Transcript of Pelosi Remarks at Budget Priorities Session at Democratic Issues Conference
Contact: Drew Hammill, 202-226-7616
Philadelphia – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks today at the Budget Priorities Session of the Democratic Issues Conference on House Democrats' forthcoming budget proposal, which would invest in measures to strengthen the middle class by growing the economy and growing the paychecks of working families. Below is a transcript of the Leader's remarks:
"Wow. Thank you Claudia for recognizing that this House Democratic Caucus did successfully pass the DREAM Act. Xavier Becerra, Nydia Valazquez, the author of the bill for a long time Lucille Roybal-Allard – I could name the whole Hispanic Caucus as well as Members of the Tri-Caucus and the whole Caucus because it was the right thing to do. And as you can see, my colleagues, the DREAMers gave testimony to what America is all about in a new, fresh, reinvigorated way to the Congress of the United States. We often said to our Republican colleagues: if you would listen to them, you would know that they make America more American with their enthusiasm, their idealism, and their determination and their courage. Thank you, Claudia Flores, for being with us.
[Applause]
"My colleagues, this is quite a fort up here; I feel separated from you so I might walk around. Last night when we heard the President make that fabulous speech, at the beginning he wondered what I had with my chocolate. And I thought he knew. And what it is – as I've told many of you over and over again – is what motivates, what drives my engine, and we all have our stories, is the one in five children in America who lives in poverty. We have bookmarks, the one in five, just reminders constantly. Every morning when I get up, that's what drives my engine, what I pray for at night is the one in five children in America who lives in poverty. As the mother of five myself, seeing the opportunities, the tender, love and care that they, their cousins, and all received you think: how could it be that in this, the greatest country in the world, one in five children lives in poverty?
"So when I came to Congress – which I considered an extension of my role as mother – and they asked me: what are three most important issues facing the Congress? I always said the same thing: Our children, our children, our children, their health, their education, the economic security of their families, a safe, clean place, clean environment, safe neighborhoods for them to live, a world at peace in which they could thrive. This Caucus has done many things to address those concerns. But why I bring it up in relation to what we have been doing these couple of days is that we started with values and Claudia continued to take us to that place. We started with Mayor Nutter telling us to stay true to our values. Thank you for being with us again, Mayor Nutter.
[Applause]
"We heard from the Governor and Mr. Trumka – I won't review the schedule, except to say: that evening, we had a very compelling – leadership with Mr. Clyburn and our Members participating – presentation about the urgency of now, talking about Dr. King and what we have to do to give people a reason to register and a reason to vote. And so taken to the place, watching Dr. King the other night say: the ballot, the ballot, the ballot, the ballot. We have to take this to the ballot.
"But in listening to Dr. King, all these – leading up to his birthday and the rest – and what we've listened to all the time – John Lewis is an example of it, but also speaks to it – is the instruction that I am seeing in association to the decisions we have to make in the budget. The instruction from Dr. King: he said he dreamed of a world – every word was fraught with meaning – he dreamed of a world where his children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character. Now we've heard that over and over again, but just think about it: the content of their character.
"That's a high standard, and we have responsibilities to uphold it and yet, we have one in five children in America living in poverty; we have workers in our workforce whose time and value of their work is exploited; parents have to work more than one job, two jobs – they don't have time to even mentor their children, much less build character, nature, nurture, nurturing their children. Lois Frankel spoke even to the President a year ago – I don't know where Lois is right now – about mentoring. That not only parents don't have time to mentor and nurture, but people in the community barely do because they're doing something else as well.
"So in the home, these parents working two jobs, not having economic security, they're doing something that our colleagues couldn't even possibly do: they're doing heavy lifting under tough economic circumstances with challenges that could intervene like an illness or other challenges to a family. So how do we judge the content of the character of a child who doesn't have – thank God we passed the health bill, now we have that – health, education. Education, I'm just going to read you some statistics about education in our country. It's a stunning thing to think that such a high percentage – here it is: ‘As recently as 2012, only 37 percent of our nation's schools had enough broadband for digital learning placing 40 million kids on the wrong side of the digital divide.'
"Mr. [Bobby] Scott told us yesterday about the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is designed by the Republicans to take away what was there for children from economically disadvantaged areas in Title One. Our challenge is clear: it's not just that the kids be computer-literate, that's their literacy test, what reading was a century ago – not just that they be literate, it's how they can learn. The education deficit in our country has to be addressed by technology, the child and teacher are in touch with each other, and more on that another day. But education inequality can be addressed by technology and it is not.
"How can we say to a child: ‘Make education a value and important to you,' when they're sending them to schools that are not worthy of the children's time? And then the issue of the economic security of their families – we studied that, we can say it's a given, but the fact, the message that came out of here is middle class and middle-class economics. If we want to help the poor, we have to talk to the middle class. And that's just the discipline of message that we have to have. And the list goes on. We didn't talk about housing here, but children have uncertainty about their living conditions – homeless or not, almost homeless, on the brink of homelessness. It has a tremendous psychological effect on them. How can we expect children to build character if we're not teaching them respect for themselves? How can they have respect for others?
"He wanted them to be judged by the content of their character. He was saying to us: this country has a responsibility to these children, to keep them healthy and to nurture them, to build character, to know right from wrong clearly. And how do we judge the content of a character of a country that does not do that, that does not nurture its children? We've had our fights, differences of opinion, Democrats and Republicans. But this is fundamental – undermining of community, inequality in education, opportunity gap. A study just came out last week that I was reading to Joe Crowley on the plane – until he put his headphones in and said ‘Enough.'
[Laughter]
"And this is what it said. This was just last week, the Academy of Arts and Sciences, a very distinguished panel of educators, just the highest level, talking about our deficit in research and development and everything, but talking about the importance of education, the seed corn. And it said: if you are in the top quarter academically and the lowest quarter economically, you have less of a chance of going to college than someone in the top category economically and the lowest quarter academically. What a waste. As the United Negro College Fund said, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. And Dr. Putnam talked yesterday, very clearly, about educating all of our children, so articulately. He said: If we do not invest in all of our children, we are writing off a lot of talent, a lot of lives of potential and promise that our communities and our country need to succeed.
"We know that the facts are there. The evidence is there. The evidence is there that if we don't pay people adequately, if we don't have bigger paychecks, the demands of time of work do not supply enough time for people to be with their children. I heard Jared [Polis] and Joe [Crowley] last night say: ‘How many times must a man turn his head to pretend that he just doesn't see?' The answer, my friend, is with the public. And we have to take this conversation to the public. Yes, it's about some issues, but it's certainly about our deepest values of opportunity and fairness and the character of our country. And we have important decisions to make. And we have to make them together, so that we have a unified message springing from some of what we saw today, over this weekend, and just keeping it going.
"The President laid out a foundation in the State of the Union that was current and bold. He gave further momentum to it last night. And it is our responsibility to build that momentum for middle-class economics, because the middle class is the answer to economic growth in our country – bigger wages, bigger growth for our country. So Steve [Israel] will be organizing us around the message; Donna [Edwards] will be sending a message, talking about reducing the role of money and ending some of the skepticism that exists out there about, ‘Does it make a difference if I even vote?' Mr. Clyburn will take, with his outreach task force and the rest, the message into the communities to listen to how we should be speaking about connecting all of this. And of course, our Chairman of the DCCC Ben Ray Luján will be the point of the spear when we get into the political arena.
"But I don't think this is political. [It's] fundamental to who we are as a country. And so, we really need your involvement in making these decisions about the budget, because that will be the first line of fight. Of course, the Education and Secondary Education Act, Bobby Scott – I don't see him, but I know he's here somewhere – will be leading us on that. But the overarching issue – a statement of values, that's what a budget is. What's important to a country is [where] we allocate our resources, to how we invest and how we pay for it.
"Just remember a couple things: nothing brings more money to the Treasury, to reduce the deficit, than the education of the American people. To cut funding in education is to increase the deficit. Remember one thing that we were told by Jack Trout yesterday: the middle class – jumpstart the middle class, because the middle class is the job creator in our country. Pay people more, our economy will grow, and more importantly, our families will flourish. They will have a chance to nurture their children – the heirs to America's future. These are our heirs, the heirs of America. And we see the separation, which has an immorality to it.
"So other times, we've talked about specific bills, and this or that or that. This time, we're talking about the content of the character of America. A budget, as a statement of values, is a good place to look to judge a country for its character. We couldn't be better served in that discussion – in terms of vision, values, knowledge and listening to the concerns and priorities of Members – we couldn't be better served than by having someone who wants to build consensus, so that we can all get behind this in one voice, in harmony, in force. Are you ready to do that in force, to build the momentum, to take it to the public? Lincoln: ‘Public sentiment is everything.' So we're really all connected in this, and our strength depends on everybody participating. It's now my privilege to thank and bring up Chris Van Hollen to lead us in the debate on our statement of values, a budget for the future, our Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen."
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