Progressive Caucus
Floor Speech
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Mr. JEFFRIES. I thank my good friend, the distinguished gentleman from the Badger State, for yielding to me, as well as for the tremendous leadership that you continue to exhibit week after week in leading the Congressional Progressive Caucus' Special Order hour, championing issues important to working families and the poor and the sick and the afflicted, those who need our government to be more compassionate, giving them the assistance they need in order to pursue the American Dream.
I appreciate that advocacy, and I appreciate this opportunity to speak briefly on the plan presented by Chairman Paul Ryan, Expanding Opportunity in America.
I would like to believe that that is the objective, and I certainly am of the view that the chairman is acting in good faith, as it relates to his willingness to try to tackle the issue of poverty in America, but if you put it all in the context of the Ryan budget that has come to the floor of the House of Representatives year after year after year since the Republicans claimed the majority, which passed with overwhelming support from their caucus, the question is: Is their real interest in expanding opportunity in America, or is the fundamental objective really to expand inequality in America?
What Paul Ryan are we talking to in attempting to have this conversation? Is it the Chairman Ryan whose budget cut $125 billion in supplemental nutrition assistance in a country where 50 million people are food insecure, 18 million of those individuals children? We can't have a real conversation about opportunity if that is still the position of Chairman Ryan, his Budget Committee, and the majority.
Are we having a conversation with a chairman whose budget cut $260 billion in higher education funding, threatening to rob young Americans from their pursuit of their dream of obtaining a college education and being all that they can be in America? We can't have a real conversation about opportunity with individuals who want to cut $260 billion in higher education spending.
I want to believe that we can proceed in good faith and try and tackle this issue. But are we entering into a discussion with the same group of individuals, the chairman whose budget cut $732 billion in Medicaid, a program designed to benefit, in significant numbers, poor, elderly, and disabled individuals? That is not expanding opportunity in America. That is expanding inequality in America.
Certainly, there are some proposals contained in the document that was unveiled today that we can embrace and have a meaningful discussion about in trying to arrive at common ground--sentencing reform as well as the notion of expanding the earned income tax credit. But there is no minimum wage enhancement. There is no infrastructure investment. There is no unemployment compensation insurance renewal. There is no equal pay for equal work, and there is no real effort to deal with the issues that we are prepared to work on to solve the problem of poverty for millions of Americans. For that reason, I am skeptical that this is a step in the right direction.
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