Floor Statements

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My name is Keith Ellison, and I am a cochair of the Progressive Caucus. The Progressive Caucus, for people just tuning in, Mr. Speaker, is a group of Members of Congress who believes that America is a place where the idea of liberty and justice for all must prevail.

It has got to be more than the words that we say in the Pledge of Allegiance. It has got to be something we actually live.

``Liberty and justice for all,'' that means everyone. That means we don't exclude people based on their religion, and we don't demonize them because of it. We embrace people in all their racial and ethnic diversities. We say that Americans born in America and that those who have come here are Americans all the same. Whether you're straight or gay or whether you're male or female, we believe in all America--one America--indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We believe in civil rights. We believe in human rights. We believe in the importance of economic opportunity being wedded to social inclusion. For the working people every day--Americans of all backgrounds--that means, if you work every day and if you work hard, you ought to be able to put food on the table for your families.

You ought to be able to organize in a union on your job. You ought to be able to expect a good, decent retirement after a whole life's-long work. You ought to be able to expect that you can affordably put your kids through school. You ought to be able to expect that we will have a strong social safety net if you happen to hit hard times.

This is the Progressive Caucus, the caucus that believes that it's better to talk it out than to shoot it out. Diplomacy is better than war. We should try to work out our differences with other nations, and saber rattling and investing in warfare armaments and outside and above protecting the American people is a problem.

We should be talking about things like environmental protection. We should be protecting our natural world. We should be addressing the dangers of climate change, and we should be affecting that change to make sure that America is greener and cleaner and more sustainable.

That's the Progressive Caucus, Mr. Speaker. We're the ones who could be found standing up for the Constitution, standing up for the idea of freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of the press. We will be found standing up for the idea the government must have the proper authorization and justification to violate people's right to be left alone.

We also want to stand up and say that we believe that the progressive motion in America is what has made America this great Nation. We recognize our wonderful Nation, our great Nation had a dream. From the very beginning we had a dream, but we also had a reality. The dream was liberty and justice for all, land of the free, home of the brave. The dream was that all Americans and all men will be created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That was the dream. But the reality was America held slaves. The reality was women couldn't vote. The reality was the original people were relegated to an inferior status.

So people who believed in that dream, people like Martin Luther King, people like Harriet Tubman, people like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and people like Susan B. Anthony, people like Eugene Debs, and people like Walter Reuther and other great Americans, they believed that that dream was worth fighting for and got out there, Mr. Speaker, and made the dream reality.

We weren't trying to conserve the old order and status quo; we were trying to progress toward a better America that really reflected that dream that I was just talking about. The dream was that all Americans are created equal. The reality was segregation.

But Americans who had a progressive vision said we're not going to stay, we're not going to conserve segregation. We're not going to conserve robber barons who controlled all the wealth in the 1890s. We're not going to conserve the abuse of our environment.

Rachel Carson said, we're not going to conserve that. We're not conservatives. We're trying to make America better. We believe in the greatness of this country, and we are not going to stop until we get it.

So people like Rachel Carson said we're going to have a clean environment, and she wrote about it and she fought for it. And people like Martin Luther King fought for civil rights, and people like Walter Reuther fought for the right to organize. And sometimes people who were in these movements gave their lives for the changes that they stood for, and other times they were able to survive.

But the fact is they were all united in one progressive vision of what America should be about, not trying to preserve racism, slavery, segregation, gender oppression. The progressive movement is what we stand for, not conservatism. That's not us, we're not them and don't want to be confused with them.

So tonight we're here for a progressive message, and we're going to be talking about jobs and unemployment, but I did want to take a moment, Mr. Speaker, just to let everybody know who the Progressive Caucus was, because we don't want anybody to think that we're something else than what we are, the people who embrace the American Dream and believe that America is such a great country we can overcome all the sins of the past and don't want to conserve any of them.

Mr. Speaker, we want to go into a few key points tonight. We won't be here the whole hour, but we want to be strong while we are. And so today we bring the people, Mr. Speaker, the progressive message to illustrate what's at stake in America today. What are the things that we're competing for? What are we contesting for? We come down, we watch the events on the House floor and all across the America, but what is the fight all about?

Working families are getting crushed and our middle class is shrinking every day. The working people of America are fighting to preserve a quality of life because a set of ideas has prevailed in America which basically says that any regulation is bad, and what we say is that regulations, if they're protecting life, protecting the environment, and they're helping the rules be fair and allowing Americans to succeed and have opportunity, they're not bad.

But there are some people who never saw a regulation that they liked. We believe protecting health and safety is a good thing. We believe that getting rid of bad regulation or old regulation is just fine, but these folks over here have an ideological commitment to any, to ending any regulation, and we recognize that this is exactly what has ruined our environment, exactly what has caused global climate change, and exactly what caused the financial disaster.

What's at stake in America?

Here in America some folks believe that if the economy is going really, really well, what they need to do is have a tax cut for the wealthy. If the economy is doing really, really bad, well, what they need is a tax cut.

If the economy is doing sort of good and sort of bad, what we need is a tax cut. In other words, the guys on the other side of the aisle, they don't believe in taxes. We in the Progressive Caucus believe that you shouldn't tax Americans any more than is necessary, but we believe that taxes are the dues that we pay to live in a civilized society.

We believe that if our taxes go so that there can be Head Start for our poor kids to be able to have a chance in life, that's all right. That if we have to pay taxes for police officers and firefighters and people who work on our roads to make them safe and make sure bridges are safe to cross, we're all right with that.

We're not these folks who believe that you want to cut, slash, and burn, and act like public workers and public employees are just, you know, not valuable. We recognize they are valuable, and I'm talking about people who work in parks and rec, the police, the firefighters, but also the people who make sure that our water is clean and our environment is safe. Also, people who make sure that our economic and financial system is safe, people who make sure that when people, that when

some folks want to cut corners and just want to make a quick buck, that they're not going to be allowed to do that.

You need a cop on the beat, a financial cop on the beat to make sure that good actors are rewarded and bad ones are punished. So people who say, oh, we don't want any regulation because it would hurt jobs, we don't agree with that. We believe that jobs are going to come when we have middle class people having enough money to spend, and then the businesses of our country have enough customers so that they can then add new people.

Whereas our friends on the other side of the aisle believe that if you give people like Mitt Romney a lot of money, maybe, just maybe, it might trickle down to the rest of us. Something might land on our heads. Well, something has landed on our heads, but it's not rain or a good job; it's hard times economically.

Trickle-down economics, supply-side economics is a failed policy. It never worked. They always want to say Reagan, well, look at Reagan. Reagan raised taxes plenty of times, and so they even misappropriate his legacy. But the fact is the Progressive Caucus is here to talk about what's at stake in America today.

Now, if you want to know what's really going on, you could just look at this week. Here we are in Washington, supposed to be working hard on people's business. It's not like a lot of big things aren't going on. We've got a payroll tax that's about to expire.

Did we take that up on the House floor today? No.

Did we make sure that Americans don't end up with a thousand dollars extra to pay over the course of a year as the payroll tax deduction goes up? No.

Oh, this summer student loans are going to go up, are going to double if we don't extend the law that would allow them to stay lower. Did we work on that? No, didn't touch that. But here's what we did do. This week in Congress the Republican majority didn't bring up a single bill to create jobs, none of that.

They didn't bring up a single bill to help Americans stay in their homes as we are in the midst of this foreclosure crisis that seems to never end. They didn't bring up any bills to make sure that our air was clean and our water was safe to drink. Nor did they bring up any bills to rebuild our country. No, instead, they were busy playing politics while people are hurting.

Yesterday, they brought up a bill to repeal an effort to help seniors get health care called the CLASS Act. Now, the CLASS Act was a piece of the Affordable Care Act. Some good-faith people working in our government said, you know, there are some things that we need to fix with this bill before it works the way we want it to.

Anybody who has ever made anything knows that sometimes that happens. Sometimes you've got to mend the thing that you're working on. If you've ever cooked a meal, sometimes, you know, you've got to put a little more sugar or salt or add a little more water. Legislation is exactly the same way. You pass a law, you think it can do certain things, but when you get into the actual operation of it, sometimes it doesn't work like you thought.

With this long-term care bill, some good public servants said, you know, there are some kinks we've got to work out. But instead of working out those kinks, the Republican majority just decided to strip the whole thing away. So seniors who need long-term care, the Republican majority didn't say, You know what, here's our fix. They just said, Get rid of what was already done. We say build on what was done. They say strip it away. It's too bad that's the position that they took, but that's the position they took.

Let me tell a few things about long-term care and why we need to strengthen long-term care and not strip away what's already been passed. We have a long-term crisis in the United States today that the Republicans, who are in the majority in the House, are not dealing with.

Do you know, 10 million Americans, Mr. Speaker, need long-term care. Over the next decade, another 5 million Americans will require this care, bringing the total to about 15 million people, Mr. Speaker. The problem is only getting worse, and we've got to do something about it. I wish my friends on the Republican side would help us. But even though they are in the majority, they're not.

Nearly 70 percent of all people will need some level of long-term care after turning 65 years old, Mr. Speaker. That means anybody lucky enough to get to 65, there is approximately a seven in 10 chance you're going to need some long-term care assistance. The number of Americans 62 years and older is 20 percent higher than 10 years ago, so America is aging. And you know what, this is a good sign. We want Americans to be healthy. We want our seniors to be healthy, and we want them to be strong. And when they get into a health crisis, we want them to have the care that they need.

And, Mr. Speaker, it's also important to point out here that about 62 million unpaid family caregivers, about 62 million unpaid family caregivers, that's adult children of seniors, about 62 million of these families provide care which, if you put a dollar figure on it, would amount to $450 billion in 2009, more than the total spending on Medicare that year. So families are stepping up, but families need a little help. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, people are coming into my office every day. People my age, I'm 48, and they say, My mom is getting older. She needs help. Or she got sick, something's going on. We need a fix for the long-term care.

And so, Mr. Speaker, with all of these problems that we're facing, with 70 percent of people who will need some level of long-term care by the time they turn 65, with the number of Americans 62 years of age and older being 20 percent higher than 10 years ago, with all of these issues, Mr. Speaker, you would think that the Republican majority would step up and do something about it. They're in the majority.

But what has been their response? An attempt to score political points, not solutions. They haven't come with any solution. They haven't come with a proposal to fix long-term care. They just want to strip what President Obama and the Democratic majority did, and I think that's too bad.

Now, that was what we did yesterday. We messed around. They tried to embarrass the President. It didn't work because Americans know that President Obama cares. In fact, I think Republicans know it, that's why they call it ObamaCare. Well, he does care, so they can say whatever they want.

But my point is today they were back up to their old tricks. Today, we in Congress voted on a budget gimmick bill--that's all you can really call it--a bill to make it easier for Republicans to pass more tax giveaways to the top 1 percent. They call it the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act. And, Mr. Speaker, if I had a dime for every deceptively named piece of legislation during this 112th Congress, I think I'd be a wealthy man right now.

This legislation would rig the rules, play games with the rules, funny accounting, Mr. Speaker, to make it easier for the GOP budget priorities to pass, like the Ryan budget, which included deficit- busting tax cuts for the wealthy and cuts in job-creating investments like education, estimated to cost about 1.7 million jobs by 2014.

This bill, this funny-math bill, this bill requires the Congressional Budget Office to use what they call dynamic scoring--that's the word they like to use--as part of a macroeconomic impact analysis of tax provisions. That's a whole lot of long words, Mr. Speaker, which basically says that they want to score it in a way that makes them look good. That's what they're trying to do. And what they want to do is include calculating their effect on the economy like GDP--that's all of the goods and services in a year domestically, investments and employment--which past budget analysts have said are really not going to be an accurate reflection of what's going on when preparing supplemental cost estimates for major legislation.

Such an analysis is designed to hide the impact of tax cuts on the budget deficit, making tax cuts easier to enact or extending by masking their true costs. This bill, this funny-math bill, injects supply-side economics into the Congressional Budget Office scoring, which has been discredited time and time again. It has no place in the nonpartisan analysis provided to Congress.

You see, Mr. Speaker, the CBO was set up so that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats, the conservatives or the progressives, none of us with our points of view could get in and mess around with the way the Congressional Budget Office scored a bill.

What it means to score a bill, Mr. Speaker, is to analyze the costs of the bill, or analyze the financial impact of the bill. So it might be how much taxes is this going to generate. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, would give us an estimate. Or how much is this program going to cost. The CBO tells us what are the budgetary implications of what we're doing. Historically, Republicans and Democrats have just had to live with the CBO score because it's a nonpartisan office, meaning neither party controls it. But now what the Republicans want to do is come up with this dynamic scoring thing to make their estimates look better. This is wrong. They shouldn't do it. They shouldn't do it.

The underlying assumption behind the bill is that tax cuts pay for themselves. This is obviously wrong. The reason we are in this monumental debt and deficit situation that Republicans like to talk about, they're always going on about we're leaving debt on our children and grandchildren. They always say it like that in a real dramatic way, Mr. Speaker.

The reason we're in this mess is because we got two unpaid-for wars under a Republican administration and huge tax cuts under a Republican administration. They cut taxes during a war. When you're really supposed to be raising taxes to pay for the war, they cut taxes during the war which exploded all this debt. That's the truth. If they come down here and tell you the truth, that's what they would say. That two unpaid-for wars and the Bush tax cuts are what exploded the debt and the deficit. It's why we're in the situation that we're in.

They always want to say, oh, ObamaCare. That's not the cause of it. They want to say, oh, oh, the stimulus. That's not the cause of it because that was an expenditure in a short period of time that didn't have long, long tails like these tax cuts do or these wars.

That's what has exploded the deficit. And now, instead of owning up to it and saying we need to tax Americans more fairly, not just take care of the rich people, but take care of everybody and make sure the burden is shared and not just the rich get to escape with not doing anything, or not doing much. Some folks running for President are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and only pay 13.9 percent on it; whereas if you make 50,000, 60,000, you're going to pay 25 percent, 28 percent or 35 percent, depending on exactly how much you make. It's unfair. What the Republicans want to do is instead of just owning up and saying, yeah, we were fiscally irresponsible, they just want to have dynamic scoring so it doesn't look so obvious.

Now, I talked about what we did yesterday, which is try to do nothing about long-term care except embarrass the President and strip the CLASS Act out. Today, we played games with the budget again with budget- counting measures trying to interfere with how the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office does the scoring. Well, what are we going to do tomorrow, Mr. Speaker? Certainly, tomorrow must be better than the last 2 days, particularly given the fact that we got the payroll tax deduction running out and other things, important things, going on. Are we going to take up the payroll tax deduction issue tomorrow? No.

Tomorrow, we're going to do something else, another budgeting gimmick bill, this time called the Baseline Reform Act. This is another one to try to hide the reality. It requires the Congressional Budget Office-- and, Mr. Speaker, you'll recall I explained that Congressional Budget Office is sometimes referred to as the CBO--it requires the CBO to unrealistically assume in its baseline that spending in the future will stay the same and not grow to keep pace with inflation, thereby facilitating cuts in real terms in job-creating investments.

This bill ignores the impact of inflation on the discretionary budget which gives an unrealistic picture of what it will take to maintain basic services. So, understand it this way, Mr. Speaker, if inflation is making everything cost more but you try to hold the line, then the cost of things will not be accurately reflected if you don't account for inflation. But this is exactly what they don't want to do.

Republicans want to starve these programs, and they could lead to long backlogs for services and other types of problems such as the major issues at the Walter Reed Hospital during the last decade. Relative to the traditional baseline, a freeze would reduce investment for long-range programs such as rebuilding and educating America by over 20 percent and by the 10th year.

So there you have it, Mr. Speaker. Three days of not dealing with what we need to deal with, 3 days of playing games, 3 days of not dealing with the people's business, 3 days of not focusing on what America needs us to focus on.

So, Mr. Speaker, let's talk about the American people. They have rejected the Republican budget scheme that ends the Medicare guarantee to pay for tax breaks for Big Oil millionaires and corporations that ship jobs overseas. For the last year, if you're not a CEO or a wealthy special interest, the Republican Party of the 1 percent says you're on your own. I often wonder what they meant when they said the ``ownership society.'' What they really mean is the ``you're on your own society.'' They mean, hey, we got to cut cities and towns, and we got to cut States, and we can't be there for you anymore. You are on your own. We're going to lay off teachers, we're going to not give the cities enough to make sure there's enough police, water, fire, all that stuff. You're on your own.

But Mitt Romney is not on his own. If you need a bailout, you're not on your own. But if your house is underwater, don't look to the majority for help. If you're a father who lost your job through no fault of your own, a mother struggling to make ends meet, or a family kicked out of your home, the majority of the 1 percent says you're on your own. Turning their backs on ordinary Americans may pad the profits of corporate donors and hedge funds of billionaires bankrolling their campaigns, but it won't grow the middle class.

It used to be that working hard and playing by the rules meant you got a fair shot. We've got to restore that dream. We're not talking about an American fantasy where everybody is--you see it on TV sometimes, Mr. Speaker, where you're going to be living in some lavish place and fancy this and fancy that and lifestyles of the rich and famous and all this kind of stuff. We're not talking about an American fantasy. We're talking about an American Dream, which is realistic because it's not too much to ask that if you're willing to work hard in this country that this country should work for you.

But many Americans out there are under a lot of stress, and it's because from a policy standpoint, their elected leadership is catering to the people who have the most under the philosophy, Mr. Speaker, that if you give it all to the rich, they will invest in plants and equipment, and then it will trickle down to everybody else. That philosophy has failed, and it's time for them to admit it.

We need leaders who understand that when we all do better, we all do better. Americans have got to have a better shake. And we in the Progressive Caucus are standing up for hardworking taxpayers of the great American middle class and working class and poor. We in the Progressive Caucus are not ashamed to stand up for the poor, Mr. Speaker. We believe that poor people, low-income people, what you call poor people, are poor if they're too old to work or too sick to work or too young to work. Anyone else might be poor by circumstance, but they would love to join that great American middle class if they could just get a chance. And that means an education, that means job retraining, and that means an economy where we're literally trying to do something to protect the American worker from off-shoring by investing in our infrastructure, putting people back to work, and by doing things to make this economy strong.

The best way to get our economy going is to put America back to work. There's a lot of work to be done. The best way to cut spending is to cut

spending on tax handouts to millionaires, billionaires, and corporate special interests, while we give $4 billion to the oil industry while they're making the most money they ever made, and they still come down here and scream, oh, don't take away our subsidies.

The American people know that the best way to cut spending is to cut spending on big special interests like Wall Street and Big Oil. But instead, Republicans would rather make the rest of us pay for tax giveaways for millionaires and Republican corporate donors like big oil and pharmaceutical companies.

So we want an America where the burdens are shared and where the benefits are also shared. We want an America where there is true economic opportunity and inclusion. We want an America where it doesn't matter whether if you're born here or you came here, it doesn't matter what color you are, it doesn't matter what religion you are, it doesn't matter whether you're male or female or who you want to be married to, that all of us can have a good, prosperous life based on an economy that works for everybody.

And so I just want to say, Mr. Speaker, as I begin to wind up my remarks, that this Progressive Caucus is going to be here standing up for the American people. We will be there for the 99 percent. We will work to get money out of politics, as we're pushing constitutional amendments to do so. We will stand up to Citizens United. We believe that corporations are not people, money is not speech. And in America, democracy is not for sale.

We believe unemployment insurance should be there for people who have fallen on hard times. And we believe that the social safety net is something that's important so that when people need help, they can get back up on their feet.

Mr. Speaker, as I wind down, I just want to point out that, with nearly 14 million people unemployed today, they deserve an opportunity in an America that really works for them. They deserve leaders who care about their plight. They need leaders who care about their plight and are willing to stand up and push policy that will make the American Dream attainable for anybody who wants to work for it.

I just want to say, as I close out, America is a wonderful idea. And the American Dream should be in the grasp of every American. And great Americans have overcome some of the bad things in the past as they reached out to build the American Dream for all.

And when I say liberty and justice for all, Mr. Speaker, I mean it. And I just don't mean social equality, I mean economic opportunity too. And it's going to have to start with asking everybody to pay their fair share, recognizing that trickle down never worked and never will, and that we've got to invest in America, educate America, and protect America so we can get this economy working again.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I tell you what's as plain as the nose on your face, what's as plain as the nose on your face is that the Republicans are getting rid of a plan for long-term care without offering any alternative plan in its place. They're just stripping what's there without saying here's what we're going to do.

But I have a memory, Mr. Chairman. What I remember is that for long stretches of time in the last decade, Republicans had both houses and the Presidency, didn't do anything on health care other than do a big giveaway to Big Pharma. When the Democrats get in, we do a plan. We pass the Affordable Care Act. Does it need tinkering? Probably so, like all bills do. But instead of trying to work with us and do something good for the American people, Republicans say we're just going to strip the Democratic plan for long-term care. And this is too bad, because it seems to me that long-term care, Mr. Chairman, is a legitimate issue for us to work together on. But we're not working together. One side passes a bill; the other side just tries to get rid of it. I think it is high time that we start trying to work together, but we don't have a cooperative partner. Washington Republicans have proven once again that they would rather try to embarrass President Obama than help American seniors.

Last year, Republicans' first order of business was to eliminate the Medicare guarantee for America's seniors. This year it's the same old story, Mr. Chairman. No health care, no Medicare, no long-term care for millions of Americans.

Instead of a plan to create jobs or to extend middle class tax cuts or to address unemployment assistance or to fix the Medicare physician pay rate, Republicans are wasting time on divisive and pointless bills.

I do respect the gentleman's desire to have me yield, but I must very, very respectfully decline to yield because I have limited time. But if I have any extra time, I will be happy to yield to the gentleman, but it will have to be when I'm done.

Today, we could be dealing with the real issue--fixing the long-term care crisis. And I'm sure that everyone in this whole body, Republican and Democrat, ought to be concerned about it because all of us, no matter what our ideological beliefs may be, have people who need long- term care. So we've got to be about this business.

You know what, Mr. Chairman? Ten million Americans currently need long-term care, and the problem is only getting worse. The number of Americans 62 years and older is 20 percent higher than it was 10 years ago. Long-term care is a huge burden on families. An estimated 62 million--let me say that one more time, Mr. Chairman--62 million unpaid family caregivers provided care valued at $450 billion in 2009, more than the total spending in Medicare that year.

But Republicans are offering no solution to the long-term care crisis. They may say anything that they want, but they're not coming here with a bill that we can debate. They're just attacking what has already been done, which is so easy to do. Way better to be a critic than to be someone who produces solutions.

So, Mr. Chairman, I want to tell you a little bit about somebody in my district, Mary. Mary says: My mother is 90 and seriously ill and now in a nursing home. Her bill is over $6,500 a month. Mary goes on to say she will soon run out of money, referring to her mom. Why do people have to become indigent before they receive help?

That's a good question, I think. That's a question warranting our attention, but our Republican friends have no plan to protect families like Mary's. They're not here with a plan. They just want to strip and rip and take down what Democrats have already done. And people are in need of help.

So, Mr. Chairman, repealing the CLASS Act will not help Mary's family. We need to make the CLASS program stronger, not get rid of it. We need to amend it, not end it. We need to improve it. And that's why 56 national groups wrote to Congress saying please don't repeal the CLASS Act, including AARP, SEIU, and the National Council on Aging, people who really know what they're talking about when it comes to long-term care.

So I urge our Republican friends on both sides of the aisle to come together

with us to make a strong long-term program for seniors rather than just tearing down and stripping down. It's as plain as the nose on your face, Mr. Chairman: Americans need long-term care.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the Egyptian people on their revolution 1 year ago today. Of course that revolution is still a work in progress, but it reminded us of what people can accomplish through nonviolence and perseverance. It inspired my constituents and people around the world.

Egyptians disproved the myth that people in the region do not want democracy. Protesters in the streets were not asking for another dictator. The nonviolent protest was a stunning rejection of violence and extremism as exhibited by al Qaeda. They also were not blaming others for their problems. Their demands focused primarily on internal issues like the economy, corruption, and police brutality.

The United States must engage the new Egyptian Government. We can't advance our interests and values if we don't. If the new Parliament doesn't deliver, the Egyptian people will throw them out just like our people will throw us out. That's democracy. As they build theirs, we should remember that we're still perfecting our own.

Mr. Speaker, I brought a friend to the floor with me today. As we all know, this is Elmo. This guy taught us our 1, 2, 3s, but he also taught us tolerance and understanding. For the past several years, he's been doing the same thing for children in the Palestinian territories. Because of ``Sesame Street'' in Palestine,

Palestinian kids grow up with the same positive role models as we did.

But recently, ``Sesame Street'' has been off the air. Now Palestinian kids are left watching Farfour. This is Farfour right here. He's a mouse who is the main character of a Hamas TV show. Instead of tolerance and understanding, Farfour promotes violence and anti- Semitism.

This Congress approved funding for ``Sesame Street'' in Palestine last year, but because of the position of certain individuals in Congress, that means the money is being held up. There's no Elmo, but there is Farfour, trafficking and teaching extremism.

I'm not the only one who wants Congress to release the funding. Even the Israeli Government wants it released. Let's get good funding to the people of Palestine so that they can grow and strengthen their own society. Let the funding flow and give something for Farfour to compete with--Elmo.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, we're here because for the last year the majority could have come down here and we could have had this debate all this time. But at the 11th hour after they signaled to the Senate, work it out, get a deal together because we have not done it, the Senate did work that deal out. And now that it has come back, our friends in the House majority have said ``not good enough,'' conveniently after the Senate has gone home.

It feels like a setup. I don't question motives, but it feels that way. And it goes to the heart of the matter: Is the government here of the people, by the people, for the people and for the benefit of the people? Or do people basically have hostility to government and want to make government look dysfunctional at every turn?

The fact is, Mr. Speaker, there was an agreement in the Senate. It was coming over here, and it looked like government was going to prevail and that we had gotten our act together and worked it out. But before that ever happened, the people who stand in opposition to good government broke that deal apart. The people who believe that government should be shrunk to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub could not possibly let a deal for the American people go through, and they've smashed that deal.

And right now, this year, the clock is running out. The Senate has gone home, and our friends on the other side of the aisle are playing a dangerous game with the lives of 160 million Americans.

It's a shame and a disgrace. We ought to pass this bill the Senate sent over here and stop messing around with the livelihood of Americans.

Let me thank the gentlelady from Washington, D.C.

The message I have is very short. It's based on a group of young people who visited me in my office today, all from Washington, D.C. And they are on a hunger strike and have not eaten any solid food for 8 days. I promised them that I would not eat, either, starting tonight, and will not eat for 24 hours in solidarity with their struggle. They asked me to read a statement.

The statement reads as follows: ``Occupy The Vote D.C.

D.C. needs representation: Fast.

Occupy the vote. Corrynf@occupydc .org.

To: Those in Congress with a vote.

Regarding: Full democracy for the citizens of D.C.

Since its creation, our Capital, the bastion of American democracy, has been handicapped from responding to the will of its citizens. Despite paying taxes to the Federal Government and sending our citizens to fight and die in every war, Washingtonians have had no voting representation in Congress, and have had to seek approval from people they did not elect on all legislative and budgetary matters. In other words, the so-called capital of the free world is America's most disenfranchised jurisdiction.

More than 200 years after the American Revolution, taxation without representation--the foundational grievance of our country--is still alive and well in our Nation's Capital. Washingtonians pay higher per capita Federal income taxes than any State, yet we have no say in how Congress spends that money.

It's true that there was a time long ago when the Capital had few residents outside of the legislators and first Federal workers, who maintained representation in their home States. But D.C. now has 600,000 taxed, yet voiceless, citizens. Not a Senator to hear them at the Hart Building, no voting Representative in the House to stand for their concerns.

Based on the founding principles of our democratic Nation, we the signees demand that Washington, D.C., have the long overdue freedoms of:

Full budgetary autonomy. Congress is overburdened and often stalemated by its responsibilities to the rest of the country. Yet, the D.C. Government cannot spend its own tax dollars without the approval of Congress. A bill proposed by Representative Darrell Issa would free D.C.'s local budget from congressional control. We urge Congress to pass this bill free of any riders restricting how D.C. spends its own money. Letting D.C. take control of its own budget would free time for Congress to attend to national issues, while giving D.C. the local democracy that is given to every other American.

Full legislative autonomy. Eliminate the requirement for congressional review of new District laws. This redtape subverts democracy and adds bureaucratic inefficiency to the processes of both Congress and D.C. Government. We urge Congress to pass the District of Columbia Legislative Autonomy Act of 2011, H.R. 506.

Full representation and voting rights in Congress. The people of D.C. do not have a vote in the House or in the Senate. This deprives more than 600,000 Americans of an empowered voice in our national legislature. This unjust situation has allowed Members of Congress who were not elected by the people of the District of Columbia to impose policies upon the citizens of D.C. that are not supported by the people. We urge Congress to pass H.R. 266, the District of Columbia Equal Representation Act of 2011.

Politicians have attached riders related to abortion funding and gun ownership to past bills that would expand real democracy for D.C. residents. These riders ultimately divert the dialogue from democratic representation and further disenfranchise Washingtonians. We demand that any such riders attached to the legislation above be presented not as mandates, but as referendum proposals up for vote by the citizens of Washington, D.C.

Until D.C. realizes democracy as stipulated above, we will follow the examples of Alice Paul, Mohandas Gandhi, and Anne Hazare, and will refuse all food and consume only water in a continuous hunger strike. In a gesture of transparency, we fast here, in the open, at McPherson Square, Washington D.C., with a transparent 24-hour video livestream at occupythevotedc .tumblr.com.

To consciously disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of American citizens is unjust and contrary to this country's principles. Democracy for D.C. is not a political issue but a moral issue, not an issue of left or right but of representation and democracy. We call on President Obama, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, and the U.S. Congress to show real leadership and give the Capital of this great country the voting representation and local democracy it deserves.

In solidarity with Occupy D.C. and people's democratic movements the world over,

Signed, Adrian Parson, Sam Jewler, Joe Gray, and Kelly Mears.''

I only read what they asked me to read. And I commend their struggle and will deny myself all food and all water for 24 hours starting tonight in solidarity with their struggle.

I yield back to the gentlelady and thank her for her time.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus introduced an important bill, and it's called the ``Rebuild the American Dream for the 99% Act.'' This bill, this important ``Rebuild the American Dream for the 99% Act,'' would create 5 million jobs, Mr. Speaker, over 2 years, and cut the deficit by $2 trillion over 10 years.

The ``Rebuild the American Dream for the 99% Act'' creates direct- hire programs to put Americans back to work; provides grants for on- the-job training and employment services; invests $50 billion for infrastructure projects; creates a national infrastructure bank; improves ``buy American'' provisions; ends the practice of foreign currency manipulation; protects wounded veterans from job discrimination; extends unemployment insurance, including for people at 99 weeks; and supports the TANF emergency contingency fund to help States pay for the cost of hiring unemployed workers. We can do these things. The ``Rebuild the American Dream Act for the 99% Act'' does it.

My name is Keith Ellison. I am the cochair of the Progressive Caucus and a Member of Congress from the great State of Minnesota. I'm here claiming time to speak on behalf of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus, Mr. Speaker, is 77 members in the United States Congress who believe that when we say the Pledge of Allegiance and we say liberty and justice for all, that means all--all means blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, straight, gays, the senior citizens and the youngest among us, people with disabilities and people who are able-bodied. It means the great mass of American people included in ``in liberty and justice for all.''

The Progressive Caucus believes in economic justice. We believe in civil rights and human rights for all people. We believe that public employees are valuable to our society, and we honor and respect the services that they give to us. We believe that America, with our awesome military power, should use that power to promote peace in the world. We are the ones who called for the U.S. to not go into Iraq. When we went in there, we were the ones to push to get us out. We are the ones who are raising the issues around Afghanistan. And we'll continue to argue the case for diplomacy and for development and to make friends with the world, to be a good member of the international community in the United Nations and under international bodies.

We're not the ones who believe that the world is a scary, dangerous place and we've got to jack up the military as much as we can. We're not the ones who think that the rich don't have enough money and the poor have too much. We're not the people who believe in dividing Americans based on culture and color and gender and urban versus rural. We believe in unifying Americans and having equal rights for all people.

Yes, we are liberal, and we are proud of it. We're the Progressive Caucus.

Today, Mr. Speaker, I'm here to deliver the Progressive message. The Progressive message is what we're talking about today. The topic I'm going to address, Mr. Speaker, is going to be jobs in this American economy.

Today, Mr. Speaker, we want to speak as bipartisan as we can, but there's no question that the arguments that we have in Congress have a partisan tone. Therefore, for us to sit up here and say we're all just getting along here in Congress and we don't have a different point of view would be not exactly being straight with the American people.

So we're going to say that the debates that we have been having in the House of Representatives have to do with those of us who believe that we as Americans need to live in harmony with the planet, need to try to cut down our carbon footprint, need to try to diminish pollution. And those others of us--mostly on the Republican side of the aisle--who make the case that, for the sake of industry, we have to sacrifice our health, our lungs, our good clean environment, they're making that case.

We're trying to ask Americans to look carefully at the different programs that are being offered on this House floor and to make a decision: Do you believe that we have a responsibility to the poor? The Progressive Caucus does.

Do you believe that public employees and government brings quality and improves the quality of life for Americans? Not all the time. Government needs to be refined like everybody. But the Republicans and conservatives in this House who make the case that government is the problem, we wholeheartedly reject that point of view. That is wrong. We believe in a mixed economy, where the private sector and the public sector exist to benefit the American people in general.

So we're here to talk about these things tonight, and we're here to lay it on the table so that Americans of all backgrounds, all colors, all cultures, all faiths can make decisions about what kind of America they want. Because there are clearly two different visions of what America is about being offered on this House floor every day for the last year and for the next year, and I think Americans should be able to say, I think this is the kind of America I want. And others who think that rich people don't have enough money and poor people have too much, they can support the Republican program.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about jobs tonight; and, therefore, I just want to make the case that, again, I don't think it's a good idea to always draw the partisan divide, but I think it is important to be honest. And my Republican colleagues just have not-- even though they're the majority--have not introduced a single bill for jobs this whole time they've been in the majority.

They will say, Oh, yes, we've brought jobs. We had jobs bills. We had jobs bills. Didn't you see us cutting the EPA?

That's not a jobs bill.

Didn't you see us trying to let cement companies be able to emit more pollution in the air?

That's not a jobs bill.

Didn't you see us trying to let coal companies, electric coal companies be able to put more emissions in the air?

That's not a job bill. That's just saying industry can do what it wants to our lungs.

But a jobs bill to help rebuild America's infrastructure? Haven't seen that from our friends on the Republican side of the aisle. A jobs bill that would help refurbish public buildings like schools, haven't seen that. They don't want to do that.

A jobs bill that would say, Look, you know what? We need to train Americans to be able to do the jobs of the 21st century and to promote solar, wind, biomass, the waves, all these kind of ways that we can live in harmony with the Earth and power the Earth at the same time. They haven't had any jobs doing that. To make our grids smarter, our electrical grids smarter, they don't want to put money in that. They think that is a waste of money.

The fact is Republicans have not come up with a jobs agenda. I call it the Republican no jobs agenda.

And, you know, it's clear that the government has an important role in terms of jobs. You hear some of my Republican colleagues say the government doesn't create jobs. This is absurd.

Ask any small retailer out there who's trying to make a go of it in their local community. They may have a nail shop or they may have a hair shop or they may sell retail clothing or they may have just a small little business that they opened up. If they don't have any police protection--that's the government--then that's going to cut the number of customers that come to them. That is going to hurt their business. Government helping business to thrive.

Ask a trucker, somebody who may own their own rig or maybe somebody who owns a trucking company. If we don't have public roads, highways and things like that--that's the government--where would their business model be?

The Internet. Think about Google. Think about all of the wondrous economic activity associated with the Internet. Well, the Internet was started by the government--yes, it was.

I'm telling you that, whether it's the National Institutes of Health coming up with lifesaving innovation and funding important basic research or whether it is the Food and Drug Administration giving Americans confidence that when they buy that product it's not going to kill them, the government helps business thrive. It helps the market operate properly so that we don't have caveat emptor, so that the buyer doesn't have to beware. The buyer knows that somebody somewhere is looking to make sure that the food is edible and the water is drinkable.

Now, my friends on the Republican side of the aisle that say government doesn't do anything to help the economy are wrong.

I was so proud to hear the President discredit the false economic theory of trickle down. What is trickle down? Mr. Speaker, trickle down is the theory that, look, if we give as much money as we possibly can to the richest Americans and we take it from the poorest Americans and the middle class, then maybe the rich people, through investments and stuff, will put money into the economy and maybe it will trickle down and other people will be able to get something out of it. Well, the President said it's an okay theory except for it doesn't work.

The President's right: Trickle down is a failure, and trickle down doesn't work. I'm so glad that the President really helped explain this to the American people. Because trickle down, at the end of the day, it doesn't trickle down. It just stays up there. And that's why we see so much wealth concentrated in the hands of so few, because Republicans think the only way to make the economy work is to cut all of our health and environmental regulations and to give tax breaks to people who already have more money than they know what to do with.

Some of my Republican friends like to say, well, you've never met a payroll. I met a payroll. I was a small business owner for many years. I was a lawyer and ran a law firm, had to pay my staff. And it wasn't taxes and stuff that I worried about. You know what I worried about? Mr. Speaker, I worried about customers. Could I get some clients coming through the door asking me to write a will, to incorporate their business? Could I get some clients to say, Would you represent me in this accident? Or, I got in a little trouble. Would you represent me in that?

Clients is what I needed. And if my customers didn't have any money, they wouldn't be able to hire me. But if the customers aren't working and the economy is poor and there's no money circulating amongst working folk, my business suffered. And if people were doing well, my business would thrive. You ask any business person: What would you rather have, a tax cut or a lot of customers? They're going to say, Customers. I want customers.

And so this claim that the Republicans make, that we don't need to make sure that the average working American is doing well, we just make sure that the money gets up to the top and it will trickle down, is not true. And I'm so glad that the President made that point today.

We've got to destroy myths around this economy because, again, there are people who tell self-serving narratives. They tell stories and narratives that help them make more money.

I'm sure that the Koch bothers, who have given a lot of donations around and who own this big refinery and make a lot of money, would really like it if we all believed that giving them a huge tax cut and getting rid of environmental regulations was good for the economy. Of course we don't believe it because it isn't true. But we know that if we keep on arguing, that masses of American people will say, You know what? I think it's okay to have unemployment insurance for people who are out of work. You know, I think it's okay to, in an economy like this, to extend the payroll tax cut.

Rich people get tax cuts. Republicans like it when rich people get tax cuts. They don't like it when working middle people get tax cuts. They would rather have just the rich people get them.

But the fact is people are waking up all over America. They're saying, Hey, you know, when I voted last time or I didn't vote last time, I was upset because of the job situation. And my friends on the Republican side of the

aisle didn't get to the business of jobs. They got in here going after the EPA and going after tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. And because of that, you know, things haven't been good.

Now, I will give President Obama some credit. Because of the good work that he has done, we have seen private job growth continue for about 24 months.

The problem is we have cut the government so badly, and at the wrong time, that State and local governments have had to shed public employees left, right, and center. We are literally seeing gains in private sector employment being offset by cuts in public sector employment, and it's unfortunate that that's the situation that we have.

So today, I'm here with the progressive message. Today we're here to illustrate what's at stake in America today. And this week, thousands of Americans all across the country came here to Washington to raise their voices. They call themselves the 99 percent. And I have to say, it's starting to feel like the people's House around here.

I had a number of folks in my office who came on a 24-hour bus ride, Mr. Speaker, from my district in Minneapolis, to come tell me that, look, you know, we've got to rebuild America and put people back to work. Infrastructure crumbling, people can work to rebuild it.

They said, hey, look, you know this income inequality is not working. And as you give more and more tax cuts and loopholes to the richest, it just ends up hurting us.

I had to tell them that two-thirds of all American corporations don't pay any taxes at all. Two-thirds of all American corporations don't pay any taxes at all. And I brought in this chart, Mr. Speaker. I pulled this chart out because they were--it was hard for them to believe.

I told them, I said, you know, the companies on this chart that I'm about to show you, you know, show me however much money you have in your pocket, you paid at least as much taxes as these companies, because if you paid nothing, then you paid the same as them. If you got one penny, you paid more than them.

Bank of America paid no taxes. Now, let me tell the story about Bank of America, Mr. Speaker. Bank of America made bad business deals. When you make a bad deal in business, you're supposed to pay for that. You know, things go wrong, people go out of business.

Bank of America, they went and bought Merrill Lynch after this guy, this CEO named Stan O'Neal, ran the company into the ground. They still gave him a golden parachute of, like, several hundred million dollars. And I often joke and say I'd have been happy to run the company into the ground for just a million dollars. But he did it, they paid him millions to run Merrill Lynch into the ground. And Bank of America bought that company.

And then Countrywide, which is the leading predatory lender, subprime lender, bought them, Bank of America did. Got all these bad mortgages that weren't performing because they were never properly underwritten because people made money by just selling the mortgage and then selling the paper. And it was like a hot potato. Once you sold the mortgage, you got the fees out of it, send it to somebody else to be securitized into a mortgage-backed security. So a lot of those happened.

And Bank of America bought those two companies, and then it started causing them losses. And then they said, America, America, we're going down. Help us, please. And then they called us all together in September and October 2008 and said, we need a bailout, please.

We came up with a bill called TARP and Bank of America got bailed out. Now, the problem is, after Bank of America got bailed out and got back up on its feet somewhat, they paid all their executives big giant bonuses, they laid off 30,000 people.

What? Yeah. That's how they repay the American people helping them out.

Citigroup, another one, paid no taxes. They got saved. They were absolutely going down. They probably are, I don't know, Citigroup is a company with a lot of problems. Paid no taxes.

ExxonMobil. Now these people are making money hand over fist. They are making money. They are very, very, very, profitable. Why? Because you're happy to pay $3 gas. If you can go pay $3 you'd be, like, hooray; this is the store I'm going to go to. And you know you see it going up to four. And over the last few years, it's fluctuated between three and four.

Well, do you think that ExxonMobil is not making money on that? They are absolutely making money hand over fist because of that, and yet they pay no taxes.

So, look, the fact is--oh, GE. Don't let me forget about my friends at GE. I think they're the biggest corporation in the world. No taxes. GE pays no taxes.

I'm like, look, you know, GE, we, the government, because we've cut taxes for the wealthiest people, and two-thirds of all corporations don't pay any taxes, we don't have that much money. We're in a position where we may have to cut Head Start, home heating oil program for senior citizens. Do y'all think you could do a little bit better?

And they say, nope, can't do nothing for you. This is amazing. You mean to tell me you've got more--the executives of these companies got more houses than they could ever, ever visit; they've got more lakes that they live on than they could ever water ski on. They've got more $1,500 Armani suits than they could ever wear. They've got more monogrammed shirts that are tailored than they could ever put on. They've got more expensive shoes. They travel all over the world. They fly around in jets. And they won't pay nothing, and we've got to then talk about cutting home heating oil, the LIHEAP program, cut the food stamp program.

I mean, how do you sleep at night? It's amazing to me. Shocking. Shocking.

And I'm sure all of them look at each other and they say well, you know, we earned it. You can't tell me that you earned that.

This is--and I'm going to tell you, you know, Mr. Speaker, some people want to say, well, they work hard. No, no. This is not true. What they do is they take all that money that they make, and they come down here and they get us to go argue for loopholes for them, and they--$50 million is spent lobbying Congress; $130 million spent giving donations to campaigns.

As of 2008, 94 percent of all candidates with the most money win the election.

And about 261 Members of Congress--and there's only 535 of us--are millionaires. The average worth here is about $700,000. And let me tell you, I'm not one of those rich guys. I actually live on the money my constituents pay me because I'm working for them 24/7. And yet, you know, I go to the grocery store. I know how much bread costs.

And so what I'm saying is, to whom much is given, much is expected. And if America, Nation that I love so much, has a military which protects us all, has a police department that protects us in our local communities, has a fire department that makes sure that Bank of America branches don't burn to the ground, America, if one of their executives or employees gets sick, the EMT truck, the emergency medical truck is going to come help them and bring them back to life if they can. The roads and the bridges that people drive to work on to all these companies, publicly paid for.

And yet they turn around and say, yeah, you've done all that for us, America; but we've got nothing for you. Zero taxes.

It's wrong. And there should be an Occupy movement to say so.

Now, this is a chart, Mr. Speaker, that I do like to pull out now and again. And I want to say that I actually have no beef with Donald Trump or Paris Hilton. I'm sure they're both nice people.

But, you know, do you really think they need a tax break, Mr. Speaker? I think they're getting along just fine.

I think that some of my neighbors who are firefighters and cops and teachers, or who work at the local bank branch, or who work at the local grocery store stocking up groceries, I think they could use a little help. But I do believe that if Donald and Paris don't get a tax break, they'll manage just fine.

These are the millionaires and billionaires of our society. When we cut

taxes for the richest people, you're putting more money in the hands of these folks. I don't think that's wise public policy.

So my point, Mr. Speaker, is just this: you know, you want to talk tax breaks. We're actually talking about extending the payroll tax deduction so that $1,500 bucks, you know, could stay in the hands of people who are really struggling.

We asked--in the U.S. Senate there was a bill that said, you know, millionaires, on your first million, we're not asking you for no more taxes on your first million. But on your second million, can we have 3 percent? You know. What do you think?

They're, like, nope, nothing doing.

I said, even if it's going to help working class people, you know? Will you help then?

Nope. No. Can't do it. Cannot possibly do it. It might sap their incentive to work. If we were to help the working class people of America, it might sap their incentive to work, so we can't help them.

Tax breaks for billionaires or tax breaks for teachers, police, firefighters, job training, small business, investment, better schools, clean energy, health care, infrastructure investment, college affordability.

Now, my question is, Mr. Speaker, what are America's priorities? I've got a feeling that they're with these folks down here. I think America would rather help these folk than these folks. Just a wild guess.

So that's all we're asking for. This payroll tax deduction, you know, $1,000, $1,500 in the pockets of people who really need it. We asked billionaires and millionaires to pony up just a little more. They wouldn't even notice it, wouldn't have to cancel any of your country club memberships. But they said no.

There is a loss of civic virtue among some of our most privileged Americans, but I'm proud to tell you about a group of guys and women called the Patriotic Millionaires. They came to a forum that the Progressive Caucus organized last week, Mr. Speaker, and the Patriotic Millionaires said, You know what, you've invested in research which we used to make our products that made us rich. You invested in roads and bridges and education that we used to help make us rich. And we love America more than we love all that money, and we're here to pay taxes.

And then some smarty-pants Republican said, Well, if you want to pay extra and you're rich, you can. I'm sure the Treasury will accept your checks. And then one of the Patriotic Americans said something really wise. He said, You know, America is not a charity. America is all of our responsibility, and that's what taxes are.

I'm here today, Mr. Speaker, to argue that taxes are the dues we pay to live in a civilized society. Taxes are not a punishment. When they talk about tax relief, really, from what, from good schools and clean water? When they say ``tax burden,'' I mean, let me tell you.

If you want to live in a society where there's no taxes and therefore no public services, you could move to Somalia. That's what it is. No government. I don't see any of our friends who love--I call them the free market fundamentalists--I don't see them running to Somalia, moving to Mogadishu.

So, Mr. Speaker, I just want to say quite frankly that on this Thursday night in this great country, in my view the greatest country in the history of the world, Americans have a question before themselves. Are we going to choose community, choose each other, or is it going to be a selfish pursuit where everybody is only on their own? I view America as people who would look out for each other, even the least-to-be.

Americans don't think that helping seniors who are on Social Security is a bad thing to do. Americans don't think that helping the poor and the sick is somehow a bad thing to do.

In fact, one of the things that illustrated this national debate we're having, Mr. Speaker, is something that happened in the United States Senate today, the other body.

Today, I can't blame my friends in the House, my Republican friends in the House. They didn't do this one. But today, Republicans in the Senate voted to block President Obama's appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Now, look, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau came about because of the massive failure of decency on Wall Street that resulted in all of the foreclosures and America having to bail out the likes of Bear Stearns, and Bank of America and a whole bunch of others. And they said, look, you know, a mortgage document can be very complicated, and we just want to have a bureau that will try to make these things simpler so people know what they're signing up for; a bureau that will say you've got to say what the interest rates are going to be, you've got to say what the terms are going to be so that we can have transparency.

Actually, the real free marketeers around here would never be against more information and better and more effective information going to the consumer. I mean, Adam Smith, the one who wrote--oh, my goodness, I can't believe I can't remember the name of that great book--but the one in which he describes the invisible hand and how markets move and people operate and their individual interest yields the economy. He said in that book that consumer information is key to a good market operating. So I don't know why people wouldn't want a good market to operate.

But anyway, Republicans in the Senate--can't blame the House members this time--like to claim that the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency would be reformed before it gets a new director. They say they won't even allow it to exist. They won't allow it to have a director until they change it. Well, we had a vote and it came into being. So now they're trying to wreck it before it even gets up and running.

The truth is that these folks who are against consumer protection and the lobbyists that support them are trying to water down our new consumer watchdog's power so they can't hold Wall Street and predatory lenders accountable. And that's too bad. They don't want anybody to be the new cop on the beat protecting all Americans against these predatory lenders.

I've always said, look, if you're offering a good financial product that helps people and is fair, why would you be afraid of a little transparency? Only if your business model is based on bilking and cheating customers would you want to fight against a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Without an enforcer and without real powers to crack down on predatory loans, we will keep on seeing mortgages that are designed to fail from the very beginning, tricking people with the fine print, cheating consumers to make a quick buck.

So, Mr. Speaker, I see that Republicans are ready to take the time. I'm happy to yield it. I'm going to yield back the balance of my time in just a moment.

But I just want to say that America was a good idea. America is a good idea. But it's an idea that you have to fight for; and the idea of liberty and justice for all living in a fair, prosperous economy is something that Americans all over this country have to stand up for and assert because if we leave it to the big guys, to the 1 percent, to the people with all the money and all the dough, they're going to snatch this great American Dream away from us.

With that, I yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I want to publicly associate myself with everything Walter Jones just said. He is absolutely right.

Mr. Speaker, this holiday season Congress has chances, a couple of chances right in front of them to do

what's right for the American people and to side with the overwhelming percentage of Americans suffering out there in this economy.

For an entire year, the majority in the House has not offered a single bill to create a single job. In fact, the only thing that the Congress has been doing is creating an environment where public sector jobs are cut, and where private sector jobs, though they have been growing, are offset by those public sector cuts, leaving us with an unemployment rate which we're happy to have at 8.6 percent, but within the historical context is still a national disgrace and an outrage to have unemployment at 8.6 percent for so very long. But we're happy to have it because it has been as high as 10.

And now we're threatening to leave more than 2 million Americans, including 13,000 in my home State of Minnesota, out in the cold during the holiday season by taking away their unemployment insurance.

Right now, 14 million people are unemployed, and companies really aren't hiring. For most of these people, unemployment insurance is the only thing that's keeping them in their homes and not out on the street.

According to the Census Bureau, unemployment insurance has pulled 3.2 million Americans out of poverty last year. And that's why Congress needs to make sure that all Americans, Mr. Speaker, continue to have this vital lifeline available.

Any credible economist will tell you that unemployment insurance creates jobs. Every dollar invested in unemployment insurance yields a return of $1.52 in economic growth.

At least 200,000 jobs would be lost if Congress fails to pass the extension of unemployment insurance benefits. Congress must not leave Washington for the holidays without extending unemployment benefits that create jobs and put money into the pockets and on the tables of millions of Americans.

Both Democrat and Republican politicians, we together have not passed that jobs bill. While the Republicans are in the majority, and I believe bear the weight of the responsibility, it's a responsibility of every Member of Congress to call for the extension of unemployment insurance benefits and jobs at this critical time.

America can't wait. We shouldn't be leaving hardworking Americans high and dry this holiday season. This holiday season, we can spur economic growth, create jobs, and strengthen the middle class by doing the right thing of extending unemployment insurance benefits.

On behalf of the good people who play by the rules and lost their jobs because of Wall Street greed, and while this majority looked the other way, I urge all of my colleagues to support the extension of unemployment insurance benefits.

Mr. Speaker, thank you.

My name is Keith Ellison, cochair of the Progressive Caucus, and I do hereby claim this Special Order hour on behalf of the Progressive Caucus.

Right away, I'd like to introduce my good friend from the great State of Georgia, Congressman Hank Johnson, who has served with distinction along with me since 2007. Congressman Johnson is the whip of the Progressive Caucus. Tonight we're going to be talking about jobs, income inequality, and we're going to be talking about this issue on behalf of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Our Web page is right here at the bottom of this document that I'm showing, Mr. Speaker. So we do encourage people to sign up and get ahold of us.

In the very beginning of this hour, I want to recognize my friend from Georgia so that he can make some introductory remarks about the importance of jobs, just as soon as he's ready to take it on.

If the gentleman is prepared to make some opening and preliminary remarks about the importance of jobs, economic justice in the American middle class, I would like to yield to the gentleman to take it away there.

Congressman Johnson.

I thank the gentleman.

I just want to say this is the holiday season. We should have a spirit of charity in looking out for our fellow Americans during this time of year. But unfortunately, we have seen a no-jobs agenda from the party opposite. From the majority party, we have been here 11 months, we haven't seen any jobs bills out of them.

They say that tearing apart the EPA is a jobs bill. It is not a jobs bill. They say that damaging the National Labor Relations Board is somehow going to bring forth jobs. It will not.

Everything they say is a jobs bill basically boils down to two things--I think you might agree, Congressman--is deconstructing health and safety rules and cutting taxes for people who already are rich; and this is not a jobs bill.

A jobs bill is taking care of our Nation's infrastructure, putting our veterans back to work, as we tried to do today. The Democratic Caucus offered a motion to recommit to help support jobs for our veterans, get small businesses to hire them, and we didn't get any Republican support, which is quite amazing to me.

The fact is that, yes, here we are nearing the end of this year, nearing the end of 2011, and we're seeing unemployment insurance perhaps about to run out. We're seeing payroll tax cuts about to run out. Therefore, some people will see the end of their unemployment insurance and other people will see an increase in their payroll taxes.

And it shocks me that our Republican friends are all for tax cuts, can't wait to vote for a tax cut, dying to vote for a tax cut whenever the recipient of the tax cut is rich. But if the tax cut happens to go to somebody who works hard for a living, who goes to work, gets their hands dirty and comes home, they don't want to see a tax cut for that person. They just want to see tax cuts for only some people.

I think that you're right to describe our colleagues as the Tea Party-Grover Norquist Republican Party because that seems to be who's running things over there.

You know, my father was a Republican. He is a Republican. He hasn't voted that way in a while. But he says, I remember you guys could go down there and talk. You could debate the issues. Some of us wanted to pinch a penny a little harder, some of us wanted to emphasize pulling yourself up by your bootstraps a little more. You liberals want to help everybody.

That's what he says about me. But the point is we could find a way to get along.

Today the moderate Republican, I'm looking for him. I can't wait to have him show up, because I cannot see anybody who has the spirit of cooperation that we could cut a deal with that could balance fiscal discipline on the one hand and the need to help and respond to the needs of Americans on the other hand. We see people who are carrying forth an extreme ideological agenda that is all around tax breaks only for the rich people, that revolves around unemployment being ignored, that revolves around all of these things.

They say ``jobs.'' People shouldn't be confused, Congressman Johnson. You will hear Republicans say ``jobs.'' You just won't see them do anything about jobs, because if they want to do something about jobs, we could pass the American Jobs Act right away.

We could help make sure those payroll tax deductions are extended, and we could make sure unemployment benefits are extended, but we're just not seeing any of that.

What we are seeing is described on this board right here, which is the Republican no-jobs agenda. They've got a no-jobs program. They're saying, Get rid of the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, which protects the water and our lungs; make sure we are subject to toxic, hazardous waste and pollution; and cut taxes for rich people. Then somehow, magically, we'll end up with jobs. That's not going to give anybody a job.

Asthma.

The gentleman mentioned that the stated goal of the Republicans was to make President Obama a one-term President. This is not just political rhetoric. Mitch McConnell--and anybody sitting in front of a computer can Google it and look it up--said that was his goal, which was to make President Obama a one-term President.

I think the goal of a Member of Congress ought to be to look after the welfare of the American people. I think a Member of Congress ought to be trying to figure out how to look after the best interests of the congressional districts that they represent. I think that ought to mean jobs, health, safety, education.

Trying to defeat the President should never be anyone's goal. I can guarantee you it was not my goal. Even though I did not think that his administration was the best administration for America, my first goal was not to get rid of President Bush. It was never my top goal. My goal was to try to promote peace and justice, economic opportunity and prosperity, not to try and defeat somebody else. The fact is that the Republicans have neglected the economy, and they've neglected the middle class. It really is too bad.

So, on this issue of paying for the extension of the payroll tax deduction, I just want to say that there is $1,000 that Americans don't have to pay in their paychecks when they get them every 2 weeks or every month, which is because of the payroll tax cut. If that expires, they'll see 1,000 more bucks over the course of a year that they'll have to pay.

Starting January 1, it's going to come out of their checks.

Now, Democrats have said, Let's ask the most well-to-do Americans----

And they don't have to pay based on their first $1 million;

it's just after their first $1 million--to toss a little back to the American people so that we can extend the payroll tax cuts for working class people.

Grover Norquist said no. They signed a pledge.

They signed it. They signed a pledge, not to the American people, but to Grover Norquist.

Do you represent him?

I've got a 99er district as well.

The thing that really gets me is that, if Grover Norquist lived in my district, I would feel duty-bound to at least listen to him because I listen to everybody in my district. But to sign a pledge to him to subvert the interests of the 99 percent is an outrageous thing.

Right, divide and conquer.

That's right.

Yes.

The gentleman makes an excellent point. I mean, let me put it like this:

How are you going to get the 99 percent to vote for the exclusive interests of the 1 percent? Or a better question: How are you going to get 50 percent plus one to vote for the interests of the 1 percent? You've got to keep them divided. You've got to keep them confused. You've got to keep them asleep. You've got to keep them disliking each other for no legitimate reason.

Yes.

Right.

I do hope that we can help the people understand that their interests lie with each other, right? So whether or not you're a Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Bahai, a person who doesn't practice any faith but is just spiritual, an atheist--or whatever you may happen to be--the fact is we all breathe the same air; we all occupy this same small planet; and we have to find a way to live here. Whether you are black, white, Latino, Asian, no matter whether you're from the South or from the North, no matter whether you were born in America or you came here, no matter whether you're straight or gay, or no matter who you may be, you're an American.

When you and I stand up in this very room every morning and we say the Pledge of Allegiance, we, in that Pledge of Allegiance, with these very simple words, ``and liberty and justice for all,'' all, liberty and justice for all, all Americans, I urge Americans to look for the common good, the things we all share.

How can we come together around a common narrative of a shared reality as Americans so we don't look at each other as you're a this and I'm a that, and I don't like you because of this historical thing and all of this kind of stuff. Let's find a way to unite our people; because if we can unite our people, Congressman Johnson, we can stand up and advocate for policies that are to the best good of the American people.

The American people will be wide awake and clear that our economic interests lie with each other, and we will not vote a program to give tax cuts to millionaires simply because we have been convinced that people of a different--people who pray on a different day that we do or pray in a different way than we do, or have a different appearance than we do are somehow our enemy.

You know, we've got to build human solidarity. This is what we've got to do. And the one thing I like about the Occupy movement is you go there and you see people of all colors, all cultures, all faiths. You go there and you see people, even people of different income groups.

There was a group that we had at our hearing, which we had just a few days ago, which there is a videotape on, on our Web site, USCongress.org, and they were calling themselves the Patriotic Millionaires. Now these are people who used the American free enterprise system, came up with a great idea, sold it, people bought it, and they did well in the marketplace.

Now, this is a good thing, but their attitude is not, yes, America, you have public schools which educated my workers, you had publicly funded roads which allowed me to drive here, to drive there. You have the police department, which protects my business. You have the military, which protects our whole country.

Yes, America, you've done all this stuff for me, but all this money is just mine, and I'm not giving any to anyone. They didn't say that. They say, you know what, to whom much is given, much is expected and they don't mind doing their fair share for America. That's the Patriotic Millionaires; that's the spirit that helped this country become a great country; and it's a spirit we need today.

FreedomWorks.

Or even the old days of the robber barons, like the 1890s, you know, 1900. This was a time when industry in America was young, and there were no right--labor unions, there were no environmental protections and people would, if you lost your hand on a punch press, you just were out.

And if you actually tried to get a fair wage from your boss, you just could be arrested or thrown into jail or whatever. And if you got sick based on the smog that the smokestack was pumping out, then you just died young, I guess.

But then America went through some changes; and we said, you know what, workers are going to have the right to organize. That's a good thing. Our air is going to be clean. Companies are going to have to abide by some of our environmental regulations.

And there became an American consensus where we said, yeah, you know, we're a mixed economy, which means that we have a strong public sector, but we have a strong private sector too. And the private sector, you be innovative, you come up with good products, services that people need, and by all means we hope you do well, but after you do well we need you to toss something back----

For the common good. And what we have now is we have people who say, I don't care about the common good. And here is the thing----

Every man for himself.

Thank you, sir.

And so we are now at a time, we have now approached the time where there are some people who become well-to-do whose attitude is that they want to shrink government to the size you can drown it in a bathtub. This is what Mr. Norquist has said. That's a quote from him.

His vision of America, like the Koch brothers, they do oil refineries and stuff; and you drive by some of these plants and they smell awful, and you know that nothing good can be coming out of those smokestacks, but they want a condition in America. Their vision is that if a person from the government says, you know what, there's a lot of people getting sick around here, you can't just spew that stuff out of that smokestack, we're going to regulate that stuff and some of that stuff you're going to pay for the costs and the harm that you've caused to people as you go making money on that factory you have.

They have a vision where that factory owner will say, Mr. Government, you get out of here. I'm going to call your boss. I gave a campaign donation to your boss, and we're going to just make you leave us alone.

And if we can't get your boss to back up off of us, we're just going to sue you back and dump a ton of paperwork on you, and you don't have enough lawyers working for your government agency to defend the public interest; so we'll just drown you, and we're just going to be able to do whatever we want to do.

This is the kind of condition they want to create. They want an environment where the government is too small to tell them, you cannot pollute the air. You cannot abuse people's civil rights. You cannot hurt people's interests, the public interest this way. And that's the kind of condition they are creating.

I yield to the gentleman.

What you're describing is a win-win situation. But some people have a psychology of a win-lose. They think in order for me to do well, you have to do poorly. But the truth about the universe we live in and a strong economy is that if I do well and I'm creating prosperity in the world through good products and services, and then I give you some of my money by hiring you, then you have some money and you will bring me value and we will see the economy grow and we all can be a little more prosperous. But some people think, well, if you get something, then that means I don't have something, so they just hoard. This is a very, very poor strategy to pursue.

I just would like to say something very important here.

It's common for our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to say we're broke, we're broke. They get up and say we're broke all the time. It's like one of their favorite things to say. The truth is we're not broke. America is not broke. This is designed to create a certain sense of crisis and urgency to scare people into favoring a program of austerity which they propose.

But I think it is important to note that two-thirds--two-thirds--of American corporations don't pay any taxes at all. Two-thirds pay none. And I just want to point out to Americans, Bank of America doesn't pay any taxes. They got a bailout from the government. The American people got a call from Bank of America: Oh, my God, we bought Merrill Lynch; we bought Countrywide. It's not a good deal. We're going down. Save us, please. Through the Congress, which is the people's House, they got their bailout.

Now, the assumption was that Bank of America would then turn around and pay the money back and then help people with their mortgages and help improve the economy. What they actually did is they didn't pay any taxes and they laid off 30,000 people. Bank of America didn't pay a single penny of Federal taxes. I've got more money in my pocket right here than they paid in taxes.

Boeing, despite receiving billions of dollars from the Federal Government in taxpayer giveaways, Boeing didn't pay a dime in U.S. Federal taxes.

Citigroup. Citigroup deferred income tax for a third quarter in 2010, amounting to a grand total of zero. At the same time, Citigroup has continued to pay its staff lavishly. John Havens, head of Citigroup's investment bank, is expected to be the bank's highest paid executive for the second year in a row with compensation of $9.5 million. They paid no taxes at all.

ExxonMobil, they paid no taxes. In fact, I think we give them money. Big Oil tax dodgers use offshore subsidiaries in the Caribbean to avoid paying their fair share. Although ExxonMobil paid $15 billion in taxes in 2009, not a penny of it went to the American Treasury. It went elsewhere. This is the same year that the company overtook Walmart as a Fortune 500 company. Meanwhile, the total compensation of ExxonMobil's CEO is about $29 million.

We say we're broke. What we're doing is we're not collecting enough revenue because we think that corporations are job creators. And, of course, they're not creating any jobs, as you pointed out. But we're operating on some faulty assumptions.

General Electric. In 2009, General Electric, the world's largest corporation, filed more than 7,000 tax returns and still paid nothing to the government in taxes. GE managed to do this with aid of a rigged Tax Code that essentially subsidizes companies for losing money and allows them to set up tax havens overseas. With the Republicans' aid in Congress whose campaigns they finance, they exploit our Tax Code to avoid paying their fair share.

And who do Republicans blame? The middle class. They say that the middle class is the problem. They say tax breaks for billionaires, which is the GOP plan, tax breaks for huge corporations, which is the GOP plan, huge bonuses for big CEOs; but who is it who our friends in the Republican caucus think is responsible for all of the problems? Well, it's public employees.

I just want to point out something very important before I yield to the gentleman.

The Republicans now have said they will support a plan to extend the payroll taxes by cutting the Federal Government workforce 10 percent. And by giving--get this, Congressman--a means testing for Medicare, food stamps, and unemployment insurance benefits. That ought to get a lot of money. But public employees are who they think should bear the brunt of the refusal of the corporate elite from paying taxes.

They say that teachers should pay, that cops should pay, firefighters should pay, job training programs should be cut. Small business investment, no. Investment in the National Institute of Health and Research, we should cut back on that. Schools, they should have to pay. Clean energy, we can't afford that. That's what they say. Health care, can't afford that. Infrastructure investment; I come from a city where I-35, the Interstate 35 bridge over the Mississippi River fell into the river and 13 Minnesotans died, 100 got severe back injuries, all because of deferred, delayed maintenance. Infrastructure investment is not just a job creator; it is a public safety issue. And, of course, college affordability. They want to cut programs that make it more affordable to go to college.

The brunt and the burden of balancing the budget is not and should not be on our public employees, our everyday heroes, the people who take care of our kids, the people who look after our younger people, the folks who look after us, the police department. Who are you going to call? Firefighters.

I thank the gentleman for allowing me to elaborate on this point because I want to say that, on the one hand, they say we're broke. We're not. What we are is we don't ask the wealthiest among us to help out. And what they offer as a solution is to cut the people who give a good quality of life to the average Americans--our public employees.

I yield to the gentleman.

Right.

I want to say that it's been a real pleasure to spend this last hour with you, Congressman Johnson. We in the Progressive Caucus believe in one America--all colors, all cultures, all faiths. We believe in promoting human solidarity, not making Americans fear each other. We believe in economic prosperity and justice for working and middle class people. We believe in environmental sustainability, and we absolutely believe in peace with our Nation and other nations. We are always going to promote diplomacy and dialogue and development over war.

We are the Progressive Caucus. I will allow the gentleman to offer a final word. If I could just say, my name is Congressman Keith Ellison, the cochair of the Progressive Caucus. Look us up on the Web.

The final word will go to Congressman Johnson. After that, we will yield to the Republican side.

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

This particular piece of legislation that undermines unions makes it more difficult to organize and generally frustrates American working men and women from organizing on the job takes place just a few weeks after the Republican majority was trying to take down the Clean Air Act and the EPA. When you look at the Republican job approach, their argument seems to be that workers and people who want to breathe are the problem with the American economy. People who want to drink clean water and breathe clean air and people who want to have some rights to the job, they're the reason why the American economy doesn't work. Well, that happens to be about 99 percent of us, Mr. Chairman.

I hope that as people are watching this debate on this floor today, that they're taking careful note of who is on the side of the American worker, who is on the side of Americans trying to breathe and to have clean air. And what in the world does getting rid of the Clean Air Act and gutting unions have to do with making American jobs?

The fact is the Republican majority is abandoning their responsibility to create jobs, and I hope the American worker is watching today.

Transportation Trades

Department, AFL-CIO,

Washington, DC, November 29, 2011.

Dear Representative: On behalf of the Transportation Trades

Department, AFL-CIO (TTD), I urge you to vote against the

Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act (H.R. 3094) when it is

considered by the House of Representatives this week. Despite

its misleading title, this bill has nothing to do with

``democracy'' or ``fairness'' but instead is intended to

interfere with a worker's basic right to freely decide

whether or not to be represented by a union under the

National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Instead of wasting time

on bills that would make it hard for workers to negotiate for

fair wages and good jobs, Congress should focus on helping

the 14 million Americans looking for work every day.

H.R. 3094 would complicate and delay the union election

process. Specifically, the bill creates a mandatory waiting

period of 35 days after the filing of an election petition,

even if the employers and employees agree to an earlier date.

This waiting period is designed to give unscrupulous

employers time to mount aggressive campaigns to pressure

workers into abandoning their organizing efforts. At the same

time, the bill does nothing to limit how long an election can

be delayed, leaving the door open for employer claims,

challenges and litigation that could prevent fair elections

from being held for months or years after a petition is

filed. Moreover, this legislation encourages wasteful

litigation by mandating a full pre-election hearing on any

broadly defined ``relevant and material'' issues. The result

would be to incentivize time-consuming pre-election hearings,

and increase taxpayer costs.

This legislation would also make it more difficult for

workers to choose to form a union and tip the scales further

toward employers in the election process. Additionally, the

bill would allow employers to effectively gerrymander the

bargaining unit to artificially create a workforce that is

more likely to reject union representation.

H.R. 3094 is nothing more than an attack on the right of

America's workers to collectively bargain. At a time when

unemployment remains high, and our economy continues to

struggle, this legislation is an unfortunate distraction from

what the American people need: job-creating legislation

that invests in our nation's aging transportation system

while helping our economy recover. Please vote against H.R.

3094 and stand up for America's workers.

Sincerely,

Edward Wytkind,

President.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today to support and urge us to support the Kenyan military that has gone into Somalia to set up a corridor of safety for the Somali people and to help push back and fight against Al-Shabaab.

Al-Shabaab is a terrorist organization in Somalia. And because of the general chaos in Somalia, Mr. Speaker, Al-Shabaab has been able to do two very bad things. One is, because of the instability they create, they have caused massive refugee problems into Kenya, which is why the Kenyan military had to go into Somalia to try to stop that bleeding. But they also have created chaos in the Red Sea through piracy, and have sponsored terrorism in other African nations like Uganda. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, they are an attractive nuisance to every bad guy who wants to come and have a safe haven for terrorism. And they attract international terrorists to Somalia, which further destabilizes that nation.

After 20 years of chaos, the Somali people deserve some stability, and the Kenyan troops that are there are helping to bring that. The United States and the intelligence community need to step up and help offer sustenance and support for those Kenyan troops, Mr. Speaker.

Let me say that this is the time to step up and help the Kenyan community help our country and the rest of the world.

Madam Speaker, today I inadvertently missed rollcall vote No. 859. Had I been present I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. Speaker, in a few days our Congress will see the reporting out of the work of the supercommittee. This is a big deal, and it's something that the American people, I pray, focus their attention on. It's a big deal because it is true, and I say this as a proud liberal Member of this Congress, that we do need to make sure that we reduce our country's long-term deficit. We need to do that because programs I care about like Head Start, home heating oil for seniors, programs that are going to help develop our human capital, get crowded out when we say we just don't have enough money. We do need to make sure that we can live within the budget of this country.

But the question is not what we are going to cut, but what are we going to spend on. That's the real question. The deeper question is what are we going to invest in because the fact is, whether we do only stimulus and spend a lot of money in the hope that we increase aggregate demand, or whether we do what Republicans suggest, which is to cut everything and just have austerity, neither one of those solutions will really put America on the track that it needs to be on.

The fact is that we need to invest in this country because as we look around, this country, the land of opportunity, is not making the investments that it needs to make in order to be the world leader in the years to come. We need to invest in infrastructure, Mr. Speaker. Let's start by talking about greening America. We need to retrofit old buildings. We need to invest in a smart grid. We need to invest in renewable energy--wind, solar, things that will really help power our Nation and make us less dependent not only on foreign oil but oil altogether--fossil fuels. We need to reduce that dependency.

We need to invest in transit and roads and bridges. In my own City of Minneapolis, we saw a bridge fall 65 feet into the Mississippi River because it had not been adequately maintained. People think, oh, that's Minneapolis's problem. If they think that, they're wrong. Bridges all over this country are in critically bad shape, and we need to invest in making sure that they are not only safe but are adequate for the future; well fitted so that they can accommodate transit and other sorts of things that can move people around and not just be dependent upon cars. We need to invest in a smart grid so we use energy efficiently and we can power our society in efficient and important ways.

But not only do we need to invest in infrastructure, we need to invest in our people. We need to invest in skills training. This should start, Mr. Speaker, with early childhood education. Any economist who studies this will tell you, the investments you make in little kids, zero to six, pay off for a lifetime. And yet we don't have universal kindergarten or universal early education. We have millions of children across this country whose young minds could be being developed by the age of 3 or 4 or 5; and yet they're not. They are languishing at home and they are being, in some cases, baby-sat by the television or even worse. Some don't have adequate nutrition. Mr. Speaker, we need to invest in the earliest, youngest Americans so they can have success throughout a lifetime.

We need to do something immediately about the awesome debt burden that our young people in college are shouldering. This has the potential, as young people who are in their 20s and 30s should be buying houses, buying cars, should be saving for their retirement, they're paying back student loans. This is going to have a long-term negative effect on our economy, and we need to do something about it right now.

There are a lot more things to talk about, but one of the things I don't

want to leave off the table is that we also need to reduce our military spending. I'm fully in favor of supporting our veterans. I believe this is an important, worthwhile investment for their health, their education and for their welfare, but there are a number of military armaments and machines that we simply don't need. We don't need to depend on a nuclear arsenal, in my view. We need to engage in international agreements to cut the nuclear weaponry arsenal and inventory in the world.

We need to make sure that we begin to shut down some of these bases we have all across the country--as many as 174 bases. Do we need this kind of military footprint? I don't think so.

So, Mr. Speaker, let me just say that tomorrow we're going to have a group of leading economists at 11 o'clock to come together and offer their views about the proper direction for prosperity for America. Tomorrow the Congressional Progressive Caucus at 11 a.m. will convene, and we'll have a number of great economists whom we invite everybody to come listen to, including Jeffrey Sachs. I've run out of time, Mr. Speaker, but I urge people to attend tomorrow The Way Forward for America.

Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side of the aisle are very fond of saying that government doesn't create jobs but only the private sector. But all you've got to do is talk to any small business person on any Main Street in America and ask them, if the police department didn't come out and make sure that they had a safe neighborhood, how would that affect their business? Or you can go to a trucking company and say, you know, if the roads and the bridges and the transportation network of this country were not in place, could you ship products if we didn't have an interstate highway system? They would tell you, obviously the government helps business. Obviously. This is so obvious that we have to state the obvious here on the floor of Congress.

This anti-government, anti-public sector, anti-public employee and worker attitude does not help our country. It sets us back, and it is wrong. And I, for one, want to salute the everyday heros--the cops, the firefighters, the teachers, the people who work on our roads, the people who make sure we have clean water and air to breathe.

Go for it, public employees. We're proud of you.