Rich Neal: “There are a lot of reasons tonight that this legislation has come forth. We can argue about why income inequality in…”

“There are a lot of reasons tonight that this legislation has come forth. We can argue about why income inequality in America happened; globalization, technology, skill set, the decline of unions. But what we can't argue about is it happened. And we have a chance tonight to reverse that course. We speak frequently in this institution, sometimes in terms of hyperbolic rhetoric about history. Tonight, the vote we cast is about history. And the Committee on Ways and Means, since spring of a year ago, wrote much of this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I call attention to 33 years ago when I joined this institution, to just above the Speaker's rostrum. It is very hard to visualize; it was easier 33 years ago for me to read it than it is now when I walk in. But Daniel Webster said, here in this Chamber, ``Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its great powers, build up its institutions, promote all of its great interests and see whether we also in our day and generation may not perform something worthy to be remembered.'' Mr. Speaker, tonight, that is what we intend to do. We are going to make transformational changes that are going to lift the people of America to a new sense, born of optimism, as that son of Massachusetts, Mr. Webster, acknowledged.…”