Economic Populism

Floor Speech

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Ms. GOODLANDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Deluzio) for bringing us together this afternoon.

Economic patriotism--we are coming from all across the country. We are coming from different backgrounds with different ideas, but we are united by things that are really powerful. We are united by a love of our country, by a belief in our country, and by a belief fundamentally in the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I was born and raised in the greatest State in the Nation, the State of New Hampshire, the State that made the Nation. We were the ninth to ratify the Constitution.

I was born and raised down the road from the family farm that my great-grandfather built when he came to this country. He was 16 years old. He didn't speak a word of English, but he believed in the American Dream. He raised my grandfather, Sam, on that farm.

My grandfather, Sam, was an economic patriot. He really believed that your word is your bond. He believed that hustle was the name of the game. He milked cows, bailed hay, and got his start as a businessman selling airplane rides at the Nashua Airport. His slogan was: ``A $1 million thrill for a $1 bill.''

He went on to become a door-to-door salesman for Electrolux vacuum cleaners. He worked hard because he believed in the American Dream. He was a lifelong Republican who loved one of our great Presidents with his whole heart, I think maybe the greatest economic patriot we have seen in the White House, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

I was reminded today of a great speech that President Roosevelt gave 81 years ago. ``The Economic Bill of Rights,'' it has been called. He talked about economic rights that are self-evident, but, as with all self-evident rights that we know in this great document, our Constitution, they aren't self-executing.

I want to focus for a moment on one of the rights that President Roosevelt talked about. He said that there is a right of every businessman--businesswoman, too--large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

It has been said on the floor of this House and on the floor of the United States Senate that monopolies are inconsistent with our form of government. It is true.

The antimonopoly spirit is as old as America. It is rooted in the simple idea that power has to be checked. Just like political power, economic power has to be checked, too, but the fact is that big corporations and monopolies have too much power in America today. I see it everywhere I go.

I come to Congress having worked in the Department of Justice in the Antitrust Division. It is a division full of patriotic men and women, many of them nonpartisan, who come to this work with the basic belief in this country and in the power that must be checked by government.

What do we mean? What kind of power are we checking?

Every day on this job, as I have traveled around the State of New Hampshire, I hear about how big agricultural corporations are screwing family farmers like the family farm I grew up down the road from. I hear about big health insurers who are charging people more for less, big health insurers who are rolling up the entire industry, from providers to hospital beds and to the prescription drugs that people rely on for their lives. I hear about big tech companies that are using your valuable data for their own gain. The list goes on.

As we look across our consolidated economy, we see that corporate power has reached its apex in industries big and small, from door locks to the defense industrial base.

We have always found common ground in this country around the basic idea that, just like political power has to be checked, economic power has to be checked, too.

Mr. Speaker, I am so grateful to my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Deluzio) for bringing us together today.

Our antitrust laws are alive and well, but they could use an update, and I look forward to working with everyone here today and in the days ahead to make that dream a reality because it is core to the American Dream.

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