Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentlelady for the time.

Mr. Chairman, when I look at this amendment by Representative King, it's the closest thing to a jobs bill that I've seen since January started--and it's disappointing. The reality is that I wish we weren't debating this at nearly 3 o'clock in the morning, because I would love the American people to see that this is what substitutes for a jobs bill in this day and age.

The fact is that this is what the very fight is all about. Do we want to build a robust middle class or do we want to pay people the least we possibly can pay them to keep them desperate and drive wages down to nothing so that we have a very small group of really wealthy people and a vast group of really desperate people who would do anything to work and who could have their unions busted because you've got people who've got to do what they've got to do and cross that line?

This is at the heart of what it's all about.

This is the fight.

Shall we have a middle class and pay people decent wages or shall we continue on this drive to separate and increase wage inequality in this country so that the richest have so much and so that the rest of us just don't have much at all?

Davis-Bacon is good legislation because it strengthens our middle class so that people can actually have a decent quality of life, send their kids to school, be able to send them to college, and have decent retirements. It's about making a strong middle class based on a decent, livable wage.

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