[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 38 (Tuesday, March 16, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H1443]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RESTORING AMERICANS' NET WORTH
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Connolly) for 5 minutes.
Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia. Madam Speaker, last week I brought the same
chart to the House floor to visibly demonstrate how, starting in 2007,
the Great Recession destroyed $17.5 trillion of household aggregate
wealth in the United States. I noted that it represented a loss of more
than $56,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. Trillions of
dollars of home equity were lost, retirement savings and college funds
lost.
As you can see by the red line here, the worst recession since World
War II continually destroyed value from American households for seven
straight quarters, from June of 2007 until March of 2009; 21 months of
lost net worth. The economy was on the brink of collapse, and the
tremendous losses to every American household were directly evident.
But this Congress acted. And as you can see from the blue line, since
passage of the Recovery Act, Americans recovered $5 trillion in net
worth during the second and third quarters of 2009. Today I have even
better news. Last week, data came out for the fourth quarter of 2009,
and once again Americans' net worth increased for the third straight
quarter. There was an additional $800 billion returned to American
households over just the past 3 months.
Let me put this in context. The Recovery Act was an investment in
this Nation, in this economy, in the American people, to help bring us
out of the Great Recession. It kept hundreds of thousands of teachers
from being laid off, including 800 in my own district. That is not just
a short-term investment in economic recovery, it is a long-term
investment in our communities and in the education of our children.
The Recovery Act also provided for thousands of needed transportation
improvements. Again, that is a short-term investment in construction
jobs, but a long-term investment in our communities and national
infrastructure. The Recovery Act's investments, including more than
$200 billion in tax cuts, totaled $787 billion, and it will be spent
over 2 years time. Where is the return on that investment, you just
have to look at the blue line showing $5 trillion in net worth that has
been recovered since we passed that bill for American families in the
first 9 months of this year. We can now add another $800 billion to
that figure for the last 3 months of 2009, nearly $6 trillion in
recovered wealth.
The recovery of America's net worth is vital to the overall recovery
of our economy. Consumer spending makes up 70 percent of our GDP.
However, so long as consumers' net worth remains depressed, consumer
spending will naturally suffer. When consumer spending suffers,
businesses pull back and lay off employees. It is a tragic downward
spiral, one that unfolded starting in the Bush administration in 2007.
But this chart, this blue line of recovery shows we are back on the
right track. Despite historic blizzards that many thought would imperil
the recovery, retail sales actually increased 0.3 percent in February,
outpacing expectations. Housing prices increased 7 straight months,
reversing 22 straight months of decline. New orders for manufactured
goods are at their highest level since 2008. The manufacturing index
has been growing for 6 straight months, and manufacturing jobs have
been growing for 3 months. GDP grew at 5.9 percent, its fastest growth
in 6 years, in the fourth quarter of 2009. And today, the stock market
is up more than 70 percent since its March of 2009 low.
We are not out of the woods yet, and we have some ground to cover
before the value of the economic losses are fully recovered. But we are
making steady progress, as we can see from this chart. We must now
continue on that path to restore financial stability for our residents
and the economy as a whole.
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