[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 27 (Wednesday, February 15, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H1238-H1240]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AMERICA 2.0
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
Ryan) for 30 minutes.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity. I just
want to say thank you to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for her
great words and Congressman Crowley, who was here a little bit earlier,
for his good words as well.
I am starting tonight a segment that I am calling America 2.0. I
think we are in the midst of, obviously, some chaos in the United
States, in Washington, D.C., and in so many communities across the
country that feel we are disoriented with our politics, disconnected
from our politics, and we are disoriented around the idea of what is
happening in our economy. Globalization, automation, all of these
things have dramatically affected the American economy and American
wages and standard of living.
We have actually seen, Mr. Speaker, over the course of the last 20
years, a huge decline, a sucking out of middle class wages that have
gone primarily to the top 1 percent. Now, I am not here to bash rich
people. I am not here to make any enemies, but I think it is important
and instructive for us to look at where we were and where we are now.
If you look at where we were in 1980, of all the income growth in the
Nation in 1980, 70 percent of all income growth went to the bottom 90
percent of Americans. So we had some significant income growth, and 70
percent of it went to the bottom 90 percent, 30 percent went to the top
10 percent. The wealthy were getting more, but the middle class, the
upper middle class and the lower middle class, the bottom 90 percent
saw 70 percent of the gains.
Fast forward from the early 1990s until just recently just a few
years back, the bottom 90 percent, Mr. Speaker, got zero percent of the
income growth that happened in the United States--zero. So the economy
in 1980, for average families in Youngstown, Ohio, or Struthers, Ohio,
or Akron, Ohio, saw that hard work paid off; that if you worked hard,
you played by the rules, you did what you were supposed to do, and if
you were in the bottom 90 percent, you saw some income gains. Fair
enough.
Where the anxiety has come in now is that people are working harder,
they are working longer hours, and they are not seeing any growth in
their incomes. We have teachers, for example, in the Youngstown City
Schools who have not seen a cost-of-living raise in 9 years--9 years.
Police and fire, people who cut hair, people who are waitresses, people
who take showers after work instead of before work, those people aren't
getting ahead, and the cost of everything is going up. So that is where
we are, erosion of our manufacturing base and globalization and
automation.
I was just looking at an article earlier about a new Amazon project--
I
[[Page H1239]]
think it is called Amazon Go--where you can actually go into a grocery
store--how cool is this? You can actually go into a grocery store and
shop and pick out whatever it is that you want at the grocery store and
walk out. Everything gets rung up, scans and all the rest, and you get
billed, and you pay your bill.
Now, here we are in 2017, that is pretty cool stuff. The downside of
that is, there are 2.7 million workers who work at grocery stores.
Where I come from, some of those grocery stores are actually unionized
where the person at the counter actually makes a pretty good wage and
has a pension and has a decent healthcare plan, standing on their feet
all day long, probably not the easiest line of work to be in, but
people go there and they work hard. Those jobs are going to be gone.
We hear all this technology about driverless cars and driverless
trucks. Youngstown is not too far from Pittsburgh, and Ford just
committed a billion dollars to Pittsburgh to advance driverless
vehicles. Uber is in Pittsburgh talking about investing in the research
and development for driverless vehicles. It is going to be great. The
downside is, in about 25, 26, 27 States, the number one job is driving
a truck. It is driving a truck. Pretty cool that my son, who is going
to be 3 in June, may never have to drive a car. As a parent who also
has a 13- and 14-year-old at home and talking about when they are going
to get the keys to the car, I kind of like the idea of a driverless
car. I kind of like that. At that point, it would be pretty safe.
But we have the downside to that, which is the loss of all of these
jobs. So what we need to do as a country, as a dynamic country, as a
wealthy country, as a creative country is we need to figure out what is
America 2.0 because this isn't your dad's or your grandfather's
America. This isn't going to be your grandmother's America or even your
mother's America.
Things are accelerating so quickly that as a legislative body that
was designed to be slow, and those of us operating in a political
system that was designed to slow things down, we didn't want a
concentration of power where a king ruled. We took that, and we divided
the power up into a legislative branch, and then divided that up
between the House and the Senate and the executive branch. The
executive branch has some powers, and they have got to figure out how
to work with each other. If they have got a problem, we have got a
judicial branch that is going to reference the Constitution of the
country to make sure that everything that is going on is abiding by the
basic values on which we started the country. Pretty cool system,
elections every 2 years, replenish the ideas in the legislative branch,
and every 4 years in the executive branch, so we can try to get some
new ideas. But the system was designed to be slow.
So here we are, working within a system that is designed to be slow
with an economy that is going 150 miles an hour down the highway, which
means the legislators and the President and the Governors and the
people elected to office, we better get our act together. We better
figure out how to make things work because that is what we owe our
constituents. That is what we owe that family who, for 30 years, hasn't
seen a raise. You know what? They want to send their kid to college.
{time} 2000
Do you know what? They want to have a job, they want to have a
pension, they want to have a secure retirement, and they want their kid
to have more opportunity than they had. They are not going to complain,
they are not going to moan, they are going to put their boots on, and
they are going to go to work. It is our job to help create an
environment where they can go and take advantage of those
opportunities.
God helps those that help themselves. You have got to go to work and
you have got to put the time in. It is not going to be easy, especially
in this economy. It is going to be tough. It seems like it is going to
get harder.
But with all of this automation coming down the pike, what are we
going to do as a country with all of these people in my district that
are 50-year-old men who used to work in a steel mill, now it is closed,
or used to work in an auto plant that used to have 16,000 people
working there and now it is down to 3,000, or the supplier to that auto
plant that used to have 13,000 people and now it is 1?
So we can say, yeah, pull yourself up by your boot straps and work
hard. The jobs aren't there. They are not there anymore.
So what are we going to do here in 2017? How are we going to get our
President with his good brain that he has to sit down with us and
figure out what we are going to do? So America 2.0 is: What is the next
version of this great country, what is the next version, to where my
grandfather could be a steelworker and a couple of generations later
his grandkids are doctors, lawyers, and Congressmen?
That is what is important about these jobs we have. That is why they
shouldn't be taken lightly. That is why instead of tweeting about some
show or some family business, you should be focused like a laser beam
on how we fix these problems. If you are not, you are not doing what
you said you were going to do.
America 2.0 is a series of ideas. I will share a few tonight and a
few over time on what I think we need to do. We have a near-term
problem, mid-term, and long-term, some of what I mentioned.
The near-term problem is wages, jobs, and workforce participation.
Workforce participation rates are at 63 percent. They are still too
low. People aren't just employed, they are underemployed. They are
making less today than they were before the great crash in 2008, 2009,
and 2010.
So what are we going to do? I know we have talked a lot about we are
going to retrain. It is going to be great. We are going to get you this
job, and you are going to be trained up and ready to take it.
What job?
We need to create jobs. And it just so happens we need to rebuild the
country. So let's make the investment to put people back to work by
rebuilding the country. We need waterlines. We need new sewer lines. We
have lead in our pipes that people are drinking. We have old
dilapidated homes all over older communities that need to be taken
down. Even if we are going to put up just parks and green space, take
those down. Those are all jobs that could be created. We need roads and
new bridges. Most bridges are deficient in the United States. A good
many of them need to be rebuilt. We need steel in those bridges, and we
need concrete.
So let's do a big jobs bill where we rebuild the country. I am not
making stuff up. We have got to do this. Let's put Buy American
provisions in there so we put the American steelworker back to work,
and the people that work at the concrete plants in America get the
money, get the contract.
Those private businesses that do the roads and bridges and all of the
rest, let's make sure it is Davis-Bacon, it is a prevailing wage, so
that our friends who work so hard and are so skilled in the unions are
able to get that work because they have a good pension, a good wage, a
good retirement plan, good healthcare benefits, and they are the most
skilled workers in the country. Let's make sure they get the work so we
are actually lifting people up; and get people in these unions so that
more people can earn a good wage, have a secure retirement and a little
bit less anxiety.
So roads, bridges, pipes, airports, ports on the ocean, rebuild them.
This is nobody's fault. The country is getting older. A lot of this
stuff was done 50, 60, 70 years ago. It is time to reinvest. It is time
to put a new roof on the house. We will put people back to work.
For every $1 billion we spend on infrastructure, we put about 27,000
people to work. So if we have a $1 trillion infrastructure plan and we
ask the wealthiest people in the country--maybe people in the capital
markets who have seen a significant amount of wage growth, we ask them
to help us pay for it so we don't have to borrow the money and put it
on the backs of our kids.
So we are putting people back to work, we are doing what needs to be
done, we are using American steel and American concrete and American
union workers and having more people join the union so more people can
have a secure living, and we are creating jobs. That is step one.
What also needs to be included in this is: How are we setting
ourselves up for success in the next 10, 20, or 30
[[Page H1240]]
years? How are our kids going to be able to operate in this bridge we
are creating to this new economy?
One of the things we need to do is we need to wire the country. We
need to have the most sophisticated, broadband capabilities in every
corner of the country so that every community can participate in the
new economy that is driven by a digital world.
We have companies, for example, in Youngstown, where we don't have a
whole lot of broadband in Youngstown. We don't have a whole lot of
penetration for broadband in Youngstown. We have companies that are
very sophisticated that try to get defense work or work with defense
contractors that actually are put at a disadvantage because they don't,
and we don't, have the broadband capability for them to be able to
download the kind of files they need to be able to download in order to
get the contracts they need to do the advanced manufacturing work. So
not having broadband in your community would be like not having a road
going in and out of your community, or waterlines going in and out of
your community 50, 60, 70 years ago.
Do you want to start a factory and create jobs? How are you going to
get the raw materials in and the product out if you don't have a road?
The same concept with broadband in a 2017, 2027, 2037, 2047 economy. So
this is a great investment.
The World Bank has studied this. They have said that every 10
percentage-point increase in broadband penetration equals 1.2 percent
growth in your GDP. So you are making these investments and you are
growing your economy at the same time.
I think we go to these coal miners who have been put out of work, we
go to the steelworkers who have been put out of work, we go to the
autoworkers who have been put out of work through the
deindustrialization, through globalization and automation, and we say:
You are hired. You are going to get on-the-job training. This isn't
going to be: We are going to train you for some job that may or may not
come. You are hired in America 2.0. You are going to work. You are
going to lay broadband.
We need to upgrade our energy grids. We need smart grids that are
more efficient, more secure, and less prone to terrorist attacks--more
efficient, can communicate with the end user better so you know how
much money you are spending when you wash your clothes. And you may go
off hour so you can wash them at a different time and save a little
money on your energy bill, money in your pocket because we make these
investments.
You are going to work now on the smart grid. You are hired. And this
country, as wealthy as we are, we are going to pay for it. We are going
to build it, and we are going to change the trajectory of our country,
and we are going to be ready to play ball in the economy.
So these workers that we are hiring that may be 50 or 55 years old,
they don't know how they are going to get to retirement, they are
hired. They are hired. And this is no make-work job because we feel bad
for you. This is a job we need you to have in order for you to change
the trajectory of our country for your kids and for your grandkids. If
we don't make these investments, if we don't make this happen, America
is going to be bringing up the rear.
We have got a great dynamic economy still, even with the stagnation
that we have. We have just got to make a few key investments and not
get caught up in this polarized political discussion that is getting us
nowhere. Nobody in this Chamber suffers. Everybody in this Chamber
draws a paycheck. They have got a job.
It is the family in Youngstown, it is the family in Gary, Indiana, it
is the family in Milwaukee that suffers because we have failed to make
the basic investments that this country has always made--always: the
interstate highway, the intercontinental railroad, land grant colleges,
NASA, the space program. Look at all of the technologies that spun out
of NASA--in health, telecommunications, energy--because we said, ``We
are going to the Moon''; and it was as much about going to the Moon and
about spinning off new technologies and saying, ``We can figure out how
to go to the Moon'' because we were committed, as a country, to do
great things.
And now we are committed to tweeting about some nonsensical show that
is on TV or some backhanded comment that somebody gives. There is too
much at stake. Every time we do that, we fall further and further and
further behind.
One other piece of America 2.0, and the final piece or two I will
share tonight, is green energy, resuscitating manufacturing in the
United States. How do we do it?
I know we have discussions here about climate change. Some people say
it is not happening. Some people say it is not man made. It is an
important point to make that 98 percent of scientists who have reviewed
all of the literature on this say it is happening and it is caused by
man. I think that is an important point. But let's set that aside.
How do we help people with their energy bill and how do we
resuscitate manufacturing in the United States? I believe that, if we
move towards a green economy, we will have a renaissance in
manufacturing, and let me tell you why. Because for every windmill that
we put up, there are 8,000 component parts to the windmill: gearshifts,
hydraulics, steel, aluminum, plastics, all kinds of things, bolts.
There is a sidewalk mile of concrete in a windmill.
{time} 2015
These are things we make in this country. These are things we make in
northeast Ohio. Talk to Timken; talk to Parker Hannifin; talk to some
of these energy companies that make solar panels. That stuff needs
manufacturing. And we can do it here in the United States with the
smart energy grid, and broadband, and use renewable energy to increase
our manufacturing base, reduce our carbon footprint in our country and
around the world, export the technologies and the stuff that we make,
and put people back to work.
What is the matter with this? What is wrong with this picture?
We have a country now that is more reliable on renewable energy, that
is increasing our manufacturing base, that is putting people back to
work.
To me, that makes a lot of sense. So these families that are
struggling--because we will be making a heck of a lot more solar panels
than we are now--we can start getting these solar panels up on people's
homes and reducing their energy cost. So if we do the smart grids and
we do the solar panels, and we start reducing people's energy costs in
their homes, you are putting money in their pocket, you are starting to
close that gap a little bit, you are starting to reduce that anxiety a
little bit, and you are starting to get us into new technologies and
new ideas that are going to lead to growth.
So let's build out the country. Let's build out our roads, bridges,
ports, and airports. Let's extend broadband to every corner of the
country and hire Americans to go do this work. Let's redo our grid and
extend it so that we can get this renewable energy all across the
country; put people to work doing that; resuscitate our manufacturing
base; and change the trajectory of our country so that our kids are
wired, prepared, and living in a country that is ready to lead the
world again in some of the great challenges that face us.
That is the outline of America 2.0. In my mind, that is the direction
we need to go in. It starts, Mr. Speaker, by getting people back to
work, by us getting focused and being disciplined, and talking about
the things and figuring out how to work out the deals that need to be
worked out here in order to help those people back home.
That is our obligation because the generations before us--whether it
was the Intercontinental Railroad, or the social justice movement, or
the equality movement, or the interstate highway, or the land-grant
colleges, or NASA--gave us a pretty good world to grow up in. And now
it is our obligation to take this to the next level and create the next
version of America.
Create America 2.0.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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