[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 25 (Tuesday, February 11, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H1726-H1727]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FINAL FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Swalwell) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my 
colleagues in, again, calling attention to our continued war on 
poverty, and I thank my colleague and neighbor in California, 
Congresswoman Barbara Lee, for leading this effort.
  This war is, however, but the latest chapter in a larger struggle 
that goes all the way back to the founding of our country. When we 
declared our independence in 1776, Thomas Jefferson helped define the 
purpose and the mission of this new country with his timeless words in 
that Declaration of Independence. He wrote:

       We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are 
     created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
     certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, 
     liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  They endeavored on what was called at the time a freedom experiment. 
It

[[Page H1727]]

was this perfect idea that no longer should this British nobility 
system prevail where your destiny was often charted for you before you 
were even born based on where you were born or to whom you were born 
to. It was the idea that you should be able to decide your own 
independence, chart your own destiny.
  It was a perfect idea carried out by imperfect men. It wasn't 
extended to African Americans. It wasn't extended to women. Certain 
religious sects were left out. So we fought a civil war, ended slavery. 
We went through the suffragist movement, and women were given the right 
to vote. Eventually, entire classes of people--Catholics, the poor, and 
others who had been shut out--were now brought into American 
opportunity.
  Today, when I think about what are some of the final frontiers of 
freedom that have not yet been expanded, I think back to President 
Johnson. We are very grateful for President Johnson's declaration of 
the war on poverty. Fifty years ago, he stated that we are in a war on 
poverty, and we must fight for civil rights, and he signed legislation 
that marked the beginning of the end of the Jim Crow era. He also 
recognized it was time to give the poor a real chance to pursue their 
happiness.
  He hearkened back, just as I did, to our Nation's beginnings. 
President Johnson said that our Founders made a covenant with this new 
land and that it was conceived in justice. In his words, this ``justice 
was the promise that all who made the journey would share in the fruits 
of the land.''
  So began a renewed effort in America to fight poverty, a renewed 
effort to give those who are poor the freedom to dream that they could 
be anything they want. We recognized that kids needed to be better 
prepared before they go to school, so we created the Head Start 
program. We recognized the critical importance of health and wellness, 
and so we created Medicare and Medicaid.
  But this freedom to dream has not yet been expanded across America. 
In fact, I see every day that there are still millions of children 
living in poverty, and just like every politician, when I see one of 
these young children in a schoolhouse, I ask them, What do you want to 
be when you grow up? After doing this a number of times, I realized, I 
should really ask them, Are you hungry? Are you cold? Are you safe? 
Because the opportunities around them--the crumbling buildings they are 
trying to learn in, the parents who are working at a minimum wage that 
is not a living wage--do not provide them with the tools that these 
children need to realize their opportunity. This leaves them no 
different than a child born in the 1700s under the British nobility 
system.
  The freedom to dream is no different, and they are no more able to 
dream beyond where they were born or whom they were born to. So our 
goal must be to continue to fight this war on poverty, to give every 
child across every schoolhouse in this country the freedom to dream. 
This means we must raise the minimum wage. We must extend unemployment 
insurance for the long-term unemployed so that they can find a job and 
make sure they can reinforce the skills at home that their children are 
learning in the classroom.
  We will not rest on this issue until I can ask and every Member of 
this Congress can ask a child, What do you want to be when you grow up? 
And that child will be able to say, My country has given me the tools 
to be anything I want.

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