Progressive Caucus
Floor Speech
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Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Thank you very much. I am pleased to be here to join you, Mr. Pocan, and other members of the Progressive Caucus as we talk about the real deal in terms of what it is that you do to reduce poverty.
I read some of what we are talking about, and I really couldn't believe that that had anything to do with the reduction or any efforts to seriously reduce poverty.
We have made some progress in the last 50 years, but it is unacceptable that 49.7 million people, including 13 million children, were poor in 2012. In my congressional district alone, 41 percent of children, or 67,000 children, live in poverty. It also is shameful that racial disparities remain in the experience of poverty, with child poverty for African Americans being 29.2 percent, in 2012, compared to 9 percent for their White peers.
And so I welcome working with anybody that would like to reduce poverty. As a matter of fact, ever since I have been here, I have championed two of the chief proposals mentioned by the Ryan plan: expanding the earned income tax credit to childless and noncustodial parents, as well as reducing incarceration among low-risk and nonviolent offenders.
The earned income tax credit is one of the most effective antipoverty programs that we have. A Brookings Institution report highlights that the high rate of incarceration in our country exacts considerable cost from American taxpayers, especially from State governments and families.
However, I am extremely concerned about the proposed way of paying for these programs. Rather than asking large corporations to pay their fair share of taxes or closing international tax loopholes that allow large, multinational companies to evade billions of dollars in taxes, the Ryan plan would eliminate or eviscerate many important programs like the Social Services Block Grant and the Economic Development Administration.
So I don't know what Mr. Ryan is really talking about. It seems to me that he is talking the same talk we have heard so often.
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Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. They didn't really deal with pay-fors. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons that many of us objected to the piecemeal way in which the Republicans are looking at what we call tax reform is we have been trying to move towards comprehensive tax reform where you look at all of the taxation that we are doing. And yes, there would be what is called some losers and some winners, but you wouldn't cherry pick and just give corporate giveaways and not do things like make sure that you have got the new market tax credits in, which are designed to help redevelop, restore, and reconstitute communities that are hurting, that are seriously underfunded and don't have things.
Many communities in my district which were actually burned out by the riots after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King are still burned out.
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