, supplement, and drive forward
that water bond that the people of California already voted for. We
have our task in major infrastructure, in putting people to work, and
in guaranteeing the future for California water supplies.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much. You keep bringing
these issues so clearly to all of us.

There are some among the 435 Members of this House who believe that
the Federal Government should not have a role in these kinds of
projects, and I think they are doing two things as they advocate that
the Federal Government ought to get out of this business.

First of all, they are ignoring the Constitution, which specifically
says Congress is supposed to take care of postal roads. They are also
ignoring the Founding Fathers. Washington asked his Treasury Secretary,
Hamilton, to develop a program on advancing the American economy, and
he came back with a program to build ports, postal roads, and canals.
So this has been a long history of America from the beginning--that the
Federal Government has a role in all of these.

This morning, we had a hearing in the Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee about the highway bill, about the surface
transportation bill. We note that the President put forward what I call
the GROW AMERICA Act II--this is this year's version of last year's
bill--that is for $478 billion, a 6-year program, $176 billion more
than proposed last year, and fully paid for.

I notice that the ranking member of the Highways and Transit
Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has
joined us. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C., is with
us now. This is her turf as ranking member of that committee.

Thank you so very much for joining us, Ms. Norton. Share with us your
thoughts on how we can grow America--grow the middle class, increase
the paychecks for Americans, and build our infrastructure.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Ms. Norton, you hit right on with your closing
sentence. It is about the middle class; it is about middle class jobs;
it is about growing the economy and laying the foundation for present
and future economic growth. We could do that. The President's plan last
year, which he called the GROW AMERICA Act--and I am saying this year
we call it the GROW AMERICA Act II--is $478 billion. That is a lot of
money, and we put that into the surface transportation.

I was thinking about as you were talking about the surface
transportation, Mr. Tonko, over there, and about the new Amtrak bill
that just passed out of our committee. It will be on the floor pretty
soon. It calls for a lot of investment for Amtrak on the Northeast
corridor so that you can go from Washington, D.C., to your home up on
the Hudson River. I think there is a rail line that goes up there.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. They call for a big investment there. One of the
things we think ought to be in this bill--in fact, it is in the bill--
is a very strong Buy America provision. This is a locomotive, electric
locomotive for the Amtrak line here on the Northeast corridor from
Washington, D.C., to Boston, and this locomotive is 100 percent
American made. It is made in Sacramento, California, of all places, by
a German company, Siemens, who looked at the American Recovery Act, and
there was $700 million in there to build these locomotives, and they
said 100 percent American made. And Siemens looked at that and goes:
$700 million, make it in America, we can do that, and they are doing
it. These are now being deployed on the east coast line.

But the next phase is a high-speed line between Washington and
Boston, and that high-speed line calls for a new kind of train, high-
speed train, and out of our committee we said that it is going to be
built in America.

Now, Mr. Tonko, here is where I turn this over to you. It turns out
that one of the foreign companies, Alstom, which is a French company,
has a manufacturing plant in upstate New York, maybe near your
district. If so, you are going to have those middle class manufacturing
jobs when this bill passes with a 100 percent Buy America provision.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. We know that one of the key opportunities that
presents itself to Congress in the next 3 months is the surface
transportation bill. We know that we have to have it out of here, renew
it by the end of May. We know that if we do that, the construction
season--while being a little bit rocky because we are late in getting
this done--will be able to move forward through the summer and then on
into the fall.

One of the tasks that our Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has is to
push that out, and if in that piece of legislation we maintain the Buy
America provisions, it is not just the construction jobs, it is going
to be the manufacturing jobs, and men and women that will build the
light rail, that will build the buses, that will build the Metro
systems, will put together the pieces of the port, the bridges,
wherever they may be, and of course the highways.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Your leadership on the Subcommittee on Highways and
Transit is exceedingly important. All of us look forward to your
success and the success of all of us in building America's
infrastructure.

We have about a little less than 5 minutes left. If you would like to
take a few minutes, then I can, and we will call it an evening in which
we have come, once again, to talk about building America, rebuilding
the American middle class.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much for joining us
tonight and your leadership on this whole range of issues.

It is about tomorrow. Tomorrow will be solid for America if we build
a solid foundation, and that foundation is the infrastructure. It is the research facilities, the sanitation, the water facilities, the highway and rail facilities.

The President has made a proposal. It is up to us to respond to that.
Six years, fully paid for, no increase in the gasoline and diesel tax,
it is all there. All we need to do is grab it and grab the future in
the process. I am happy for the opportunity to share this evening on
building tomorrow's future.

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

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