[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17309-17310]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          INVESTING IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, in a few days our Congress will see the 
reporting out of the work of the supercommittee. This is a big deal, 
and it's something that the American people, I pray, focus their 
attention on. It's a big deal because it is true, and I say this as a 
proud liberal Member of this Congress, that we do need to make sure 
that we reduce our country's long-term deficit. We need to do that 
because programs I care about like Head Start, home heating oil for 
seniors, programs that are going to help develop our human capital, get 
crowded out when we say we just don't have enough money. We do need to 
make sure that we can live within the budget of this country.
  But the question is not what we are going to cut, but what are we 
going to spend on. That's the real question. The deeper question is 
what are we going to invest in because the fact is, whether we do only 
stimulus and spend a lot of money in the hope that we increase 
aggregate demand, or whether we do what Republicans suggest, which is 
to cut everything and just have austerity, neither one of those 
solutions will really put America on the track that it needs to be on.
  The fact is that we need to invest in this country because as we look 
around, this country, the land of opportunity, is not making the 
investments that it needs to make in order to be the world leader in 
the years to come. We need to invest in infrastructure, Mr. Speaker. 
Let's start by talking about greening America. We need to retrofit old 
buildings. We need to invest in a smart grid. We need to invest in 
renewable energy--wind, solar, things that will really help power our 
Nation and make us less dependent not only on foreign oil but oil 
altogether--fossil fuels. We need to reduce that dependency.
  We need to invest in transit and roads and bridges. In my own City of 
Minneapolis, we saw a bridge fall 65 feet into the Mississippi River 
because it had not been adequately maintained. People think, oh, that's 
Minneapolis's problem. If they think that, they're wrong. Bridges all 
over this country are in critically bad shape, and we need to invest in 
making sure that they are not only safe but are adequate for the 
future; well fitted so that they can accommodate transit and other 
sorts of things that can move people around and not just be dependent 
upon cars. We need to invest in a smart grid so we use energy 
efficiently and we can power our society in efficient and important 
ways.
  But not only do we need to invest in infrastructure, we need to 
invest in our people. We need to invest in skills training. This should 
start, Mr. Speaker, with early childhood education. Any economist who 
studies this will tell you, the investments you make in little kids, 
zero to six, pay off for a lifetime. And yet we don't have universal 
kindergarten or universal early education. We have millions of children 
across this country whose young minds could be being developed by the 
age of 3 or 4 or 5; and yet they're not. They are languishing at home 
and they are being, in some cases, baby-sat by the television or even 
worse. Some don't have adequate nutrition. Mr. Speaker, we need to 
invest in the earliest, youngest Americans so they can have success 
throughout a lifetime.
  We need to do something immediately about the awesome debt burden 
that our young people in college are shouldering. This has the 
potential, as young people who are in their 20s and 30s should be 
buying houses, buying cars, should be saving for their retirement, 
they're paying back student loans. This is going to have a long-term 
negative effect on our economy, and we need to do something about it 
right now.
  There are a lot more things to talk about, but one of the things I 
don't want to leave off the table is that we also need to reduce our 
military spending. I'm fully in favor of supporting our veterans. I 
believe this is an important, worthwhile investment for their health, 
their education and for their welfare, but there are a number of 
military armaments and machines that we simply don't need. We don't 
need to depend on a nuclear arsenal, in my view. We need to engage in 
international agreements to cut the nuclear weaponry arsenal and 
inventory in the world.

                              {time}  1030

  We need to make sure that we begin to shut down some of these bases 
we have all across the country--as many as 174 bases. Do we need this 
kind of military footprint? I don't think so.

[[Page 17310]]

  So, Mr. Speaker, let me just say that tomorrow we're going to have a 
group of leading economists at 11 o'clock to come together and offer 
their views about the proper direction for prosperity for America. 
Tomorrow the Congressional Progressive Caucus at 11 a.m. will convene, 
and we'll have a number of great economists whom we invite everybody to 
come listen to, including Jeffrey Sachs. I've run out of time, Mr. 
Speaker, but I urge people to attend tomorrow The Way Forward for 
America.

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