Gregory Meeks: “I felt compelled to join. I wish I was part of the 30-Something Club. I just joined the 50-Something Club. But just…”

“I felt compelled to join. I wish I was part of the 30-Something Club. I just joined the 50-Something Club. But just sitting here listening, I want to compliment those who are members of the 30-Something Club because America really is dependent upon you. Therefore, it becomes important for those of us in Congress to make sure that life is better for our children than it was for us. Now, I sit here as a Member of Congress, as the gentleman indicated. I have three daughters, two of whom are in college. As the gentleman said, they are going to be all right. But their father can relate to what you are talking about, because I come from a very poor home. I grew up in public housing, and my parents understood that in order for my family to be better that education was the key. But they could not afford it, so when it was time for me to go to college, the only solution for me was to take out school loans. Guess what? Even that was not enough. So my parents, my father, took a second job, my mother went back to work, and they had to borrow personal money themselves. Now, the point I am trying to make is that then when I graduated, I went on and was one of those guys that was ambitious. It was not only 4 years of undergraduate school, but, as some people know today, you do not stop simply with a BA necessarily.…”