[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16711-16712]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        THE PROGRESSIVE MESSAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. ELLISON. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for recognizing me for this 
hour.
  I am going to speak for a time, and then I am going to yield my time 
to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson), who has an important 
message, but I would like to start by just talking to the American 
people about the Progressive message.
  You can sit at your television sets and you can watch this broadcast. 
For the last hour, what you would have heard is people claiming that 
you can get jobs by just taking away our health and safety rules, by 
just getting rid of regulation--and magically, we're going to get jobs. 
Well, we've had the Clean Air Act in place since the early seventies; 
we saw record job growth in the 1990s; and we have seen the Bush era, 
which was when the Republicans had the House, the Senate and the White 
House--the lowest job era in modern memory. They have tried their way, 
and they got us into this mess.
  I will never forget that it was January 2009 when this country lost 
741,000 jobs in that month alone, and the Democrats and President Obama 
have been building it back ever since.
  The Progressive message is about the antidote to that line of 
argument--that the rich don't have enough money, that the poor have too 
much, that asking our American corporations to look after health and 
safety laws is too much of a burden, that we have to sacrifice our 
lungs so that some multinational can make even more money.
  No, no, no.
  The Progressive message is where we stand up for small business 
people, where we talk about the right to organize on the job, where we 
get into the conversation about civil rights and human rights, where we 
talk about peace at home and abroad, and where we talk about the 
importance of protecting our environment.
  I want to welcome a great Member from Texas, Congresswoman Sheila 
Jackson Lee, who has just joined me for the moment. I thank the 
gentlelady for joining me with the Progressive message.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I am delighted to join my friend and 
colleague from the great State of Minnesota--the distinguished cochair 
of the Progressive Caucus, of which I have the privilege of serving as 
a vice chair.
  I truly want to say to our colleagues that the Progressive Caucus has 
been on the mark, and in fact it stays on a pattern, frankly, that 
should draw good-thinking, well-intentioned Americans from both sides 
of the aisle. Let me recount for my cochair the number of job fairs and 
summits that we've had. We have not yet finished, and we'll probably go 
into 2012.
  I want to focus on just a couple of points that I believe have been 
the Progressive message. It is the good Samaritan message, the secular 
good Samaritan message: that we're all in this together. It is to 
recognize that the Nation is not so broke--or it is not broke--that it 
cannot help the most vulnerable.
  In a supercommittee hearing, it was delineated by the head of the OMB 
that, actually, Mr. Ellison, our debt-deficit is 8\1/2\ percent of the 
gross domestic product. That means that 92 percent is rolling along, 
not the way we would like it, but it is rolling along. It's as if we 
took a family's budget, and they said, ``You know what? We have less 
than 10 percent debt--we've got 100 percent, but 10 percent debt. Let's 
work to diminish that debt, but let me not stop feeding the three 
children, and let me not stop paying the mortgage,'' if that were the 
ratio of our debt.
  I think it is important for the Progressive message in that we are 
saying there are ways of pulling us up by our bootstraps:
  One, we can close our eyes, and in a moment, the Bush tax cuts can 
expire, and we will generate billions of dollars that will help promote 
jobs. We can pass the Jobs Act, which really focuses on infrastructure, 
providing for our veterans, small businesses, and in fact, focuses on 
creating the millions of jobs that we can generate out of that 
particular legislation. We can eliminate the discrimination of the 
chronically unemployed, and we can give a $4,000 tax credit to 
employers for hiring, as I indicated, the long-term unemployed.

                              {time}  2010

  Are we remembering that on December 31, 2011, we will be bringing 
home--or by that time, our President has said that soldiers from Iraq 
will come home? That is an immediate infusion of dollars back into our 
bank account; although, we must be able to protect our soldiers who are 
coming home and provide for them.
  We have on the horizon, Mr. Speaker--and I know that all who are 
listening are excited about the fact that an omnibus jobs bill is about 
to come forward from the Progressive Caucus. But the only reason I just 
say that without giving the details of it is we have found a way to pay 
for creating jobs and answering the clarion call of the American 
people. So I believe the Progressive message is the secular Good 
Samaritan, that we cannot leave the vulnerable along the streets and 
highways of despair. We must be able to ensure that we are looking out 
for those who cannot look out for themselves.
  I will finish on these two points: The supercommittee is doing the 
very best that it can do. I am grateful that we will be opening 
opportunities for our own hearing in the coming week. But there is a 
dilemma; and that dilemma is that there is a certain amount of the 
vulnerable, needy of America that are protected, but there are some 
that are exposed. And what that means is that we will be looking in the 
face of America in 2012, looking back in our rearview mirror, and we 
will see along the highway of life the despair in those that have been 
left out by the draconian cuts that had to come because we have raised 
no revenue. That is a crisis.
  And if I might do a personal moment on my final closure. If we have 
States like the State of Texas that are, in essence, left with elected 
officials who have ``N''-head Rock--and I am coming to my closure, so 
you can understand how I prioritize what we should be doing. The ``N''-
word Rock. We have got States--I come from that State. I am ashamed of 
that description but am proud to make it known on the floor of the 
House. Or we have State agencies that we fund. The Texas Motor Vehicle 
Board--the State of Texas gets Federal funds--was about to issue a 
Confederate license plate issued by the State of Texas on November 10. 
I will be in Austin to oppose it.

[[Page 16712]]

  But the reason why I say that is, if we have time to deal with these 
negatives, do we not have the time to galvanize States and 
Representatives and Governors to focus on the most vulnerable? Don't we 
have time to call for the voices to be raised, to be able to give 
encouragement to the supercommittee, encouragement to those who are not 
willing to raise revenue, that the better way for America is to take 
that 8.5 percent deficit opposed to the GDP, boost the GDP, build, 
rebuild, create jobs, create jobs for small businesses? Let's steer 
ourselves away from negative Confederate flags and ``N''-head and get 
all of the States to work together, Democrats and Republicans, to 
follow the Progressive message, which is liberty and justice for all 
and opportunity for all.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding to me on this occasion.
  Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentlelady.
  In a moment, I will yield to my good friend from Illinois, Jesse 
Jackson.
  But I do want to say that as you talk about the least of these, we 
are talking about poor folks who need some home heating oil, children 
who need Head Start; right? We are talking about people who need the 
SNAP program, the food stamp program. We are talking about students who 
need some help to be able to afford a college education.
  And my question is: Will the rich and the wealthy and the well-to-do 
of America pay a little bit more to help this happen? Bank of America 
didn't pay a single penny in Federal income tax in 2009. Boeing, 
despite receiving billions of dollars in Federal Government contracts 
every single year in taxpayer money, Boeing didn't pay a dime in U.S. 
Federal corporate income taxes between 2008 and 2010. Citigroup. 
Citigroup's deferred income taxes for the third quarter of 2010 
amounted to a grand total of zero. At the same time, Citigroup 
continued to pay its staff lavishly. John Havens, the head of 
Citigroup's investment bank, is expected to be the bank's highest paid 
executive for the second year in a row, with compensation of $9.5 
million.
  ExxonMobil, Big Oil, dodgers, use offshore subsidies in the Caribbean 
to avoid paying their fair share. Although ExxonMobil paid $15 billion 
in taxes in 2009, none of it went to the American Treasury. This is the 
same year that the company overtook Walmart in the Fortune 500. 
Meanwhile, the total compensation for ExxonMobil's CEO was about $29 
million.
  Of course General Electric, 2009, the world's largest corporation, 
filed more than 7,000 tax returns and still paid nothing to America's 
Government. GE has managed to do this with the aid of a rigged Tax Code 
that essentially subsidizes companies for losing profits and allows 
them to set up tax havens overseas.
  So let me just say, on behalf of the people who need food stamps, on 
behalf of the people who need college tuition, on behalf of the folks 
who need home heating oil because of cold winters, on behalf of the 
people who are struggling to make it in America today, will our most 
privileged Americans do anything? The Progressive Caucus thinks they 
ought to do something.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Before you close, I want to just comment on 
the gentleman from Illinois.
  Thank you, Mr. Jackson, for what I know you are about to begin, which 
is an eloquent presentation on the importance of construction. It looks 
as if the airport that you have been fighting on for many years, and if 
we would listen to you on the particular project that you are speaking 
of, but also as we look to infrastructure around America, we would be 
able to create what I'm getting ready to see. We would be able to 
compete with some of these other nations that he will cite that will 
have probably more airports than the United States.
  I just want to thank you, Mr. Jackson, for your astuteness, and we 
look forward to hearing you. And thank you for the Progressive message.
  Mr. ELLISON. Thank you, Congresswoman.
  Let me yield to the gentleman from Illinois who is going to talk to 
us about infrastructure, very important, putting Americans back to 
work.

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