[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 164 (Wednesday, September 22, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H4869]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    REBUILDING OF AMERICA BEGINS NOW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Brendan F. Boyle) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BRENDAN F. BOYLE of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, we feel the wind 
of history at our back this week and next. This has been a long time 
coming. Not since the mid-1960s have we had such an opportunity to do 
so many big, bold, and historic things as we have in front of us right 
now; things like paid family leave; modernizing and rebuilding our K-12 
public schools, tuition-free community college, universal pre-K; and 
injecting the single biggest investment in our infrastructure in our 
Nation's history, roads, bridges, rail, replacing water and sewer lines 
that have been there for over a century, taking out old gas lines that 
are dangerous, leaded pipes that have literally cost lives.
  This is all right in front of us right now, and here in the House, it 
hangs by perhaps a few votes. Just one or two votes may make the 
critical difference.
  Every single one of these measures I mentioned is popular, every 
single one. And it is not just Democrats. Sixty-six percent of 
Americans support the package I just described. That includes 61 
percent of Independents, and even 39 percent of Republicans.

  The American people get it. They recognize that we must rebuild 
America, rebuild our infrastructure in terms of our physical 
infrastructure and the infrastructure of our society.
  Now, some might ask, understandably, okay, all these things sound 
great, but how are you going to pay for it?
  Well, in the Ways and Means Committee, we just put our money where 
our mouth is. We just put up vote after vote to raise taxes on the 
richest one-tenth of 1 percent; to raise the revenue necessary to fund 
every single one of the priorities that I just described.
  I understand there are those who want to keep things as they are; who 
don't believe we should invest in our infrastructure; don't believe we 
should have paid family leave, even though the rest of the 
industrialized world has it and has for decades; don't believe that we 
should have funding for child care.
  They want to keep the system the way it is. They like the idea that 
there was just a $2 trillion tax cut under the previous administration, 
none of it paid for and, according to CBO, 83 percent of it going to 
the richest 1 percent. They are fine with that.
  But in terms of reforming our tax system to make the richest 
Americans pay their fair share and to use that money to invest in the 
American people, they are opposed to that.
  Well, I proudly support it. This will be one of the best votes I cast 
in my career. This is an exciting, truly transformative time in our 
Nation's history. It is now incumbent upon all of us in the House, all 
of us in the Senate, to seize this moment. The rebuilding of America 
begins now.

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