[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17307]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           INCOME INEQUALITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, last month the Congressional Budget 
Office released a report that examined household income distribution 
between 1979 and 2007. The most disturbing figure to me in this report 
is that the top 1 percent of income earners have seen their average 
real after-tax household income grow by 275 percent. Middle-income 
Americans saw an increase of 40 percent over the same period of time.
  This report illuminates a sad fact: Income inequality in our country 
is growing at a staggering pace. The report is pointing out what many 
of my constituents tell me as I travel around my district from 
Cumberland to Pawtucket to Newport, from community dinners and talking 
to business owners: This economy is not working for the majority of 
middle class families. In fact, the hardworking middle class of our 
country is being hollowed out, a middle class made up of people that 
are just trying to provide a good life for themselves and their 
families. My real fear is that if we let that happen, we'll never get 
it back.
  Those here in Washington need to remember that our job is to help 
people and to strengthen the middle class of this country. The way back 
to prosperity is not to ignore the problem; it's through investing in 
workforce retraining, infrastructure, housing, and education for 
tomorrow. We can't wait any longer. Now is the time to act. We need to 
work together in a bipartisan way to get our economy and our country 
moving again.
  I have introduced legislation, the Make It in America Block Grant, 
designed to help small to medium-sized manufacturers retool, retrofit 
their facilities, and train employees so they can sustain their current 
workforce, create jobs, and better compete in the 21st century economy. 
We need to develop new efficient and effective ways to fund much needed 
investments in our Nation's crumbling infrastructure, including 
legislation to create a national infrastructure bank which will attract 
private investment in vital infrastructure projects.
  American families will not feel or share an economic recovery until 
we stabilize our distressed housing market. We not only need to 
mitigate our foreclosure crisis but undertake bold actions to prevent 
the next wave of foreclosures from occurring. Congress needs to pass 
critical housing legislation, like the Preserving Homes and Communities 
Act, introduced by Senator Jack Reed and Representative Elijah 
Cummings, which would improve home loan modification programs, 
including creating an appeals process for homeowners denied a loan 
modification, limit foreclosure-related fees, and respond to 
robosigning misconduct by forcing mortgage servicers to prove they 
actually have the legal right to foreclose on a property.
  I believe that each and every American must be guaranteed access to 
an affordable higher education, including vocational education, 
regardless of their economic status. We need to protect the funding of 
Pell Grants, named for my home State Senator, the late Claiborne Pell, 
which are one of our Nation's most significant college financial aid 
programs. We must also guarantee that our education system is preparing 
young people for career readiness, which I have worked on to ensure 
that we're offering more training options to young adults, moving them 
along on career pathways, and strengthening public-private partnerships 
so that business and government are working together to build and 
improve our workforce.
  I recommend to my colleagues that they all read this report, if they 
haven't already. I also ask that they join me in renewing our 
commitment to keep fighting for middle class families as we work to 
help our country every day here in the Congress of the United States. 
It's time to get America back to work and to strengthen and support the 
hardworking middle class of this country, the hardworking middle class 
that's built this country.

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