[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6752]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          INVESTING IN AMERICA

  (Ms. SHEA-PORTER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, it's very interesting to me to watch 
people stand there and start talking about the spending of the Federal 
Government over the past few months because the party that was in 
charge for the previous decade--even longer--in Congress and in the 
White House ran up record deficits while the American middle class 
income stayed flat. And yet, I didn't hear them on the floor worried 
about the middle class until just very recently.
  I'm not really sure what they're upset about, except I think they're 
upset that we have decided to invest in ourselves and our country. 
We're going to invest in jobs; we're going to invest in the middle 
class; we're going to invest in infrastructure; we're going to invest 
in education. President Obama said, ``Those who out-teach us will out-
compete us.'' So we're investing in this country. We're investing in 
health care for the children, and investing for the elderly as well.
  We cut taxes for the middle class. Yes, times are very difficult, and 
unfortunately, we are going to have to spend to stimulate, and spend to 
support our people and support our country. But where were they for the 
past decade?

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