On the recordJuly 16, 2012
Just a moment ago our colleague from Louisiana was noting that we have important work to do to shore up the American family. Families have lost--the number is, on average, $100,000 of equity in their house per family. That is a phenomenal amount. If we look at the equity held by our Hispanic families, our African-American families, they have been virtually wiped out by a system of deregulation, predatory mortgage, leading to a housing bubble. We have a desperate need for jobs. I think what I hear the Senator saying is that in the face of these needs, allowing unlimited spending by the most powerful interests in the country to pursue the interest of the most powerful is not going to help us create those living-wage jobs Americans so desperately need. It is not going to help us fund those health care clinics that are the front door for folks who do not have the big salaries and the big benefit packages. It is not going to help put food on the table for those out of work and hungry, and in that sense this process of us working by and for the people is being corrupted by these vast pools of secret spending?
