Paul Tonko: “Representative Garamendi, it is often said that a nation can be measured by the work it does for those in the dawn of…”

“Representative Garamendi, it is often said that a nation can be measured by the work it does for those in the dawn of life, and the quality of life for those children living in poverty understandably is reduced. And so the challenge to all of us in this country, what ought to move that moral compass of America, is the reflection on that statement that you just made. If we're content with that statistic, if we're content with the direction in which that statistic is moving, then it is a puzzling statement. It ought to haunt us as a society. And as we weaken and as we grow more and more into the ranks of poverty, the entire Nation, all income strata, are challenged by that. We are all weakened by that statistic because as we empower each and every American, we, as a nation, collectively grow stronger. The impact is not only just living in poverty, it is more incidents of disease, risks to health care and poorer education. We need to strengthen the homes. You don't do it with policies that obviously have created this growing divide. That gap is growing between the comfortable and uncomfortable, and it's why there has to be this revisitation, if you will, of tax policy. Now there are those who say, well, if you adjust this, it's class warfare. It's not class warfare. If everything were at its even level and you adjusted it, you could call it class warfare. This is an exercise in justice, social and economic justice.…”