[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 183 (Thursday, December 1, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H8058-H8063]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONGRESSIONAL PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Meehan). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison)
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. ELLISON. 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.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota, my
junior in the House. When I say that, I mean we're both juniors, having
served now in our third terms. We will be officially recognized, I
guess if we're fortunate to make it back for the 113th Congress, that
will be our fourth term. We will be seniors, and we will be permanent
seniors as long as the voters allow us to be. And we certainly want to
do what the voters want us to do here.
What the voters of the Fourth Congressional District of Georgia tell
me over and over and over again, day in and day out, 24-7, is that jobs
is the issue, and they want us to pass the President's job creation
bill. They don't understand why simple proposals that will create jobs
and reinvigorate
[[Page H8059]]
our economy are something that we can't come to grips with here on the
House floor. And I tell them to keep the faith, but I also tell them
where the problem lies. It is not with the President. It's not with the
Democrats in the House of Representatives. It's with my friends on the
other side of the aisle, the Tea Party-Grover Norquist Republicans who
want to balance the budget. Their main issue is balancing our budget.
And certainly our budget needs to be balanced, and that's something
that we should do. It's not our first priority.
Our priority right now, and I agree with the people of the Fourth
District, it should be jobs. And if we don't create jobs, if we leave
people on unemployment or unemployment having expired, that means less
money circulating in the economy. If there's less money circulating,
less economic activity, less job creation. And so there's a lot that we
can do, Congressman Ellison, to help the people, especially during this
holiday season.
Mr. ELLISON. 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.
{time} 1830
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.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. It certainly will not create any jobs. There
is a false perception that has been bought into wholesale, unanimously,
by my Tea Party-Grover Norquist Republican friends, and that is that
deregulation somehow creates jobs.
Now, I know what kind of jobs are created when you deregulate the
health and safety of food, water, air quality, drugs, Wall Street. I
know what happens when you don't have any regulations. It means you're
going to have more people going to the doctor because of unsafe and
unhealthy conditions--adulterated food, water. It means that you will
have more----
Mr. ELLISON. Asthma.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. People in the mortuary business who are
trying to determine the cause of death for people. You will have more
cleanup workers, workers who are dispatched to clean up toxic sites.
You'll create those kinds of jobs. Yet, as for the kind of high-level,
21st century jobs that America needs in order to be the leader of the
world economy in this global environment that we're in, there is not
one measure that the Republicans have introduced that will stimulate
the creation of those kinds of jobs.
So what we're doing, Congressman Ellison, is just creating conditions
of great suffering so that people will vote against President Obama
next November. The stated goal of my friends on the other side of the
aisle--their main, central goal--is to make sure that President Obama
is a one-term President. They don't care about how much pain they
inflict on the American people, on the 99 percenters--and 47 percent of
them are millionaires, so they don't have to worry. It's just to serve
a political purpose.
Mr. ELLISON. 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.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Starting January 1.
Mr. ELLISON. 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----
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. The top 1 percent.
Mr. ELLISON. And they don't have to pay based on their first $1
million;
[[Page H8060]]
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.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. But Grover Norquist doesn't want them to do
it.
Mr. ELLISON. Grover Norquist said no. They signed a pledge.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. They signed it 20 years ago.
Mr. ELLISON. They signed it. They signed a pledge, not to the
American people, but to Grover Norquist.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Who does he represent?
Mr. ELLISON. Do you represent him?
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I don't represent him, and he doesn't
represent me or the folks that predominate my district. I've got a 99er
district.
Mr. ELLISON. 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.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. All the while, Congressman Ellison, pitting
Americans against each other, trying to stoke hatred and anger amongst
the 99 percenters on any issue they can.
Mr. ELLISON. Right, divide and conquer.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. That's the way it is.
So right now, Congressman Ellison, I feel like I have to say this
because you're such a great example of a true American patriot, one who
lives life in accordance with your inner ideals. We have the freedom in
this country to do so, but there are those right here in this Congress
who would try to turn the American people against you and people like
you because of the religion that you have chosen to follow.
Mr. ELLISON. That's right.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. They don't have any idea that your dad is a
Republican.
Mr. ELLISON. Yes.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. They don't have any knowledge of how you grew
up and what kind of values you were taught and what kind of family you
had. They just want to condemn you because you are a Muslim. They want
to make you a threat to America, a threat to our military, and make a
threat of those engaged in the military who happen to practice the
faith of Islam. It plays into this decision to put Americans through
this suffering so that they will then vote against President Obama and
the Democrats so that the Republicans can then throw the welcome mat
out like they have done for the large corporate interests and wealthy
individuals in order to control public policy in America.
Mr. ELLISON. 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.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. So you hold hearings on issues that are false
issues.
Mr. ELLISON. Yes.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. You create controversy where there is none.
Mr. ELLISON. Right.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. This is a game that, certainly, many people
see is being played, but I wish far more people saw and understood what
is actually taking place in their House of Representatives. I believe
that it's one reason we have two groups of 99ers--the Occupy Wall
Street and the Tea Party movement, those who are dissatisfied with how
things are going in America.
Mr. ELLISON. 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.
{time} 1840
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.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I do believe that you are 100 percent correct
on that, and I want to give a shout out to those millionaires who are
socially conscious. There are so many people who are afflicted and who
are just eaten up with greed, and they already have more money than
they can possibly spend in this lifetime; yet they have an insatiable
quest for more and more and more.
They are the ones who are supporting people like Grover Norquist and
like Dick Armey----
Mr. ELLISON. FreedomWorks.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Who is a proponent of the Tea Party movement;
and those are the people, the Koch brothers, those kinds of interests
that benefit from our system of government but then, ironically, they
would support and encourage those who want to do away with government.
They want to strip government of its power to regulate. They want to
strip government of its power to protect and to create fairness and
prosperity. And it is just basic. I don't care how rich you are, but if
you're riddled with envy and with the need for more, you know, you just
can't be satisfied, you are going to be unhappy.
And the person who is unemployed but doing their best to find a job
and take care of their family and despite all obstacles is willing to
do with half a crumb that they have extended to their neighbor because
their neighbor is in the same shape, we're all in this together. Those
are the types of ideals that we used to have in this country, we used
to exemplify. But now it's this
[[Page H8061]]
culture of greed and avarice and self-satisfaction. Reminds me of the
old days of the Roman Empire.
Mr. ELLISON. 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.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. So be it.
Mr. ELLISON. 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----
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Give back.
Mr. ELLISON. 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----
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Every man for himself.
Mr. ELLISON. Every man for himself.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Only the strong survive.
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair must ask that the Members yield
and reclaim their time in a more orderly fashion so that the court
reporters are able to make the appropriate transitions.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Fair enough.
Mr. ELLISON. 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.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I could not have said it better; and I will
say, so that I don't repeat what you've said, that when we do have a
strong government, then government is there to protect the interest of
all of the people, those who are the so-called job creators, who
haven't been creating a lot of jobs here lately, by the way. I don't
know why they still have that title, because all the jobs have been
moving offshore, out of America and leaving these workers here without
jobs.
We're doing ourselves a disservice by cutting government and cutting
our ability to clean up the mess that has been created through decades,
now, of deregulation. It has caused us to be a society where we spend
more money on health care, but we're the sickest people in the
industrialized world, among the industrialized nations.
{time} 1850
We've got a financial system that nearly collapsed because of lack of
regulation. And the same people who profited so mightily back during
those winner-take-all days want to keep the winner-take-all days, make
the big bonuses, the obscene bonuses at year end that they're getting
ready to publicize now, and they would rather collect those bonuses
than create jobs for Americans to clean up the environment, to
reregulate Wall Street. They want to cut those jobs, so job creation,
it will actually result in the job creators, or the 1 percent, being
able to experience even more profit.
People should understand that if you help someone else, it comes back
to you. These are just simple concepts of living that we have gotten
away from as a society.
Mr. ELLISON. 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.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. If the gentleman would yield, what we do when
we create job growth and when we spread the wealth, it means that we're
able to pay down that deficit, that debt that we have. We are able to
clear that out. America is certainly not in a crisis as far as debt is
concerned. We borrow money at 2 percent. You can't get it much cheaper
than that. And while that cheap money is available, we should be
borrowing that money and investing it in our own economy, in our
infrastructure, in our research and development for medical care,
health care delivery, energy production, our education system from the
buildings on down to the lowest piece of equipment that's in there, the
teachers who teach our children. We should be investing in those areas.
We'll see this economy turn around rather quickly, and we'll see that
debt disappear quicker than most people believe that it will.
Mr. ELLISON. 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.
[[Page H8062]]
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.
{time} 1900
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Thank you.
Many Americans watched in horror as the drama unfolded on the I-35
bridge, the aftermath of crashing into the waves of water below and
taking out a multitude of cars and taking lives and causing people to
be injured, and also resulting in an economic detriment to that area
that needed that bridge in order to continue to conduct business. We
can look at it sterilely on the TV from a distant location, but we
should realize that the same thing that happened to you guys in
Minnesota can happen to us in Georgia with our own bridges that are in
disrepair due to deferred maintenance.
This is something that can happen not just in Georgia, not just in
Minnesota, but all across the land. And it doesn't have to be that way,
because as President Obama has proposed in the American Jobs Act--or as
a part of the American Jobs Act--there is money--a small amount, but
any amount is better than none--for infrastructure. I think it's $50
billion. That infrastructure, in addition to helping with our public
safety issues--health, safety, and well-being of the people--would also
create jobs. So we're killing more than one bird with one stone by
passing the American Jobs Act.
Not one of my friends on the other side of the aisle has been able to
put forth any rationale for not considering any part of that Jobs Act.
We did, I'll give them credit, pass something last week having to do
with veterans. They just could not find it within their hearts to avoid
voting for that. But if there was some way that they could, they would
have.
They are insisting that the tax cuts to the working people of this
country, the payroll tax, they want that to be paid for. But nobody
said anything last year about paying for the extension of the Bush tax
cuts.
Mr. ELLISON. Right.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Nobody said anything and nobody is saying
anything because they want those tax cuts to become permanent while
they at the same time would vote to impose a balanced budget amendment,
which really would just simply lock in an unfair tax rate or a tax
system that is unfair, would lock it in and make it much more difficult
to change it.
So, Congressman, these are issues that I'm pleased to sit here and
discuss with you. I look forward to further dialogue from both people
on this side of the aisle, along with my friends on the other side of
the aisle, because when it's all said and done, we're all in the same
boat together.
Mr. ELLISON. 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. JOHNSON of Georgia. I just want everyone to know that even though
I stand up and talk about the Grover Norquist-Tea Party Republicans, I
admire the Tea Partiers because they got up off of their duffs because
they were upset about how things were going. They were misled in terms
of thinking that the health care reform was not going to be good for
them. It's good for them. And they will soon find out--they will
continue to find out--that the things that we have done are good for
them and their attention will be diverted from this President to their
pocketbook. And so I look forward. I admire them for their activism. I
love them. Don't take it personally when I talk about you being a Dick
Armey-Tea Party Republican of the Grover Norquist ilk.
With that, I will close. I believe that my friends on the other side
of the aisle are ready to delude you with some information.
Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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