Keith Ellison

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. If the gentlelady has just a few more minutes, if I may, I would like to pose one more question.

Mr. ELLISON. Absolutely. Does the gentlelady have any more news to report about the settlement?

Mr. ELLISON. Our Republican friends, who are in the majority, they tell us: Let laissez-faire capitalism take over. Let the housing market bottom out. Government shouldn't do anything. Just let all home value go down to nothing, and eventually somebody will buy those houses that are just sitting there, idle, after people have been unemployed and can't afford them and have to be foreclosed on. They tell us we should just be laissez-faire with that. They also tell us that we should not put any regulations in place and that we should cut taxes so that the government doesn't have enough revenue to protect the people. To me, this crisis seems like the product of a philosophy--that the rich people don't have enough money and that the poor have too much. This seems like a culmination of a philosophy that for the people, through their democratic institutions to hold business accountable, to play fairly and by the rules, has seen its full manifestation. The full manifestation of this Ayn Rand-type philosophy has brought us to financial ruin, and they won't even admit that. We haven't seen any hearings on how to address the foreclosure crisis, because they believe in just letting the market bottom out. I mean, even though there have been 23 months of private sector job growth, you never hear them say anything good about that; and while we're adding private sector jobs, they're trying to cut public sector jobs. What is really going on here? Why isn't our majority addressing the jobs crisis? Their jobs program seems to be to attack the EPA. They're basically making the case that Americans who want to breathe and drink clean water are the problem of our economy. What is this laissez-faire get the government out? no taxes for the rich? What has this philosophy brought us to?

Mr. ELLISON. Well, yes you do. But may I ask a question before you continue on?

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of important issues facing the American people, none more important than their economic livelihood and viability. So we're going to be talking today during this Special Order about economic justice, economic opportunity, and the fight for the American middle class. Mr. Speaker, I'm cochair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is that caucus that comes to Congress to band together to stand up for the American Dream, the idea that all Americans, no matter which color they may be, whether they are disabled or not, whether they are straight or gay, or what their religion is, have a right to full participation and opportunity to grab that American Dream as one of our core beliefs. The Progressive Caucus believes in clean air and a clean environment, believes that all Americans, all people across the world have a right to clean air, clean water, and food free of pesticides and toxins. The Progressive Caucus is the organization that is four square for civil rights for all people. We believe that it's a national disgrace that women are paid 80 cents for every dollar a man makes. We think it's a national disgrace to not be able to love whomever you love and want to be with. We think it's a national problem that people in our society, which was founded on the idea of religious tolerance, sometimes find themselves the target of religious hate in this area. And we are four square dedicated to the idea that peace should be the guiding principle of our Nation and that diplomacy and development are good things, and that war is almost always a bad thing. Although sometimes it's necessary, diplomacy is always better. We don't send our people into harm's way. That's who the Progressive Caucus is. That is what we are about, and I'm going to offer time tonight, Mr. Speaker, for a progressive message. So let me begin with that progressive message. We are here to talk about the progressive message; and tonight, we're going to address the issue of economic viability. Working American families are getting crushed, and our middle class is shrinking every day. But here in Washington, our friends on the other side of the aisle, the Republican caucus, is in control of the House. And while millions of people are facing foreclosure and unemployment, sadly, we see Americans continuing to hurt, and their problems are not being addressed. This week in Congress, if I could just talk about what we did this week, the Republican majority did not bring up a single jobs bill. We didn't talk about jobs this week. Here we are at the close of the week, and we're not talking about jobs. They did not bring up a bill to keep Americans in their homes and address foreclosure, nor did we talk about cleaning up our air and our water, or building our economy or our Nation's crumbling infrastructure. No, we weren't doing that. We were doing something else, and it had to do with scoring points in an election. One of the things we did today, which I think was important, but it was an idea that came from the Democratic-majority Senate and originated with great Democrats Tim Walz and Louise Slaughter, is that we voted on a bill to stop trading on congressional knowledge, the STOCK Act. Today, we voted on a bill designed to stop Members of Congress from profiting on confidential information they receive while doing their jobs. You would think that this goes without saying. But, sadly, that is exactly what some politicians have been doing. We voted on the STOCK Act today, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, and I was happy to support this bill. Although my colleagues, Louise Slaughter and Tim Walz, are pushing a bill which I think was a better version, we voted on the Senate version today. But the price for getting that bill in front of us, the price for fighting to get that bill in front of us was a carve-out for a special interest, and that is too bad. The bill came before us today, and I voted for it. But the public should know a few things about the legislation. Only after stripping out a provision to stop the so-called political intelligence would the majority even consider voting to stop Members from making bets on confidential information. We wonder why Congress has a 10 percent approval rate. After months of calls for action by House Democrats, House Republicans have finally relented; and the House took up the STOCK Act today, clarifying that Members of Congress and congressional staff, executive branch officials, and judicial officers are subject to the same insider trading rules as everyone else. Unfortunately, leadership in the majority House caucus took transparency and accountability measures and rewrote them in secret in the dark of night. And the majority caucus, the Republican caucus, weakened the bill, dropping a provision that will require those who peddle political intelligence for profit to register and report, and eliminating the anti-corrupting provision added by the Senate and unanimously approved by the House Judiciary Committee in December. Regarding the political-intelligence provisions, Senator Grassley, Republican of Iowa, responded, It's astonishing and extremely disappointing that the House would fulfill Wall Street's wishes by killing this provision. So Republican Senator Grassley even had to admonish the House to say, why would we weaken the bill, dropping a provision that would require those who peddle political intelligence for money to register and report their activities? That's too bad. If Congress delays action, the political-intelligence industry will stay in the shadows--just the way Wall Street likes it. It's time to act on this legislation and take a first step toward restoring trust in government. We must hold a swift House-Senate conference to strengthen this Republican-majority bill that passed through here that's a weakened piece of legislation. Last week, the Senate bill passed a stronger measure by a vote of 96- 3, and a stronger bipartisan House bill is cosponsored by 285 Members, including 99 Republicans. The so-called political-intelligence industry serves no one. All it does is really pad Wall Street profits off of a rigged game. This insider trading is nothing more than Wall Street insiders pumping Washington insiders for information so that they can place bets on stocks. Political-intelligence firms have grown drastically over the last few decades and are now a $100 million industry. Every day, these firms help hedge funds and Wall Street investors unfairly profit from nonpublic congressional information, and these firms have no oversight and can freely pass along information for investment purposes. A 2005 story on insiders profiting off of a last- minute government bailout of companies embroiled in asbestos litigation was a catalyst to the STOCK Act. A recent Wall Street story on the prevalence of the intelligence industry reinforces the need for this bill. Without the STOCK Act, enforcement officials are left in the dark on who is paying and playing in the political-intelligence industry. This is why we need the whole STOCK Act. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, the STOCK Act, would shed necessary light on a lucrative industry that has been lurking in the shadows since the 70s. H.R. 1148 establishes regulations for the political-intelligence industry by amending the Lobbying Disclosure Act to apply the registration, reporting, and disclosure requirements to all political- intelligence activities just as they apply to lobbyists now. This is an important provision, and it's an essential piece to the STOCK Act's purpose of banning insider trading based on congressional knowledge. Regarding support for the STOCK Act, the STOCK Act has a lot of support, Mr. Speaker. The STOCK Act has a broad base of support from organizations dedicated to government reform, including Public Citizen, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters, Project on Government Oversight, the Sunlight Foundation and U.S. PIRG. Here is a summary of the STOCK Act, and this is a bill authored by Tim Walz and Louise Slaughter, of which I'm an original co-sponsor. It's a stronger version than what came through here today, and it's what our country needs. The STOCK Act requires firms that specialize in political intelligence who use information obtained from Congress to advise financial transactions to register with the House and Senate, just like lobbying firms are required to do. It prohibits Members, their staff, executive branch employees, and any other person from buying or selling security swaps or commodity futures based on congressional and executive branch nonpublic information. It requires a more timely disclosure of financial transactions above $1,000 for those Members and staff that are already required to file annual financial disclosures. It amends the House ethics rules to prohibit Members and their employees from disclosing any nonpublic information about legislative action for investment purposes. My constituents don't have insider traders looking out for their bottom line. Now, let me just talk a little bit more about the STOCK Act. While the House voted this morning on the STOCK Act, making clear that rules against insider trading apply to Members of Congress, congressional staff, executive branch officials, and judicial officers and employees, the version brought to the floor by Leader Cantor was weakened by Republicans before it actually came to be voted on. The GOP rhetoric suggesting otherwise isn't fooling anybody. The Associated Press weighed in on this issue, and they said: The House passes Republican-written insider trading bill that has heavy Wall Street influence. The House has passed a bill to ban Members of Congress and executive branch officials from insider trading, but critics from both parties accuse House Republican leaders of caving in to investment firms by eliminating a proposal to regulate people who try to pry financial information from Congress. The New York Times had something to say, too. Here's what they said in an editorial: The House's Less Persuasive Ban on Insider Trading. House Republican leaders appear ready to bow to election-year pressure and pass a bill banning lawmakers from using nonpublic information they hear on the job to make financial investments. The House legislation, however, is missing two vital provisions that are in the Senate bill that won overwhelming approval last week. If the goal is to root out corruption and raise the public's low opinion of Congress, the House should approve the full range of reform in the Senate bill. The Washington Post also had something to say about this, Mr. Speaker. What they had to say is: The House should take the opportunity to help crack down on public corruption. The House of Representatives is expected to take up, Thursday, a useful measure to prohibit insider trading by Members of Congress and to beef up disclosure of lawmakers' financial transactions. Unfortunately, the version of the measure produced by the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, omits one of the most important parts of the bill passed by the Senate, a provision that would restore prosecutors' ability to go after official corruption. So, Politico, which is one of our local papers that talks about Congress, took up this issue and writes, ``Cantor under fire over STOCK Act.'' What the Politico writes is this, Mr. Speaker: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has released his version of a congressional insider trading ban, and it strips a provision that would require so-called ``political intelligence'' consultants to disclose their activities, like lobbyists already do. It also scraps a proposal that empowers Federal prosecutors going after corruption by public officials. That stoked backlash from Democrats--yes, it did-- and even some Republicans, who are furious at Cantor and are accusing the Virginia Republican of watering down the popular legislation that easily passed the Senate last week. ``It's astonishing''--this is a quote from the Politico article: It's astonishing and extremely disappointing that the House would fulfill Wall Street's wishes by killing the provision. That's what Senator Chuck Grassley said in a statement. If Congress delays action, the political intelligence industry will stay in the shadows, just the way Wall Street likes it. Of course, Mr. Speaker, Roll Call had to weigh in on this issue as well. It sounds like there's a pretty strong consensus that the House version we passed was weakened and watered down and not what the public was expecting. Roll Call says: Grassley, others rip House STOCK Act. Senator Chuck Grassley is ripping the House version of a major reform bill passed last Tuesday, calling it ``astonishing'' that House GOP leaders would drop a provision requiring political intelligence consultants to register as lobbyists. Senator Grassley joined a chorus of watchdog groups and Democrats criticizing the House version. Melanie Sloan, President of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said: ``The Cantor provision is a sham and aimed at tricking Americans into thinking he's dealing with the issue.'' That was a quote. So, whether you're talking about Politico, Washington Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Roll Call, or whether you're just talking about members of the House Democratic Caucus or citizens across the Nation, we did pass a version of the STOCK Act today. It was a weakened version. It wasn't good enough. And, Mr. Speaker, if Americans across this country decided that they were going to demand that there be a conference committee in which the stronger provisions were adopted, I think that would be a very good thing. Americans across this country, I think they agree with what's written in this Washington Post article. They write: A scaled-back ethics bill headed toward likely passage in the House Thursday despite complaints from Senators that Republican leaders are jettisoning--that means getting rid of--several key provisions that won overwhelming support in the Senate last week. Of course Think Progress probably echos the sentiments of the American people, too, Mr. Speaker, as they wrote in their blog, ``House Republicans prepared to vote on watered-down congressional insider trading ban.'' Here's what they say: Since a ``60 Minutes'' report showed that Representative Spencer Bachus (R-Al.) profited from information he obtained in a private economic briefing in 2008, Congress has moved quickly to pass a bill to ban insider trading by its Members. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has made several changes to the legislation which appear intended to at least weaken the final product, if not kill it outright. That is what they said at Think Progress. Of course the New York Times, they're in this, too. This is an issue of serious public concern, and we would expect their editorial writers to weigh in. And what they said was this, Mr. Speaker: With the House poised to take up a major ethics bill, Republican leaders have deleted a provision that would, for the first time, regulate the collection of political intelligence from political insiders for the use of hedge funds, mutual funds, and other investors. Representative Louise Slaughter, Democrat of New York, said lawmakers and the public need to know more about the activities of these professionals, who she said ``glean information from Members of Congress and staff and sell it to clients who make a lot of money off it.'' You know, Mr. Speaker, I'm betting that a lot of people across America don't even know that this practice even takes place. I'm betting that a lot of people across America don't realize that there are people who sort of scurry around in the shadows, looking for tidbits of information which they could use to make an investment decision, and that this is a multimillion-dollar industry. Let me also move back and just say that, Mr. Speaker, I doubt that the American people really realize that there is important information that can affect stock price that is thrown around around here. You would think that it would be just common sense, Mr. Speaker, that as we as Members of Congress are hired to pursue the public interest, that no one would ever use that information to advance their private commercial interests. There's nothing wrong with Members of Congress owning a business or something like that. I mean, this is America. But to say you're going to Congress to get information to try to trade stocks and then getting rich off that information seems, to me, a real problem. Now, I don't know what the facts are. All I know is what I saw on ``60 Minutes.'' But it was alleged that a Member of Congress was in a meeting, pursuing his responsibility to promote the public interest, left that meeting, and using information from that meeting, purchased stock options and basically made a bet that the economy would go down. So I ask you, Mr. Speaker, can a person, charged with a public duty to uphold the public interest simultaneously pursue their private interests? And what happens, Mr. Speaker, when those two things are at odds? If your job is to keep the economy afloat, but it would make you money if the economy goes down because you have essentially bought stock options where you would financially gain from the loss of value, what is one to do? Well, if they're a public service employee, if they're a public official, they should pursue the public interest, and the law should forbid them from trying to pursue their private interests at the public's expense. And yet, we do know that these things, that there's good evidence that these things may well have happened and that there needs to be accountability all around. And it is disappointing that when we finally, after these things finally get to the point where we're going to pass a bill, that we don't go all the way. We make carve-outs for the political intelligence industry. We make carve-outs for people here and there. This is not right. The Senate version, which has accountability, which has prosecution authority, and which bans this political intelligence industry from just operating in the shadows, that is what we should be doing, not making carve-outs for them and sweetheart deals. So I'm joined now by my good friend from the great State of Ohio, representing the northern Ohio area. There's really no one, Mr. Speaker, who has been a greater advocate for consumers than Marcy Kaptur. I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.

Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentlelady. Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains?

Mr. ELLISON. Well, let me wrap up. All I would like to say, Madam Speaker, is that the Progressive Caucus looks at an America where the American Dream was of liberty and justice for all. And when those words were written, we had a society where only part of our society was legally allowed to fully participate. Women couldn't vote. Blacks couldn't vote. But people who believed in the dream of America wanted to make progress and fought to make sure that women and people of color could vote in this country. And people looked at that American Dream and said, You know what, we have a dream of a big middle class, broadly shared prosperity. And even though the society may not have quite been that way at that time, they worked to fulfill that promise, that dream, the American Dream, an idea that good Americans pursued and helped to bring into fruition. We are trying to make progress on the dream, the progress of full inclusion, full employment, respecting our environment, believing in science. This is what the Progressive Caucus is all about. We're not trying to conserve the old way where only some people had privilege and opportunity. We're trying to make progress. So this is what the Progressive Caucus is all about. The Progressive Caucus believes, of course, there should be a free market in America; but there also needs to be a public sector that will watch out for the health, safety, and fairness of our country. Yet some people in Congress are hostile to the idea of any government role, but we're not. We believe that government is how we come together in ways that we can't do it alone, for the best benefit of everybody. And we urge the Republican majority--they've got the power; this is a winner-take-all-type system--to go out across American and do something and hear people about the issue of foreclosure, to get some jobs going. Pass the American Jobs Act. Pass the infrastructure bank bill. Do something to get this country together. Address the foreclosure crisis. Stop whipping up Americans versus Americans, using loaded terms like ``food stamp President,'' which is racial code. Stop blaming the gay community for failures in people's marriages. It's not their fault. Stop heaping hate and scorn on new Americans, and stop trying to relegate women to second-class citizenship. Let's embrace the fullness of what it means to be an American. Let's make progress on the American Dream. Let's embrace the progressive message. And I just want to say, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Yes.

Mr. ELLISON. Reclaiming my time, now here's the other thing. So we know that there may be 10 million people who lost their homes in foreclosure. Maybe a million will get help. That's good. I hope they get it. But has anybody gone to prison for mortgage fraud schemes? I mean, here's why, I want you to address this question, but let me lay it out just a tad for you. So what we have here, we know, is that people were drawn in with high pressure tactics to get in a mortgage that they didn't understand, and sometimes were even misstating the income. There are people who would say, look, I didn't borrow that much money. I have no idea where that amount came from. And then was a bunch of signing stuff that happened that people were not aware of. And that sort of skirted the reality.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, on February 7, 2012, I missed rollcall votes Nos. 36-42 due to commitments in my district. Had I been present I would have voted ``yes'' on rollcall Votes 36, 37, 40, and 41 and ``no'' on rollcall Votes 38, 39, and 42.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, on February 6, 2012, I missed rollcall votes Nos. 34 and 35 due to commitments in my district. Had I been present I would have voted ``no'' on rollcall vote 34 and ``yes'' on rollcall vote 35.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, 1,300 Minnesota workers have been denied their basic and most fundamental right to work and support their families. That's right, yesterday marked the 6-month anniversary of workers at the American Crystal Sugar factory in Moorhead being locked out. Many of these people have worked for the factory their whole lives. Their parents worked there, Mr. Speaker, and their grandparents worked there, too. These workers have gone to work and have gone to bat for the company. These workers, Mr. Speaker, stood shoulder to shoulder with the company to fight for a better sugar program in the farm bill just because that's how dedicated they are. But what have they got in return? They've gotten locked out. They're not on strike. They're locked out because they will not accept an unfair take-it-or-leave-it contract. These workers even vowed not to strike because they know how important their work is, but they have been locked out even though they have agreed to a no-strike guarantee. It's wrong, Mr. Speaker. These 1,300 folks deserve better from this company, and I think the time is now for the company to negotiate.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My name is Keith Ellison, and I am a cochair of the Progressive Caucus. The Progressive Caucus, for people just tuning in, Mr. Speaker, is a group of Members of Congress who believes that America is a place where the idea of liberty and justice for all must prevail. It has got to be more than the words that we say in the Pledge of Allegiance. It has got to be something we actually live. ``Liberty and justice for all,'' that means everyone. That means we don't exclude people based on their religion, and we don't demonize them because of it. We embrace people in all their racial and ethnic diversities. We say that Americans born in America and that those who have come here are Americans all the same. Whether you're straight or gay or whether you're male or female, we believe in all America--one America--indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We believe in civil rights. We believe in human rights. We believe in the importance of economic opportunity being wedded to social inclusion. For the working people every day--Americans of all backgrounds--that means, if you work every day and if you work hard, you ought to be able to put food on the table for your families. You ought to be able to organize in a union on your job. You ought to be able to expect a good, decent retirement after a whole life's-long work. You ought to be able to expect that you can affordably put your kids through school. You ought to be able to expect that we will have a strong social safety net if you happen to hit hard times. This is the Progressive Caucus, the caucus that believes that it's better to talk it out than to shoot it out. Diplomacy is better than war. We should try to work out our differences with other nations, and saber rattling and investing in warfare armaments and outside and above protecting the American people is a problem. We should be talking about things like environmental protection. We should be protecting our natural world. We should be addressing the dangers of climate change, and we should be affecting that change to make sure that America is greener and cleaner and more sustainable. That's the Progressive Caucus, Mr. Speaker. We're the ones who could be found standing up for the Constitution, standing up for the idea of freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of the press. We will be found standing up for the idea the government must have the proper authorization and justification to violate people's right to be left alone. We also want to stand up and say that we believe that the progressive motion in America is what has made America this great Nation. We recognize our wonderful Nation, our great Nation had a dream. From the very beginning we had a dream, but we also had a reality. The dream was liberty and justice for all, land of the free, home of the brave. The dream was that all Americans and all men will be created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That was the dream. But the reality was America held slaves. The reality was women couldn't vote. The reality was the original people were relegated to an inferior status. So people who believed in that dream, people like Martin Luther King, people like Harriet Tubman, people like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and people like Susan B. Anthony, people like Eugene Debs, and people like Walter Reuther and other great Americans, they believed that that dream was worth fighting for and got out there, Mr. Speaker, and made the dream reality. We weren't trying to conserve the old order and status quo; we were trying to progress toward a better America that really reflected that dream that I was just talking about. The dream was that all Americans are created equal. The reality was segregation. But Americans who had a progressive vision said we're not going to stay, we're not going to conserve segregation. We're not going to conserve robber barons who controlled all the wealth in the 1890s. We're not going to conserve the abuse of our environment. Rachel Carson said, we're not going to conserve that. We're not conservatives. We're trying to make America better. We believe in the greatness of this country, and we are not going to stop until we get it. So people like Rachel Carson said we're going to have a clean environment, and she wrote about it and she fought for it. And people like Martin Luther King fought for civil rights, and people like Walter Reuther fought for the right to organize. And sometimes people who were in these movements gave their lives for the changes that they stood for, and other times they were able to survive. But the fact is they were all united in one progressive vision of what America should be about, not trying to preserve racism, slavery, segregation, gender oppression. The progressive movement is what we stand for, not conservatism. That's not us, we're not them and don't want to be confused with them. So tonight we're here for a progressive message, and we're going to be talking about jobs and unemployment, but I did want to take a moment, Mr. Speaker, just to let everybody know who the Progressive Caucus was, because we don't want anybody to think that we're something else than what we are, the people who embrace the American Dream and believe that America is such a great country we can overcome all the sins of the past and don't want to conserve any of them. Mr. Speaker, we want to go into a few key points tonight. We won't be here the whole hour, but we want to be strong while we are. And so today we bring the people, Mr. Speaker, the progressive message to illustrate what's at stake in America today. What are the things that we're competing for? What are we contesting for? We come down, we watch the events on the House floor and all across the America, but what is the fight all about? Working families are getting crushed and our middle class is shrinking every day. The working people of America are fighting to preserve a quality of life because a set of ideas has prevailed in America which basically says that any regulation is bad, and what we say is that regulations, if they're protecting life, protecting the environment, and they're helping the rules be fair and allowing Americans to succeed and have opportunity, they're not bad. But there are some people who never saw a regulation that they liked. We believe protecting health and safety is a good thing. We believe that getting rid of bad regulation or old regulation is just fine, but these folks over here have an ideological commitment to any, to ending any regulation, and we recognize that this is exactly what has ruined our environment, exactly what has caused global climate change, and exactly what caused the financial disaster. What's at stake in America? Here in America some folks believe that if the economy is going really, really well, what they need to do is have a tax cut for the wealthy. If the economy is doing really, really bad, well, what they need is a tax cut. If the economy is doing sort of good and sort of bad, what we need is a tax cut. In other words, the guys on the other side of the aisle, they don't believe in taxes. We in the Progressive Caucus believe that you shouldn't tax Americans any more than is necessary, but we believe that taxes are the dues that we pay to live in a civilized society. We believe that if our taxes go so that there can be Head Start for our poor kids to be able to have a chance in life, that's all right. That if we have to pay taxes for police officers and firefighters and people who work on our roads to make them safe and make sure bridges are safe to cross, we're all right with that. We're not these folks who believe that you want to cut, slash, and burn, and act like public workers and public employees are just, you know, not valuable. We recognize they are valuable, and I'm talking about people who work in parks and rec, the police, the firefighters, but also the people who make sure that our water is clean and our environment is safe. Also, people who make sure that our economic and financial system is safe, people who make sure that when people, that when some folks want to cut corners and just want to make a quick buck, that they're not going to be allowed to do that. You need a cop on the beat, a financial cop on the beat to make sure that good actors are rewarded and bad ones are punished. So people who say, oh, we don't want any regulation because it would hurt jobs, we don't agree with that. We believe that jobs are going to come when we have middle class people having enough money to spend, and then the businesses of our country have enough customers so that they can then add new people. Whereas our friends on the other side of the aisle believe that if you give people like Mitt Romney a lot of money, maybe, just maybe, it might trickle down to the rest of us. Something might land on our heads. Well, something has landed on our heads, but it's not rain or a good job; it's hard times economically. Trickle-down economics, supply-side economics is a failed policy. It never worked. They always want to say Reagan, well, look at Reagan. Reagan raised taxes plenty of times, and so they even misappropriate his legacy. But the fact is the Progressive Caucus is here to talk about what's at stake in America today. Now, if you want to know what's really going on, you could just look at this week. Here we are in Washington, supposed to be working hard on people's business. It's not like a lot of big things aren't going on. We've got a payroll tax that's about to expire. Did we take that up on the House floor today? No. Did we make sure that Americans don't end up with a thousand dollars extra to pay over the course of a year as the payroll tax deduction goes up? No. Oh, this summer student loans are going to go up, are going to double if we don't extend the law that would allow them to stay lower. Did we work on that? No, didn't touch that. But here's what we did do. This week in Congress the Republican majority didn't bring up a single bill to create jobs, none of that. They didn't bring up a single bill to help Americans stay in their homes as we are in the midst of this foreclosure crisis that seems to never end. They didn't bring up any bills to make sure that our air was clean and our water was safe to drink. Nor did they bring up any bills to rebuild our country. No, instead, they were busy playing politics while people are hurting. Yesterday, they brought up a bill to repeal an effort to help seniors get health care called the CLASS Act. Now, the CLASS Act was a piece of the Affordable Care Act. Some good-faith people working in our government said, you know, there are some things that we need to fix with this bill before it works the way we want it to. Anybody who has ever made anything knows that sometimes that happens. Sometimes you've got to mend the thing that you're working on. If you've ever cooked a meal, sometimes, you know, you've got to put a little more sugar or salt or add a little more water. Legislation is exactly the same way. You pass a law, you think it can do certain things, but when you get into the actual operation of it, sometimes it doesn't work like you thought. With this long-term care bill, some good public servants said, you know, there are some kinks we've got to work out. But instead of working out those kinks, the Republican majority just decided to strip the whole thing away. So seniors who need long-term care, the Republican majority didn't say, You know what, here's our fix. They just said, Get rid of what was already done. We say build on what was done. They say strip it away. It's too bad that's the position that they took, but that's the position they took. Let me tell a few things about long-term care and why we need to strengthen long-term care and not strip away what's already been passed. We have a long-term crisis in the United States today that the Republicans, who are in the majority in the House, are not dealing with. Do you know, 10 million Americans, Mr. Speaker, need long-term care. Over the next decade, another 5 million Americans will require this care, bringing the total to about 15 million people, Mr. Speaker. The problem is only getting worse, and we've got to do something about it. I wish my friends on the Republican side would help us. But even though they are in the majority, they're not. Nearly 70 percent of all people will need some level of long-term care after turning 65 years old, Mr. Speaker. That means anybody lucky enough to get to 65, there is approximately a seven in 10 chance you're going to need some long-term care assistance. The number of Americans 62 years and older is 20 percent higher than 10 years ago, so America is aging. And you know what, this is a good sign. We want Americans to be healthy. We want our seniors to be healthy, and we want them to be strong. And when they get into a health crisis, we want them to have the care that they need. And, Mr. Speaker, it's also important to point out here that about 62 million unpaid family caregivers, about 62 million unpaid family caregivers, that's adult children of seniors, about 62 million of these families provide care which, if you put a dollar figure on it, would amount to $450 billion in 2009, more than the total spending on Medicare that year. So families are stepping up, but families need a little help. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, people are coming into my office every day. People my age, I'm 48, and they say, My mom is getting older. She needs help. Or she got sick, something's going on. We need a fix for the long-term care. And so, Mr. Speaker, with all of these problems that we're facing, with 70 percent of people who will need some level of long-term care by the time they turn 65, with the number of Americans 62 years of age and older being 20 percent higher than 10 years ago, with all of these issues, Mr. Speaker, you would think that the Republican majority would step up and do something about it. They're in the majority. But what has been their response? An attempt to score political points, not solutions. They haven't come with any solution. They haven't come with a proposal to fix long-term care. They just want to strip what President Obama and the Democratic majority did, and I think that's too bad. Now, that was what we did yesterday. We messed around. They tried to embarrass the President. It didn't work because Americans know that President Obama cares. In fact, I think Republicans know it, that's why they call it ObamaCare. Well, he does care, so they can say whatever they want. But my point is today they were back up to their old tricks. Today, we in Congress voted on a budget gimmick bill--that's all you can really call it--a bill to make it easier for Republicans to pass more tax giveaways to the top 1 percent. They call it the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act. And, Mr. Speaker, if I had a dime for every deceptively named piece of legislation during this 112th Congress, I think I'd be a wealthy man right now. This legislation would rig the rules, play games with the rules, funny accounting, Mr. Speaker, to make it easier for the GOP budget priorities to pass, like the Ryan budget, which included deficit- busting tax cuts for the wealthy and cuts in job-creating investments like education, estimated to cost about 1.7 million jobs by 2014. This bill, this funny-math bill, this bill requires the Congressional Budget Office to use what they call dynamic scoring--that's the word they like to use--as part of a macroeconomic impact analysis of tax provisions. That's a whole lot of long words, Mr. Speaker, which basically says that they want to score it in a way that makes them look good. That's what they're trying to do. And what they want to do is include calculating their effect on the economy like GDP--that's all of the goods and services in a year domestically, investments and employment--which past budget analysts have said are really not going to be an accurate reflection of what's going on when preparing supplemental cost estimates for major legislation. Such an analysis is designed to hide the impact of tax cuts on the budget deficit, making tax cuts easier to enact or extending by masking their true costs. This bill, this funny-math bill, injects supply-side economics into the Congressional Budget Office scoring, which has been discredited time and time again. It has no place in the nonpartisan analysis provided to Congress. You see, Mr. Speaker, the CBO was set up so that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats, the conservatives or the progressives, none of us with our points of view could get in and mess around with the way the Congressional Budget Office scored a bill. What it means to score a bill, Mr. Speaker, is to analyze the costs of the bill, or analyze the financial impact of the bill. So it might be how much taxes is this going to generate. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, would give us an estimate. Or how much is this program going to cost. The CBO tells us what are the budgetary implications of what we're doing. Historically, Republicans and Democrats have just had to live with the CBO score because it's a nonpartisan office, meaning neither party controls it. But now what the Republicans want to do is come up with this dynamic scoring thing to make their estimates look better. This is wrong. They shouldn't do it. They shouldn't do it. The underlying assumption behind the bill is that tax cuts pay for themselves. This is obviously wrong. The reason we are in this monumental debt and deficit situation that Republicans like to talk about, they're always going on about we're leaving debt on our children and grandchildren. They always say it like that in a real dramatic way, Mr. Speaker. The reason we're in this mess is because we got two unpaid-for wars under a Republican administration and huge tax cuts under a Republican administration. They cut taxes during a war. When you're really supposed to be raising taxes to pay for the war, they cut taxes during the war which exploded all this debt. That's the truth. If they come down here and tell you the truth, that's what they would say. That two unpaid-for wars and the Bush tax cuts are what exploded the debt and the deficit. It's why we're in the situation that we're in. They always want to say, oh, ObamaCare. That's not the cause of it. They want to say, oh, oh, the stimulus. That's not the cause of it because that was an expenditure in a short period of time that didn't have long, long tails like these tax cuts do or these wars. That's what has exploded the deficit. And now, instead of owning up to it and saying we need to tax Americans more fairly, not just take care of the rich people, but take care of everybody and make sure the burden is shared and not just the rich get to escape with not doing anything, or not doing much. Some folks running for President are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and only pay 13.9 percent on it; whereas if you make 50,000, 60,000, you're going to pay 25 percent, 28 percent or 35 percent, depending on exactly how much you make. It's unfair. What the Republicans want to do is instead of just owning up and saying, yeah, we were fiscally irresponsible, they just want to have dynamic scoring so it doesn't look so obvious. Now, I talked about what we did yesterday, which is try to do nothing about long-term care except embarrass the President and strip the CLASS Act out. Today, we played games with the budget again with budget- counting measures trying to interfere with how the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office does the scoring. Well, what are we going to do tomorrow, Mr. Speaker? Certainly, tomorrow must be better than the last 2 days, particularly given the fact that we got the payroll tax deduction running out and other things, important things, going on. Are we going to take up the payroll tax deduction issue tomorrow? No. Tomorrow, we're going to do something else, another budgeting gimmick bill, this time called the Baseline Reform Act. This is another one to try to hide the reality. It requires the Congressional Budget Office-- and, Mr. Speaker, you'll recall I explained that Congressional Budget Office is sometimes referred to as the CBO--it requires the CBO to unrealistically assume in its baseline that spending in the future will stay the same and not grow to keep pace with inflation, thereby facilitating cuts in real terms in job-creating investments. This bill ignores the impact of inflation on the discretionary budget which gives an unrealistic picture of what it will take to maintain basic services. So, understand it this way, Mr. Speaker, if inflation is making everything cost more but you try to hold the line, then the cost of things will not be accurately reflected if you don't account for inflation. But this is exactly what they don't want to do. Republicans want to starve these programs, and they could lead to long backlogs for services and other types of problems such as the major issues at the Walter Reed Hospital during the last decade. Relative to the traditional baseline, a freeze would reduce investment for long-range programs such as rebuilding and educating America by over 20 percent and by the 10th year. So there you have it, Mr. Speaker. Three days of not dealing with what we need to deal with, 3 days of playing games, 3 days of not dealing with the people's business, 3 days of not focusing on what America needs us to focus on. So, Mr. Speaker, let's talk about the American people. They have rejected the Republican budget scheme that ends the Medicare guarantee to pay for tax breaks for Big Oil millionaires and corporations that ship jobs overseas. For the last year, if you're not a CEO or a wealthy special interest, the Republican Party of the 1 percent says you're on your own. I often wonder what they meant when they said the ``ownership society.'' What they really mean is the ``you're on your own society.'' They mean, hey, we got to cut cities and towns, and we got to cut States, and we can't be there for you anymore. You are on your own. We're going to lay off teachers, we're going to not give the cities enough to make sure there's enough police, water, fire, all that stuff. You're on your own. But Mitt Romney is not on his own. If you need a bailout, you're not on your own. But if your house is underwater, don't look to the majority for help. If you're a father who lost your job through no fault of your own, a mother struggling to make ends meet, or a family kicked out of your home, the majority of the 1 percent says you're on your own. Turning their backs on ordinary Americans may pad the profits of corporate donors and hedge funds of billionaires bankrolling their campaigns, but it won't grow the middle class. It used to be that working hard and playing by the rules meant you got a fair shot. We've got to restore that dream. We're not talking about an American fantasy where everybody is--you see it on TV sometimes, Mr. Speaker, where you're going to be living in some lavish place and fancy this and fancy that and lifestyles of the rich and famous and all this kind of stuff. We're not talking about an American fantasy. We're talking about an American Dream, which is realistic because it's not too much to ask that if you're willing to work hard in this country that this country should work for you. But many Americans out there are under a lot of stress, and it's because from a policy standpoint, their elected leadership is catering to the people who have the most under the philosophy, Mr. Speaker, that if you give it all to the rich, they will invest in plants and equipment, and then it will trickle down to everybody else. That philosophy has failed, and it's time for them to admit it. We need leaders who understand that when we all do better, we all do better. Americans have got to have a better shake. And we in the Progressive Caucus are standing up for hardworking taxpayers of the great American middle class and working class and poor. We in the Progressive Caucus are not ashamed to stand up for the poor, Mr. Speaker. We believe that poor people, low-income people, what you call poor people, are poor if they're too old to work or too sick to work or too young to work. Anyone else might be poor by circumstance, but they would love to join that great American middle class if they could just get a chance. And that means an education, that means job retraining, and that means an economy where we're literally trying to do something to protect the American worker from off-shoring by investing in our infrastructure, putting people back to work, and by doing things to make this economy strong. The best way to get our economy going is to put America back to work. There's a lot of work to be done. The best way to cut spending is to cut spending on tax handouts to millionaires, billionaires, and corporate special interests, while we give $4 billion to the oil industry while they're making the most money they ever made, and they still come down here and scream, oh, don't take away our subsidies. The American people know that the best way to cut spending is to cut spending on big special interests like Wall Street and Big Oil. But instead, Republicans would rather make the rest of us pay for tax giveaways for millionaires and Republican corporate donors like big oil and pharmaceutical companies. So we want an America where the burdens are shared and where the benefits are also shared. We want an America where there is true economic opportunity and inclusion. We want an America where it doesn't matter whether if you're born here or you came here, it doesn't matter what color you are, it doesn't matter what religion you are, it doesn't matter whether you're male or female or who you want to be married to, that all of us can have a good, prosperous life based on an economy that works for everybody. And so I just want to say, Mr. Speaker, as I begin to wind up my remarks, that this Progressive Caucus is going to be here standing up for the American people. We will be there for the 99 percent. We will work to get money out of politics, as we're pushing constitutional amendments to do so. We will stand up to Citizens United. We believe that corporations are not people, money is not speech. And in America, democracy is not for sale. We believe unemployment insurance should be there for people who have fallen on hard times. And we believe that the social safety net is something that's important so that when people need help, they can get back up on their feet. Mr. Speaker, as I wind down, I just want to point out that, with nearly 14 million people unemployed today, they deserve an opportunity in an America that really works for them. They deserve leaders who care about their plight. They need leaders who care about their plight and are willing to stand up and push policy that will make the American Dream attainable for anybody who wants to work for it. I just want to say, as I close out, America is a wonderful idea. And the American Dream should be in the grasp of every American. And great Americans have overcome some of the bad things in the past as they reached out to build the American Dream for all. And when I say liberty and justice for all, Mr. Speaker, I mean it. And I just don't mean social equality, I mean economic opportunity too. And it's going to have to start with asking everybody to pay their fair share, recognizing that trickle down never worked and never will, and that we've got to invest in America, educate America, and protect America so we can get this economy working again. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I tell you what's as plain as the nose on your face, what's as plain as the nose on your face is that the Republicans are getting rid of a plan for long-term care without offering any alternative plan in its place. They're just stripping what's there without saying here's what we're going to do. But I have a memory, Mr. Chairman. What I remember is that for long stretches of time in the last decade, Republicans had both houses and the Presidency, didn't do anything on health care other than do a big giveaway to Big Pharma. When the Democrats get in, we do a plan. We pass the Affordable Care Act. Does it need tinkering? Probably so, like all bills do. But instead of trying to work with us and do something good for the American people, Republicans say we're just going to strip the Democratic plan for long-term care. And this is too bad, because it seems to me that long-term care, Mr. Chairman, is a legitimate issue for us to work together on. But we're not working together. One side passes a bill; the other side just tries to get rid of it. I think it is high time that we start trying to work together, but we don't have a cooperative partner. Washington Republicans have proven once again that they would rather try to embarrass President Obama than help American seniors. Last year, Republicans' first order of business was to eliminate the Medicare guarantee for America's seniors. This year it's the same old story, Mr. Chairman. No health care, no Medicare, no long-term care for millions of Americans. Instead of a plan to create jobs or to extend middle class tax cuts or to address unemployment assistance or to fix the Medicare physician pay rate, Republicans are wasting time on divisive and pointless bills. I do respect the gentleman's desire to have me yield, but I must very, very respectfully decline to yield because I have limited time. But if I have any extra time, I will be happy to yield to the gentleman, but it will have to be when I'm done. Today, we could be dealing with the real issue--fixing the long-term care crisis. And I'm sure that everyone in this whole body, Republican and Democrat, ought to be concerned about it because all of us, no matter what our ideological beliefs may be, have people who need long- term care. So we've got to be about this business. You know what, Mr. Chairman? Ten million Americans currently need long-term care, and the problem is only getting worse. The number of Americans 62 years and older is 20 percent higher than it was 10 years ago. Long-term care is a huge burden on families. An estimated 62 million--let me say that one more time, Mr. Chairman--62 million unpaid family caregivers provided care valued at $450 billion in 2009, more than the total spending in Medicare that year. But Republicans are offering no solution to the long-term care crisis. They may say anything that they want, but they're not coming here with a bill that we can debate. They're just attacking what has already been done, which is so easy to do. Way better to be a critic than to be someone who produces solutions. So, Mr. Chairman, I want to tell you a little bit about somebody in my district, Mary. Mary says: My mother is 90 and seriously ill and now in a nursing home. Her bill is over $6,500 a month. Mary goes on to say she will soon run out of money, referring to her mom. Why do people have to become indigent before they receive help? That's a good question, I think. That's a question warranting our attention, but our Republican friends have no plan to protect families like Mary's. They're not here with a plan. They just want to strip and rip and take down what Democrats have already done. And people are in need of help. So, Mr. Chairman, repealing the CLASS Act will not help Mary's family. We need to make the CLASS program stronger, not get rid of it. We need to amend it, not end it. We need to improve it. And that's why 56 national groups wrote to Congress saying please don't repeal the CLASS Act, including AARP, SEIU, and the National Council on Aging, people who really know what they're talking about when it comes to long-term care. So I urge our Republican friends on both sides of the aisle to come together with us to make a strong long-term program for seniors rather than just tearing down and stripping down. It's as plain as the nose on your face, Mr. Chairman: Americans need long-term care. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the Egyptian people on their revolution 1 year ago today. Of course that revolution is still a work in progress, but it reminded us of what people can accomplish through nonviolence and perseverance. It inspired my constituents and people around the world. Egyptians disproved the myth that people in the region do not want democracy. Protesters in the streets were not asking for another dictator. The nonviolent protest was a stunning rejection of violence and extremism as exhibited by al Qaeda. They also were not blaming others for their problems. Their demands focused primarily on internal issues like the economy, corruption, and police brutality. The United States must engage the new Egyptian Government. We can't advance our interests and values if we don't. If the new Parliament doesn't deliver, the Egyptian people will throw them out just like our people will throw us out. That's democracy. As they build theirs, we should remember that we're still perfecting our own.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I brought a friend to the floor with me today. As we all know, this is Elmo. This guy taught us our 1, 2, 3s, but he also taught us tolerance and understanding. For the past several years, he's been doing the same thing for children in the Palestinian territories. Because of ``Sesame Street'' in Palestine, Palestinian kids grow up with the same positive role models as we did. But recently, ``Sesame Street'' has been off the air. Now Palestinian kids are left watching Farfour. This is Farfour right here. He's a mouse who is the main character of a Hamas TV show. Instead of tolerance and understanding, Farfour promotes violence and anti- Semitism. This Congress approved funding for ``Sesame Street'' in Palestine last year, but because of the position of certain individuals in Congress, that means the money is being held up. There's no Elmo, but there is Farfour, trafficking and teaching extremism. I'm not the only one who wants Congress to release the funding. Even the Israeli Government wants it released. Let's get good funding to the people of Palestine so that they can grow and strengthen their own society. Let the funding flow and give something for Farfour to compete with--Elmo.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, we're here because for the last year the majority could have come down here and we could have had this debate all this time. But at the 11th hour after they signaled to the Senate, work it out, get a deal together because we have not done it, the Senate did work that deal out. And now that it has come back, our friends in the House majority have said ``not good enough,'' conveniently after the Senate has gone home. It feels like a setup. I don't question motives, but it feels that way. And it goes to the heart of the matter: Is the government here of the people, by the people, for the people and for the benefit of the people? Or do people basically have hostility to government and want to make government look dysfunctional at every turn? The fact is, Mr. Speaker, there was an agreement in the Senate. It was coming over here, and it looked like government was going to prevail and that we had gotten our act together and worked it out. But before that ever happened, the people who stand in opposition to good government broke that deal apart. The people who believe that government should be shrunk to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub could not possibly let a deal for the American people go through, and they've smashed that deal. And right now, this year, the clock is running out. The Senate has gone home, and our friends on the other side of the aisle are playing a dangerous game with the lives of 160 million Americans. It's a shame and a disgrace. We ought to pass this bill the Senate sent over here and stop messing around with the livelihood of Americans.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Let me thank the gentlelady from Washington, D.C. The message I have is very short. It's based on a group of young people who visited me in my office today, all from Washington, D.C. And they are on a hunger strike and have not eaten any solid food for 8 days. I promised them that I would not eat, either, starting tonight, and will not eat for 24 hours in solidarity with their struggle. They asked me to read a statement. The statement reads as follows: ``Occupy The Vote D.C. D.C. needs representation: Fast. Occupy the vote. Corrynf@occupydc .org. To: Those in Congress with a vote. Regarding: Full democracy for the citizens of D.C. Since its creation, our Capital, the bastion of American democracy, has been handicapped from responding to the will of its citizens. Despite paying taxes to the Federal Government and sending our citizens to fight and die in every war, Washingtonians have had no voting representation in Congress, and have had to seek approval from people they did not elect on all legislative and budgetary matters. In other words, the so-called capital of the free world is America's most disenfranchised jurisdiction. More than 200 years after the American Revolution, taxation without representation--the foundational grievance of our country--is still alive and well in our Nation's Capital. Washingtonians pay higher per capita Federal income taxes than any State, yet we have no say in how Congress spends that money. It's true that there was a time long ago when the Capital had few residents outside of the legislators and first Federal workers, who maintained representation in their home States. But D.C. now has 600,000 taxed, yet voiceless, citizens. Not a Senator to hear them at the Hart Building, no voting Representative in the House to stand for their concerns. Based on the founding principles of our democratic Nation, we the signees demand that Washington, D.C., have the long overdue freedoms of: Full budgetary autonomy. Congress is overburdened and often stalemated by its responsibilities to the rest of the country. Yet, the D.C. Government cannot spend its own tax dollars without the approval of Congress. A bill proposed by Representative Darrell Issa would free D.C.'s local budget from congressional control. We urge Congress to pass this bill free of any riders restricting how D.C. spends its own money. Letting D.C. take control of its own budget would free time for Congress to attend to national issues, while giving D.C. the local democracy that is given to every other American. Full legislative autonomy. Eliminate the requirement for congressional review of new District laws. This redtape subverts democracy and adds bureaucratic inefficiency to the processes of both Congress and D.C. Government. We urge Congress to pass the District of Columbia Legislative Autonomy Act of 2011, H.R. 506. Full representation and voting rights in Congress. The people of D.C. do not have a vote in the House or in the Senate. This deprives more than 600,000 Americans of an empowered voice in our national legislature. This unjust situation has allowed Members of Congress who were not elected by the people of the District of Columbia to impose policies upon the citizens of D.C. that are not supported by the people. We urge Congress to pass H.R. 266, the District of Columbia Equal Representation Act of 2011. Politicians have attached riders related to abortion funding and gun ownership to past bills that would expand real democracy for D.C. residents. These riders ultimately divert the dialogue from democratic representation and further disenfranchise Washingtonians. We demand that any such riders attached to the legislation above be presented not as mandates, but as referendum proposals up for vote by the citizens of Washington, D.C. Until D.C. realizes democracy as stipulated above, we will follow the examples of Alice Paul, Mohandas Gandhi, and Anne Hazare, and will refuse all food and consume only water in a continuous hunger strike. In a gesture of transparency, we fast here, in the open, at McPherson Square, Washington D.C., with a transparent 24-hour video livestream at occupythevotedc .tumblr.com. To consciously disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of American citizens is unjust and contrary to this country's principles. Democracy for D.C. is not a political issue but a moral issue, not an issue of left or right but of representation and democracy. We call on President Obama, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, and the U.S. Congress to show real leadership and give the Capital of this great country the voting representation and local democracy it deserves. In solidarity with Occupy D.C. and people's democratic movements the world over, Signed, Adrian Parson, Sam Jewler, Joe Gray, and Kelly Mears.'' I only read what they asked me to read. And I commend their struggle and will deny myself all food and all water for 24 hours starting tonight in solidarity with their struggle. I yield back to the gentlelady and thank her for her time.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, yesterday Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus introduced an important bill, and it's called the ``Rebuild the American Dream for the 99% Act.'' This bill, this important ``Rebuild the American Dream for the 99% Act,'' would create 5 million jobs, Mr. Speaker, over 2 years, and cut the deficit by $2 trillion over 10 years. The ``Rebuild the American Dream for the 99% Act'' creates direct- hire programs to put Americans back to work; provides grants for on- the-job training and employment services; invests $50 billion for infrastructure projects; creates a national infrastructure bank; improves ``buy American'' provisions; ends the practice of foreign currency manipulation; protects wounded veterans from job discrimination; extends unemployment insurance, including for people at 99 weeks; and supports the TANF emergency contingency fund to help States pay for the cost of hiring unemployed workers. We can do these things. The ``Rebuild the American Dream Act for the 99% Act'' does it.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. My name is Keith Ellison. I am the cochair of the Progressive Caucus and a Member of Congress from the great State of Minnesota. I'm here claiming time to speak on behalf of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, Mr. Speaker, is 77 members in the United States Congress who believe that when we say the Pledge of Allegiance and we say liberty and justice for all, that means all--all means blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, straight, gays, the senior citizens and the youngest among us, people with disabilities and people who are able-bodied. It means the great mass of American people included in ``in liberty and justice for all.'' The Progressive Caucus believes in economic justice. We believe in civil rights and human rights for all people. We believe that public employees are valuable to our society, and we honor and respect the services that they give to us. We believe that America, with our awesome military power, should use that power to promote peace in the world. We are the ones who called for the U.S. to not go into Iraq. When we went in there, we were the ones to push to get us out. We are the ones who are raising the issues around Afghanistan. And we'll continue to argue the case for diplomacy and for development and to make friends with the world, to be a good member of the international community in the United Nations and under international bodies. We're not the ones who believe that the world is a scary, dangerous place and we've got to jack up the military as much as we can. We're not the ones who think that the rich don't have enough money and the poor have too much. We're not the people who believe in dividing Americans based on culture and color and gender and urban versus rural. We believe in unifying Americans and having equal rights for all people. Yes, we are liberal, and we are proud of it. We're the Progressive Caucus. Today, Mr. Speaker, I'm here to deliver the Progressive message. The Progressive message is what we're talking about today. The topic I'm going to address, Mr. Speaker, is going to be jobs in this American economy. Today, Mr. Speaker, we want to speak as bipartisan as we can, but there's no question that the arguments that we have in Congress have a partisan tone. Therefore, for us to sit up here and say we're all just getting along here in Congress and we don't have a different point of view would be not exactly being straight with the American people. So we're going to say that the debates that we have been having in the House of Representatives have to do with those of us who believe that we as Americans need to live in harmony with the planet, need to try to cut down our carbon footprint, need to try to diminish pollution. And those others of us--mostly on the Republican side of the aisle--who make the case that, for the sake of industry, we have to sacrifice our health, our lungs, our good clean environment, they're making that case. We're trying to ask Americans to look carefully at the different programs that are being offered on this House floor and to make a decision: Do you believe that we have a responsibility to the poor? The Progressive Caucus does. Do you believe that public employees and government brings quality and improves the quality of life for Americans? Not all the time. Government needs to be refined like everybody. But the Republicans and conservatives in this House who make the case that government is the problem, we wholeheartedly reject that point of view. That is wrong. We believe in a mixed economy, where the private sector and the public sector exist to benefit the American people in general. So we're here to talk about these things tonight, and we're here to lay it on the table so that Americans of all backgrounds, all colors, all cultures, all faiths can make decisions about what kind of America they want. Because there are clearly two different visions of what America is about being offered on this House floor every day for the last year and for the next year, and I think Americans should be able to say, I think this is the kind of America I want. And others who think that rich people don't have enough money and poor people have too much, they can support the Republican program. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about jobs tonight; and, therefore, I just want to make the case that, again, I don't think it's a good idea to always draw the partisan divide, but I think it is important to be honest. And my Republican colleagues just have not-- even though they're the majority--have not introduced a single bill for jobs this whole time they've been in the majority. They will say, Oh, yes, we've brought jobs. We had jobs bills. We had jobs bills. Didn't you see us cutting the EPA? That's not a jobs bill. Didn't you see us trying to let cement companies be able to emit more pollution in the air? That's not a jobs bill. Didn't you see us trying to let coal companies, electric coal companies be able to put more emissions in the air? That's not a job bill. That's just saying industry can do what it wants to our lungs. But a jobs bill to help rebuild America's infrastructure? Haven't seen that from our friends on the Republican side of the aisle. A jobs bill that would help refurbish public buildings like schools, haven't seen that. They don't want to do that. A jobs bill that would say, Look, you know what? We need to train Americans to be able to do the jobs of the 21st century and to promote solar, wind, biomass, the waves, all these kind of ways that we can live in harmony with the Earth and power the Earth at the same time. They haven't had any jobs doing that. To make our grids smarter, our electrical grids smarter, they don't want to put money in that. They think that is a waste of money. The fact is Republicans have not come up with a jobs agenda. I call it the Republican no jobs agenda. And, you know, it's clear that the government has an important role in terms of jobs. You hear some of my Republican colleagues say the government doesn't create jobs. This is absurd. Ask any small retailer out there who's trying to make a go of it in their local community. They may have a nail shop or they may have a hair shop or they may sell retail clothing or they may have just a small little business that they opened up. If they don't have any police protection--that's the government--then that's going to cut the number of customers that come to them. That is going to hurt their business. Government helping business to thrive. Ask a trucker, somebody who may own their own rig or maybe somebody who owns a trucking company. If we don't have public roads, highways and things like that--that's the government--where would their business model be? The Internet. Think about Google. Think about all of the wondrous economic activity associated with the Internet. Well, the Internet was started by the government--yes, it was. I'm telling you that, whether it's the National Institutes of Health coming up with lifesaving innovation and funding important basic research or whether it is the Food and Drug Administration giving Americans confidence that when they buy that product it's not going to kill them, the government helps business thrive. It helps the market operate properly so that we don't have caveat emptor, so that the buyer doesn't have to beware. The buyer knows that somebody somewhere is looking to make sure that the food is edible and the water is drinkable. Now, my friends on the Republican side of the aisle that say government doesn't do anything to help the economy are wrong. I was so proud to hear the President discredit the false economic theory of trickle down. What is trickle down? Mr. Speaker, trickle down is the theory that, look, if we give as much money as we possibly can to the richest Americans and we take it from the poorest Americans and the middle class, then maybe the rich people, through investments and stuff, will put money into the economy and maybe it will trickle down and other people will be able to get something out of it. Well, the President said it's an okay theory except for it doesn't work. The President's right: Trickle down is a failure, and trickle down doesn't work. I'm so glad that the President really helped explain this to the American people. Because trickle down, at the end of the day, it doesn't trickle down. It just stays up there. And that's why we see so much wealth concentrated in the hands of so few, because Republicans think the only way to make the economy work is to cut all of our health and environmental regulations and to give tax breaks to people who already have more money than they know what to do with. Some of my Republican friends like to say, well, you've never met a payroll. I met a payroll. I was a small business owner for many years. I was a lawyer and ran a law firm, had to pay my staff. And it wasn't taxes and stuff that I worried about. You know what I worried about? Mr. Speaker, I worried about customers. Could I get some clients coming through the door asking me to write a will, to incorporate their business? Could I get some clients to say, Would you represent me in this accident? Or, I got in a little trouble. Would you represent me in that? Clients is what I needed. And if my customers didn't have any money, they wouldn't be able to hire me. But if the customers aren't working and the economy is poor and there's no money circulating amongst working folk, my business suffered. And if people were doing well, my business would thrive. You ask any business person: What would you rather have, a tax cut or a lot of customers? They're going to say, Customers. I want customers. And so this claim that the Republicans make, that we don't need to make sure that the average working American is doing well, we just make sure that the money gets up to the top and it will trickle down, is not true. And I'm so glad that the President made that point today. We've got to destroy myths around this economy because, again, there are people who tell self-serving narratives. They tell stories and narratives that help them make more money. I'm sure that the Koch bothers, who have given a lot of donations around and who own this big refinery and make a lot of money, would really like it if we all believed that giving them a huge tax cut and getting rid of environmental regulations was good for the economy. Of course we don't believe it because it isn't true. But we know that if we keep on arguing, that masses of American people will say, You know what? I think it's okay to have unemployment insurance for people who are out of work. You know, I think it's okay to, in an economy like this, to extend the payroll tax cut. Rich people get tax cuts. Republicans like it when rich people get tax cuts. They don't like it when working middle people get tax cuts. They would rather have just the rich people get them. But the fact is people are waking up all over America. They're saying, Hey, you know, when I voted last time or I didn't vote last time, I was upset because of the job situation. And my friends on the Republican side of the aisle didn't get to the business of jobs. They got in here going after the EPA and going after tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. And because of that, you know, things haven't been good. Now, I will give President Obama some credit. Because of the good work that he has done, we have seen private job growth continue for about 24 months. The problem is we have cut the government so badly, and at the wrong time, that State and local governments have had to shed public employees left, right, and center. We are literally seeing gains in private sector employment being offset by cuts in public sector employment, and it's unfortunate that that's the situation that we have. So today, I'm here with the progressive message. Today we're here to illustrate what's at stake in America today. And this week, thousands of Americans all across the country came here to Washington to raise their voices. They call themselves the 99 percent. And I have to say, it's starting to feel like the people's House around here. I had a number of folks in my office who came on a 24-hour bus ride, Mr. Speaker, from my district in Minneapolis, to come tell me that, look, you know, we've got to rebuild America and put people back to work. Infrastructure crumbling, people can work to rebuild it. They said, hey, look, you know this income inequality is not working. And as you give more and more tax cuts and loopholes to the richest, it just ends up hurting us. I had to tell them that two-thirds of all American corporations don't pay any taxes at all. Two-thirds of all American corporations don't pay any taxes at all. And I brought in this chart, Mr. Speaker. I pulled this chart out because they were--it was hard for them to believe. I told them, I said, you know, the companies on this chart that I'm about to show you, you know, show me however much money you have in your pocket, you paid at least as much taxes as these companies, because if you paid nothing, then you paid the same as them. If you got one penny, you paid more than them. Bank of America paid no taxes. Now, let me tell the story about Bank of America, Mr. Speaker. Bank of America made bad business deals. When you make a bad deal in business, you're supposed to pay for that. You know, things go wrong, people go out of business. Bank of America, they went and bought Merrill Lynch after this guy, this CEO named Stan O'Neal, ran the company into the ground. They still gave him a golden parachute of, like, several hundred million dollars. And I often joke and say I'd have been happy to run the company into the ground for just a million dollars. But he did it, they paid him millions to run Merrill Lynch into the ground. And Bank of America bought that company. And then Countrywide, which is the leading predatory lender, subprime lender, bought them, Bank of America did. Got all these bad mortgages that weren't performing because they were never properly underwritten because people made money by just selling the mortgage and then selling the paper. And it was like a hot potato. Once you sold the mortgage, you got the fees out of it, send it to somebody else to be securitized into a mortgage-backed security. So a lot of those happened. And Bank of America bought those two companies, and then it started causing them losses. And then they said, America, America, we're going down. Help us, please. And then they called us all together in September and October 2008 and said, we need a bailout, please. We came up with a bill called TARP and Bank of America got bailed out. Now, the problem is, after Bank of America got bailed out and got back up on its feet somewhat, they paid all their executives big giant bonuses, they laid off 30,000 people. What? Yeah. That's how they repay the American people helping them out. Citigroup, another one, paid no taxes. They got saved. They were absolutely going down. They probably are, I don't know, Citigroup is a company with a lot of problems. Paid no taxes. ExxonMobil. Now these people are making money hand over fist. They are making money. They are very, very, very, profitable. Why? Because you're happy to pay $3 gas. If you can go pay $3 you'd be, like, hooray; this is the store I'm going to go to. And you know you see it going up to four. And over the last few years, it's fluctuated between three and four. Well, do you think that ExxonMobil is not making money on that? They are absolutely making money hand over fist because of that, and yet they pay no taxes. So, look, the fact is--oh, GE. Don't let me forget about my friends at GE. I think they're the biggest corporation in the world. No taxes. GE pays no taxes. I'm like, look, you know, GE, we, the government, because we've cut taxes for the wealthiest people, and two-thirds of all corporations don't pay any taxes, we don't have that much money. We're in a position where we may have to cut Head Start, home heating oil program for senior citizens. Do y'all think you could do a little bit better? And they say, nope, can't do nothing for you. This is amazing. You mean to tell me you've got more--the executives of these companies got more houses than they could ever, ever visit; they've got more lakes that they live on than they could ever water ski on. They've got more $1,500 Armani suits than they could ever wear. They've got more monogrammed shirts that are tailored than they could ever put on. They've got more expensive shoes. They travel all over the world. They fly around in jets. And they won't pay nothing, and we've got to then talk about cutting home heating oil, the LIHEAP program, cut the food stamp program. I mean, how do you sleep at night? It's amazing to me. Shocking. Shocking. And I'm sure all of them look at each other and they say well, you know, we earned it. You can't tell me that you earned that. This is--and I'm going to tell you, you know, Mr. Speaker, some people want to say, well, they work hard. No, no. This is not true. What they do is they take all that money that they make, and they come down here and they get us to go argue for loopholes for them, and they--$50 million is spent lobbying Congress; $130 million spent giving donations to campaigns. As of 2008, 94 percent of all candidates with the most money win the election. And about 261 Members of Congress--and there's only 535 of us--are millionaires. The average worth here is about $700,000. And let me tell you, I'm not one of those rich guys. I actually live on the money my constituents pay me because I'm working for them 24/7. And yet, you know, I go to the grocery store. I know how much bread costs. And so what I'm saying is, to whom much is given, much is expected. And if America, Nation that I love so much, has a military which protects us all, has a police department that protects us in our local communities, has a fire department that makes sure that Bank of America branches don't burn to the ground, America, if one of their executives or employees gets sick, the EMT truck, the emergency medical truck is going to come help them and bring them back to life if they can. The roads and the bridges that people drive to work on to all these companies, publicly paid for. And yet they turn around and say, yeah, you've done all that for us, America; but we've got nothing for you. Zero taxes. It's wrong. And there should be an Occupy movement to say so. Now, this is a chart, Mr. Speaker, that I do like to pull out now and again. And I want to say that I actually have no beef with Donald Trump or Paris Hilton. I'm sure they're both nice people. But, you know, do you really think they need a tax break, Mr. Speaker? I think they're getting along just fine. I think that some of my neighbors who are firefighters and cops and teachers, or who work at the local bank branch, or who work at the local grocery store stocking up groceries, I think they could use a little help. But I do believe that if Donald and Paris don't get a tax break, they'll manage just fine. These are the millionaires and billionaires of our society. When we cut taxes for the richest people, you're putting more money in the hands of these folks. I don't think that's wise public policy. So my point, Mr. Speaker, is just this: you know, you want to talk tax breaks. We're actually talking about extending the payroll tax deduction so that $1,500 bucks, you know, could stay in the hands of people who are really struggling. We asked--in the U.S. Senate there was a bill that said, you know, millionaires, on your first million, we're not asking you for no more taxes on your first million. But on your second million, can we have 3 percent? You know. What do you think? They're, like, nope, nothing doing. I said, even if it's going to help working class people, you know? Will you help then? Nope. No. Can't do it. Cannot possibly do it. It might sap their incentive to work. If we were to help the working class people of America, it might sap their incentive to work, so we can't help them. Tax breaks for billionaires or tax breaks for teachers, police, firefighters, job training, small business, investment, better schools, clean energy, health care, infrastructure investment, college affordability. Now, my question is, Mr. Speaker, what are America's priorities? I've got a feeling that they're with these folks down here. I think America would rather help these folk than these folks. Just a wild guess. So that's all we're asking for. This payroll tax deduction, you know, $1,000, $1,500 in the pockets of people who really need it. We asked billionaires and millionaires to pony up just a little more. They wouldn't even notice it, wouldn't have to cancel any of your country club memberships. But they said no. There is a loss of civic virtue among some of our most privileged Americans, but I'm proud to tell you about a group of guys and women called the Patriotic Millionaires. They came to a forum that the Progressive Caucus organized last week, Mr. Speaker, and the Patriotic Millionaires said, You know what, you've invested in research which we used to make our products that made us rich. You invested in roads and bridges and education that we used to help make us rich. And we love America more than we love all that money, and we're here to pay taxes. And then some smarty-pants Republican said, Well, if you want to pay extra and you're rich, you can. I'm sure the Treasury will accept your checks. And then one of the Patriotic Americans said something really wise. He said, You know, America is not a charity. America is all of our responsibility, and that's what taxes are. I'm here today, Mr. Speaker, to argue that taxes are the dues we pay to live in a civilized society. Taxes are not a punishment. When they talk about tax relief, really, from what, from good schools and clean water? When they say ``tax burden,'' I mean, let me tell you. If you want to live in a society where there's no taxes and therefore no public services, you could move to Somalia. That's what it is. No government. I don't see any of our friends who love--I call them the free market fundamentalists--I don't see them running to Somalia, moving to Mogadishu. So, Mr. Speaker, I just want to say quite frankly that on this Thursday night in this great country, in my view the greatest country in the history of the world, Americans have a question before themselves. Are we going to choose community, choose each other, or is it going to be a selfish pursuit where everybody is only on their own? I view America as people who would look out for each other, even the least-to-be. Americans don't think that helping seniors who are on Social Security is a bad thing to do. Americans don't think that helping the poor and the sick is somehow a bad thing to do. In fact, one of the things that illustrated this national debate we're having, Mr. Speaker, is something that happened in the United States Senate today, the other body. Today, I can't blame my friends in the House, my Republican friends in the House. They didn't do this one. But today, Republicans in the Senate voted to block President Obama's appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Now, look, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau came about because of the massive failure of decency on Wall Street that resulted in all of the foreclosures and America having to bail out the likes of Bear Stearns, and Bank of America and a whole bunch of others. And they said, look, you know, a mortgage document can be very complicated, and we just want to have a bureau that will try to make these things simpler so people know what they're signing up for; a bureau that will say you've got to say what the interest rates are going to be, you've got to say what the terms are going to be so that we can have transparency. Actually, the real free marketeers around here would never be against more information and better and more effective information going to the consumer. I mean, Adam Smith, the one who wrote--oh, my goodness, I can't believe I can't remember the name of that great book--but the one in which he describes the invisible hand and how markets move and people operate and their individual interest yields the economy. He said in that book that consumer information is key to a good market operating. So I don't know why people wouldn't want a good market to operate. But anyway, Republicans in the Senate--can't blame the House members this time--like to claim that the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency would be reformed before it gets a new director. They say they won't even allow it to exist. They won't allow it to have a director until they change it. Well, we had a vote and it came into being. So now they're trying to wreck it before it even gets up and running. The truth is that these folks who are against consumer protection and the lobbyists that support them are trying to water down our new consumer watchdog's power so they can't hold Wall Street and predatory lenders accountable. And that's too bad. They don't want anybody to be the new cop on the beat protecting all Americans against these predatory lenders. I've always said, look, if you're offering a good financial product that helps people and is fair, why would you be afraid of a little transparency? Only if your business model is based on bilking and cheating customers would you want to fight against a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Without an enforcer and without real powers to crack down on predatory loans, we will keep on seeing mortgages that are designed to fail from the very beginning, tricking people with the fine print, cheating consumers to make a quick buck. So, Mr. Speaker, I see that Republicans are ready to take the time. I'm happy to yield it. I'm going to yield back the balance of my time in just a moment. But I just want to say that America was a good idea. America is a good idea. But it's an idea that you have to fight for; and the idea of liberty and justice for all living in a fair, prosperous economy is something that Americans all over this country have to stand up for and assert because if we leave it to the big guys, to the 1 percent, to the people with all the money and all the dough, they're going to snatch this great American Dream away from us. With that, I yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I want to publicly associate myself with everything Walter Jones just said. He is absolutely right. Mr. Speaker, this holiday season Congress has chances, a couple of chances right in front of them to do what's right for the American people and to side with the overwhelming percentage of Americans suffering out there in this economy. For an entire year, the majority in the House has not offered a single bill to create a single job. In fact, the only thing that the Congress has been doing is creating an environment where public sector jobs are cut, and where private sector jobs, though they have been growing, are offset by those public sector cuts, leaving us with an unemployment rate which we're happy to have at 8.6 percent, but within the historical context is still a national disgrace and an outrage to have unemployment at 8.6 percent for so very long. But we're happy to have it because it has been as high as 10. And now we're threatening to leave more than 2 million Americans, including 13,000 in my home State of Minnesota, out in the cold during the holiday season by taking away their unemployment insurance. Right now, 14 million people are unemployed, and companies really aren't hiring. For most of these people, unemployment insurance is the only thing that's keeping them in their homes and not out on the street. According to the Census Bureau, unemployment insurance has pulled 3.2 million Americans out of poverty last year. And that's why Congress needs to make sure that all Americans, Mr. Speaker, continue to have this vital lifeline available. Any credible economist will tell you that unemployment insurance creates jobs. Every dollar invested in unemployment insurance yields a return of $1.52 in economic growth. At least 200,000 jobs would be lost if Congress fails to pass the extension of unemployment insurance benefits. Congress must not leave Washington for the holidays without extending unemployment benefits that create jobs and put money into the pockets and on the tables of millions of Americans. Both Democrat and Republican politicians, we together have not passed that jobs bill. While the Republicans are in the majority, and I believe bear the weight of the responsibility, it's a responsibility of every Member of Congress to call for the extension of unemployment insurance benefits and jobs at this critical time. America can't wait. We shouldn't be leaving hardworking Americans high and dry this holiday season. This holiday season, we can spur economic growth, create jobs, and strengthen the middle class by doing the right thing of extending unemployment insurance benefits. On behalf of the good people who play by the rules and lost their jobs because of Wall Street greed, and while this majority looked the other way, I urge all of my colleagues to support the extension of unemployment insurance benefits.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. I just would like to say something very important here. It's common for our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to say we're broke, we're broke. They get up and say we're broke all the time. It's like one of their favorite things to say. The truth is we're not broke. America is not broke. This is designed to create a certain sense of crisis and urgency to scare people into favoring a program of austerity which they propose. But I think it is important to note that two-thirds--two-thirds--of American corporations don't pay any taxes at all. Two-thirds pay none. And I just want to point out to Americans, Bank of America doesn't pay any taxes. They got a bailout from the government. The American people got a call from Bank of America: Oh, my God, we bought Merrill Lynch; we bought Countrywide. It's not a good deal. We're going down. Save us, please. Through the Congress, which is the people's House, they got their bailout. Now, the assumption was that Bank of America would then turn around and pay the money back and then help people with their mortgages and help improve the economy. What they actually did is they didn't pay any taxes and they laid off 30,000 people. Bank of America didn't pay a single penny of Federal taxes. I've got more money in my pocket right here than they paid in taxes. Boeing, despite receiving billions of dollars from the Federal Government in taxpayer giveaways, Boeing didn't pay a dime in U.S. Federal taxes. Citigroup. Citigroup deferred income tax for a third quarter in 2010, amounting to a grand total of zero. At the same time, Citigroup has continued to pay its staff lavishly. John Havens, 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. They paid no taxes at all. ExxonMobil, they paid no taxes. In fact, I think we give them money. Big Oil tax dodgers use offshore subsidiaries in the Caribbean to avoid paying their fair share. Although ExxonMobil paid $15 billion in taxes in 2009, not a penny of it went to the American Treasury. It went elsewhere. This is the same year that the company overtook Walmart as a Fortune 500 company. Meanwhile, the total compensation of ExxonMobil's CEO is about $29 million. We say we're broke. What we're doing is we're not collecting enough revenue because we think that corporations are job creators. And, of course, they're not creating any jobs, as you pointed out. But we're operating on some faulty assumptions. General Electric. In 2009, General Electric, the world's largest corporation, filed more than 7,000 tax returns and still paid nothing to the government in taxes. GE managed to do this with aid of a rigged Tax Code that essentially subsidizes companies for losing money and allows them to set up tax havens overseas. With the Republicans' aid in Congress whose campaigns they finance, they exploit our Tax Code to avoid paying their fair share. And who do Republicans blame? The middle class. They say that the middle class is the problem. They say tax breaks for billionaires, which is the GOP plan, tax breaks for huge corporations, which is the GOP plan, huge bonuses for big CEOs; but who is it who our friends in the Republican caucus think is responsible for all of the problems? Well, it's public employees. I just want to point out something very important before I yield to the gentleman. The Republicans now have said they will support a plan to extend the payroll taxes by cutting the Federal Government workforce 10 percent. And by giving--get this, Congressman--a means testing for Medicare, food stamps, and unemployment insurance benefits. That ought to get a lot of money. But public employees are who they think should bear the brunt of the refusal of the corporate elite from paying taxes. They say that teachers should pay, that cops should pay, firefighters should pay, job training programs should be cut. Small business investment, no. Investment in the National Institute of Health and Research, we should cut back on that. Schools, they should have to pay. Clean energy, we can't afford that. That's what they say. Health care, can't afford that. Infrastructure investment; I come from a city where I-35, the Interstate 35 bridge over the Mississippi River fell into the river and 13 Minnesotans died, 100 got severe back injuries, all because of deferred, delayed maintenance. Infrastructure investment is not just a job creator; it is a public safety issue. And, of course, college affordability. They want to cut programs that make it more affordable to go to college. The brunt and the burden of balancing the budget is not and should not be on our public employees, our everyday heroes, the people who take care of our kids, the people who look after our younger people, the folks who look after us, the police department. Who are you going to call? Firefighters. I thank the gentleman for allowing me to elaborate on this point because I want to say that, on the one hand, they say we're broke. We're not. What we are is we don't ask the wealthiest among us to help out. And what they offer as a solution is to cut the people who give a good quality of life to the average Americans--our public employees. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. ELLISON. I want to say that it's been a real pleasure to spend this last hour with you, Congressman Johnson. We in the Progressive Caucus believe in one America--all colors, all cultures, all faiths. We believe in promoting human solidarity, not making Americans fear each other. We believe in economic prosperity and justice for working and middle class people. We believe in environmental sustainability, and we absolutely believe in peace with our Nation and other nations. We are always going to promote diplomacy and dialogue and development over war. We are the Progressive Caucus. I will allow the gentleman to offer a final word. If I could just say, my name is Congressman Keith Ellison, the cochair of the Progressive Caucus. Look us up on the Web. The final word will go to Congressman Johnson. After that, we will yield to the Republican side.

Mr. ELLISON. Right.