Bruce L. Braley: “I want to just follow up on your comment that I think is very prudent that we hear about that people don't talk about a…”

“I want to just follow up on your comment that I think is very prudent that we hear about that people don't talk about a lot, and that is the disappearing American middle class. And I'm here surrounded by distinguished colleagues, and I'm going to make you the economic physicians and make a diagnosis. If you look at the symptoms of what we talked about, all of us, out on the campaign trail leading up to last November's election, you look at the fact that you've got 47 million Americans without health insurance, 37 million Americans living below the poverty line. That sets a floor of where your middle class starts, and when those numbers keep growing, we know, at least I think we should know, that we've got a problem, that we need to do more to drive those numbers into what we've traditionally associated with the middle class, which says that if you work hard, you play by the rules, and you get minimum opportunities to assist you to get up a rung on the economic ladder, you're going to do better, your family's going to do better, your children are going to do better and you're going to create a stable environment that contributes not just to this society but to the way that we think of ourselves as Americans.”