[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 10439-10440]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       POVERTY CRISIS IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. LEE. Last year, and I guess also nearly 2 years ago, and really 
for many of our lives, we have known that there is a poverty crisis in 
America, which is growing. I think what we saw after the terrible 
hurricanes was that this gap, of course, is widening between the haves 
and the have-nots, and it is not only in the gulf coast region, it is 
throughout our country.
  While the hurricanes, especially Hurricane Katrina, exposed the 
disparity for all to see, the fact is, poverty is not just isolated to 
the gulf coast; it does exist throughout our Nation.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today to talk about the fact and to remind the 
country that our land really should be a land of opportunity, but the 
sad reality is that income inequality continues to grow, and more 
people are falling into poverty than getting ahead. We are heading in 
the wrong direction, and we need a national commitment to address the 
growing poverty crisis in the Nation. That is why this week's release 
of a report by the Center for American Progress entitled, ``From 
Poverty to Prosperity'', a national strategy to cut poverty in half, 
this is a significant contribution to the efforts of antipoverty 
activists, and it is a valuable roadmap for concerned lawmakers, like 
all of us are.
  The report found that not only is poverty in the United States bad, 
it's getting worse. Just consider the fact that over 37 million 
Americans, more than the population of my home State, are in poverty, 
and the number has grown by 5 million since the Bush administration 
took office. One in eight Americans now live in poverty. Poverty in the 
United States is far higher than in many other developed nations, and 
poverty and inequality, of course, here is at an all-time high.
  The richest 1 percent of Americans in 2005 held the largest share of 
the Nation's income since 1929, and at the same time, the poorest 20 
percent held only 3.4 percent of the Nation's income.
  The report's recommendations are based on four principles: promoting 
decent work, promoting opportunity for all; ensuring economic security; 
and helping people build wealth. Based on these principles, the report 
offered 12 steps, which include raising the minimum wage and indexing 
it to inflation, expanding the earned income and children's tax 
credits, promoting unionization by making it easier for employees to 
vote to join a union, offering child care assistance for low-income 
families, guaranteeing early education for all, and providing 2 million 
people with opportunity housing vouchers.

[[Page 10440]]

  Madam Speaker, you may have noticed that the new Democratic Congress 
has taken steps toward enacting these recommendations. Additionally, 
many of my colleagues have been advocating for related poverty 
alleviation issues and ideas and strategies through the Out-of-Poverty 
Caucus that I founded, along with my colleagues, Congressman John 
Conyers, Congressman Butterfield, Congressman Mike Honda, and 
Congressman Joe Baca. 
  In the same vein, I have also introduced a comprehensive package of 
poverty elimination legislation. These three bills are designed to 
create leadership, accountability, and the national reevaluation of our 
economic priorities and developing policies to eliminate poverty in our 
Nation.
  The first bill, H. Con. Res 19, calls on President Bush to submit to 
Congress a plan, this is just a plan, mind you, to eradicate poverty by 
2015.
  The second bill, H. Con. Res 10, requires accountability from 
Congress by requiring the Congressional Budget Office to report the 
poverty impact of legislation pending before Congress similar to 
environmental impact statements.
  The final bill, H.R. 352, demands a reevaluation of our priorities by 
rolling back tax cuts for the wealthiest 5 percent and dedicating the 
funds to poverty elimination programs.
  Madam Speaker, fighting poverty really isn't a mystery, it's just not 
a priority for us, and it's time to make it a national priority. It 
just requires us to make a commitment to the goal of eliminating 
poverty and then dedicate the resources to do that.
  So I urge my colleagues to join me in this important fight by reading 
the report, first of all, and cosponsoring these bills and joining the 
Out-of-Poverty Caucus.

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