Michael Bennet: “I was here to speak on the across-the- board cuts that the Forest Service is facing in Colorado, but I was so glad to…”

“I was here to speak on the across-the- board cuts that the Forest Service is facing in Colorado, but I was so glad to hear my colleagues from Connecticut and Virginia and Oregon talking about this tax bill. I want to add just a couple of thoughts to it. First of all, I appreciate so much what they were saying because the American people are struggling, and it is not just with inflation. It is with an economy that, for 50 years, has worked incredibly well for the wealthiest people in our country and hasn't worked for anybody else. It used to be the American dream. That is how we knew our country was working--when, if you worked hard, you could get ahead. Even more important to most Americans, when you worked hard, you knew your kids were going to get ahead. And we are at a moment in American history, for the first time, when our kids, people that are 30 years old, are going to earn--half of them are going to earn--less than their parents. And people all over the country are looking at it and saying: That is not the America that I recognize. That is not the American dream. And it is not the American dream. Today, in the United States, the top 1 percent of people own 20 percent of our income. The bottom 50 percent own 10 percent. The bottom 50 percent own half of what the top 1 percent have. Some people might say: Oh my God, that is just a natural feature of the way our economy works or the way capitalism works. It is not, even in this country.…”