Before the time starts, if I may, please. I'd like to thank Western Michigan University, MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette, WMUK and all of you for participating in our democracy. This is what it's all about — you folks coming out tonight. Congressman and I stand before you, putting a little skin in the game and let you guys kick the tires. So, thank you to everyone who is hosting the event, the moderators and go Broncos. Um … I'm sorry can you repeat the question?
Yes, so, number one, looking at the facts, if you will, we have to put people back to work. There is nothing that lifts the economy quicker than Americans having good, meaningful work. Income disparity is a result of unemployment. It's not having the pieces in place for folks to have good meaningful work to pursue that American dream. I believe in the iconic words carved at the base of the statue of liberty: "Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" and from that, we've built a nation. We have a role as Americans to look after each other. That's what we do when we're at our best. We are that bright shining city on a hill, if you will, when we take care of each other as Americans. I think we need to put people back to work and we need to make sure that everyone and every corporation pays its taxes so that the revenue is coming into the system and we do everything in our power to make sure that the least among us has everything they need.
I, too, want to thank the host and the preparation folks that are here tonight. Thanks very much. As you think about, income disparity really has been my focus since I've been in congress, that is jobs and the economy. When I sit with my UAW folks in my office, as I do every year, we talk about how our goals are the same: bring jobs to our district. We talk to our business leaders and we talk to our educators as I did today about jobs and the economy. Those people that have a job are the ones that are doing pretty well right now, particularly as we have gone through some mighty tough times. Here in Michigan, we had 38 consecutive months of double-digit unemployment. We're still above the national average. That's not right. One of the things that I have done is to really work as a team.
To partner with businesses large and small so we can create the jobs we want families to have. Tomorrow, I'm going to be down in Three Rivers. They're giving a pretty big check to the city of Three Rivers because of the expansion of what they've been able to do with American Axle. A $100 million plant expansion, their number one plant in the country. They're proud of that. They're proud because they were able to do that because of the bipartisan work that we first did with President Bush and then with President Obama with helping the auto industry survive. Because they had an issue of bankruptcy where they paid the money back with interest like Chrysler has done and hopefully GM does, or liquidation, actually shutting the doors and turning it to dust and not being able to work. We want people to go back to work and that's what our focus should be as we look at the income levels of all americans.
The facts speak pretty clearly. In 2000, this country had a lot smaller deficit and $236 billion in surplus and we were heading toward reducing our deficit. In 10 years under President George Bush, Congressman Upton, and our Congress, we lost all that advantage and are sitting on $10 trillion in debt. You bring jobs back home in part by getting rid of tax incentives that allow companies have us subsidize them to move jobs overseas. Day one, I'd look to reverse that tax incentive and create a tax incentive that brings jobs back here and puts people back to work. That's a meaningful program we could do now. We should also eliminate subsidies that we pay to big oil — billions and billions to big oil and gas. Take that money and, from day one, put it into infrastructure jobs. We had the warmest winter on record. People could have been out on our highways and bridges with jobs.
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