Tim Ryan: “I have been in Congress now 13 years, and I have had many discussions with the chairman over the course of my career…”

“I have been in Congress now 13 years, and I have had many discussions with the chairman over the course of my career, but I am stunned--and I know he won't be stunned that I am stunned--with the inability of the Republican Party to govern this Chamber or to govern the country. I mean, if you just look at Price 1, Price 2, the contortions that the Republican Party has to go through in order to meet the basic standard of trying to govern the country is mind-blowing--and then to go through all these contortions just so you don't have to fund the domestic agenda that is going to actually grow the economy in the United States. I say this because I was here and watched when President Bush was here and the Republicans controlled Congress: cut taxes, deregulate, and the economy will grow, and jobs will be created. We had a stagnant decade of growth because we failed to make the kinds of investments that we need to make in this country in order to grow the pie. Here we are today, after we were able to survive a huge economic collapse after that agenda was fully implemented, and we have the average CEO making $296 for every $1 that the worker makes; we have the top 1 percent getting 17 percent of the tax expenditures that this Chamber and this government doles out, and wages have been stagnant. I think we have got to go back and ask ourselves: How did we grow this great middle class? How did we grow this economy?…”