Congressional Black Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that the Congressman from Nevada, my friend Steve Horsford, and Hakeem Jeffries are doing such an awesome job. I'm so proud to see you gentlemen holding forth about the issues that affect this whole country and things that the Congressional Black Caucus, of which we are all members, are doing.

I also just want to let people know who may be tuned in, Mr. Speaker, there are people in this Congress who believe that hard work should be rewarded, who believe that when people get up in the morning, pound it out all day to put food on the table for their families, that it is nothing less than an insult for somebody else who is living in plenty to look back on them and say, You're not working hard enough; you're not doing quite enough.

The fact is that sometimes hardworking people need the help of their government. There's no shame in that. There is nothing wrong with that. Lord knows, Apple Computer agrees that sometimes hardworking people need the help of their government.

The fact of the matter is that we did have a hearing and that hearing did involve low-wage workers, people making $7, $8, $8.25 an hour, some of whom were working for contractors who had contracts with the Federal Government, people who were literally working in buildings like Union Station, like the Reagan building, Federal buildings across Washington but also across this country, who were not working for the Federal Government but were working for contractors who had contracts with the Federal Government, paying them $8 an hour, a wage that is not livable, is not sustainable.

Folks often speak derisively, Mr. Speaker, about low-income folks. They'll say, Why don't they make more money? What's wrong with them? They're working 8 hours a day. They're working 40 hours a week. They're working three jobs, but they can still barely put food on the table, and they're raising their children. They need food stamps. And if we cut the food stamp budget by $20 billion, we're going to be cutting families who work hard at two or three jobs every day.

I've heard my Republican friends talk about this cultural dependency. Somehow that moral judgment--you know, the Good Book says, Judge not, lest ye be judged.

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Mr. ELLISON. The gentleman is absolutely right.

I mean, it is utter hypocrisy to sit up here and talk about the cultural dependency and not talk about corporate welfare.

Senator Bernie Sanders and I--an awesome gentleman, by the way--have a bill called the End Corporate Welfare Act in which we identify $110 billion worth of corporate giveaways to Big Oil, Big Coal, and Big Natural Gas.

Look, these are industries that are making record profits. ExxonMobil is not having any trouble. Why do they need the American people's money? Why do they need a subsidy? Well, they're getting one, and yet people in this very body are willing to stand back and say that poor folks working three or four jobs need to have their money cut. I mean, it is astounding. It is shocking how hypocritical some of things that we see go on now.

I just want to the say this, Mr. Speaker. This is a country of, by, and for the people. It's a country designed to let the voice of the people be heard, and yet sometimes the people's voice is muted because it's so difficult for the average person to take off time to come down here to talk about what they want to talk about, to be able to access their government.

So these are times when you and Mr. Jeffries can come down here and talk about the importance of food stamps, of TRIO, and talk about the absolute concentration of wealth at the very tip-top of the economic stream in this committee.

I'm going to wrap up here, Mr. Horsford, but I just want to wrap up by saying this: working people around this country need to know that when poverty increases, the money just doesn't disappear; it goes to the very top of the economy. That is why, since about 2008, if you look at the newly created wealth in this economy, about 93 percent of it went to the top 1 percent.

My friends in the Republican caucus believe that rich people don't have enough money and poor people have too much, which is why they want to cut food stamps and cut taxes for the richest people. One of them even said to me one time, Keith, a poor person has never given me a job.

Like, wow. That's the attitude we're dealing with.

The bottom line, Mr. Horsford, is that low-income workers are taking matters in their own hands. Low-income workers in Detroit and Chicago and New York and St. Louis, even here in Washington, D.C., have come together and had strikes--even McDonald's workers--in order to get better pay. They are brave and they are courageous. They're taking their families' needs in their own hands. We wish them the best. We had a hearing so they could let their voices be heard.

But if we had a functioning National Labor Relations Board, would they need to go on strike and risk their jobs? If we had a social safety net, would they be in such dire straits? If we made sure that American workers had an increase in the minimum wage and we were paying a livable wage, would they be in this situation?

The American people are standing up for a better life, but the truth is public policies are failing them and we've got to do better. We can start by getting rid of sequester and getting rid of this very bad idea of cutting $20 billion out of supplemental nutrition.

Thank you for your excellent work.

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