[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14169]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     WE'RE LOSING OUR MIDDLE CLASS

  (Mr. MORAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. MORAN. Madam Speaker, corporate profits have now reached 
historically high levels--$2 trillion just in the last two quarters. 
But most of that profit comes from reductions in personnel and benefit 
costs which are at a 50-year low as a percent of our economy. This is 
one of the reasons why the richest 1 percent earn as much as the bottom 
60 percent and have as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of 
Americans. Tax cuts for the richest, as the House majority demands, is 
only going to widen this historic disparity. The President's Jobs Act, 
though, will help to close this gap.
  Madam Speaker, we're losing our middle class. Our country is becoming 
divided between the very rich and the rest. That may be good for the 
financial base of the Republican Party, but it's bad for America. The 
private sector will start to hire when the public sector shows it has 
sufficient faith in our future to adequately invest in the physical and 
the human infrastructure of this country. It takes money, but the 
future of our middle class is worth it.

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