[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 70 (Tuesday, April 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2507-S2509]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Our Shared Values

  Ms. DUCKWORTH. Mr. President, I thank my friend and mentor, a great 
Illinoisan, Senator Durbin for being here today. I wouldn't be here 
without his guidance and friendship over the years.
  It is truly an honor to stand at this desk, which was once held by 
another great Illinoisan by the name of Barack Obama, delivering my 
maiden speech from the floor of the U.S. Senate to the people of 
Illinois, the same State that has been represented in Washington by 
other impressive leaders like Paul Simon and Abraham Lincoln. And it is 
an honor to address the people of the United States of America, the 
greatest Nation in the world.
  Though we have occasionally made choices as a society that do not 
reflect our best selves, we are today the greatest Nation on Earth 
because of the founding ideals that have anchored our Nation and 
because of the shared values that have guided the development and 
strength of our economy and our people--values like treating each other 
equally, showing strength and resilience in the face of hardship, and 
embracing the diversity that makes us who we are. They are shared 
values that have helped us to strive toward that more perfect Union the 
Constitution's Framers envisioned, a more perfect Union that offers 
everyone a chance to reach his or her potential, a more perfect Union 
that will not give up on its people, and a more perfect Union whose 
people don't give up on themselves either.
  We face a great deal of challenges and threats, threats I know well, 
but we cannot allow today's hardships to change who we are as a people, 
to tear down the pillars that make this Nation great. Falling victim to 
fear and demagoguery will only ensure a weaker America for our 
children, and that is simply not the future I want for my Abigail.
  When we, as a society, think about the future we want for all of our 
children, I think it is important for us to remember how we got here. 
Our Nation wasn't founded as the dominant global economic and military 
force that it is today. We were not founded as the leader of the free 
world; our people built that. Americans understood that when we invest 
in ourselves, the fabric that holds our country together only grows 
stronger. A scrappy gang of patriots in the American Revolution--my own 
family included--won us our liberty, which we used to push for greater 
civil and human rights and to make investments in agricultural and 
educational systems that sparked our economy, allowing us to strengthen 
our military into the greatest fighting force the world has ever seen.
  Success, however, was never guaranteed. From our founding, the United 
States of America was forged through fierce debates and stark 
divisions. Slavery led to bloodshed across the country, including in 
the Senate Chamber, and culminated in brothers killing brothers during 
our Civil War. Yet our Union made it through our greatest challenges 
and emerged even stronger. We emerged a more perfect Union.
  Our strength has been on display outside of our military as well: 
When heroes like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman risked 
everything to help bring an end to slavery; when Martin Luther King, 
Jr., had a dream; when the children of the Little Rock Nine braved 
harassment and abuse to bring an end to segregated schools and ensure 
educational opportunity for all; and when the backbreaking work of 
Asian and American laborers united our Nation from sea to shining sea 
with the completion of the transcontinental railroad.
  America catalyzed the industrial revolution for the globe. We helped 
rescue the global community from fascism during World War II. We 
promoted civil and human rights around the globe. We explored space, 
launched the internet revolution, helped feed the world, built a world-
class infrastructure network, developed a gold standard education 
system, and grew the strongest economy ever seen.
  We were able to win World War II not because of the brave troops in 
our Armed Forces alone but also because our Nation's manufacturers and 
steel mills were able to produce the tanks and planes and firearms and 
other tools we needed to defeat the Nazis. We were able to build those 
weapons, launch the internet revolution, and send a man to the Moon 
only because we had a well-educated workforce made of people from all 
around the globe, all of whom had an opportunity to attend world-class 
colleges and universities right here in the United States, universities 
we spent generations strengthening.
  Our economy was able to grow to its current strength not only because 
of that well-educated workforce and those who came from distant lands 
but also all who came and stayed to contribute to our society. It was 
also able to grow because we had invested heavily in infrastructure and 
built an interstate system and air and rail networks that enabled our 
farmers, ranchers, and

[[Page S2508]]

other producers to get their goods to market inside and outside our 
country's borders.
  We were able to feed the world not only because of our strong 
agricultural sector and infrastructure alone but also because of the 
scientific advances supported by those educational institutions that 
helped increase farm production and yields.
  Throughout our history, we pushed to expand human and civil rights 
from the abolitionists to the suffragettes, learning from people like 
the Tuskegee Airmen, the Selma marchers, and the LGBTQ leaders today 
that being inclusive and enabling people to reach their full potential 
only strengthens the American core. We did all of these things as a 
result of our shared values, and we have reaped their rewards for 
generations.
  We have seen our Nation's strength in our prouder moments, as when 
America chose to go to the Moon--not because it was easy but, in 
President Kennedy's words, because it was hard.
  We have seen our strength in tragedy, reuniting under a common cause 
in the rubble of the Pentagon and Ground Zero on 9/11.
  We might get knocked down, but the America that I know, the America 
that I fought for and love, does not give up. That is not a Democratic 
principle or a Republican principle; it is simply the American way.
  America's greatness has never depended on the strength of any 
individual person, but on all of us working together toward a common 
goal. When we have failed to stay true to our core values, when we deny 
another person our Nation's promise of opportunity, our Nation's 
strength suffers. When a child can't access the tools to succeed in 
school, when a woman can't afford basic healthcare, when refugees 
fleeing terror see the door slammed shut in their face, when we deny 
civil rights on the basis of skin color or sexual orientation or 
religion, and when a working family can't put food on the table, our 
whole Nation suffers. At the end of the day, America's greatness 
depends on each of us remaining true to the common values of our 
Nation.
  But we have lost sight of those values. The Nation that built an 
interstate highway system, that was a refuge for immigrants who became 
the foundation of our economy, this Nation that pushed humanity to new 
heights, first with planes and helicopters and then into space, that 
same Nation seems to have forgotten how to invest in itself.
  Our country that ushered in the era of aviation is now home to aging 
airports that struggle to compete with their global competitors. Our 
country that took on the Herculean task of reversing the flow of the 
Chicago River to protect the city's drinking water can no longer muster 
the resources to modernize public water systems to prevent our children 
from being poisoned by lead. Our country that built the greatest 
military the world has ever seen, sending a signal that we will not 
cower in front of anyone, now finds itself with leaders who believe in 
the misguided notion that it is simply better to hide behind walls than 
to help lead with strength.
  Make no mistake, America has not lost her greatness. Our Nation 
remains the dominant force on the global stage. But if we don't act, if 
we don't invest in ourselves, our adversaries are positioned to 
overtake us.

  Though some may try to convince us the path forward is less 
engagement with the world, less acceptance of others, and less 
investment in ourselves, I know the path forward for our country cannot 
include--does not include--turning our backs on the shared values that 
built this Nation.
  Perhaps more than any other State, Illinois knows this. We represent 
all the strengths of our Nation, from our dynamic cities to our strong 
rural and industrial communities and everything in between. We are the 
realization of the values that have created that robust American 
economy, bolstered by a strong agricultural community and manufacturing 
sector, both of which innovate and strengthen our Nation with the help 
of wise public policy and investments.
  Those investments enabled Illinois steelworkers to help us develop 
our farmland, build our cities, and secure our military strength. 
American manufacturing built this Nation, but too many of the steel 
mills we relied on to win World War II have been idled or shuttered 
completely.
  After years of illegal trade practices, like dumping of cheap foreign 
products and currency manipulation by our competitors, our 
manufacturing base has been weakened. That hurts not only American jobs 
but also our Nation's military strength as well as the resilience of 
our entire economy. We simply need to do a better job of keeping 
manufacturing jobs within our borders, and we need to make the 
investments necessary to ensure that we have a workforce trained for 
our 21st century jobs.
  We can do better by Illinois' tens of thousands of farmers as well. 
These farmers, ranchers, and agricultural workers form the basis of our 
Nation. They all wake up with a purpose, each farm feeding nearly 170 
people every year while supporting an industry that is developing 
cutting-edge biofuels and other technologies.
  I have seen firsthand the painful price our Nation pays because of 
our overreliance on oil imported from our competitors. The simple fact 
is that American farmers are helping us improve our national security. 
They are helping to strengthen our Armed Forces and our entire country 
every day. They are already helping produce billions of gallons of 
clean fuel for our cars, our factories, and our military, and every 
single one of those gallons brings us closer to energy independence.
  We cannot afford to leave our agricultural sector behind. We should 
be working to preserve policies like the Renewable Fuel Standard that 
support agricultural jobs and to open new markets, like Cuba, for their 
goods.
  For generations, our manufacturers and agricultural sectors have 
relied on a strong infrastructure network, including roads, bridges, 
waterways, railways, and air transportation, to get their goods to 
market, both domestically and internationally. Illinois has often led 
the way. We built the Nation's first elevated electric rail line in the 
1800s. But today, far too much of that infrastructure is crumbling. It 
is in dire need of the investments our society once understood the need 
for. The down payments previous generations made paid dividends to us 
all in the form of increased tourism, lower costs, more efficient 
shipments, easier travel, and so many other benefits.
  If we fail to continue the investments past generations have made, we 
risk falling behind our global competitors, hurting not only our 
tourism industry but also our manufacturers and our hard-working 
ranchers, farmers, and producers who will find it harder and more 
expensive to get their products to market.
  If we choose to disregard our infrastructure much longer, we simply 
will not be able to compete in the 21st century global economy. 
Improving our infrastructure isn't a partisan issue. It is common 
sense. It is an economic priority, a defense priority, and a national 
security imperative. This is something we can all work on together.
  I am proud to say that the first bill I proposed after arriving here 
in the Senate passed unanimously with bipartisan support. It will cut 
redtape and help streamline efforts to modernize our infrastructure and 
allow our economy to continue growing for generations to come.
  That is also true of supporting our schools, colleges, and 
universities. We have developed global gold standards for education 
that enable our manufacturers, agricultural workers, engineers, and 
brilliant Americans all across every sector to push our economy 
further.
  There is a reason that wealthy elites across the globe--including 
world leaders from foreign lands--still send their children to be 
educated on our shores, in world class institutions like the University 
of Illinois and the University of Chicago. Our education system is 
widely recognized as the best in the world. Our teachers and 
institutions continue to produce some of the best trained and most 
skilled professionals in every field imaginable--both American and 
international students. That is a good thing.
  But more and more Americans are no longer able to access those same 
educational opportunities. We have priced too many of our own children 
out of the market for those colleges and universities that we have 
developed to ensure our Nation's workforce remains

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more skilled than our competitors, or we have saddled them with 
crippling debt. We are failing to make the necessary investments in K-
12 public institutions that, regardless of ZIP Code, should be 
preparing every single one of our children to lead our country into the 
future.
  Quality primary education should not be a privilege only for the 
wealthy, and it should not depend on rolling the dice on receiving a 
voucher. In the greatest and wealthiest Nation in the world, a quality 
education should be a right for every single American child. Our 
Nation's promise of opportunity should be a reality for every child in 
America, not just for those whose parents can afford it. We already 
have some of the world's greatest teachers, the brightest students, and 
the best facilities within our own borders. All we have to do is ensure 
they have the resources they need to succeed. That means our kids 
should not have to worry about going to school hungry or getting the 
help they need after school or being able to pay for college when they 
graduate high school.

  That is why I focus on commonsense solutions to increase access to 
educational opportunity, whether by helping to lead the charge to make 
college more affordable or doing well to ensure the education we are 
providing people actually helps them find good-paying jobs when they 
graduate.
  In that vein, I am also disheartened by the recent erosion of civil 
rights protections in our Nation. The calls for bigger walls and closed 
doors are not only bad, costly policies, they run counter to our 
society's shared value for inclusion over exclusion. Too many of us 
seem to forget the immigrant roots within our own families. If we lose 
sight of our Nation's founding principles, as some in Washington would 
like us to do, we will lose out on the innovations we have seen from 
immigrants and immigrant families.
  If we had rejected immigrants years ago, Apple Computers might never 
have been founded by the son of a Syrian man. I worry that at a time 
when we still have so much work to do to make our Union more perfect 
and to provide truly equal rights for all, under the current 
administration we are at risk of backtracking on hard-fought progress 
made by civil rights leaders who bled and even died for the rights of 
all Americans, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual 
orientation, income or ZIP Code to have the right to vote, to have 
equal protection under the law, to have basic worker protections, and 
for the everyday rights and privileges so many of us take for granted. 
We still have so much progress left to make if we want the American 
dream to be accessible to all Americans--equal pay for equal work, a 
criminal justice system that truly provides justice for all, nationwide 
leave policies that enable anyone to take time to care for a sick 
family member or to start a family, a society that is accessible for 
all disabled Americans and truly equal for all LGBTQ Americans.
  I worry that we are at risk of going backward instead of forward. 
Failing to continue our Nation's inclusive nature weakens our global 
standing as well as the rest of the world begins to look elsewhere for 
moral leadership. That would be a failure for us and a weakening of our 
Nation that I will fight to prevent.
  Of course, I also know how much our military has contributed to our 
Nation's greatness throughout our history. We must do a better job of 
recognizing these contributions, not just by purchasing equipment and 
technology, though what our skilled workforce has done is the envy of 
the world, but also by ensuring that we recognize and respect the 
sacrifices made by our troops, our military families, and our veterans. 
Servicemembers embody our values of shared sacrifice and perseverance, 
of loyalty and selfless service, and they each make great sacrifices to 
protect us.
  They deserve from their leaders in Washington a clear sense of 
mission and strategy, and they deserve to know we fully support them. 
So, yes, when the drums of war are beating in the White House or in 
Congress, you can bet I am going to be right here on the floor of the 
Senate, asking tough questions and making sure our leaders in 
Washington, especially those who have never worn the uniform, truly 
consider the true costs of war--not just in dollars and cents but in 
human lives--in the commitments we are making on behalf of the Nation. 
I will also be here to remind my colleagues that we are all dishonored 
when any veteran is forced to lay their head down to sleep on the same 
streets they defended. We must end veterans homelessness. When our 
troops come home, I will be working to see that the veterans receive 
the care and support they earned for the sacrifices they have made.
  Each of these components of our society contribute to what has made 
our country great--our military, our values, our infrastructure, our 
agriculture, our manufacturers, and our world-class educational system. 
If we fall prey to our fears, to our worst demons, and allow any of 
these pillars to fall, we will lose our opportunity to remain the 
leader of the world. We can rebuild the foundation of our Nation's 
strength and revamp it for the 21st century, but we can't simply rest 
on our past successes and act like our greatness is guaranteed forever. 
It isn't. It will take work.
  This is deeply personal for me. I wouldn't be here today without the 
public education that enabled me to serve in our military for more than 
two decades and allowed me to give back to my Nation, both in and out 
of uniform.
  Our Nation would not be as strong as it is today without the millions 
of individuals who sacrificed to build it. Our Nation's strength--what 
truly makes America great--is rooted firmly in our shared sense of 
sacrifice. It comes from our single parents working multiple jobs just 
to make sure our kids don't go to school hungry; it comes from the 
farmer in Illinois waking long before dawn and working long after dusk 
to help power and feed our Nation; it comes from an immigrant family 
willing to put everything on the line to give their kids a chance at a 
better life than their own; it comes from the hard work and compassion, 
the sacrifice that Americans serving in our country in and out of the 
military demonstrate every single day.
  We can all do a better job of remembering the shared values that have 
helped to build this Nation, but I want to make one thing clear: 
America is already great. We shouldn't let anyone tell us otherwise.
  We know we still have a lot of work to do as a country, but let us 
not lose sight of the core values that make our improbable Union 
possible. We are still the greatest Nation on the face of the Earth, 
and if anyone has the capacity to overcome the challenges of today, it 
is this Nation. It is the American people.
  I thank my colleagues for joining me today for my maiden speech.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.