[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12595-12599]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


          THE PROGRESSIVE MESSAGE FROM THE PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. ELLISON. Madam Speaker, let me welcome America and the rest of 
the world to the Progressive Caucus Special Order hour. We would like 
to call it ``The Progressive Message.''
  And the Progressive message is something that the Progressive Caucus 
does every week to project a Progressive vision for America; not a 
reactionary vision, not a status quo vision, but a vision of America as 
we believe that it could be, can be, that all men and women are created 
equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, 
among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
  The Progressive Caucus and the Progressive message, tonight, are here 
to come to bring a message to the people about where we are going, 
where we have been. And tonight's topic is ``Why I'm a Progressive.''
  Why I'm a Progressive; here's why. We are going to talk about it 
tonight, and it's going to be good. And to help us get kicked off on 
this subject of why I am a Progressive, I want to yield to the 
gentlelady from the great State of California, who is also one of our 
co-Chairs, Lynn Woolsey.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. I would like to thank the gentleman from Minnesota and 
the gentleman from Colorado for being here, and the gentlewoman is 
going to be here, too.
  Mr. ELLISON. From the great State of Maine.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. She just announced to us the great progressiveness of 
her family and her State. Believe me, I honor you. Thank you for being 
part of this.
  Progressive liberal, liberal Progressive. I mean, how often have we 
been chastised for being liberals? So we changed the word to 
``progressive.'' It means exactly the same thing to me. I am proud if 
people call me a liberal, and I am proud to be a Progressive, because 
it is the same thing.
  And what does that mean to all of us? What does it mean to me? Why do 
I want a label? Why do I care?
  You know what? It's because I can count on Progressives, the people 
that I know to be Progressives, to put out their hand when somebody 
needs help, and that means here, as legislators, to know that our job 
is to work for those who have less, who maybe have come upon hard times 
and need a short-term lift. That's why I supported a welfare system 
that had a floor to it, that would actually help poor people so they 
didn't fall through the net.
  And I am also going to say one more thing about being a Progressive. 
A Progressive, to me, knows that organized

[[Page 12596]]

labor made the difference in this country in bringing a middle class to 
the United States of America, a class where families could work, could 
afford to buy their own home, could send their children to college and 
at the same time pay into their own retirement system so they could be 
independent when they retired, and, oh, what a concept, have health 
care.
  So that's what Progressive values are to me and that's what being a 
Progressive is about, having the values, having the concerns, having 
the empathy for others and knowing that it isn't about us. We work for 
everybody in this country.
  Mr. ELLISON. We have been here on the House floor together before, 
and at that time in the past you shared one of your own personal 
stories about what motivated you toward Progressive politics.

                              {time}  1730

  But leave it to say that the gentlelady from California, our co-
Chair, Lynn Woolsey, came to Progressive politics not just because of 
something she read in the book, but because of the life that she lived 
that helped her understand what the importance of Progressive politics 
are all about.
  I yield back to the gentlelady. Is that right?
  Ms. WOOLSEY. That is absolutely true. But I have to tell you, when I 
was a mom with my three little kids and my husband that eventually 
became mentally unbalanced but was very successful before we were 30 
years old, I was the one in our group of friends that was arguing for 
other people.
  So I have gone through going on welfare and taking care of my three 
children and all that. That just solidified for me. Thank heavens, I 
had that hand up. I certainly think that my job is to make sure others 
get the same advantage as I had.
  But I was fighting for the underdog, for the person who needed help, 
and for the education of all, way back there when I was very 
comfortable.
  Mr. ELLISON. The fact is that many of us come to our own conclusions 
about the need for shared prosperity, and some of us find that that 
helping hand that we would give others, sometimes we need it ourselves.
  But, you know what? It's okay, because Progressive politics has a 
long, strong, proud history in the United States. Part of that history 
has been fighting for peace. And that fight goes on today.
  I want to yield to the gentleman from Colorado, Representative Polis, 
who has some views on that. How does Progressive politics inform you as 
you search for America as a more peaceful partner in the world?
  I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. POLIS. Thank you. I thank my colleague from Minnesota. Just 
today, hours ago in this very Chamber, we had a debate--not enough 
debate--but a debate about American military activities overseas in 
Afghanistan and Iraq, and specifically around Congress's role in 
funding these efforts.
  I was proud to cast my vote against the supplemental. I think we need 
to fundamentally rethink the militaristic aspects of our foreign 
expeditions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  To me, what is a Progressive? It's somebody that questions the status 
quo. Who always asks, What can be better? Somebody who constantly seeks 
something closer for humanity to the state of perfection.
  We know that it is patriotic to question authority rather than 
blindly follow authority. And that's an important distinction both in 
this Chamber as well as with one's friends when we're having 
discussions.
  The most patriotic thing that we can do as Americans is ask ourselves 
these tough questions: Why are we occupying Iraq? Why are we occupying 
Afghanistan? Why are we putting our men and women in harm's way and 
causing many more casualties on the other side as well? What is our 
role ongoing in these countries?
  Of course, Progressives want to protect America. Of course, we're 
concerned with the terrorist threat; of course, we want policies that 
protect our citizens and reduce the risk of terrorism here and abroad. 
But we question the conventional wisdom. Why does attacking a country 
that had nothing to do with 9/11 reduce the risk of terrorism here?
  Mr. Ellison, do you think that that had any effect on terrorism here?
  Mr. ELLISON. The gentleman has yielded to me. The attack on Iraq is 
the single worst decision any President of the United States has ever 
made. And I'm proud to say the Progressives stood up and voiced 
opposition to it. But not only that--Vietnam. Not only that, members of 
the Progressive community have stood up and questioned the very 
military buildup itself and the United States posture in the world.
  You know, I'd like to share with the gentleman, if I may, and the 
gentlelady from Maine, that if you took every military budget in the 
entire world--I'm talking about Palau, Timor-Leste; I'm talking about 
places like Indonesia, Kenya, wherever--and you added them all up and 
you compared them to the United States military budget, ours would 
still be bigger.
  We spend more money on military armaments than every other country in 
the world--and many of our military expenditures go to things that have 
absolutely positively nothing whatsoever to do with fighting terrorism. 
They're for fighting Russians--states that are confined within 
nonporous borders, state actors, not nonstate actors who are fluidly 
moving throughout the world.
  So I toss it back to the gentleman from Colorado and yield to the 
gentleman from Colorado. Have Progressives stood up for peace? What do 
you think?
  Mr. POLIS. I just have one more thing to add. A majority of Americans 
agree that Iraq was a mistake--invading Iraq was a mistake. It shows 
that Progressives were right at the time to question that war. And if 
you recall, as I do, at that time there were many people saying, Oh, 
you're against the war; your un-American; you're unpatriotic. You're 
rolling over to the terrorists.
  That war--and this is the majority consensus now, and you have 
mainstream groups across the ideological spectrum, you even hear this 
from the other side of the aisle, looking back, saying, If we knew what 
we knew today, we should not have invaded the country of Iraq.
  Asking those tough questions, those critical questions, can be 
politically difficult at times. But it makes our country greater and 
it's how Progressive Americans across our country express their 
patriotism, by asking those questions that nobody else is asking, by 
not taking the wisdom from on high, be it from a Republican 
administration or a Democratic administration, that that's the way 
things are, but to use our own minds and rational thought to look at 
the information and look at it from an objective perspective and try to 
make our own opinion--not being pressured by outside groups or groups 
that might have an economic interest in a perpetual war, but rather to 
form our own opinions and voice our dissent where appropriate.
  Thank you for the time.
  Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ELLISON. Let's now introduce our freshman colleague from the 
great State of Maine, Representative Pingree, who comes here with a 
long-term service of the people of the State of Maine, but who is going 
to focus on another aspect of what it means to be a Progressive.
  There's the peace aspect, there's the question of domestic economic 
progressivity, but there's also this element of Progressive politics, 
which says individual liberty is very important.
  Let me yield to the gentlelady because she made a very important 5-
minute speech today, which we would ask her to elaborate on just a 
little bit. Let me yield to the gentlelady from Maine.
  Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Thank you very much. Thank you to all of my 
colleagues here today. It's nice to have the opportunity to join the 
two of you.
  I first want to say that I concur. It was an important day to cast 
the vote that many of us did to recognize that there are serious issues 
around Iraq and Afghanistan. In spite of many of us coming from States 
where we have a

[[Page 12597]]

lot of people serving in the military, and I greatly respect their 
service and the importance that all of us see in taking care of those 
who serve their country, this was also an important day to talk about 
the essential nature of finding an end to the conflict and making sure 
that we send the President that message.
  I thank you for giving me this chance to talk a little bit about what 
it means to be a Progressive. You're right, I was fortunate to be on 
the floor just a few moments before we started the Progressive Hour to 
recognize something that had gone on in my State in the past week.
  Maine is now the fifth State in the Nation to recognize the equality 
of marriage that everyone, regardless of their gender, should have the 
right to marry. As we all know, this can often be a contentious and 
difficult debate.
  Thousands of people literally turned out at a public hearing in Maine 
to discuss this topic. People from all walks of life; from all 
religious backgrounds; people who were married and who weren't married.
  I very proudly quoted from my daughter today. My daughter happens to 
be the Speaker of the House in Maine--far more important than her 
mother--and she gave a very eloquent speech about the fact she was 
married only a couple of summers ago by a wonderful friend of our 
family. And during the conversation preparing for the wedding, it 
occurred to her that her good friend who was marrying her had been part 
of a couple for 30 years, but because he was the same gender as her 
partner, was not allowed to be married.
  So the person who gave her good advice, who performed the ceremony, 
was able to remind her everyone should have this right. I believe 
fundamentally it should be a Federal right. We should be talking about 
this at some point in our tenure.
  But I'm just so proud of my home State, my own Governor, the State 
legislators, many of them who thought long and hard about the best way 
to cast their vote, but in the end said, Our goal is to do the right 
thing.
  I just want to follow up a little bit about some of the things that 
you were already talking about before I close my remarks, but really on 
this idea of what it is to be a Progressive because Jared rightfully 
said that it's sometimes about asking the questions, of searching a 
little bit further, of taking the tough votes. I also think it is a 
matter of recognizing that we're all in this together.
  For me, getting into politics--and I was first elected to the State 
legislature in 1992--but I became a school board member in my community 
years before that. Part of what I learned along the way is that the 
reason we do this is to recognize that we're all in this together. That 
if we're not all succeeding together; if we don't have health care; if 
everyone doesn't have a job; if we're not thinking ahead about the 
security or everyone, whether you're a soldier or not a soldier, we're 
not going to get ahead in the world. We're not going to have the kind 
of world that we want to have.
  To me, that is the fundamental of this--our overarching political 
philosophy is just recognizing that none of us get ahead unless we all 
do it together. For me, that's always a question when I make a 
decision, whether it's an economic decision or an issue of health care.
  I have been a small business owner. I'm proud to say that I employ 
other people. But I want to make sure that they're treated well, that 
they get fair wages, that their health care is covered. I believe 
that's part of the fundamental of the responsibility that we share to 
each other in this country and in countries abroad.
  For me, that's a fundamental principle, and I'm proud to share these 
moments with my colleagues from Minnesota and Colorado, where I know 
those are their fundamental values, as well as many others that they 
bring to the floor today.
  Mr. ELLISON. Will the gentlelady yield?
  Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Absolutely.
  Mr. ELLISON. Do you think that perhaps part of the Progressive 
tradition is this idea of individual liberty? There are certain things 
that we as Americans may not agree on, but we will agree that the 
decision rests with the individual.
  I can't tell you, from Maine, how many children you should have, or 
whether you should have any. I can't tell you who to marry or who not 
to marry. I can't tell you about these essential decisions that are 
like your business.
  This is a very Progressive idea. Sometimes when you hear about the 
government getting off people's backs, you associate it with people who 
are on the ``right'' end of the political spectrum. But when it comes 
to many other decisions that are essential and private, these are 
Progressive values.
  How does the gentlelady from Maine feel about this idea?
  Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Well, absolutely. Maine is an interesting 
State. We're about a third Republican, a third Democrat, and a third 
Independent, but pretty much everybody is independent there. I would 
say the overarching value that most people share is this idea that 
there is a right of privacy, of individual liberty; that I'm not going 
to interfere with your right to live your life in the way you choose as 
long as you respect my rights as well.
  Because of that, even though we're economically quite disadvantaged 
in my State--it's about 38th in per capita income--people have worked 
hard to take care of each other, but also to somewhat leave each other 
alone. We have a lot of independent fishermen and farmers and people 
who make a living in a variety of ways, and most of them would say, 
Just preserve my independence and individual liberty and, while you're 
at it, can you make sure we get health care coverage.
  But I think it's because people see those as values that should be 
shared, that come together.
  Mr. ELLISON. If I can turn to the gentleman from Colorado. The 
gentlelady from Maine makes an interesting point. Part of the 
Progressive vision is doing things together which we should and could 
do together, and doing things separately, then maybe we get to make 
that call on our own. Maybe we should make sure that all Americans have 
health care, that everyone is safe, that women don't have to live in a 
home where they fear battering, and that we have a criminal justice 
system that protects them from that.
  But maybe on certain other decisions like marriage or other things, 
that's just your business and we let people make decisions for 
themselves on that. How does the gentleman feel about this issue?
  Mr. POLIS. If only those who object most vociferously to the 
government taking a dollar from my wallet to care for my brother and 
sister in this country would also object to the government appearing at 
the bedroom door, telling me who to marry, telling a woman whether or 
not to make the difficult decision to terminate her pregnancy. It is in 
fact somewhat hypocritical that while there seems to be a lot of care 
for the material aspects of freedom, there doesn't seem to be as much 
concern that I hear voiced for the equally, if not more important, 
personal aspects of freedom.
  Truly, each individual is more important than the sum of their assets 
or a little entry on a ledger book. That might be a part of who you 
are--a very small part--but that's how you put food on the table and 
how you live, but there's a lot more to everybody. And when we as 
Progressives are talking about freedom, we're talking about the rest of 
the realm of our lives; those important everyday decisions in how you 
live.
  And no, government shouldn't be telling people who to marry or 
whether or not to end a pregnancy or whether or not to use a certain 
kind of research that could save lives. No one is forced to engage in 
that research; no one is forced to even terminate a pregnancy; no one 
is forced to marry a gay person. But the question is: Should you have 
the right to do it if you wanted? And I think as Progressives, our 
answer is an unabashed yes.
  Mr. ELLISON. If the gentleman would yield, when it comes to this

[[Page 12598]]

issue of marriage equality, I always say to people that it's not 
mandatory. It's up to the individual. What about individual liberty?
  I just want to ask the two Members with me today, the gentleman from 
Colorado, the gentlelady from Maine, to just review with me, if you 
would, some of these things that I believe were Progressive in nature.

                              {time}  1745

  When it comes to this issue of the American Revolution, I think it 
was progressive. Yes, America was a slave-holding country. Yes, women 
didn't have equal rights. And, yes, there were a lot of problems. But 
if you look in that day and in that time for the American colonialists 
to say we are not going to ruled by a king and we are going to choose 
our leaders, that was a progressive step forward.
  We may look at that time and say there were problems, people didn't 
overcome a lot of social injustices. But if we look at it for what it 
was, individual citizens saying I don't want a king making up my mind 
for me, I want to cast a vote and select my own leaders, that, I 
believe, was a progressive step forward.
  The Bill of Rights I think was progressive. Think about the first 
one: No government religious institution, everyone practices their own 
religion as they choose; the establishment clause; right to freedom of 
the press; right to assembly; right to redress grievances. It was a 
progressive step forward.
  Universal white male suffrage. Of course, not all Americans got the 
right to vote at the same time, but there was a time when being a white 
male was not good enough to get you a ballot. You had to have some 
property. You could not be Catholic, you had to be a white male 
Protestant property owner. So when America said the property thing and 
the religious thing, those don't apply any more. Of course we would 
have liked to have more people get the franchise, but a lot of people 
got it.
  Public education; emancipation of the slaves; national park system; 
food safety; break up of monopolies; antitrust legislation--
progressive. The Homestead Act. Land grant universities so that all 
Americans could really enjoy a university education.
  What about this one, I would like to ask the gentlelady from Maine, 
what about rural electrification, was that a progressive step forward 
for America?
  Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Absolutely. I am glad you put this list forward 
today. I think it is an excellent collection of those things that we 
have done collectively to make sure that we are all better off.
  Rural electrification was a very progressive idea. The idea that for 
economic development, for everyone to succeed, for people to have 
better opportunities, we all needed to be connected to each other.
  I think one of the things that this underscores about Progressive 
values is the idea that you need to choose those things that will 
really benefit everybody. We all recognize we can't do everything. 
People sometimes accuse us of expecting government to do everything. We 
don't want to do that, and we don't want government to meddle in 
everything. But this is a very good list of those things that have 
benefited the greatest amount of people. And coming from a rural State, 
I know the importance of rural electrification.
  In fact, I happen to live in a community that is about to construct a 
major wind tower, benefiting us as we look into the future, and we are 
still able to do that because of the organization that is there around 
rural electrification.
  Mr. ELLISON. Would the gentlelady talk for a moment about the 
corollary of rural electrification and extending broadband access to 
all of America?
  Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Absolutely. Again, representing a rural State, 
most people don't know, but Maine happens to be the most rural State in 
the Nation. Most of us live in small communities without access to 
cable, and the kinds of things that many other people have. Broadband 
has become essential for communication, education, and running a small 
business. Any kind of business, you need to be able to connect to 
people on the Net.
  I personally run a business, and people wouldn't be able to find us 
if it wasn't for the Internet. But the fact is that many small 
communities don't have this. This is one of the reasons that this was 
part of the stimulus package that many of us supported and voted for 
because we believed it would help communities move ahead. Sometimes it 
is an inner-city neighborhood, and sometimes it is a distant 
neighborhood that needs that access to broadband. I think there is a 
correlation between what went on with the REA and rural electrification 
and what we are trying to do today to make sure that everybody in 
America has access to high-speed Internet. It is fundamental for 
education and now for medicine. We have many doctors who are able to 
diagnose at a distance in those communities that can't have a full-time 
doctor or the kinds of medical specialties that they need.
  But people want to live and work in those communities. It is a great 
part of the American tradition. Whether you are a fisherman or a 
farmer, we want to continue that. It is a very important part of why we 
need to expand broadband.
  Mr. ELLISON. I think it is a Progressive value because it says, look, 
we know Americans who live in rural America like living there. They 
grow the crops and they enjoy that life. But if there is no economy out 
there, then it is difficult to live out there and you see young people 
moving into the city, not necessarily because they want to but because 
they feel that they have to.
  This rural electrification in one generation, broadband access in 
another, represents our shared commitment to each other to live our 
lives as we would choose.
  Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Absolutely. People would say fundamentally, it 
was a part of America to expand west and be in rural areas. Many people 
choose the environment of rural America. But, frankly, we are dependent 
on those people who choose to grow our food, harvest our fish. Many in 
my State harvest the trees that make our paper and make our furniture. 
These are people with solid American values. Kids have wonderful 
schools to attend, and feel safe in their communities. We want to have 
more people who can have the opportunity to live there.
  One of the biggest issues in my State is, How am I going to make a 
living and support myself? I think it is an important Progressive value 
to say what exactly does government need to do. We know we need to have 
security and roads. Maybe a high-speed train. You need to have health 
care available to you so you can feel comfortable and secure. But you 
also need broadband access. It is a very important thing.
  Mr. ELLISON. Moving down the list, women's suffrage, 1920. It is 
important for Americans to know that women could not always vote in 
America. It was progressive women, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady 
Stanton and others who stood up and fought. It was Sojourner Truth and 
a man by the name of Frederick Douglass fighting for women's right to 
vote. And it was women in the West who made the claim, we are already 
voting. You may not have a constitutional right to do it, but we do it 
in our State, and they helped lead the way.
  But what about the abolition of child labor, the 8-hour workday? 
Pretty progressive. We all hope we can do that. Minimum wage, Social 
Security, civil rights for minorities and women, voting rights for 
minorities and the poor. Cleaning up our air, water, toxic dump sights, 
consumer product safety and Medicare.
  Today, I ask the gentlelady from Maine, are we done? Has the 
Progressive agenda been completed? Do we have more work to do?
  Ms. PINGREE of Maine. We are both standing here and many of our 
colleagues are here, many who wouldn't necessarily call themselves 
Progressive, but they are here because they want to pass more 
legislation that will foster our Progressive values.
  That is a wonderful list that looks at issues that people struggle 
with in the economy. But the fact is, I would say

[[Page 12599]]

that one of the number one concerns of people in America today is to 
have access to health care and have it be affordable. I think that 
needs to be added to that list. I think many of us won't rest until it 
is done.
  Many Members in this Chamber hear from their constituents every day, 
Do something about health care. I am thrilled that we passed a budget 
with $630 billion in it for health care, but we have a lot of work to 
do to actually design the system and make sure that it is available to 
everybody, whether you are running a small business or you are an 
individual who has no coverage, or struggles with coverage that has 
such a big deductible it doesn't provide you with the care you need 
when you are sick.
  Mr. ELLISON. Yes, we have a great progressive history, but we have a 
tall order to do. We have to get health care to all Americans. We have 
to make sure that we have a green renewable future so we can live in 
harmony with the planet. The planet is going to keep on turning. 
Whether we can continue to survive on it is another question.
  I am happy that in the 110th and 111th Congress, we were able to pass 
legislation like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which is an 
important step forward for people to bring pay equity lawsuits when 
they were victims of gender discrimination on the job.
  We were able to pass the children's health insurance program, not 
health care for all, but health care for children, a very important 
bill.
  We were able to pass the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention 
Act, which is a law that says, Look, you can have your value system as 
to how you feel about different sets of Americans, but you better not 
harm them. They are within the protection of the law. They have a 
right. People like Matthew Shepard will not be harmed. The rest of us 
will not tolerate it, and that is how we express our values for all 
human beings.
  And as you pointed out the, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, 
the so-called stimulus act which gave a tax cut to middle-class 
Americans. Progressives aren't against tax cuts; we are just against 
tax cuts for only the rich people. We believe that working people ought 
to get a break sometimes, too.
  So these kinds of things are things that we are fighting on. This may 
be the history, but we have a tall agenda for the future that we want 
all Americans to partake of.
  I want to say briefly that to be a Progressive is to be one who 
believes, yes we have our individual rights, but we also have things 
that we proudly share together, like our safety and clean water and 
like our environmental legal regime.
  But on the other side, what a Progressive is not, what a Progressive 
is not is somebody who basically operates on the basis of fear-based 
politics. We boldly say we can do this new thing together. We are not 
afraid to embrace the future. But there is a set of politics that says 
be afraid, be very afraid. The Russians or somebody is going to get 
you, and you have to be afraid. You can't share with anybody. You just 
have to look out for yourself. That is a set of political ideas that is 
prevalent around here, too; and those ideas are not the ones that made 
America great. The ones that made America great are the ones listed on 
this board and the ones that we are talking about now.
  I yield to Ms. Pingree for your final comments.
  Ms. PINGREE of Maine. You have said almost everything that needs to 
be said. You have a great chart. In talking about some of the proud 
things in progressive history, I want to emphasize that virtually 
everything on that list is where people have said, We are all in this 
together. What do we need to take care of the basic fundamentals in 
this world so that we can prosper, so we can be safe and healthy and 
have a sense of security? That is what we are dedicated to.
  I know those are the commonsense values of people in my State, people 
of vastly different political perspectives and economic perspectives 
who say, Look, unless we are all in this together--we have to move 
forward together or we are not going to get anywhere.
  As you mentioned, we have a tall order in front of us. We have done a 
lot in the few months we have been here. And I feel proud as a freshman 
to have come at this moment in time when we have a President who cares 
so deeply about our relations around the world, economic justice for 
people and health care. It is a great moment to be here, but it is 
certainly a difficult task. Many, many people are struggling in this 
economy. States like mine are having a hard time balancing their budget 
and getting ahead. We have a lot of work here to do. I have been 
pleased to be here tonight, and look forward to many other dialogues 
like this in the future as we accomplish many of our goals.
  Mr. ELLISON. As I just wrap up, this is the Progressive message. We 
have had Members, including Congresswoman Woolsey, Congressman Polis, 
and Congresswoman Pingree, talk about why I am a Progressive, giving 
their personal testimony and giving their own ideas and values about 
this critical subject.
  We also want folks to be able to check in on the Website right here: 
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov. Very important for people who are 
watching to check in and check out the Progressive Caucus agenda. It is 
very important. The Progressive Caucus is a moral force within the 
Congress bringing America to its better half.
  I agree with Congresswoman Pingree, who pointed out that all of these 
things on this list are things where people said, Look, let's embrace 
our common life, our shared life. But these are all things, and I think 
that Congresswoman Pingree would agree with me, that before they were 
passed, people said it can't be done. They said this is something that 
we shouldn't do. But you know what? All of these things were done, and 
we are all as Americans much better off for it.
  Let me also wrap up by saying that it was the words of President 
Barack Obama, who said in his first address to Congress, ``I reject the 
view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves, that 
government has no role in laying the foundation of our common 
prosperity.'' That rejected view, I submit, is a conservative view 
because government does have an important role to play in our common 
prosperity, and our problems will not simply take care of themselves.

                              {time}  1800

  President Obama went on to say, ``For history tells a different 
story. History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and 
transformation, this Nation has responded with bold action and big 
ideas.'' I quite agree with the President on this point.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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