[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 23891]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES AND THE STRUGGLES THAT THEY FACE

  (Mr. EMANUEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. EMANUEL. Madam Speaker, in the past week, we negotiated what the 
financial markets needed and what the public market wanted, taxpayer 
protections. This is only the first step.
  While we address the balance sheets of banks, the next step must now 
address the checkbooks for middle class families and the struggles that 
they face. The middle class today is working harder, earning less, and 
paying more. In the last 7 years, median household income has dropped 
by $1,200, and costs for energy, health care, as well as college 
education, have gone up $4,800.
  The middle class is hurting and squeezing. The second economic 
program must put their needs at the heart of what we do, because today 
it is important to have universal access to savings, universal access 
to higher education, a middle class tax cut.
  If you work, you have health care. We must build an energy policy 
that makes this a hybrid economy, an agenda that puts the middle class 
at the heart of its economic strategy. Unlike the last 7 years, we will 
make sure that what we are doing today is successful in the future, 
because we must strengthen the economy while we save and deal with the 
financial markets crisis on this short-term basis.

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