[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19722]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                 LET'S TAKE CARE OF THOSE AT THE BOTTOM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Al Green) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, again, I express my gratitude for 
the opportunity to speak from the well of the Congress of the United 
States of America.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe that there is some misinformation being 
accorded the American people. Misinformation because there seems to be 
a belief among those who are pushing a tax plan that will put us an 
additional $1.5 trillion, more or less, in debt. There seems to be the 
notion being pushed that somehow by giving major corporations major 
breaks, these major corporations will make a major concession and they 
will move major amounts of dollars down to those who work at the very 
lower levels of their businesses: those who clean the floors. Those who 
are there, they are called the night crew, and they make it possible 
for those who come in, in the daylight, to have a clean office and a 
better work environment.
  There seems to be a notion that somehow there will be a trickle down 
to them. I don't see the empirical evidence to support this position. I 
encourage my friends who believe in trickle down to move to bubble up 
and allow the minimum wage to be raised. Raise the minimum wage and 
make it a living wage.
  If you can get it to those at the top, why not assure those at the 
bottom some degree of benefit from the $1.5 trillion?
  You but only have to decide that you will make a part of this tax 
bill a raise in the minimum wage. Make it so. You can do it. And if you 
should do it, you will find that there will be some people who will 
appreciate the fact that you didn't just look out for those at the top, 
that you also decided that you were going to take care of those at the 
bottom.
  Finally this, Mr. Speaker, to those who believe that people will pull 
themselves up by bootstraps that they don't have, please know this:
  Dear brothers and sisters: People who are poor cannot do more with 
less. There is a belief that if you are rich, you need more to do more. 
But if you are poor, you can do more with less. If poor people could do 
more with less, there would be no poor people.
  Let's take care of those at the bottom. Let the system bubble up, as 
opposed to trickle down.

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