U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)
U.S. Conference of Mayors
Washington, DC
January 24, 2019

...thank you.  I cannot tell you what this means to me to be a mayor.  The Wall Street Journal, when I got elected United States Senate, said there's only been 21 people in the United States history to go straight from being a mayor to being a United States Senator.  And I'll tell you why, what, that's probably why we have such problems with federal government is because they're not more mayors there.

In fact, when I first took my first trip to DC, I was a newly minted Mayor.  2006.  And I'm sitting in a big meeting just minding my own business listening to the speakers and, and this this very senior senator from the biggest state population wise in our nation gets up and runs over to me, and she goes, "You."   And I'm like, "Senator Feinstein, what did I do?"  She goes, "You have the hardest job in all of American politics."

And so I want to be very practical right now my remarks.  I don't want to be lofty, I want to talk to other people who are technicians, who have to get it done, who folk know where you live, who you can't shop in your supermarket in a half an hour; you got to allocate like an hour and a half, and make sure you have cards do constituent services.

I want to talk to people not as the United States Senator from, from New Jersey, but really just as a fellow mayor.  Now, there is no, as Fiorello LaGuardia said, Republican or Democratic way to fix a pothole. 

We live in a nation where there is common pain but we've lost our sense of common purpose.

When I was mayor I'd work with anybody who could help me fix things.  And I happened to be mayor of a city where I was elected, it was right before the globe fell into a recession, and when the globe is in a recession, the country's in a recession and many of our American cities you see depression like circumstances. 

And what I learned very quickly is that so much of government often does things that are stupid.

In other words, we would much rather invest on the back end of a problem, than make the smart investments early on that would prevent the problems from getting acute in the first place.

We live in a nation that has so many things that you all understand, when I talk about the value of FQHC's—federally qualified health centers—and the difference that it can make in giving people access to preventative care, as opposed to doing the more expensive thing of not making that strategic government investment and paying so much more on the back end of that problem.

Seattle, Washington, they did a study that just looked at what's more expensive, to have mentally ill homeless people on the streets, or to put them in supportive housing?  Now, all of us who have constructed supportive housing here know how expensive supportive housing is, but Seattle did, ran the numbers, and they found for about 23 people, that it was, they saved their taxpayers about a million dollars by putting them in expensive housing.  Why?  Because everyone in this room knows where people who are homeless and mentally ill often end up—in our hospital emergency rooms.  And, and in our jails.

We have to as a country stop doing what stupid and expensive and start investing in the things that are smart, economically effective and reflect our morals.

We live in a country with unconscionable gun violence.  This young man who spoke up speaks to me.

I'm the only United States Senator that lives in an inner city community; the median income according to my last census, where I live, is $14,000 per household.

I had shootings in my neighborhood last week.  I shots that killed at the top of the block where I live.

Do you know how expensive a gunshot wound is?  Many of you do because I've gone to my hospital emergency rooms and asked them?  For non fatal gunshot wounds, the costs are hundreds of thousands of dollars.

When we have common sense things that we could do—forget left or right, forget Republican or Democrat—if we just did a balance sheet analysis and layered on top of that our moral values, we would be a nation that knows.  What's more expensive?  Giving that child stability at home, not having a parent constantly worrying about a paycheck. 

I have a friend of mine that works for an IHOP, works full time job, tries to catch extra shifts, trying to raise three boys.  Even with all of that hard work she doesn't make enough money so she relies on food stamps.  She relies on public housing.  The instability in her life because of low wages has a multiplier of costs to us as a citizenry.  When her child is sick, the hospital is right across the street from the IHOP.  She has to make that terrible decision that millions of Americans do.  Like do I stay here and get this paycheck for the day or do I go across the street where my child is gasping for air and be there by my child's bedside.

We're making decisions that are costing the most valuable natural resource this country has, and everyone in this room, Republican or Democrat, knows that the most valuable natural resource in a global knowledge based economy is the genius of our children.

And yet we have a nation that won't even make the smart investments in water infrastructure.

I've had a lot of meetings with mayors.  I was just across the street meeting with some mayors from the South talking about water infrastructure.  You all know that's not the sexiest issue to be talking about. 

But when you sit with mayors, you're talking about hey how can I squeeze more efficiency out of my parking meters because I have urgent needs.  We have a nation right now where people think Flint Michigan is an anomaly, but it's not.  [In] over a thousand of our jurisdictions children have more than twice the blood levels of the kids in Flint.

And what cost is that to us?  It is a human tragedy.  It is morally irresponsible for the most powerful nation, the wealthiest nation to have children in, living in communities where it's easy to find unleaded gasoline than unlimited water.

But we know we have a nation that if you have an elevated blood level, you don't even need to have lead poisoning, that child's success in life goes down, their productivity goes down, their executive functions are inhibited; it's more likely for them to get in trouble.

These are not left-right issues, these are issues about how do we make our country strong, how do we make our country economically vibrant, how do we make ourselves successful?

I remember one of my first—  I got down to the Senate and thank God, the advice from Bill Bradley, meet with people on both sides of the political aisle, which I did, to have friendships and relationships.  I remember talking to one Senator, I can show you, evidence based, how to invest a dollar of government taxpayer money to save 5 to 7 dollars for taxpayers. He says wow that sounds incredible; what is this?  It's not sexy; it's called nurse-family partnerships.

You have an at risk mom get a visit from a nurse.  Not only does that reduce emergency room visits, it actually reduces the chances of getting in trouble with the police, not just for the kid but even the mother.

We have got to get back to a country that makes smart investments in infrastructure, smart investments in tech and innovation centers, smart investments in human capital, because we are hurting as a nation as a result of not doing it.

I'll tell you right now it kills me that I know in the New York metropolitan area, which I like to call the Newark metropolitan area.  A dollar invested in infrastructure in that area, nationally returns over over 100% return in my area, 2 to 3 dollars.  We have trains along the Northeast Corridor, now that run half an hour slower than they did in the 1960s.  Meanwhile, China just has completed 18,000 miles, this is according to President Carter who just told me this, of high speed rail.

We are letting other nations out invest us, and this is why my time as a senator has been trying to do things practically that will empower leaders around this country to design programs that can make a difference and get investment.

Look, the criminal justice reform bill we have.  I like to argue this from a moral issue, but dear God when our nation is letting its bridges and tunnels and roads crumble.  The one area we out infrastructure the planet Earth was building prisons and jails to warehouse human potential.  We were building a new prison and jail in this country, one every 10 days from the time I was in law school, to the time I was mayor of the city of Newark.  More people jail in the South than on college campuses.

And what do we do, we're treating the biggest mental health facilities in our country, are our prisons and jails, which aren't addressing the problem, and are the more expensive way to do it.

Why did I work with Tim Scott on the opportunity zones?  Because capital is lazy.

Every mayor here knows you have investment worthy projects, projects, but you can't attract institutional capital.  You can't get developers to come.  And so we passed what will end up being the most powerful economic development legislation coming out of Washington in decades because now that everyone here has a chance, a shot to having an opportunity zone.  Heck, what I've been meeting with people all over the country. 

In Baltimore, Prudential Financial is, is going to be making its first opportunity zone investments and converting a long standing brownsfield site into a vibrant area.

In Heflin, Alabama, a vacant public school in the city's opportunity zone is being redeveloped into a $12 million, state of the art memory care center and assisted living facilities for the area's growing senior population.

And HBCUs launched an historically black college focused Opportunity Fund that will invest in the development of mixed use properties and communities near HBCUs.

We can do impossible things in America.

There is no problem in this country, there is no problem in this country that we can't address.  The problem is not can we, it's do we have the collective will?

And that brings me to my close.

Look, y'all, I'm this guy, that, you know, went off to college and got a graduate degree at Stanford and went off the Oxford went off came to Yale, and my dad's like boy you got more degrees than the month of July, but you ain't hot.

Life ain't about the degrees you get, it's about the service you give.

And so my hero—I didn't want to get the politics—my hero was Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children's Zone.  So I decided to move into a tough neighborhood like Geoffrey Canada did, in the middle of the central ward of Newark, New Jersey, the neighborhood I still live in.  The map behind me and my desk in City Hall is a map of the central ward of Newark because I will never forget the people that brought me to the game.

And I want to confess something to you because I wasn't, I didn't have the vision that's in this room when I first started.  I moved on to Martin Luther King Boulevard and, and I was moving my stuff into my apartment next to an abandoned building being used for drugs, cross the street from the projects, and somebody stole my stuff out of my car.  I was a little intimidated by the neighborhood, but there's an old definition of faith that says when you come to the end of all the light, you know, faith is when you're about to step into the darkness one of two things is going to happen.  Either you find solid ground underneath you or the universe will send you people who will teach you how to fly.

And so I got my BA from Stanford but my PhD on the streets of New York.  And I'll tell you one of my best professors was a woman named Miss Virginia Jones.  And I walked up to her, this arrogant young law student, knocked on her door and she's "who is it?"  "I'm Cory Booker, I'm from Yale Law School, and I'm moving into the neighborhood to help out."  And she gives me this look like boy, you're the one that needs some help.

She takes me down to Martin Luther King Boulevard, turns around says, you want to help me?  Tell me what you see around you.  Now mayors, you would do it differently, but back then in my 20s, I said what do I see?   She said yeah, describe the neighborhood.  I said I see a crack house; I started describing like I described to you.  And the more I talked, the more upset she looked.

And then finally, I stopped talking, and she goes, boy you can't help me and she starts walking away.

Now I'm confused so I run after and I grabbed from behind, very respectfully.

And I turn around and I said, what are you talking about?  And she goes, waves her finger in my face, she goes boy you need to understand something.  The world you see outside of you is a reflection of what you have inside of you.

And if you're one of those people who only sees problems and darkness and despair, that's all that's ever going to be, but if you're one of those stubborn people who every time you open your eyes you see hope, you see opportunity, you see love, you see the face of God, then you can be one of those people that helps me.

I am tired that we have become a nation cynical about our potential, cynical in the way we look at our problems as if they're bigger than us, when American history is a screaming testimony to the perpetual achievement of the impossible.

There were slums and child labor but people saw public education and workers rights.  Tere was slavery; people saw freedom.

We are nation that looked in the sky and saw not a dream in the moon but a destiny.  We are the visionary people that has this dream.

And on days after Martin Luther Kings Day, I want to end with you by challenging you about that dream.

There's some folk here from Tennessee.

You go to Memphis right now to the site that Martin Luther King was murdered and there's a little plaque there.  I love it when I go, and it's a quote from the Torah. It's a quote from, from the Bible. It's taken from that moment with Joseph's brothers see Joseph, and they're about to throw him into the well, into the darkness, and I'm telling you right now, we are in the pit right now.

These are dark times in America, where we're tearing each other apart, when we fail to show more courageous empathy, when we change a nation that looked to create a beloved community and now we're just saying we're going to tolerate each other.

We are in the pit right now and we need leaders like you who lead with love, and love is not seeing the child as they are; it's seeing the child as he could be, as he should be, as he will be if we invest in that child.

And so what is written there right where Martin Luther King was murdered is what the, is what the Joseph's brothers said, when they saw Joseph approaching before they threw him in the pit, but you know, Joseph ascended; he rose up into the palace.  I believe that's our destiny to rise again; we will rise.  What does it say, what does it say, as I close, what does it say on that little plaque.

The words from the Torah are written there.

It says, "Behold, here comes cometh the dreamer.  Let us slay him and see what becomes of his dream."

My visionary fellow mayors, the dream is in jeopardy.

As Langston Hughes said, there's a dream in this land with its back against the wall...to save the dream for one, we must save the dream for all.

You all are the dream keepers.  You are the visionaries, you are the people, in the words of our ancestors, that don't see things as they are and ask why you see things as they could be and should be and must be and ask why not.

I don't know where America is going, but I know the mayors are going to help lead us to the mountaintop.

Thank you everybody.