About 90 days of cash brown, a minnesota congressman, and others were among the speakers at this Weeks Campaign for american future new populism conference. Topics discussed throughout the day include the economy, tax and trade policy, and education access. This is just over one hour. Right, cue ccspan. We are going to start this conference. Good morning. Come on, we are a bunch of populists. My name is roger, and i am codirector for the campaign of americas future, and i went to welcome you to this new populism conference. They know this game is rigged, and a are looking to make the economy work for all americans. And on cspan, streaming video and wenation dot com, welcome you. You are all part of this growing new populist movement. If one of those media goes down, just switch to the other one. My campaign for americas future will welcome you in a few minutes in a more thoughtful way. Thise are going to move conference along by keeping introductions breeze so that you can hear our great speakers. And the first speaker that i want to introduce is truly a great american. Ellison. An keith [applause] elected afterwas times to represent the congressional district, running as the candidate to the former labour party. The is a name that reflects populist history in america, and he is also the cochairman of the congressional progressive caucus, and you can go ahead and applaud. [applause] greatave done many things. Among them, the fight to expand Social Security, that he is going to talk with us today about the greatest leadership achievement, the better off budget, whichat would invest massively in job creation and Economic Growth would boost gdp by 3. 8 , and additional 4. 6n million jobs or so am a and as Jared Bernstein would tell us later in the afternoon, if you want to reduce inequality and reduce deficits, you have got to make sure that everyone has a job with decent pay. Also, thank you, keith is also the author of this new book. I recommend it highly to everybody. Thee. Ntry tis 0f go get it at the bookstores today, so please welcome keith ellison. [applause] thanks a lot. Thank you. And i thank my dear friend bob, wherever he is. And thank you to everybody who made this thing come off. Thank you for being here today. Often said, and we say to folks all of the time, you have got to speak truth to power. We say that. And we admire people who do that, but, you know, i think the power already knows the truth. I mean, think about it. You think peterson is unaware that they privatized Social Security . That they are going to make a lot of money . Do you think the multinationals are unaware that if that Transpacific Partnership gets into law that it will give them a chance to make a whole lot of money and disemploy a bunch of workers . Think they dont know that . The power knows that if we slash and burn the budget, the supports americans depend upon to get to a better Economic Situation will not be there, and people will be left on their own to fend for themselves and work for any pay these people care to offer. And, so what if there are a huge ocean of excess workers out there looking for opportunity . That just means the people who do have a job better watch their mouth about talking about unions, right . That just means the people who do have a job that are not complain about whether they lose their fingers or toes or get incurable diseases while they are working. Because you better hang on to that job. So, speaking truth to power the fact is, we need to speak truth to our own faults. You need to speak truth to your cousin who listens to Rush Limbaugh all the time. [laughter] you need to speak truth to your sister who thinks she is not into politics. You know who i am talking about. You all know somebody, right . We need to talk to our people about the situation we are in, and we need to talk to our people in a systematic, persistent, intelligent, scientific, and heartfelt way. The name of the game today is populism. What is happening now in our country is that the oligarchs are thinking they are going to use their superior dollars to control the political scene. But what we know is our superior numbers will trump their superior dollars. But only if we are organized and in touch with each other. It can be done. It might be done easier now than in the past because we have a lot of social networking tools we can make use of. Because all we got to do is knock on the door next to our apartment and talk with our neighbors over some coffee and cake about how we are going to raise the wage to a livable wage. Something everybody cares about. How we are going to make do something about this mountain of debt. We can start a conversation. We believe in the american dream, that if you work hard, play by the rules, you ought to do well. We are living in an america where if you work hard and play by the rules, you will have mounting debt and stagnating wages. This is not the land of opportunity. It is grown to be the land of economic stagnation, and we are stuck. We believe in our country, and we love our country, and the thing we love about it is you can come here and make something of yourself. But there are days where no matter how hard you work, that is getting difficult every day aint that something to start a dream, that if you work hard, conversation about . That is a conversation starter. [applause] we got to talk to each other, and we need to do it in a systematic way. We have to do it in a fervent way. We have to do it in a smart way. I am telling you, the wind is at our back. The republicans skip the republicans, the conservative types they have a very difficult job. They are trying to get a majority to support a program that serves only the 1 . We are trying to get a majority to support a program that supports everybody. They actually have a harder job than us, which is why they are extremely comfortable with division, lies, deceit, and distraction. So your problem is, and my problem is, we think because we are right that we are supposed to win. And what we have found out is just being right, if you are up against somebody who is utterly ruthless about pushing the program, willing to shut down the government for 16 days, willing to raise prices on seniors, willing to cut Social Security with chained cpi, start you are talking about somebody who does this and is fine with it. You better figure you are not dealing with an ordinary kind of person with an ordinary conscience and sensibility. You are dealing with somebody else, and you got to be clear on that. But we have an easier job. Because what we are talking is good for the most people. But we cannot be so naive as to believe that that alone is going to get us the victory that we need. When i say victory, i mean a green, fair, prosperous america and rest of the world. Let me tell you, the wind is that our back. We have a lot going for us. People all over this country are on the move. It is an exciting time. Anybody familiar with on may 15, 150 cities saw fast food workers on strike . [applause] not just 150 cities with fast food workers on strike. Mcdonalds, wendys, papa johns, all of them. 30 other countries were striking in solidarity. They were striking in europe. They were striking in asia. They were striking all over this globe. By the way, the other nra, the National Restaurant association, is all upset about it. They are spying on the rest of the fast food workers. They are probably spying on us now. They are welcome. Here is our strategy to defeat you. [laughter] by the way, our real strategy is to raise the pay of americans to create workingclass prosperity, to have an america where if you work hard, you can do well. That is what we really want. What they dont know is that they can win too if they get with the program. But if they insist hardworking people work at the minimum wage for restaurant workers, then we have a problem, right . If we think about it, not only 150 cities on may 15, 130 cities in december. Where do we go from here . Maybe they strike longer. Maybe they will be real demands on the wages. What about the walmart workers . [applause] the walmart workers are striking. We were told these people are on organize will. Unorganizable. They beg to differ. What about how people in North Carolina are responding to the rightwing legislative acts of this oligarch alto al pope . A billionaire oligarch in North Carolina who threw a bunch of money around, got in the Republican House and senate, far right, they cut unemployment. They tried to undermine the vote through voter id and worse. They did a whole range of things. As we all know, dramatically changed the apportionment in the state to favor themselves. The people of North Carolina are organizing. You got to remember this is the south. They had one rally with 80,000 people. 55 of them were white. In the south, this is incredibly important. It means human solidarity is overcoming history that has divided people along racial lines. This is incredibly important. We should all be really excited about it. As a matter of fact, one of the fastestgrowing and aa cp chapters is in asheville naacp chapters is in asheville, North Carolina. A predominately white community. They said, i dont know why not. They are growing and making demands. They know they need unemployment, they need medicaid, they need to go to the doctor, they need a better life. In North Carolina, this thing is spreading to south carolina, to georgia, and even missouri. Im telling you, whether it is fast food workers, folks in North Carolina attacked by a right wing swing, or even the maids. The National Alliance for domestic workers. Organizers all over the place. Demanding that this subminimum wage be raised to a livable wage for people. People. There is something going on, and i going to tell you as a politician, we have not gotten the memo quite yet. But politicians see the light we may feel the heat. I am telling you, i want to add that the postal workers know that darrell issa and the folks who want to privatize them have them in their sights. They are not staying in the sights. They are doing something about it. There is a move to privatize the post office by partnering with staples and allowing nonsworn, nonbackground check people to handle your mail. Postal workers are not standing for it. They are protesting. You need to get in line and carry a sign. Couple that with the Immigration Rights movement. We are in a populous moment. The question is, what are we going to do about it . I just want to add and build a little bit by pointing out that there are folks who thought they were not political, who thought, i am not into politics, who are now drowning in politics. They are not drowning in politics. They are swimming in politics. Way above the water. One of them is a young woman who is 22. She worked at kfc and did not get enough hours, so she had to take the train to hours to work at another kfc. She lives in an apartment in new york city with four other adults and several children in an apartment with like one bedroom shes like, i cannot take this. I need 15 and a union. That is what she said. She has become a spokesperson, 22 years old. There was a time nobody heard of Martin Luther king. He was some 26 yearold dude from atlanta leading some thing they are doing down there in montgomery. Alabama. Ok. Then people figured it out after a while, right . My point is, this movement is throwing up leaders all the time. She was minimum wage at kfc, and she chose not to suffer the situation. She is leading the chance we cant survive on 7. 25. If you want to see how smart she is, check out stephen colbert. She was on his show. He was throwing her curveballs, and she was catching all of them. She is smart like that. This movement is growing up leaders. Even the president has to respond. The president has said some very good things about income inequality. He issued an executive order to rate raise the pay of federal contractors. This movement of federal workers, supported by the. Workers, supported by the progressive caucus and others, has been pounding on this for over a year before he issued the executive order. The executive order was issued based on pressure from people. Good he did it, but on the other hand are president is still talking about trying to pass fasttrack authority on the Transpacific Partnership. Therefore, he is doing one thing with one hand and Something Else with the other, and we got to get in doing the same thing with both. [applause] so what i am saying to you is that we have the power to do it because we are in this populist moment. We have the power to do it because seniors are waking up. They have seen people try to take their money from chains ebi. Young people are swimming under loans loads of student debt. They know it is wrong because they know their parents before them did not have all this debt. People know. The question is, what do the leaders do to make the change . That is you, that is us in this room. The real question is, what decision will we make . We have got to make a clear demand, a clear demand that the real problem in this economy is not debt. The real problem is that we do not have good jobs. We need to invest in this country, and we need a blueprint and a plan that invests in the American People so that we can have not just civil rights and economic rights, but we can have real prosperity and have it on a basis that everyone can enjoy. [applause] so the progressive caucus, we do not write our budget in isolation. We write our budget as a participatory process where we have our friends from the Progressive Community tell us what needs to be done. And we talk to our friends at the Economic Policy institute, at the campaign for the american future, at the labor campaign. They tell us what needs to be in this budget. What should we call this budget . What does it do . It makes People Better off. That is what we call it the better off budget. We have been doing this several years in a row, because we believe the way to a Better Future is to chart a path to the Better Future, and a budget is a way to do that. One of the first things our budget does is infrastructure investment. It starts by creating jobs. We believe that how you first describe your budget is extremely important, and whereas the republicans are talking about how much debt they cut and others talk about other stuff, talking about this budget creates 8. 8 million jobs by 2017. That is what our budget does. Our budget stands 820 billion as a down payment toward meeting infrastructure needs. I am from minneapolis. Five years ago we had our bridge fall into the mississippi. 13 people were killed. 100 more people were terrified and had serious injuries. When we talk about infrastructure, it will make us more productive, put more people to work, improve our economy, but it will also improve our public safety. It is a necessity that we do this. Not only that, but the better off budget will create a National Infrastructure bank which will receive 25 billion in funding over five years, using the funding as seed money to Fund Infrastructure investments around the country through loan guarantees. You know, we argue for free trade. We believe American Workers can make good products with anybody in the world. But not free trade you will did not correctly. There trade. We believe in fair trade. We stand against nafta and nafta on steroids, tpp. We also believe that wall street has two do better by america. We have a financial transaction tax on stocks, bonds, and derivatives. Our transaction tax, which we call the robin hood tax, would build us 350 billion a year and [applause] in addition to that, in addition to that what it would do is stop this highspeed trading which is wreaking havoc on our economy and extremely dangerous. Some of you out this red the book by michael lewis. Obviously we raise the minimum wage, but we also do something even more important. We strengthen labor rights. [applause] look, if america is a body politic, the backbone of that body is organized labor. It organized labor is weakened, the whole body is weakened. We have to pass the employer free choice act. Something that is not in our budget but we better start thinking about, we need to make Union Organizing a civil rights. I am telling you this. We need to do this because if you fire somebody who is organizing a union without regard to whether who wins the union election, if you fire someone who is organizing, everybody else gets scared and you kill the movement right there. You ought to be able to get a lawyer, sue, get recovery, get punitive damages, just like if they fire you because you are female or black or have a disability. Disability. That is what we need to do to stand up for our rights. Going back to our budget, our budget restores democracy. We do Campaign Finance in order to establish a present of democracy that truly reflects our diversity. Most of all, what we do is we stand on the side of working americans who love this country and believe that this country is worth fighting for. In the past, our country said women could not vote. They thought in the idea of liberty and justice for all and establish that right. We believe it should be dignity on the job. Union people died trying to get unions. Brave people sit up and establish them. We had a country where people were relegated to secondclass citizenship because of their race. We stood up and fought for it. Some people died, some people lost a lot, but we still did not. Not quit. The work we are facing right now is no less serious. The question is, are we less serious . I do not think so. We are standing on the shoulders of giants. So we should see further than king, then all the great heroes of the past to move the progressive ball forward. We have to lets go take our economy and Society Forward and away from these oligarchs, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you so much