[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 24 (Thursday, February 14, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H537-H541]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS MESSAGE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. ELLISON. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, my name is Congressman Keith Ellison, and I would like
to open up by talking about the progressive message. The progressive
message is the message articulated by the Progressive Caucus, and the
Progressive Caucus is that organization within this body, within this
Congress, that is here to unapologetically say that all Americans
should have the right to go to the doctor and get basic health care in
this richest country in the history of the world. All Americans should
have civil and equal rights and be treated fairly based on whatever
color, whatever their sexual preference might be, whatever nation they
might be from.
We're the ones who say let's have comprehensive immigration reform
with a path towards citizenship, and let's absolutely pass the DREAM
Act. The Progressive Caucus is that caucus that boldly and
unapologetically says Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are great
programs; and we need to protect them not only for today's seniors but
for tomorrow's seniors, too.
I would like to start out, Mr. Speaker, by talking a little bit, as I
talk about the progressive message, starting out with just a few
observations about the State of the Union speech. I personally thought
the State of the Union speech was awesome. I thought President Obama
was great, and I was really proud of President Obama as he delivered
that State of the Union speech in this very Chamber.
This Chamber was full of dignitaries from all over the world--
ambassadors, Senators, the United States Supreme Court. And in front of
them, in front of the American people, President Obama specifically
identified 24 Americans who joined Members of Congress as their guests.
And these folks who President Obama identified were victims of gun
violence. I was so proud to see President Obama specifically give these
folks encouragement to keep on speaking out, continue to tell their
story so that we can arrive at a place where the U.S. Congress will be
on their side to bring forth sensible, sane gun violence prevention.
You know, President Obama's wife, our First Lady, Michelle Obama, had
seated next to her her own guest, parents of young Hadiya Pendleton
whose life was taken away from her. She was shot down in Chicago. But
only a few weeks before, she had been performing for her country at the
President's inauguration.
And so whether it was ordinary Members of Congress who just brought
different people, or it was the President or the First Lady, the people
who can speak most eloquently about the need for sane, sensible gun
violence reform were here, Mr. Speaker. They were here and were present
in this gallery so they could be a witness and a presence on the need.
And what did President Obama say? He said give us a vote. He said
give us a vote. Now, I say to the Republican House majority: Why are
you afraid of a vote? Let's have a vote. Let's count who is for sane,
sensible gun violence prevention and who is not; who is for closing
loopholes that allow people to escape background checks; and who's for
filling up background checks and making sure that anybody who gets a
firearm, an instrument that is dangerous by any account, at least we
know that this person is sane and legally qualified to have one. Let's
see. Let's have a vote. I don't think that anyone should be afraid of
the vote, because if you are proud to say, no, we don't want any
background checks, then stand up and say that. Be on Mr. LaPierre's
side of the NRA. But if you believe we need to make sure that guns stay
out of the wrong hands, that's a vote that the American people should
have, and I was so proud that the President made that clear.
I personally think that the President was right in saying give us a
vote when it comes to things like high-capacity magazines. You know,
these high-capacity magazines, designed for the military, don't have
any place on our streets. And the people who want to stand up and
defend them, let them defend them. Let them defend them right here on
the floor if they have the audacity to do so. And let us talk about
millions of Americans, over the course of years, who have been
tragically injured and hurt with bad gun policy.
Let us talk about the victims in Aurora who were shot by somebody
with a high-capacity clip. Let us talk about people who were victims in
Milwaukee. Let us give the message about the folks who were shot down
in Tucson by somebody with a high-capacity clip.
The fact is that the President said give us a vote, and I agree 100
percent. We need a vote on these sane, sensible gun reforms.
I'm going to leave this topic now, Mr. Speaker; but I do want to just
make mention of my own guest. My own guest was a young man named Sami
Rahamin. Sami, 17 years old, a brilliant young man, but really just a
regular teenager, he happened to be on a bus going to Madison,
Wisconsin, when he saw a message come across his phone which said there
was a shooting in what he knew was his neighborhood.
He texted back to his father and said: Dad, be careful because
there's supposedly a shooting in the neighborhood. But the text never
came back because one of the victims of that shooting was Sami's dad.
[[Page H538]]
Ruvin Rahamin was an immigrant to the United States. He came to the
United States in search of the American Dream, but he died the American
nightmare because a person who is mentally unsound, mentally unstable,
easy access to the most dangerous weapons came to a work site and shot
down five people, including Ruvin who was an awesome guy, a wonderful
constituent of mine. He's missed. But because of his son carrying on
the legacy, he will never be forgotten because Sami is telling the
story about how much we need sane, sensible gun prevention measures.
So enough about the gun issue. The State of the Union speech was
awesome for another reason, which I definitely want to make note of,
and that is the fact that he went right to the very heart of what I
believe is the defining issue of our time, and that is income and
wealth equality in our country. Our country, this is the land of
opportunity. And we know that some people are rich and some people are
middle class and some people are poor. We believe we're a country that
can provide a ladder up for anybody who wants to work hard. And for
those people who are too sick to work or too aged to work or too young
to work, we believe in the social safety net to take care of them.
{time} 1650
We believe in income and economic mobility in America. And yet the
President put his finger right on it when he talked about how we've
seen people making $14,000 a year working full time; but because they
are paid so little, they are still in poverty.
I was so proud the President made this point. It's a point that needs
to be made. There are people working in restaurants, people who are
cleaning up, people in our hospitals, people who are doing the really
tough jobs. I'm talking about the jobs where you've got to take a
shower after you get off work, not take a shower going to work, you've
got to take one when you're done with your day's work because you've
been working hard, you've been building things, you've been maybe
cleaning up things, you've been lifting people, you've been doing the
hard work. And many of these folks are scraping by on really low wages.
The President clearly has a heart for these folks and wants to see them
come up. And I was glad the President was able to do that.
Mr. Speaker, you should know that over the past 30 years income for
the average American has stayed flat, while the richest 1 percent of
Americans have seen their income more than triple. This has not
happened by accident. It has been a set of policies put in place
through the Tax Code, through trade policy, through the loss of
manufacturing, and a number of things.
There's been a number of policies that have gotten us to this place,
but there's been one philosophy, and the philosophy is simply this: if
we give a lot of money to the richest Americans, maybe they will take
their excess wealth and put that into plant and equipment and hire
people.
This is known as supply-side economics. We don't want to have any
regulations on them. They can do what they want with the water, they
can do what they want with the meat, they can do what they want with
the air. No regulations or against regulations. We don't want to tax
them. They don't have to pay for our roads, our bridges, our schools;
they don't have to do anything like that. They get to keep all this
money. And it's all under the assumption that they will take this money
that they amass and put it into plant and equipment and hire people.
Well, this philosophy has proven to have failed; this philosophy has
caused income inequality in America. And the President correctly said
that we have got to do something to create more economic viability for
the poor and middle class in America. I was so happy to see him do it.
Mr. Speaker, you should know, the President didn't say this, but it's
absolutely true, that the wealth of the richest 1 percent is over 225
times larger than the average household, higher than it has ever been,
higher than it has ever been.
Mr. Speaker, we look back at the Gilded Age and we think, oh, boy,
wasn't income inequality bad way back then. Well, it's worse now. We've
got to do something about it, and our President knows that. I am very
pleased to see that. And the President, while he gave a message of
economic hope and understanding to the working and middle classes of
our country, the politician who gave the alternative, Mr. Marco Rubio,
when he wasn't getting glasses of water in the middle of his speech, he
just really articulated the same old thing: money for the rich, less
for everybody else.
Mr. Speaker, we cannot continue to give tax breaks to millionaires
and billionaires while cutting investments that the middle class relies
on, while cutting programs that help local governments keep on police,
keep on teachers, keep on people who fix our roads and firefighters. We
cannot cut the Federal workforce, as is about to happen--I'll talk
about sequester in a little while--and we cannot make these economic
decisions and hope to have a strong economy.
We've got to invest in our roads, our bridges, our grids, our
electrical power grids in transit to move people around quickly. We've
got to make these investments. We've got to invest in research; we've
got to invest in our schools. This is what's going to make America a
strong country. This is what's going to put more people to work. More
people paying taxes means we're going to have more taxes, and that will
help us lower the deficit.
The Republicans have it all wrong. They think that by slashing the
Federal Government, then that's going to make our economy better. All
it's going to do is create a situation where you've got more people out
of work, fewer people paying taxes, fewer people putting in tax
revenue, and then the deficit will go up.
I'm going talk about the sequester in a moment; but I just want to
say, as I highlight a few things about the State of the Union speech,
how important I thought the President's remarks were.
Let me turn for a moment--another thing about the State of the Union
speech--Mr. Speaker, on the issue of Social Security, Medicare and
Medicaid. First of all, I want to encourage people to not refer to
these programs as entitlements. I don't even like doing it myself right
now.
What they really are is social insurance. You know how insurance
works. You pay a premium and then when you need it, you can use it.
Well, you get 6 percent taken out of your paycheck every week or two
weeks or a month or however often you get paid. You're paying into
Social Security, you're paying into Medicare, you're paying into
Medicaid.
The bottom line is these social insurance programs are not some
giveaway; they're not welfare. They are important social insurance
programs to provide income security for people when they are aged, when
they are too ill to work and disabled, or when their parents die and
they need support. That's what these programs are about.
I'm glad that we are here to talk about how we preserve these
programs. The President mentioned it. He said he wanted to strengthen
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for generations to come. I
quite agree with this. He said:
But any reform should come through protecting these
programs, not just cutting these programs to finance tax cuts
for the wealthy.
I believe that we should not have any benefit cuts to these programs.
We don't need to. There's plenty of places to cut, plenty of loopholes
to close, and we can get money elsewhere. But I'm glad the President
made mention of the program.
I also want to mention, Mr. Speaker, that one of the places we can
find savings for social insurance programs is we need to allow Medicare
part D to negotiate lower drug prices. Medicare part D is a
prescription drug benefit that the Republicans negotiated and passed in
2003. This particular program put into law that there could be no
negotiation of drug prices. This has made the program more expensive.
About $158 billion would be attainable as savings if we were allowed
negotiation.
The President also said we're going to get out of Afghanistan. I
think this is great. The President announced that we would bring 34,000
troops home from Afghanistan by this time next year. That's fantastic.
My own son is a member of the U.S. Military. I'm very proud of that. I
actually don't want to see
[[Page H539]]
him deployed to Afghanistan. I want to see him in a place where he can
defend this Nation, as he wants to do. I think that it's time for us to
go home.
The President didn't say we're going to abandon Afghanistan. We will
be there diplomatically, we will be there training their soldiers, but
sovereignty means that you protect yourself. It's time for the Afghan
people who want to be sovereign to take responsibility for their own
security.
I want to turn now to the subject of immigration. I think right now,
and I think the President made clear, that we may be at a point, and I
pray that we are, where comprehensive immigration reform is within the
reach of Congress to pass.
I'm proud to be joined by my good friend Congressman Jared Polis of
Colorado. This is an important issue to you, Congressman, and I want to
yield to you to share your thoughts on immigration.
Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota.
Mr. Speaker, it's common sense to most Americans. We have upwards of
10, 12, 14 million people here illegally in this country. Many of them
are members of our communities, many of their kids are Americans, go to
school with their fellow Americans or on the football team or
cheerleaders, are productive in every way. And yet every day our
government through its current policies tears families apart; absolute
heartbreaking tragedies where a mother is torn from her American
daughter, placed in detention, frequently kicked out of this country at
a cost to taxpayers of tens of thousands of dollars, all over a broken
taillight.
{time} 1700
Now it's important to educate people about the difference. We do have
a group of people that are in detention that are called criminal
aliens. These are people who are here illegally and committed crimes.
It could be robbery. Maybe they're in a gang or dealing drugs. There's
no disagreement among liberals and conservatives and people of all ilks
that, of course, there needs to be detentions where appropriate and
where there are criminal penalties in place and, of course, there
should be expulsions from the country in that regard. In fact, many of
us argue that by sweeping up many of the people whose only violation is
a civil violation, who otherwise have been following our laws, in that
sweep we are actually limiting our enforcement ability to go after real
criminals who are causing harm in our community.
That happens in two ways. One, through the limited law enforcement
resources. When we divert those resources to taking mothers away from
daughters, fathers away from sons who are productive members of
society, when we divert the resources to that, it means they're going
off of some other beat. It means they're going off of keeping our
streets safe. It means they're going away from looking at white collar
crime and other areas that need to be investigated in these fiscally
restrained times with limited budgets.
The second reason is it builds an atmosphere of distrust in our
immigrant communities. How much unreported crime occurs because, in
many cases, the victims of those crimes could be spouses that are
abused, it could be people that are robbed or ripped off by
unscrupulous scam artists and are frequently afraid to report that
crime because they are afraid that the very same agency that they're
supposed to trust to report that crime to could in fact be in league
with another government agency that wants to deport them. And that's
the problem with 287(g) and some of the other information-sharing
protocols.
For community policing to work, it's critical to have the trust and
support of the community. And by the way, if these criminals go
unprosecuted in our community and unpenalized for taking advantage of
somebody, and that is not being reported, their next victim very well
could be an American. Their next victim very well could be your family.
It could be my family. And that's why we all have an interest in
community policing, in law enforcement, as well as public health, to
make sure that people are inoculated and treated early for diseases,
regardless of their status.
Now the solution is not to have this large population here illegally.
Whenever we're talking about this enforcement, it's tough. There's no
right answer. The right answer is comprehensive immigration reform.
Let's find a way where the people that we need here to have critical
jobs in our economy, that have families, that are in our community,
that have kids that are American and going to school and doing well
every day, have a way and paperwork to show that they can be here.
Now that doesn't mean in comprehensive immigration reform that
anybody gets citizenship. And I want to be clear about this, because
frequently this false specter of somehow granting citizenship to 11
million people is raised. Comprehensive immigration reform in any
version doesn't give citizenship to anybody. Not one person, not a
thousand people, not a million people. Zero people. In fact, under all
the versions that are being talked about of comprehensive immigration
reform, anybody who's here illegally would have to get right with the
law and would go to the back of the line with regard to applying for
citizenship some day, if they're eligible. To be eligible, they'll have
to follow the laws of our country for many years. They'll have to learn
English. They'll have to take a test.
Yes, some day it's possible that some immigrants will become
citizens. It's also possible and likely that many will choose never to.
They might work here for a number of years and return to another
country. And that's fine. But it's critical that there is at least the
ability to get right with the law. It's very frustrating when people
say, Why don't they get in line today? Because it's a nonexistent line.
Comprehensive immigration reform will create the line that people will
then get into and create an immigration system that is in touch with
reality in this country, in touch with a pro-growth agenda, in touch
with an agenda that will make our country prosperous, that will conform
our treatment of our neighbors to our values as Americans, the same
values that extended a welcome to my ancestors and yours when they came
to these shores and helped their, in my case, grandchildren and great
grandchildren serve in this great body.
So, too, we need to assure that our values are represented in our
immigration system. And whether one is on the left or the right, it is
clear that today's disaster of an immigration system is not reflective
of our value as Americans--our value as Americans not to tear families
apart, our values as Americans to ensure that if you work hard and you
play by the rules, you can get ahead in this country. You can succeed
in this country. The value of encouraging civic participation is
absolutely critical.
So this is a unique opportunity, a unique moment. It's a bipartisan
approach, as it has to be. This is not a Democratic issue or a
Republican issue. Immigration reform is an American issue, as it always
has been a Nation of immigrants, a Nation of laws. And we can conform
those two together so that we can fulfill our destiny in a way that
honors the rule of law and honors the role of immigrants in creating
our great country.
Mr. ELLISON. I do appreciate the gentleman from Colorado. Congressman
Polis, you have been on the mark on this thing ever since you stepped
into this body, and there are literally I think millions of people who
appreciate your advocacy. I just want to mention a few points and then,
of course, invite you to dive back in.
The President does have a proposal on immigration reform. It's
reasonable. It's a commonsense starting point. Republicans and
Democrats need to find a way, as Congressman Polis just said. But it is
a clear path toward a legal status for thousands who are already in the
U.S. working and paying taxes. It's a process for family reunification.
It's a workable employment verification system with penalties for
employers who knowingly hire people who are not in status. It is a
reasonable enforcement.
But I just want to say this, and I want to invite Congressman Polis
to react. We've put about $18 billion into border issues so far. One of
the real things about comprehensive immigration reform is, we hear
people talk about the border, the border, the border. Well, President
Obama has done tons on the border--for some of us, too
[[Page H540]]
much--but the border issue is not the problem. The real problem is the
other part.
I yield to the gentleman from Colorado to see if you have any
thoughts about this matter.
Mr. POLIS. Another thing that's important for Americans to understand
about how 11 million people got here without paperwork and how this
continues to occur is that more than half of the population that lives
and works here illegally didn't sneak across a border. They came here
legally. They came here as a tourist, they came with a visa. They
stayed illegally and worked illegally. So, again, even if you had 100
percent security at the border--and, by the way, that's certainly a
valid goal--but you're never going to have 100 percent. But even if you
had 100 percent, you would still have a large flow of people to this
country illegally because it's not that hard to get a tourism visa, to
get a student visa, to get some other type of documentation for travel
that allows you to be here for a month or 3 months and then to outstay
that and work here illegally.
So no matter what you do on the border--and, by the way, I think
absolutely as part of comprehensive immigration reform there will be
more border security--but no matter what you do on the border, you
don't address the issue without having a comprehensive approach that
deals with those already here, that deals with the immigration laws
going forward so we don't wind up in this same situation again in 10 or
20 years, to make sure that our immigration laws reflect the real needs
of our country, the needs of the private sector, the needs of the
workforce in terms of making sure we have enough people in the service
industry. Whether it's to pick crops in the field, whether it's to
staff our high-tech companies with programmers, we need to have an
America-centric approach to immigration. And while border enforcement
can certainly be a part of that, no matter how much you have, it
doesn't even come close to addressing the issue of immigration in this
country. And that's why, as the President indicated in his speech and
in his call, as others from both sides of the aisle have indicated,
it's critical for America to take on the issue of immigration reform
and pass a comprehensive solution.
Mr. ELLISON. Thank you, Congressman. I'm going to wrap up in about 5
minutes or so. But I just want to hit a few things that need to be
touched on. One is that the Progressive Caucus is very concerned about
this looming sequestration. Now folks out there this evening, Mr.
Speaker, might think, sequestration, what is that? Is that like when
you go on jury duty or something? No. Sequestration is what we're
calling some really dramatic cuts to Federal spending that are coming
up in about 2 weeks.
{time} 1710
And now you're thinking, How did we end up here? Here is what
happened.
In August 2011, the Republicans had taken the majority in that
session, the first session of the 112th Congress, in January, and they
started out with an agenda to dramatically reduce the size of
government. They started out with something called Cut, Cap and
Balance, and they wanted to cut all kinds of programs. They never
wanted to touch defense, but they wanted to cut the Federal Government.
I'm talking about Head Start, Women Infants, and Children nutrition,
programs that help support State and local governments, for police,
fire, all kinds of stuff like that, they wanted to cut. And they wanted
to cut big-time. They wanted to cut Social Security, Medicare, and
Medicaid.
And so they came forward with this proposal. Now, they knew they
couldn't get it past the Senate, but they said, Oh, the debt ceiling.
The debt ceiling, we can use that as a lever to make the Democrats give
us significant cuts to the Federal budget.
So what they did, in August 2011, they said that we're going to
allow--we're not going to raise the debt ceiling. We're going to allow
the Federal Government to default on previously acquired obligations of
the United States--so not pay our bills that we already acquired and
risk our triple A credit rating--if you do not impose dramatic cuts.
And so what the President did is said, Okay, we're going to give you
some cuts up front and we'll set up something called the
supercommittee. Three Democrats from the House, three Republicans from
the House, three Republicans from the Senate, three Democrats from the
Senate, we'll call that the supercommittee, and they are going to work
out a compromise and give us an up-or-down vote on some more cuts. But
if they don't, then we're going to have this thing called the sequester
and there will be across-the-board cuts in a dramatic and really
imposing way.
The sequester is what we're facing now because the supercommittee
failed. Now, the supercommittee didn't just fail. What we didn't know
is that when the Republicans, both House and Senate, appointed their
members of the supercommittee, all of them had signed a promise to a
man named Grover Norquist never to raise any taxes. And so what
happened is that they got on this supercommittee and refused to
negotiate. Democrats said, We'll do some cuts, but we need some
revenue. We need to raise some taxes and close some loopholes.
Republicans said, No way, and Democrats said, Well, wait a minute. So
you want it all cuts and no raising taxes. They said, That's right,
we're not going to negotiate with you on this.
And so the supercommittee failed in its work. When it failed in its
work, that meant that we were going to deal with sequester, and that's
where we are now.
Sequester is going to impose automatic, arbitrary cuts that could lay
off, according to the Congressional Budget Office, up to about 750,000
people. There are going to be cuts in domestic spending and cuts to
military spending. Some of us think that military cuts are warranted.
Others of us are absolutely concerned about the people who are going to
be affected by these domestic cuts.
Let me wrap up. I just want to say that I am concerned that several
Republicans seem real cavalier about sequester, and you should look at
the list. The Progressive Caucus' solution is to repeal sequester. What
we would propose to do with our legislation is to say 50 percent cuts,
50 percent revenue. We already cut $1.7 trillion in revenue, and then
last New Year's Eve we got some money in the door through raising taxes
and now we need to balance to 50-50. This is what we call the Balancing
Act.
Our bill would bring it to balance by raising money through closing
loopholes, carried interest, jets and yachts, stuff like that. Oh,
yeah, you didn't know they could write off their jets and their yachts?
Oh, yeah, they can. And then put about $300 billion into jobs.
Let me wrap up by saying the Balancing Act, you can go online and
look it up. It's a great program. We urge you to support it. In the
last 1 second, if I may--I've promised my friend 20 minutes and I'm
messing up right now.
On February 22, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the
Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder case. This threatens to take away
serious voting rights. I'm going to be talking about this, because
democracy must prevail. We have not reached the point where everybody
has a fair vote in this country. I don't have the time to elaborate on
it now, but please be aware that this Shelby County v. Holder is a
critical issue. The Supreme Court is going to take it up on the 27th of
February. We need to be aware of that if we want to believe that you
ought to be able to cast a fair vote in America.
With that, I am going to yield to the gentleman from Colorado. Thank
you very much, Congressman.
Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman yield back his time?
Mr. POLIS. The gentleman from Minnesota yielded to me.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Colorado is recognized.
Mr. POLIS. I would like to ask the Speaker how much time remains.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Minnesota has 25 minutes
remaining.
Mr. POLIS. And the gentleman has yielded his time.
Mr. ELLISON. With the understanding that the gentleman will get the
balance of the time remaining of
[[Page H541]]
my hour, then I will yield the floor back.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman yield back his time?
Mr. ELLISON. I have a parliamentary inquiry.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his inquiry.
Mr. ELLISON. My inquiry is, if I yield back, does the gentleman from
Colorado get the balance of the time I have remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Colorado may serve as the
designee of the minority leader for the remainder of the hour.
Mr. ELLISON. And further inquiry, are there 25 minutes left?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The minority hour has 24 minutes remaining.
Mr. ELLISON. In that case, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________