Future of America

Floor Speech

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, we are here now deciding what kind of a country America might be in the future--whether it will be a place we can look back at and remember when everybody had a chance at success.

It is hard to believe that when we look at the vote we just had. It confirmed where the Republicans are on the issue of whether middle-class families should get a tax break. The Republican answer, was no. The answer they gave on the middle-class families tax break was: Absolutely no. No, no, no.

To the struggling single parent who wants to provide for their family, works hard every day, the Republicans said no way. To the recent college graduate trying to start a career but having trouble paying back college loans, paying rent, paying living costs, the Republicans said no. To the working couple, a family with a couple of kids who needs some help in this tough economy, the Republicans said no. No, no, no. The Republicans refuse to help them because their mission is to shield the wealthy from paying their fair share of our country's obligations.

Across our country, Americans are watching Republicans in this Congress and wondering what they are going to do to supply encouragement and hope for people who need it. Are we going to be simply a big accounting firm, simply doing the auditing, or are we going to be there to stimulate activity for people, to give them a chance to elevate their living standards for their family, to get their kids educated, and take care of the family necessities?

Right now, 14 million Americans are jobless, and they are worried about how they are going to stay in their homes, feed their children, and keep their families warm this winter. But unemployed Americans are not the only people who are struggling. Hard-working Americans from all walks of life are struggling to make ends meet. They are coping with skyrocketing grocery prices, surging health premiums, soaring college tuition.

In my home State, 1 in 10 New Jerseyans is on food stamps, the highest level in more than a decade. New Jersey has traditionally been among the top States per capita income in the country, within the top three, often in the first position.

On this side of the aisle, we are trying to help struggling families. I learned the hard way about family struggles when I was growing up. My father took ill with cancer when he was 42; I was 18. My mother, when my father died, was 37 years old. We had all kinds of obligations to pay. My mother took over the family leadership. We owed money for the pharmacy, for hospitals, for doctors. We were virtually bankrupt. I had enlisted in the Army. Next week, it will be 69 years ago that I enlisted in the Army, in December of 1942.

I know how tough it was and how much aggravation accompanies a family who just cannot keep their heads above water.

Here we are, in a day of some incredible wealth around this country--around this room--and Republicans are trying to thwart our efforts to extend and expand the payroll tax cut for working families--for people who depend upon their incomes to take care of their family needs; not on their savings, not on their inheritance, on their jobs.

Millions of American families have benefitted from this tax cut that we have had this year, but it stands to expire at the end of December. Our side is eager to continue this tax cut and increase the size of that cut to help these families. In my State, this means a typical family would receive a total tax cut of $2,100 next year. For parents who are trying to feed their families, educate their kids, pay their bills, an extra $2,100 goes a long way. To make sure that all working families receive this much needed relief next year, we are asking America's millionaires to pay their fair share, but the Republicans would rather protect their wealthy friends than continue the payroll tax cut for working families.

First, the Republicans blocked our side's efforts to cut taxes for the middle class. Then the Republicans offered their own plan. It was a disgrace. Their plan calls for a much smaller middle-class tax break, which they would have paid for by laying off 200,000 middle-class government workers. That is how they would solve the problem--fire people. Don't take it out of your bank account, don't take it out of your salary--even if you make over $1 million a year--fire people. That will make sure they understand we are not as concerned about them as we are about the person who makes over $1 million a year.

It was a cynical ploy. It showed the other side's true stripes. The Republicans say they are for lower taxes, but we now see that only goes for the jet set. Their tax-cutting zeal doesn't extend to the middle class. Republican priorities? Raise taxes on middle-class families. Middle-class families do not have it easy in America today. Republicans want to raise their taxes to protect the luxuries for the millionaires.

Make no mistake. Working families will suffer if the Republicans continue to block our efforts to extend and expand the payroll tax cut, and so will our economy. Last week, Barclays Bank warned that our GDP will drop 1.5 percent if the payroll tax cut is allowed to expire.

The choice is clear. We can continue the payroll tax cut for working families or we can allow the Republicans to continue running their millionaires' protection ring. The fact is, American millionaires are doing just fine. They don't need protection from the Republicans. Since the 1980s, our country's wealthiest 1 percent have seen their average household income increase by 55 percent. But for the bottom 90 percent, average household income has not increased at all.

As we see here, even though incomes are growing for the very wealthy, their taxes are actually going down.

We can also look at CEOs to see how well the wealthy are faring. CEOs at the largest companies are now paid an average salary of $11 million a year. That is 343 times as much as the average worker's salary of $33,000.

It used to be a much more modest comparison. In 1980, CEOs made 42 times the average worker's pay. Just look at that. Just a few decades ago the pay was much more reasonable, and the people who were working in the mills and making products and doing the service jobs and all of that were living significantly better than they are today.

Millionaires are making much more money today than they did in those years past. This is something I know something about directly. I was the president of a very large company when I came to the Senate. And you know how I got there: I had a boost from our country. I had enlisted in the Army, and I served in Europe. I got the GI bill. I went to Columbia University. It happened because the country said: Frank, if you can learn we will help you. We will pay your tuition because you served your country. I've done well because my country invested in me, and I'm willing to invest more in my country today to help the next generation.

That company I helped start with two other fellows has 45,000 employees today; 45,000 people are working at ADP, the company I helped start, because we had a chance at an education and to learn what we had to do to be in management, what we had to do to be in leadership.

Our goal should not be to protect millionaires and billionaires who don't need our help. We should focus on the foundation that our society requires to function. We should be focused on protecting Medicare, food safety, Head Start.

Imagine, they want to take seats away from Head Start Programs. I visited a Head Start Program in New Jersey just a few weeks ago, and I saw the children. They were 3, 4, 5 years old. They were interested in learning something. I talked to them, and I wanted--one of the little kids came over and hugged me around the knees. I wanted to pick him up and take him home. He was so beautiful, so nice. I thought: Here is a child, learning. He came from a single-parent family.

The people who need help--we should be focusing on protecting them and giving them a chance to grow. We should be about making sure they have proper Medicare, that food safety is taken care of. Head Start, home heating for the poor, and other essential programs--we should be protecting them from reckless cuts.

The Republicans who served on the supercommittee refused, before the negotiations were started--refused to ask wealthy Americans to pay their fair share. They practically took an oath that they would demand nothing more of the wealthy, when the country is deeply in debt, starving for a better way to solve our problems.

As a result, the poor and the middle class are going to have to make up the difference. These are the people who need help the most right now. We must act now to protect the vital programs on which they rely. If we fail to act, our country and our economy will continue to suffer--especially Americans who are already struggling. It is just plain heartless to continue asking the poor, the middle class, the elderly, and our children to bear the entire

burden of these brutal economic times.

It does not hurt any of us who have been successful to pay a fair share. It might cost a few dollars more, but if you are making over $1 million a year, look in the mirror and see if you have done it all by yourself or whether it took the help of your country to get there. There is a whole cadre of people working across America--they go to work every day because they want to make a week's pay and take care of their kids and take care of their obligations. That is the foundation that built America. It is the foundation of the development of something that was called the ``greatest generation.''
That was the generation in the last century who served in World War II. All of us had an opportunity to get a college education when we otherwise would not have been near a college.

That built our country. That strengthened our foundation. Now we see people, Republicans, who want to make it tougher for people to make a living, tougher for people to get an education, tougher to provide heat for people who desperately need it in the wintertime, tougher to think ahead and say: You know what. I know my children will do better than I have done in my life.

That used to be a truism in our view of life in this country. We don't hear that much anymore because people are unsure, and it does not help to have the Republicans sticking up for the wealthiest among us and turning their backs on working-class families in this country, the middle-class families. It is not right.

I hope the people across this country will say: No. We are going to say no to these Republican policies. I hope our Republican colleagues will disband their millionaires' protection game, stop standing in the way, and start standing up for everyday Americans who need our help.

Help us continue the payroll tax cut for working families. Help us protect the programs that benefit the people who need them most. Help us, friends on the Republican side, to make America even stronger than it is today. We can do that.

Countries are failing all over the globe. America need not to do that. We just have to make sure that while we take care of our expenses, we also make sure we have the revenues to do the job.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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