[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20263-20264]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          AMERICA IS NOT BROKE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I have listened to a lot of 
Republicans here on the House floor and back in Connecticut talk about 
how they think that the only way to build up America is to tear down 
government

[[Page 20264]]

and start divesting from our public institutions. That's simply not the 
history of this country. Over the last 100 years, we've become the 
world's leader by layering massive private investment on top of massive 
public investment. And yet day after day, I listen to the right wing 
come down to this floor and tell the American people that we can no 
longer afford to make these kinds of investments that we used to make 
in roads, in rails, in schools, and in new technologies.
  And, so, it's time that the rest of us stood up here and told them 
that they're simply wrong, that America is not broke. We have all of 
the resources and all of the willpower necessary to make the 
investments we need in order to regain our global competitive edge, but 
only if we start dealing with facts rather than just with political 
rhetoric.
  So, over the next few minutes, I want to show you four pretty simple 
charts that debunk this myth that our Nation is broke and that we can't 
muster the resources necessary to meet the challenges of a global 
century.
  Let's start here. The United States is still the richest country in 
the world. In fact, our GDP ranks us at the top of the list among G-20 
countries. And for all of the talk about the rise of China, India, and 
Brazil, our country is still wealthier than all three of those nations 
combined on a population-adjusted basis.
  And, so, we have wealth in this Nation. What we have done, though, is 
make a conscious choice to make our government poor. We are going to 
spend about a million dollars a year more than we actually take in in 
revenue. And it's important to talk about why that is. First of all, 
the notion that discretionary spending is out of control, which is the 
popular belief, just isn't true. In fact, discretionary spending since 
1980 has remained pretty static. If you don't believe that, then think 
about this statistic for a second. If you thought that government 
spending was running amok, you would expect that Federal employees were 
increasing, as well. Well, that's not true either. Since 1970, we 
actually have 16,000 less Federal workers than we did then.
  Now, this doesn't mean that the government can't get leaner and that 
it can't get meaner. It just means that there's another culprit at work 
when we talk about why our government is so broke, even if our Nation 
is not, and that's revenue. Today, as a fraction of GDP, this country 
is collecting less taxes than it has in 60 years. In fact, today, we 
are collecting only about 15 percent of taxes as it relates to GDP. 
Now, we're spending more, but the bigger problem is that we're 
collecting less revenue.
  So, if the problem is that the government is broke but that our 
Nation isn't, why does it feel like so many people are out there that 
are broke? Well, let's explore that with the last chart. Here is the 
essential problem. Over the last 30 years, the incomes of the bottom 90 
percent of Americans have remained virtually flat while the incomes of 
the top 1 percent of Americans have grown by 300 percent.

                              {time}  1140

  This is a recipe for economic disaster because, if the bottom 90 
percent of Americans don't have enough money to spend, then pretty soon 
they're not going to be able to buy what the top 1 percent are selling. 
Everybody fails if this economic equation continues.
  And the economic history of the last 100 years tells us one thing--
that government has a pretty important role to play in helping to 
create wealth among the bottom 90 percent. We create real, widespread 
wealth when we invest in education to move more kids more quickly 
through quality higher education. We create real, widespread wealth by 
investing in businesses that create technologies before they become 
commercially viable. And we create real, widespread wealth by investing 
in infrastructure so that once again people and goods in this country 
can move from economic center to economic center without delay.
  Yes, these investments cost money, but this country isn't broke. 
Prosperity in this Nation has never appeared out of thin air. It's 
never come from gutting consumer protection or environmental 
regulation, it's never come through slashing taxes for the wealthiest 
Americans, and it's never come from government just sitting by on the 
sidelines and letting other countries eat our technological lunch. It's 
come through an innovative partnership between public investment and 
private ingenuity.
  Now, America can recommit ourselves to this partnership, but only if 
we wake up to the reality that we are not broke.

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