Investing in America

Floor Speech

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, in a few days our Congress will see the reporting out of the work of the supercommittee. This is a big deal, and it's something that the American people, I pray, focus their attention on. It's a big deal because it is true, and I say this as a proud liberal Member of this Congress, that we do need to make sure that we reduce our country's long-term deficit. We need to do that because programs I care about like Head Start, home heating oil for seniors, programs that are going to help develop our human capital, get crowded out when we say we just don't have enough money. We do need to make sure that we can live within the budget of this country.

But the question is not what we are going to cut, but what are we going to spend on. That's the real question. The deeper question is what are we going to invest in because the fact is, whether we do only stimulus and spend a lot of money in the hope that we increase aggregate demand, or whether we do what Republicans suggest, which is to cut everything and just have austerity, neither one of those solutions will really put America on the track that it needs to be on.

The fact is that we need to invest in this country because as we look around, this country, the land of opportunity, is not making the investments that it needs to make in order to be the world leader in the years to come. We need to invest in infrastructure, Mr. Speaker. Let's start by talking about greening America. We need to retrofit old buildings. We need to invest in a smart grid. We need to invest in renewable energy--wind, solar, things that will really help power our Nation and make us less dependent not only on foreign oil but oil altogether--fossil fuels. We need to reduce that dependency.

We need to invest in transit and roads and bridges. In my own City of Minneapolis, we saw a bridge fall 65 feet into the Mississippi River because it had not been adequately maintained. People think, oh, that's Minneapolis's problem. If they think that, they're wrong. Bridges all over this country are in critically bad shape, and we need to invest in making sure that they are not only safe but are adequate for the future; well fitted so that they can accommodate transit and other sorts of things that can move people around and not just be dependent upon cars. We need to invest in a smart grid so we use energy efficiently and we can power our society in efficient and important ways.

But not only do we need to invest in infrastructure, we need to invest in our people. We need to invest in skills training. This should start, Mr. Speaker, with early childhood education. Any economist who studies this will tell you, the investments you make in little kids, zero to six, pay off for a lifetime. And yet we don't have universal kindergarten or universal early education. We have millions of children across this country whose young minds could be being developed by the age of 3 or 4 or 5; and yet they're not. They are languishing at home and they are being, in some cases, baby-sat by the television or even worse. Some don't have adequate nutrition. Mr. Speaker, we need to invest in the earliest, youngest Americans so they can have success throughout a lifetime.

We need to do something immediately about the awesome debt burden that our young people in college are shouldering. This has the potential, as young people who are in their 20s and 30s should be buying houses, buying cars, should be saving for their retirement, they're paying back student loans. This is going to have a long-term negative effect on our economy, and we need to do something about it right now.

There are a lot more things to talk about, but one of the things I don't want to leave off the table is that we also need to reduce our military spending. I'm fully in favor of supporting our veterans. I believe this is an important, worthwhile investment for their health, their education and for their welfare, but there are a number of military armaments and machines that we simply don't need. We don't need to depend on a nuclear arsenal, in my view. We need to engage in international agreements to cut the nuclear weaponry arsenal and inventory in the world.

We need to make sure that we begin to shut down some of these bases we have all across the country--as many as 174 bases. Do we need this kind of military footprint? I don't think so.

So, Mr. Speaker, let me just say that tomorrow we're going to have a group of leading economists at 11 o'clock to come together and offer their views about the proper direction for prosperity for America. Tomorrow the Congressional Progressive Caucus at 11 a.m. will convene, and we'll have a number of great economists whom we invite everybody to come listen to, including Jeffrey Sachs. I've run out of time, Mr. Speaker, but I urge people to attend tomorrow The Way Forward for America.

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