Schumer Remarks on ‘A Better Deal’
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today delivered remarks during a press conference regarding the rollout of the Democratic economic agenda. Below are his remarks:
So good afternoon Berryville. It’s great to be here. I want to thank the good people of Berryville for working with us, and I want to thank everyone for leaving the city for a few hours to this beautiful beautiful spot to join us here today. Let me pay it a high compliment, it looks like parts of New York state.
As I travel New York State, from upstate rural republican areas like Sodus Bay, where I was Friday, to suburban Long Island, to inner-city Bronx, I find one thing in common: average families feel they’re being pushed around by large economic forces and are losing that traditional, American faith in the future. Too many families in America feel like the rules of the economy are rigged against them. They feel like they’re getting a raw deal, and they’re right. They’re almost powerless to change them.
We are here today to tell the people of Berryville and the working people of America: someone has your back.
American families deserve a better deal so this country works for everyone again, not just the elites, not just the special interests. Today, Democrats start presenting that better deal to the American people.
There used to be a basic bargain in this country that if you worked hard played by the rules, you could own a home, afford a car, put your kids through college, take a modest vacation every year while putting enough away for a comfortable retirement. In the late part of the 20th Century, millions of Americans achieved this solid middle-class lifestyle. I should know, I grew up the son of an exterminator in that America.
But things have changed. Today’s working Americans are justified in having greater doubts about the future than almost any generation since the Depression. Corporate interests, the super wealthy are allowed to spend unlimited, undisclosed amounts of money on campaigns and lobbying so they can protect their special deals in Washington, and for too long government has played along tilting the economic playing field in favor of the wealthy and powerful, taking the burden off them and putting it on the backs of hardworking Americans.
The result? An economy that has created enormous accumulated wealth for wealth holders while producing less work and less pay for workers. Incomes and wages have flat lined as everyday costs have skyrocketed.
And when you lose elections as we did in 2014 and 2016, you don’t flinch. You don’t blink. You look in the mirror and ask, “what did we do wrong?” The number one thing we did wrong is not present a strong, bold economic agenda to working Americans so that their hope for the future might return again.
Democrats have too often hesitated from directly and unflinchingly taking on the misguided policies that got us here — so much so that too many Americans don’t know what we stand for.
Not after today. President Trump campaigned on a populist platform, talking to working people, that’s why he won. But as soon as he got into office, he abandoned them, making alliance with the powerful, special interest, Koch-brother-dominated, hard-right wing of the Republican Party, which appeals to the very wealthy, not the working people – leaving a vacuum on economic issues.
We Democrats are going to fill that vacuum.
Democrats will show the country, we are the party on the side of working people — and that we stand for three simple things.
First, we’re going to increase people’s pay. Second, we’re going to reduce their everyday expenses. And third, we’re going to provide workers the tools they need for the 21st century economy.
Simply put: what do Democrats stand for? A better deal for working people. Higher wages, lower costs, and the tools for a 21st century economy.
Over the next several months, Democrats will lay out a series of policies that, if enacted, will make these three things a reality. We’ve already proposed creating jobs with a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan; raising wages by lifting the minimum wage to $15; and lowering household costs by providing paid family leave and sick leave.
Today, we announce three new policies to advance our goals. And in the coming weeks and months you’ll hear a lot more. Right now there’s is nothing to stop vulture capitalists from egregiously raising the price of life saving drugs without any justification. We’re going to fight for rules to stop prescription drug price gouging, and demand that drug companies justify price increases to the public. And we’re going to push for empowering Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for seniors.
Right now our anti-trust laws are designed to allow huge corporations to merge, padding the pockets of investors but, sending costs skyrocketing. For everything from cable bills and airline tickets to food and healthcare. Nothing bothers average folks more than the cable bill or airline fee that just keeps going up -- because there are so few competitors in the industry, sometimes only one or two.
Old fashioned capitalism has broken down to the detriment of consumers. Adam Smith has lost his way amidst these big corporations. Large corporations, in too many instances, merge for their own interests so they – not the consumer – can dictate prices, the quantity, and the quality of goods. We are going to fight to allow regulators to break up big companies if they’re hurting consumers and to make it harder for companies to merge if it reduces competition.
And third, right now, millions of unemployed or underemployed people – particularly those without a college degree – could be brought back into the labor force or retrained to secure full time, higher paying work. We propose giving employers, particularly small businesses a large tax credit to train workers for unfilled jobs, with a requirement to hire that worker at a good wage once the training is complete.
This will have particular resonance in smaller cities and rural areas which have experienced an exodus of young people who aren’t trained for the jobs that are there. Now, in future weeks we’ll offer additional ideas, from rebuilding rural America to fundamentally changing our trade laws to benefit workers, not multinational corporations.
Now, we are in the minority in both houses of Congress; we cannot delude anyone that this Congress will begin passing our priorities tomorrow. But we have to start presenting our vision for the country’s future, and we must start rallying the American people to support our ideas.
This is the start of a new vision for the party, one strongly supported by House and Senate Democrats. As you can see, I’m flanked by members of the Democratic Party from both Houses, folks from very different states with sometimes differing points of view. The fact that we are all standing here together today sends a powerful statement. Democrats are unified.
Now there’s been a debate on whether Democrats should spend all our energy focusing on the diverse Obama coalition or the blue-collar American in the heartland who voted for Trump. It’s a false choice. There doesn’t have to be a division. In fact, there must not be a division. The vision we’re laying out unites both coalitions and unifies the Democratic Party. It will have a larger stronger appeal to Americans of all economic levels and all political stripes. It will appeal to the young woman who just graduated from college in Los Angeles, the factory worker in Akron who’s now only making $11 an hour, and the single mom in Buffalo cleaning toilets on minimum wage.
The Republican Party seemingly exists to work on behalf of the wealthy and the corporate interests, furthering their dream of lowering taxes at the very top, fewer consumer protections, unfettered access and influence for an already favored few. But we know what America looks like when those policies rule the day. Prior to the new deal, government sat silently as corporations and wealthy speculators wrecked the economy. We were beset by panics, recessions, depressions every few decades. It was a time when American workers were alone against the raging sea of economic forces beyond their control. We Democrats are offering A Better Deal. A phrase that intentionally evokes The New Deal. Because we cannot afford to go back to those times. The American people deserve an economy that works for them, not for the powerful.
A better deal is not just our slogan it is our mission. It’s about reorienting government to work on behalf of people and families. It’s not going to be the work of only one Congress. It shouldn’t be the work of only one party. We welcome any Republicans willing to join us on these issues. There’s an American imperative, and a moral imperative to do what we’re doing.
If that torch held by the lady in the harbor of the city in which I live - that symbol of optimism and hope for the future starts flickering, it’s a different America that no one will like.
Now, last month I went to a Yankee’s game and I sat where I usually do - we are not completely united. Last month I went to a Yankee’s game and sat where I usually do, in the right field grandstand. The two people sitting next to me were wearing “Proud to be Deplorable” t-shirts. They were teamsters from Yonkers. We talked the whole game.
They weren’t really sure of Donald Trump. They didn’t know what he stood for. And being teamsters, were well aware of the awful conditions of our roads, and they were beginning to worry that he couldn’t get an infrastructure bill done. But, they voted for Trump because they thought he might change things.
Now, they’re worried he won’t, and he can’t. They’re worried that the pot-holed roads they drive their trucks on will never get fixed – that Donald Trump was not the change agent or the champion of the working man he claimed to be.
We Democrats, can answer the calls of millions of Americans, like these folks I sat next to by offering them a “Better Deal.”
And now, it’s my honor to introduce my partner in this great endeavor, someone who’s done a great job for many years, my friend for many more years even than that – Nancy Pelosi.
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