[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 31, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H4227-H4233]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          THE POPULIST CAUCUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Braley) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I'm excited to be here tonight to 
talk about the Populist Caucus and to spend some time with members of 
that caucus talking about issues that are important to the people of 
America.
  One of the things that I think is important to talk about is why we 
decided to start this caucus and what it is going to do. So it is 
important for people to understand that populism is not a bunch of 
people walking around with pitchforks. It is people who care about 
middle-class economic values and how those values are translated into 
public policy that is set here in Congress and at the White House.
  And to give a brief history lesson, this is not the first Populist 
Caucus that has ever been organized in Congress. In fact, the very 
first Populist Caucus that we have been able to identify was formed in 
February of 1983. And I think it is striking because of some of the 
members who were part of that first Populist Caucus. Most of these 
members were Midwest Democrats. They included my Senator from Iowa who 
was a representative at the time, Tom Harkin. It also included Berkley 
Bedell, an entrepreneur from Spirit Lake, Iowa, my friend Lane Evans 
from Rock Island, Illinois, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, 
former Vice President Al Gore, Senator Byron Dorgan from North Dakota, 
our good friend Jim Oberstar from Minnesota, who is Chair of the House 
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and the current Governor 
of New Mexico, Bill Richardson.

                              {time}  1945

  Now, one of the things that drew these members together, back in 
1983, was an economic crisis that was having a profound impact in farm 
country out in the Midwest. And the first Chair of the Populist Caucus 
was Tom Harkin. And the caucus was organized to fight for economic 
goals like fairer tax structures, lower interest rates and cheaper 
energy, because we were experiencing an energy crisis in 1983. And one 
of the first things that that Populist Caucus did was ask constituents 
from their districts to mail them their gas receipts to show the rising 
price of gas and how it was affecting their ability to take care of 
their families.
  Even though the new Populist Caucus is organized on a very broad 
coalition, with members from all over the country, with representatives 
of the Blue Dogs, the New Democrats, and the Progressive Caucus, with 
members from the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Asian 
Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, we wanted to bring a 
laser beam focus to the types of economic issues that affect middle 
class Americans and people struggling to get into the middle class. And 
one of the reasons we chose to do that is because we know that this 
country has been strongest when it is focused on promoting values 
through public policy that are going to protect and expand the middle 
class. And that's why we were very excited when we formed the caucus 
this year.
  I'm going to be introducing some of my friends tonight who are 
members of the caucus, including some of the vice chairs. But let's 
talk about why now is the time and now is the place for this caucus.
  We know that the middle class is the economic engine that drives 
America's growth. We know that when policies in Washington reflect 
middle class values, it does more to expand economic opportunity 
throughout this country. And we know that when there are gross 
disparities in income between the middle class and the upper class, 
which we've seen played out over and over in this current economic 
crisis, it creates conflict that divides us as a country, rather than 
bring us together.
  And so what we're going to be talking about tonight is some of the 
values that we think are critical for the American people to be focused 
on in this economic crisis, values that our members reflect every day 
back in their district, values that their constituents live every day 
back in their districts.
  And one of the things that I want to do is talk briefly about how we 
take this philosophy of strengthening and expanding the middle class, 
and translate it into action.
  One of the first things we did as a caucus was talk about what our 
founding principles were going to be. And again, we wanted to go back 
to these shared values that reflect the entire diversity of our 
Democratic Caucus and how that is translated into the people we 
represent in diverse districts all over America. And some common themes 
kept coming back to us, and those themes are, good jobs, middle class 
tax cuts, affordable health care, quality education, fair trade 
agreements, and consumer protection and corporate accountability.
  Now, we've heard a lot lately about corporate accountability. We're 
going to be spending some time talking tonight about how corporate 
accountability isn't just a restriction on how corporations operate, 
but it's part of their fundamental compact they make with the American 
people to be responsible stewards of their investors' assets and to 
provide value to all Americans, not just to their shareholders, in the 
way they conduct their business, the way they hold themselves out, and 
the way they lived responsibly under the protections and legal 
opportunities that they are allowed to operate under in each State of 
the United States.
  So I'm going to start now by introducing one of the vice chairs of 
the caucus, my good friend from the State of New York, and his name is 
Mike Arcuri. And Mike is going to talk a little bit about what 
motivated him to be one of the founding members of the Populist Caucus, 
and where he sees this caucus moving in the future as we focus with a 
laser beam on these economic values to help our constituents.
  Mr. ARCURI. I want to thank my good friend for yielding, and I want 
to thank him for having the idea and for bringing this to fruition. 
It's taken, certainly, a lot of work and a lot of effort, not only on 
your part, but on the part of your staff, to bring this together, and I 
want to thank you for that, because, I thank you on behalf of, not just 
my constituents in New York State, but for constituents and middle 
class throughout the country.
  The things that I think the Populist Caucus stands for are the issues 
that are important to middle class. And also, I think it's critically 
important that there is a grain of truth that the middle class gets. 
They need to have someone out there defending them, looking out for 
their interests and, most importantly, telling them the truth.
  And you know, I was listening with interest, as I know you were, just 
a couple of moments ago to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
talk about some of the budget proposals of President Obama, and some of 
the points that I think we'll probably end up talking about at some 
point during the evening. But they talk about the fact that the numbers 
in the budget are the largest that they've seen, that there has been in 
years.
  The thing that they don't tell you about that, however, is the fact 
that, for the first time in our history, the cost of the war is 
actually put on the books so that the American people get the truth. 
They actually know how much is being spent. In past administrations 
that was never on there. We just borrowed the money as we went along 
and, as we say it, funded the wars off the books. So the American 
people never knew actually how much it was costing for our war, how 
much all of these things were costing. This is an honest, this is a 
true budget.
  But the thing about it, and I think the thing that's most important 
is this is really not just a budget. This is a long-term plan for the 
future of America, for the future of America's middle class.
  And I listen to my colleagues, and I hear them talk, and I hear them 
criticize, but I did not hear a single alternative proposal with 
respect to what they were proposing to make the life of the middle 
class, to make the life of Americans better, to help Americans find 
jobs, to help Americans improve their quality of life. That's what 
we're looking for. That's what we, I think, as populists, look for and 
try to promote.
  During the height of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt once said 
some words that now adorn the monument to

[[Page H4228]]

him that's located just a short distance from where we are right now. 
And those words are as powerful today as they were when he said them so 
many years ago. ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more 
to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide 
enough for those who have too little.'' Very profound words then, and 
very profound words today.
  However, over the past 8 years, the Republican White House and 
Congress have largely ignored the fundamental truth in favor of the 
policies that focused on a top-down economic and social policies that 
benefit, frankly, big business, the wealthy and the well-connected, and 
don't look out for America's middle class. And that's why we're here.
  As a result, the middle class families that have always been the true 
engines for our national economy, the center of our culture, and the 
foundation for our national security, have been left behind with the 
devastating results of our entire Nation. And now we're all paying the 
price.
  The mission of the Populist Caucus is to re-establish the core middle 
class American values that made this country great as the guiding 
principles of our political discourse and our government here in 
Washington.
  As history has repeatedly demonstrated, a prosperous middle class 
means a more prosperous America. A vibrant growing middle class has 
been the hallmark of our strength as a Nation over the past 70 years.
  The Populist Caucus will aggressively fight for the passage of 
commonsense legislation focusing on the expansion and prosperity of the 
American middle class.
  You mentioned just a little earlier, of late we've been hearing a lot 
in the media of the so-called populist rage and the anger of the middle 
class at the AIGs of the world.
  Now, we are not here to incite or stir this populist rage, nor to 
promote class warfare in any way, shape, fashion or form. But we are 
here to see to it that the issues and interests of the middle class are 
protected and promoted at all costs.
  Specifically, the caucus will focus on legislation that invests in 
working Americans, improves access to quality education for our 
children, creates jobs for the middle class that will bolster our 
economy, increase access to health care for all Americans, ensure that 
trade is not just free trade, but is fair trade, that the food you eat 
and the toys that your children play with are safe, and that we promote 
fiscal responsibility, accountability and discipline, and create a 
government that actually works for, not just the richest Americans, but 
for all Americans.
  These are the fundamental building blocks that will create a strong 
foundation for sustained long-term economic recovery and growth in this 
country. In fact, these priorities are the only proven and time-tested 
blueprint for long-term economic growth in America. Enacting these 
reforms represent our best chance at restoring the American Dream here 
at home, as well as continuing our role as the beacon of freedom and 
hope for the rest of the world.
  I'd again like to thank you for inviting me to be here tonight, for 
organizing this, and I look forward to a very enjoyable discussion this 
evening.
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. I thank my friend for those profound and 
insightful comments. And I just want to respond to one of the comments 
you made before I yield to my friend from Ohio.
  You talked about how important it is to the populist values and 
middle class values to be open and candid with the American people. And 
I think that's one of the things about the President's budget proposal 
and the proposal we're voting on here that is lost in all of this 
chatter you hear on cable TV and on talk radio; is that, for the first 
2 years that the three of us served in the House, all of these costs 
associated with the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, were put into 
supplemental appropriations bills that were outside the normal budget 
process, and they were enormously expensive. And yet they were never 
part of the total numbers associated with President Bush's budget 
proposal to Congress. And the American people were being misled to 
believe that the budget numbers in the President's budget were an 
accurate reflection of their tax burden to support those ongoing 
efforts.
  In fact, I introduced an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill 
that went even beyond that and said, we need to be truthful in 
disclosing to the American people the true cost of the war in Iraq and 
Afghanistan.
  And all of us had prior professional experiences where we dealt with 
people who would place a long-term economic calculation on someone's 
loss of life, what their cost was for restitution, if you're 
prosecuting someone for committing a crime for the injury they caused 
to somebody. And you can hire economists that take the life expectancy 
of an individual, what their medical needs are going to be, especially 
if you consider the signature injuries in Iraq, which are post-
traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and amputations.
  And yet, we were getting nothing from the Department of Defense and 
the Bush administration about those defined, long-term costs that we 
owe to the veterans of this country who sacrificed honorably to protect 
and defend us. And yet, that is a huge component of the cost of the war 
that we have been prosecuting.
  So I think you made an excellent point about what's really in this 
budget message is we're going to be honest with you; we're in a 
difficult time economically, but it's time for the American people to 
hear the plain truth about what it costs to run this government and put 
us back on a positive track. And I thank you for that.
  And with that, I'm going to yield to my good friend from Ohio, Betty 
Sutton, who's been a strong advocate for middle class values, for 
populist messages and for the working trade group. And I would like you 
to share with us some of the reasons why you decided to join the 
Populist Caucus, and where you see this adventure going in the future.
  Ms. SUTTON. Well, I thank my friend. And I too want to just extend 
our appreciation for your vision in organizing, not only this evening 
and all that we're here to do by way of introducing the Populist 
Caucus, but for forming the caucus in the first instance, because it is 
so critical that the people across this country know that their voices 
matter. And we are going to be a part of expressing those voices within 
the halls of this Congress, putting a face on the statistics that we so 
often rely on here. And sometimes it kind of gets away from some that 
those statistics actually refer to people and to families and what is 
happening to them.

                              {time}  2000

  So I am very, very proud to be a member of the Populist Caucus and to 
be a part of bringing Members together who believe in investing in the 
middle class as well as in those who aspire to being middle class, 
because we know that that is what is vital for the strength of America.
  As a caucus, we are committed to restoring, as my friend from New 
York has said and as you have said, Mr. Chairman, the core middle class 
values that made this country great, and we are committed to ensuring 
that our government's policies are in line with those values. A 
vibrant, growing middle class has been the hallmark of the strength of 
this country. It was the middle class that built this great Nation. A 
strong America depends on a strong middle class. Without a strong 
middle class, our country does not achieve as much as we all know it is 
worthy of. The middle class is the heart of this Nation. It is the 
engine that drives productivity.
  Reflecting back on my youth, I grew up in a blue-collar community in 
Ohio, a community by the name of Barberton. I was the youngest of six 
kids--the proud daughter of a man who worked in a boilermaker factory. 
My mom worked at the city library. Because of their hard work, our 
family of eight had a good chance; we had food on the table, and we had 
the promise of the middle class before us and of all the opportunity 
that it delivered, and we took advantage of it, but that was a time 
when people could depend upon a good job. Oftentimes, those good jobs 
were manufacturing jobs, and you could rely upon them and sometimes 
work, as my dad did, in the same place for many years.
  Now it is much more difficult. With health care costs rising, with 
insurance not available to all, with pensions a little shaky out there, 
to say the least,

[[Page H4229]]

and with many things that we, as young people, had the benefit of that 
are now at risk in this country, the promise of the middle class is 
slipping away from far too many. After 8 years of failed Bush policies, 
the middle class, frankly, and the country have been sorely hit.
  They pushed through economic policies that benefited the wealthy and 
the well-connected. It is not just that. They did so at the expense of 
the rest of us. They allowed the banks and Wall Street to have seats at 
the table, often leaving working families left outside. They watched as 
millions lost their jobs, lost their health care, lost their homes, and 
sadly, lost their dreams.
  The national unemployment rate has risen to a staggering 8.1 percent. 
In Ohio, it is at 9.4 percent. These are statistics that I'm talking 
about, but attached to those statistics are families, families who are 
going without even though all they want is a chance to make a living. 
They don't want things handed to them. They just want to have the 
opportunity in this great country to have a job where they can go to 
work, and they want to provide the things that we all had the great 
benefit of having as young people. The economic recession continues to 
challenge the resolve of the middle class as they strive to pay for 
life's basic necessities.
  Now, here with this caucus and with our colleagues in this Congress, 
we are called on to chart a new path, one that is in line with the 
needs of the middle class, one that is in line with the hopes and the 
dreams of those who aspire to get there. That is the reason I was proud 
to join this caucus--to help find the road back to middle class values 
and to ensure that that dream becomes a reality again.
  The needs of the middle class have been ignored for far too long, and 
it just has to end. We, the members of the Populist Caucus, will focus 
on the policies, as you have laid out here, that strengthen and improve 
the lives of American families, not policies that leave them behind. We 
must make the promise of the middle class in the 21st century what it 
once was--the moral and economic backbone of our Nation.
  I think that the comments that you and Representative Arcuri have 
made, Representative Braley, are so on point, because, when we talk 
about the moral and economic backbone of our Nation, frankly, nothing 
reflects that any more than the budget. So your points about the 
budget, about what is contained in the budget and about the honesty of 
the budget are all critical to our government operating in a way that 
is worthy of the people whom we represent.
  With that, I will yield back.
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. Well, I think you've made some excellent points.
  You know, one of the things that happens every day to every Member of 
Congress is we have constituents from our districts who come out and 
visit us. Many times these constituents will say to me, ``Congressman, 
what can we do to help you deal with this important issue that we have 
come here, all the way to Washington, D.C., to share with you?''
  My answer is always the same: ``By helping put a human face on the 
public policies we are setting, you give me the best arguments to make 
on why this policy is worthwhile.''
  I think you made a very good point when you talked about the fact 
that we have 25 members of our Populist Caucus now, and I think every 
one of us grew up in a middle class home, and every one of us has our 
own, unique life story that explains why these values are so important 
to us. I just want to share a story from my own family experience.
  When I was 2 years old, my father was working at a grain elevator in 
my small Iowa town, Brooklyn--a small town of 1,500 people, a little 
farming community. There were four kids in my family at the time, and 
my mom had left her teaching career to raise a family. My father was 
taking a lid up to the top of this grain bin, and he was about 30-35 
feet in the air when he fell and shattered his leg. It changed his 
life. He was fortunate there was a safety net in place to help take 
care of our family needs because, without it, we would not have 
survived as a family, but he had to completely change his career and do 
something else with his life.
  Without affordable health care, people placed in that situation fall 
between the cracks. The statistics show us that more and more 
bankruptcies every year are due to the fact that middle class families 
can no longer afford to pay their medical bills or their insurance 
premiums.
  Then, as a result of that injury, my mother ended up going back to 
school to get her 4-year teaching degree because she had had a 2-year 
teaching certificate. She drove 26,000 miles. Without that education 
she was able to get, she would not have been able to have been a 
valuable breadwinner for our family during that period of time.
  When we were much younger, many of us worked from an early age to 
help pay for our college educations, and we had the benefit of very low 
interest, federally insured student loans and work study programs. We 
know, because this is based on pure economic theory and analysis, that 
the more educational opportunities you have, the higher your standard 
of living is going to be over your lifetime. There is a direct 
relationship. So all of these things that are up here are reflected in 
our own life histories and in the people whom we represent, and that is 
why they are so important to us.
  So I am going to yield back to my friend from New York so he can talk 
a little bit about his life experiences, the people he represents and 
about some of these individual values that bring us here tonight.

  Mr. ARCURI. Well, thank you for yielding.
  There are a couple of points that I would like to make and just touch 
on. I think you touched upon health care, and I think health care is so 
important.
  One of the things that the President talks about and what I think our 
budget will reflect--I even hesitate calling it a ``budget'' because I 
feel like it is more of a blueprint, again, as to the future of how we 
see the country moving forward over the next several years. One of the 
things about it is, for the first time, we actually have a budget. It 
is taking into consideration funding for health care for all Americans. 
I mean think about that--and I think you did. I certainly did when I 
ran for office the first time. One of the main reasons that I decided 
to run was the fact that I could not understand why there were 47 
million Americans who did not have health care in this, the richest 
country in the world, one of only two industrialized countries that 
does not have any form of universal health care, and we do not have 
health care.
  This proposal, this budget, will have in it for the first time--how 
shall I say?--a sketch, an outline, of how we will go forward and of 
how we will pay for health care for all Americans. That is critical. In 
contrast to what my colleagues said earlier, it is not about dictating 
to Americans what they need to do, what they have to do. It is about 
giving them the tools, about giving them access to quality, affordable 
health care just like the rest of the world has. One of the bills that 
I have been working on and that I hope to introduce in the near future 
deals with that, and that has a lot to do with where I'm from.
  One of the things that I have found that people do not understand is, 
when someone's children go to a 4-year college or to a 2-year college, 
they generally are covered under their parents' health care. However, 
there is a gap, and there are millions of children who go to technical 
schools to get certifications who are not covered under their parents' 
plans. There is no coverage for health care. That is very unfortunate. 
I mean those are middle class families who have children who want to 
go, who maybe are not going to go to college to be engineers or who are 
not going to go to college to be teachers but who are going to go to 
college to get a very important degree, a very important certification 
in a technical trade. We need to do that. We need to promote that. That 
is a middle class value. That is something that we should be helping 
families do, not hindering it by not giving them insurance. That is one 
of the things that, I think, populists do. They ensure that all 
Americans have the ability not only to get health care but to improve 
their stations.
  As my colleague from Ohio said, the ability to aspire to the middle 
class--to

[[Page H4230]]

make better of themselves, to do better for themselves than their 
parents were able to do--is what, I think, we as populists advocate and 
work for on behalf of the middle class. So I am really proud to be able 
to be a part of that.
  I look back over what working people have accomplished in their 
lives, and I see it a lot in my district in Upstate New York--in the 
Mohawk Valley--in the Utica-Rome area and in Auburn. One of the things 
that I find most interesting is when looking at the productivity of our 
workers. I tour plants and facilities all over my district, as I know 
you do. What is the thing that you always hear from the people who own 
the plants? ``The productivity of our workers is great.'' The 
productivity of American workers has dramatically, dramatically 
increased over the past 20 years. Yet, in that 20-year period when the 
productivity has gone through the roof for American workers--in fact, 
they are one of the most productive workforces in the world--the real 
wages of that workforce have decreased. So we have individuals who are 
doing more for the people for whom they work, who actually are far more 
productive and who are allowing the people who own their factories and 
who own their small businesses to do better, to produce more, which is 
a good thing. However, they are not earning more than they earned 10 or 
20 years ago.
  You know, we sometimes hear people say, ``Oh, the problem with the 
American people is that they charge too much.'' Well, the fact of the 
matter is you don't charge too much because you want to. When your son 
or your daughter comes home from school and says, ``Mom and Dad, I need 
a new pair of sneakers. I'm trying out for basketball tomorrow, and my 
sneakers don't fit me, and the coach says I need a new pair of 
sneakers,'' if you don't have the money, you go and you charge it 
because that is something you do as a parent, but if you're making less 
than you made 10 years ago or 20 years ago, you don't have that money. 
That's the kind of thing that, I think, we stand for as populists, the 
kinds of things that we want to make sure of.
  Hey, if the productivity of American workers goes up, then the 
salaries and the wages that American workers earn should go up as well. 
It is the fair thing. It is the right thing. It is the American thing. 
It is what has made America great. Those are things that, to me, are 
most important in our caucus, and they are the things that, I think, 
are most important for me as a populist.
  Again, I am so pleased to be able to be here to talk about these 
issues and to bring them to the forefront and to let the American 
people know that there are many of us here in Congress who are working 
hard to see to it that the middle class prospers, continues to prosper 
and achieves all that they can possibly achieve.
  Thank you. I yield back.
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. Thank you, my friend.
  Also, I just want to point out how the description you just provided 
us is a perfect example of why having good jobs is a core populist, 
middle class value. Think back to the way things were. Some of our 
friends in the preceding hour were talking about Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt and about how his policies drove us towards, as they 
described it, socialism. Think about it:
  Before Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a college education was a rare 
thing for anyone in this country to have, and it was not until World 
War II when men and women from all over this country, but primarily 
from middle class families, met together and served their country with 
honor and distinction in the Pacific theater, in the European theater, 
in Africa, and in Asia. It was a great melting pot experience, 
introducing people from different regions, people who never thought 
they had anything in common but who learned they really did have a lot 
of common values. When they came home, we did something remarkable, an 
incredible populist piece of legislation. It was called the GI Bill.

                              {time}  2015

  And we saw an explosion in admissions to colleges all across the 
country. And the GI Bill wasn't just an educational bill, it was also a 
home-buying program, because low-interest loans were provided to 
veterans, and it exploded, the homeownership and the house building 
market in this country. It put people to work, it created something 
called suburbs, which now are a prevalent thing in every district in 
this country.
  But those are examples of what we're talking about here, which is how 
the Federal Government reflecting populist values can be a motivating 
factor in driving economic policy in a positive way that benefits all 
Americans.
  And I want to come back and talk about some of these other issues.
  Mr. ARCURI. Would the gentleman yield for just a minute?
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. Absolutely.
  Mr. ARCURI. I am glad you mentioned that, and I didn't want to let 
the moment go by without commenting on it.
  I consider myself a direct recipient of the GI Bill--of the World War 
II GI Bill because my dad was a poor kid from the east side of Utica 
who would never have had an opportunity to attend college, but he 
served his country in the military, came back, and he was able to go to 
Cornell University, and as a result of which, he insisted that--my 
sisters and myself--that we attend college.
  So it isn't just a single generation but multigenerational. It is 
really, as you say, probably the greatest populist piece of legislation 
that this country ever passed.
  And I thank you for bringing that forward and for yielding to me.
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. That is a perfect example of the human drama that 
every one of us has as part of our life experience that is a reflection 
of these values.
  And now I want to introduce one of our other new Members of Congress, 
a rising star from the Old Dominion of Virginia, Tom Perriello. And Tom 
is going to talk about some of the reasons that motivated him to join 
the Populist Caucus and some of these core values that are reflected in 
the people that he represents in Virginia.
  And with that, I will yield to my friend from Virginia.
  Mr. PERRIELLO. Thank you.
  This is, indeed, a desperately needed caucus because we have not had 
enough of a voice from either party standing up for the middle class 
and these basic values.
  I spent the weekend meeting with workers who had recently been laid 
off as another factory had closed down and gone overseas. These are 
people who worked for 20, 30 years at a time. I talk constantly, also, 
to people who have just recently gone through college, everything we're 
supposed to be encouraging right now in our society in order to compete 
in this global economy, but they come out shackled with so much debt 
with the cost of college that they can't serve their community in the 
way that they had hoped to, people that wanted to become teachers and 
come back to rural communities, like the ones in my district, but 
simply cannot afford to do it.
  And we have gone from investing in a future middle class to crushing 
the current middle class because we started a cycle of debt. Instead of 
coming out of college with that opportunity in the world before you, 
you come out already in that kind of debt from college. And instead of 
those years that we used to spend saving money for a down payment to 
buy that first home, that next great step for middle class families, 
you spend those years, instead, spending all of your savings to get out 
of those loans. So by the time you go to purchase that home, you may 
have zero down on that house, and we all know how that story ends.
  We aren't giving people that opportunity to do the very things we 
need them to do: to save, to invest, to educate, to prepare themselves 
to compete in the global workforce. And the cycle of debt continues.
  Then we have credit card companies and predatory lenders coming out 
so that people continue to try to eke by month by month living from 
debt cycle to debt cycle. This is the new story of yesterday's middle 
class.
  It is time, once again, to have the kind of values in this country 
that reward work and good behavior, reward the people who are saving 
and doing everything right to play by the rules instead of investing--
instead of shifting our priorities too often away from the very people 
that are at the backbone of this country.

[[Page H4231]]

  So I believe this is a much-needed effort to restore the middle 
class. And one great place to begin is by making college affordable. 
And I am proud that we have already put forward a $2,500 tuition tax 
credit to help middle class families afford that dream. But we know 
that's not enough to go forward to make college affordable.
  But it's also something that is helping our displaced workers be able 
to go back and maybe pick up a community college course, move into the 
health care sector or another field where they can earn a living wage 
to support their family. But they say to me, ``That's a 2-year program. 
What am I going to do during those 2 years when I have just lost my 
job?''
  We are not in an economy that reflects--we are not supporting 
policies that reflect the economy we now face. We no longer have an 
economy where people have one job for 30 years and that company takes 
care of them.
  And last of all, I just want to mention, why is it that through this 
recent economic crisis our community banks have remained rock solid in 
most of our communities, good Main Street values, Main Street 
capitalism that has continued to make good loans to good people that 
still believe in the honesty of a handshake and looking somebody in the 
eye. This has remained solid while the speculators and others have 
played poker with our pension funds and our future. It's time to start 
getting support back to those people who are the bedrock of our 
community, Main Street and the middle class. And I look forward to 
working with you on that.
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. I thank the gentleman for those important 
observations, and it brought to mind some of the issues that we have 
been talking about in our Populist Caucus meetings.
  And one of the things that we frequently talk about is the whole 
issue of corporate accountability. And one of the things that has come 
to light in recent years is how corporations have gone away from an 
employment philosophy that many of us, when we entered the workforce, 
were very proud of. And that was there was a sense that if you come and 
work for a company, there will be job security. In fact, employers 
marketed this. When they tried to hire employees, they would show the 
number of long-term employees who had worked for them, and they said, 
``If you come and work for us, you're going to have these types of 
benefits. We will take care of you. When you complete your employment 
career with us, you're going to have a retirement savings build-up 
that's going to allow you to enjoy your life and be a proper reflection 
as a reward for the sacrifice you have made to help us and make us a 
profitable company.''
  And in the last 20 years, we have seen that whole concept of job 
security disappear from the workforce. And it is a rare employer now 
that rewards longevity and even promotes that concept. And we see a lot 
of transfer among employment as people move from job to job. And if you 
ask most employers in the workforce, employees in the workforce today, 
what their understanding of their job security was, they would say 
there is none.
  So one of the things that we've talked about tonight is how the 
policies that you implement are reflected in the values that American 
consumers have, that American homeowners have, that American employers 
have, and that's why one of the things we need to do a better job of in 
this Congress is acknowledging the people who do it right and who are 
responsible corporate citizens and use that as a motivation to get 
others to aspire to behave like them.
  And a good example of that came out last week during our food safety 
hearings in the Energy and Commerce Committee. And we heard a lot about 
the peanut butter hazard coming out of the Georgia peanut butter plant. 
And one of the things that came out in those hearings is that some 
companies were using an independent inspection group that was giving 
them certifications that their product was not contaminated even though 
they had tests that showed it was contaminated.
  I happened to be fortunate enough to have a company, Nestle 
Corporation, that has a plant in my district in Waverly, Iowa. And when 
Nestle was faced with that very same choice, they decided to send one 
of their own independent auditors there to give them the straight scoop 
on what was going on in that plant. And their auditor came back and 
said, ``We should not be a part of this deal,'' and they refused to 
participate.
  So one of the things we're trying to do by promoting these middle 
class values is get back to a point where people are responsible to 
each other, both as employees and employers, and to create that type of 
environment where they both benefit from the increased productivity 
that my friend from New York was talking about earlier.
  And with that, I am going to yield back to my friend from New York, 
and I would like to talk a little bit about some of the things that we 
have been dealing with recently in terms of corporate accountability.
  Obviously, the whole issue with AIG has been a paramount issue, but 
it's much deeper than just AIG and the way it conducted its affairs. 
It's part of this whole culture that we have seen on Wall Street that 
does not reflect the values on Main Street that most of us grew up 
with.
  Mr. ARCURI. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I would like to talk a little bit about the corporate accountability 
and also a little bit about consumer protection.
  But first, with respect to corporate accountability, as you know, I 
am on the Rules Committee, and today we had a hearing with respect to 
the bill which I anticipate will be on the floor tomorrow with respect 
to--and you and I discussed it a little bit earlier--with respect to 
putting limitations on the amount of compensation that executives can 
get for companies that receive TARP funding.
  And I guess I look at it this way. And I listened to the argument and 
the debate today in detail. And, you know, there is a great deal of 
dissatisfaction with AIG, and certainly I can understand that. We all 
can understand that people are critical of what happened at AIG. I am. 
We all are. And I listen to my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle, and I can understand that some of them are critical with the 
legislation that we will be considering tomorrow which puts limitations 
on compensations for executives.
  The thing I can't understand is how people can be critical of both of 
those because if you are unhappy with what happened at AIG, then you 
really have to support the legislation, if you're a Member of Congress, 
that we're putting forward tomorrow because that legislation will 
enable Congress to help put the kind of limitations on and do the kind 
of oversight that we were all sent to Congress to do.
  So I think that if there is dissatisfaction within this House with 
respect to AIG and what happened there, then we should support and we 
should vote for the bill that will be on the floor tomorrow because 
that does give Congress the ability to, again, do what Congress is 
supposed to do. And that is regulate.
  You know, you look back at how it is that we have been and how we are 
put in this place that we are, and the common denominator, the answer 
that you keep getting is the lack of regulation.
  And I tell the story this way. It was funny because when all of these 
things were happening with the stock market, with the banks, my 
daughter called me from home and she said--she plays soccer, and she 
was telling me about her soccer game, and as most children do, she was 
complaining about the referees. They lost the game, and she was blaming 
the referees.
  And I listened to her, as most parents do, and it came to me--and I 
said goodnight to her, goodbye. And it came to me later on that night. 
And I said to her the next day, I said, ``I know that you feel that you 
didn't get a fair shake from the referees, but can you imagine what 
that game would have been like if the referees were off the field?''

  Well, that is what has happened over the past 10 years. We have taken 
the referees off the field. We have done away with the kind of 
regulation that is necessary. The SEC has fallen on its face and has 
not done the kinds of things--and we end up with scandals like the 
Madoff scandal. Those are the kinds of things that we need to put back 
in. We need to put the regulation back in.
  People talk about regulation like it is a bad thing. They don't 
understand that that's exactly what people elect

[[Page H4232]]

us to Congress to do, and this is to ensure that the referees stay on 
the field and they keep an eye on things, and they keep the playing 
field level.
  With that, I yield back.
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. I think you have raised a very important point, 
and that is the populist values do not reflect that more regulation 
should be just burying people in red tape, because I don't know anybody 
on either side of the aisle who thinks that burying people in mindless 
paperwork and keeping people occupied processing paper is effective 
regulation. But there is a big difference between that and completely 
giving up the regulatory field, as we did with the credit default swaps 
when we had a chance to place them under some type of regulatory 
oversight in 2000 and failed to do it. And that led to a $55-63 
trillion problem that nobody can get a handle on now.
  So we have learned some lessons, and part of our responsibility to 
the American public is to apply these values in effective, meaningful, 
minimal oversight that accomplishes the results that we want to see 
happen.
  I want to yield now to my friend from Virginia because he was the one 
who had the brilliant idea to add this corporate accountability value 
to our Populus Caucus themes.
  And I would like you to talk a little bit about why this is such an 
important value and how it reflects on the middle class and their 
ability to go ahead and to have a productive and meaningful life.
  Mr. PERRIELLO. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I want to pick up on the point that you just raised which is the idea 
that accountability is anti-Wall Street.
  The money managers that I know are looking for certainty. One of the 
worst things we can say to the market is to introduce the uncertainty 
of not knowing what the rules are, because the fact is one of the 
middle class values you discussed is basic responsibility. When we 
reward responsibility, that is a good thing for the middle class. There 
were many, many investment firms and others on Wall Street who knew the 
mortgage-backed securities were out there who could have taken--had 
much better quarters in the short-term, but they chose not to engage in 
these very high-risk speculative investments.

                              {time}  2030

  What we did instead was we have now bailed out some of the least 
responsible, most speculative agencies, and not rewarded the 
responsible ones, and we see the same things on Main Street.
  And you talked about no extra paperwork. It is so important that we 
draw a distinction between our community banks, who have been 
responsible through all this, and the megabanks, who have been driving 
the problem, so that we don't respond by punishing the responsible 
actors in our community who have really held things together when we've 
been right on the brink of a depression.
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. Just a personal observation, this is one of the 
things that drives me crazy about how our policy shifts back and forth, 
depending upon a boom or bust economy.
  But I have a very clear memory of buying my second house. It was 
probably about 1992, and I had bought my first house in 1984. I had 
completely renovated it myself with my wife. We sold it for a small 
profit and moved to another neighborhood where we bought a house that 
was less expensive than the one we were selling, and this is right 
after the savings and loan debacle that led to a tightening of credit 
restrictions in the lending market.
  I will never forget when I was applying for this loan, the bank 
officer said, you have to fill out an affidavit explaining to us why 
you're buying a home that's less expensive than the one you're selling. 
And I thought to myself, what is wrong with this picture? Because 
growing up in a small Iowa town, with parents who grew up in the 
Depression, I was always taught that you don't spend beyond your means; 
you're supposed to be out there trying to be good stewards of what you 
have and share it with other people. And yet you're having to justify 
making a responsible purchasing decision.
  We've gone from that era to one where you're getting zero percent 
interest, no money down, take as much as you want, and I think one of 
the things we want to see is we want to come back to some commonsense 
lending values and commonsense purchasing values, and these values are 
a two-way street. Let's be honest. We want to promote responsible 
decision-making across the board, and that's why I think that your 
point was so on target.
  And I yield back.
  Mr. PERRIELLO. I would say Madoff wasn't the only one running a Ponzi 
scheme. In many of these lending institutions it was the same thing. 
When you start getting debt equity ratios of 10:1, 30:1, 100:1, that is 
not an accountable system. And we found people who are trying to find 
every loophole they can push through with huge amounts of capital to do 
high risk. And they want all the upsides during the good years, and 
then they don't want to have to face the downsides in a bad cycle.
  Now, we're all in this together. The President's been very clear 
about that, and he's right to speak to that. But the fact is, part of 
how we're in this together is to make sure that those people who made 
horrible mistakes are held accountable.
  I think we need to look seriously at issues of fraud, fraud in many 
of these institutions and elsewhere, and even continuing to see the way 
that some of the markets are fluctuating based on reporting in January 
and February versus March as we head to the end of the quarter.
  We need to have basic accountability so that the average middle class 
investor has some guarantee that when they are looking at the market 
they're getting accurate information; if they're being responsible 
enough to save and have a 401(k), that they're not going to see that 
disappear just because of Ponzi schemes being run on Wall Street.
  And our job is to make sure that the common good is protected, and 
when we put basic rules in place, not paperwork, but basic rules of 
accountability that reflect these middle class values, then the market 
flourishes. We have entrepreneurship that is unmatched anywhere else in 
the world. We have capital in this country, and we have workers ready 
to work. We can and must still out-compete the rest of the world. We do 
that by creating a system that allows people to have a certainty to 
make those investments, to start that business, and we need to make 
sure that we are encouraging that kind of innovation.
  I come from a part of the country that has been hit hard by global 
trade over recent years. We've been devastated as furniture factories, 
textile mills, and tobacco jobs have all gone overseas. We have an 
opportunity now to turn yesterday's tobacco area into tomorrow's green 
energy area, but part of how we do that is get private capital moving 
investing in these areas and creating the kind of small businesses and 
middle class jobs of the next generation. But we can only do that if we 
have a system of accountability in place that can give people the 
certainty that they need.
  You talked about the importance of deferred gratification as a middle 
class value, not spending the money that you haven't yet saved. Well, 
we have instead seen a culture of instant gratification, whether it's 
the greed is good mentality that we've seen by some on Wall Street, to 
the get rich or die trying attitude that you see in hip-hop. This goes 
from pop culture to the elites and across the board.
  What we need to do is get back to that idea of basic personal 
responsibility and rewarding responsibility, and that's an environment 
I think in which entrepreneurship and hard work will flourish.
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. I want to thank you for making an important 
connection between a couple of the middle class values that we've been 
talking about all night, and that is, corporate accountability and how 
it affects fair trade. And one of the things that we know is that there 
are still some lingering so-called free trade agreements that have been 
negotiated by the Bush administration that are still on the table and 
are going to be considered in some way, shape or form in the future.
  And one of the trade agreements that's still outstanding is President 
Bush's Panama Free Trade Agreement, and this is where we get into some 
of these values issues on corporate accountability because the GAO 
recently did a study identifying Panama as one

[[Page H4233]]

of eight countries, and the only current country and prospective 
trading partner, that was listed on all of the major tax haven watchdog 
lists. In fact, Panama has been a key target of the Organization for 
Economic Cooperation and Development for resisting international norms 
in combating tax evasion and money laundering.
  And now to tie this all into one big bow, we've learned that AIG, 
arrogance, incompetence, greed, has sued the U.S. Government demanding 
more than $306 million in taxes it paid, twice the amount of what it 
paid in the now infamous executive bonuses.
  Here is what AIG is claiming. AIG is claiming it overpaid taxes 
related to the activities of its AIG-linked Panamanian corporation, 
Star International Company, which is chartered in the tax haven of 
Panama. And if President Bush's Panama Free Trade Agreement is 
ratified, AIG's largest shareholder, which is this derivative in Panama 
and other offshore companies, would have expansive new rights to 
challenge U.S. tax laws.
  In fact, there are currently 350,000 foreign firms that are 
registered in Panama where there are zero to low regulations and taxing 
restrictions. So we know that, if this treaty is ratified, these 
policies will inhibit the ability to protect the American people, crack 
down on money laundering and tax cheating and shady financial deals.
  So one of the things that we've learned is that there is linkage 
between the important concept of corporate accountability, fair trade 
policies, and I want to yield to my friend from New York to talk a 
little bit about how those issues combine and how they affect the 
people that he represents in upstate New York.
  Mr. ARCURI. Well, first off, I would like to say thank you and 
commend my colleague from Virginia for his well-thought-out and very 
articulate presentation with respect to corporate accountability. We 
certainly can use that kind of passion here in Congress, and I thank 
you for that, what you said, and what you talked about.
  You know, one of the things that I'd like to talk about just for a 
moment is something we haven't touched on yet tonight but is a very 
important part of the populist values, as articulated by you earlier, 
and that's with respect to consumer protection.
  You and I took a trip down to the Port of Nogales last year to work 
with and get a firsthand view of some of the things we're seeing with 
respect to the border patrol. But one of the things we did see is the 
fact that the Port of Nogales is one of the largest ports for bringing 
fruits and vegetables into this country, many of which are from Mexico. 
And one of the things that I think is very important is that we need to 
ensure that the fruits, the vegetables, the food that we eat, the toys 
that our children play with are high quality. They need to be safe.
  We put these strict standards on domestically produced food, on the 
kind of fertilizers that our farmers can use, on the kind of pesticides 
they can use, to ensure that the food that they produce is safe. And 
yet, we have these free trade agreements and we have the ability of 
some other countries to bring products into our country that don't 
follow the same kind of protections and don't have the same kind of 
laws that we have here, which I think jeopardizes the quality of the 
food we get and certainly the products that we get.
  So that's something that's so important to us, to the people that I 
represent back home and I think the people all through America.
  So it's an important thing, and I know we're running out of time 
here, but I think it's something that we need to discuss more and we 
need to spend a great deal of time on here in Congress because there's 
nothing more important than keeping the food that we eat and the goods 
that our family uses as safe as possible.
  Before I yield back, I would just like to say one last thing. You 
know, I want to quote another Roosevelt. I started off quoting Franklin 
Roosevelt. I want to finish by quoting Teddy Roosevelt, and he said, 
The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare 
of all of us. That sounds an awful lot like what President Obama is 
saying, that we're all in this together. We can't forget that whether 
you're a corporate executive or you're a worker on the line, what is 
good for the executive is good for the worker, and what is good for the 
worker is good for the executive.
  We are all in this together, and as my colleague from Virginia said, 
it is important that we remember the things that we do affect each and 
every American, regardless of where you are or where you work.
  So, with that, I would again like to thank my friend for organizing 
this today.
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. I thank you, and before I yield to my friend from 
Virginia for a closing comment, I just want to point out that the 
Populist Caucus is not anti-trade. We are not protectionist, but we 
want American companies and American employees and American consumers 
to be on a level playing field with their competitors. And when you 
have trade agreements that don't have the same level of commitment to 
enforceability, then you don't have a level playing field, and that's 
why fair trade agreements are important to protect all interests in the 
United States.
  And with that, I want to yield back to my young friend from Virginia 
for some closing comments and want to thank him for the important 
contributions and voice he has added to our caucus.
  Mr. PERRIELLO. Thank you for yielding. I just want to take a moment 
on this issue of trade.
  I think there's an attitude among the elites and among the mainstream 
media that assumes anything other than blind, free trade is somehow 
idiotic, and there's a concern that this populism is about mob rule. 
Well, populist values aren't about pitchforks. They're about pragmatic 
results.
  And I think for every model someone can show me on free trade, I can 
show you reality and empirics. This is not about a theory cooked up in 
academia about trade. It's about the reality of how the tiger economies 
and others have competed. It has not been some blind march to trade 
liberalization. It has been smart, strategic decisions by each of those 
countries to play to their comparative advantages.
  I think that we have been negotiating from a position of weakness in 
these trade deals instead of negotiating from strength, and I think 
it's cost the middle class and the working class jobs. I think 
sometimes there's an incredibly naive attitude by those who would look 
down their noses at those who would engage in middle class and populist 
values, when in fact I think the empirics are on our side.
  So I think what's important in this, again, is not that we pick up 
the pitchforks but that we produce results. I think what we're about is 
looking at pragmatic solutions that take back some of the raw deals 
that the middle class has gotten for the last 20 years, particularly 
the last few years, and starts to stand up for those middle-class 
families and working class families who are getting up every morning 
and working hard and playing by the rules and suddenly being asked to 
bear the brunt of everyone else's mistakes.

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