My Work in Congress

    Working families are being squeezed by the rising cost of living, by healthcare costs and by home foreclosures. We are suffering from the loss of manufacturing jobs which once meant decent wages and benefits for workers.  Our nation is in the midst of a painful economic transition which requires our government to be a good partner with America’s workers, researchers, and small businesses.

Over the past decade, the economic growth we saw didn’t reach the paychecks of the vast majority of American workers. Wages barely budged while the cost of everything skyrocketed. Our nation can prosper in a ruthless world economy and the prosperity can reach every American worker, not just the top executives.

I’m proud to be a part of a Congress that increased the federal minimum wage for the first time in more than a decade. Another of my votes in the last Congress was to support the single largest investment in college financial assistance since the GI Bill in 1944. I supported an Energy bill that will put the U.S. on a path toward energy independence, strengthen our national security, grow our economy and create new jobs, lower energy prices.  In this Congress I supported health care reform to make sure that the cost of health care does not continue to bankrupt families in the short-term, and the country in the long-term.   I also have supported economic stimulus measures to help create new jobs, and put people back to work, as well as to save the jobs of some of the most valued members of our community:  teachers, firefighters, and policemen.

America can continue to be the leader in a global economy, but our future depends on having the most skilled workforce in the world, and that requires a commitment both to formal education and to on-the-job training. As Co-Chair of the Community College Caucus, I will continue to look for ways to re-train our workforce after so many factory closings in North Carolina.

Since arriving in Congress, my number one priority has been protecting homeowners and their ticket into the middle class. The subprime mortgage crisis could force 2.2 million American families to lose their home to foreclosure in the next two years. Every foreclosure means a family is falling out of the middle class into poverty. I led the fight for national legislation to crack down on abusive predatory lending practices in the mortgage industry, and that bill is now the law of the land.  I also led the way in creating an independent consumer financial protection regulator that will ensure that Wall Street can no longer win every time because they always get to write the rules and keep score.

In my role as Chairman of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee on the House Science Committee, I have been investigating misdeeds in federal agencies for which my subcommittee has oversight.  In this role I have exposed instances of foolish spending by the federal government, and some spending that bordered on fraudulent – in one case the committee helped put an end to a $12 billion program that didn’t seem to work any better than what we already had.

Finally, I have been proud to work for our nation’s veterans and our men and women in uniform.  I have continued to work to make sure that service member’s cannot have their homes foreclosed on while they are serving their country oversees.  I have also worked to try to ensure that the Marines and their families who drank toxic drinking water while serving at Camp Lejeune between 1957 and 1987 are given the health benefits that they deserve.  

Brad Miller

Member of Congress