Political Quotes

“Before I turn to my colleague from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) who has just joined us, I want to pull up this chart. If only you had had this next to you while you just made this statement about the change in the nature of America's wealth. This chart has become, I think, rather famous--or infamous, I think, is a better word. The blue line here is a chart that shows the growth in the wealth, the income of the top 1 percent of Americans. And down here is what the rest of Americans have had over the last 20 years or so. What we've seen is basically a flat-lining for the middle class, and certainly for the poor--no improvement, or very, very little improvement, in their situation. This is the 99 percent here. This is the 1 percent. This is the anger that you now see on the streets of America, and it's exactly what you were talking about, Mr. Tonko, with a few, 1 percent of the American public, getting an ever increasing share of the American income and wealth, creating a bifurcated society, one with very few that are extremely wealthy, and the rest that are actually growing poorer. With that, I'd like to turn to a woman from the great Midwest, the State of Ohio that is enduring this exact hollowing out of the American middle class. Marcy Kaptur, thank you so much for joining us, and thank you for years of work representing your part of what was once the great industrial strength of America.…”