[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 134 (Monday, September 12, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6081-H6085]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CBC HOUR
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 5, 2011, the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs.
Christensen) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the
minority leader.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. This evening, I am again pleased to join my
colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus to talk about jobs for
this first hour, and we are really pleased that we're going to be led
off this night by our Democratic whip, The Honorable Steny Hoyer, the
person who has led us in the Make It In America agenda.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and I thank her for
her leadership.
I want to thank the Congressional Black Caucus, which has raised this
issue to a new height of not only visibility but of hope.
Emanuel Cleaver, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told
a wonderful story in our caucus the other day. He said there was a
little boy and his dad, and his dad was reading the paper. The little
boy scratched his hand, and as he did so, it obviously hurt. He went in
front of his dad, shaking his hand. He walked to and from his father,
and his father kept reading the paper. Finally, his father put down the
paper and said, ``Son, I know you scratched your hand, but there's
nothing I can do about it.''
And the little boy looked at his dad and said, ``You can say, `Ouch.'
''
You can understand the pain that I am experiencing. You can
understand the pain that losing a job is causing me. You can understand
the pain of a home that is lost because the mortgage cannot be paid.
You can understand the pain of a family, living in a home, who has seen
the value of that most important asset of theirs dwindle and be reduced
so that the mortgage payment they're paying is more than the value of
the home in which they live.
The Congressional Black Caucus did two things: It said, ``We hear and
we say, `Ouch.' We understand the pain you're experiencing. We feel
your pain.'' But if all we do is empathize and feel pain, that's not
enough.
{time} 1920
Our President addressed us last week, and he said we can shrug our
shoulders and say there are 14 months until the next election, but the
people in pain can't wait 14 months.
And that's what the Congressional Black Caucus did. Tens of thousands
of people showed up throughout this Nation because somebody offered
hope, and not just hope but real deliverables. Jobs were gotten;
interviews were set up; training sessions for how you apply, how you
dress, how you talk to prospective employers. Those kinds of seminars
were given. A difference was made by the Congressional Black Caucus
traveling throughout this country.
So I rise to thank the leadership and all the members of the
Congressional Black Caucus. I see Mr. Davis and Ms. Waters on the floor
with Donna Christensen, and I thank them for their leadership in
particular. Maxine Waters was an extraordinarily strong voice for
saying just that: we feel your pain, and it's not just empathy we're
going to give you; we're going to give you the help that we can give.
This President came before us last week and said, ladies and
gentlemen, it is time to act. It is time to add to the opportunity for
success for putting America back to work, for addressing the mortgage
crisis in our country, for putting some more money in the pockets of
working men and women in this country, for helping small business grow
and expand, making sure as well that we pay for what we buy.
Every commission that has met, the Bowles-Simpson Commission and the
Domenici-Rivlin Commission, said, yes, we have to get a handle on this
debt and deficit, of which I'm a strong proponent; but in the short
term we need to grow the economy because if you do not grow the
economy, you will not get the deficit down because you need people
working so that they can support themselves and their families and,
yes, pay taxes, so that their grandchildren will not be deeply in debt.
So I stand indebted to the Congressional Black Caucus for continuing to
focus like a laser on creating jobs.
Mr. Butterfield, another member of the Congressional Black Caucus and
leader in our House, the chief deputy whip, is here as well and will be
speaking so that in North Carolina and in America we can create jobs,
invest in growing our economy, and, yes, give confidence, give
confidence to every single individual, every family, and, yes, every
business--small, medium, and large; that this Congress will act
responsibly to address a challenge, to address the pain that our people
are feeling, and to make sure in the long term, as we did in the 1990s,
that our country is on a sound fiscal path leading to growth in the
economy, jobs for our people, and a stronger and healthier America.
So I am pleased to join the Congressional Black Caucus, thanking
them, congratulating them, and saying that I look forward to working
with them, not just today, but today, tomorrow, the next day, and the
next week until such time as our people are no longer in the pain they
now experience.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Democratic whip, for joining us, and
please come back and join us anytime that we're on the floor. And thank
you for reminding everyone that the people of this country just cannot
wait 14 months to go back to work to take care of their families.
At this time I would like to yield to Congressman Davis from
Illinois.
[[Page H6082]]
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Let me, first of all, thank you, my classmate,
Donna Christensen. We got here about the same time, and it seems as
though the longer we're here, the more alike we think. So I want to
thank you for your leadership.
I also want to commend the Congressional Black Caucus because we have
just completed what I will call a very successful tour, a tour where
some people were able to actually obtain jobs, where other people were
able to renew their faith and hope that out there somewhere waiting for
them is a job.
As the minority whip talked about pain and frustration, it reminded
me that there are thousands of people in my congressional district who
are experiencing that pain just as there are millions across the
country.
I dug out an old record of mine the other day. I was going through my
collection, and there was a fellow singing a song about getting a job.
He says, Every morning about this time, she brings my breakfast to the
bed, crying, ``Get a job.'' He says, When I read the paper, I read it
through and through, trying to see if there is any work for me to do--
get a job.
But he kind of ends by saying, It was difficult to get a job that did
not exist. It was difficult to get a job that he couldn't find.
So I was pleased a few nights ago when a job plan was articulated and
presented. That's a very simple kind of plan in a sense. I couldn't
find much controversy. I couldn't find much that one couldn't buy no
matter which side of the aisle they were on, no matter what their
political stripes.
I mean, who can argue with rebuilding roads and bridges and highways
and giving people the opportunity to just ride on roads that are not
bumpy or to ride on streets that are not filled with potholes--
meaningful kinds of work that anybody can know is an investment and is
not any kind of giveaway?
Who can argue with unemployed teachers getting an opportunity to
work? Who can argue with small businesses being able to receive
incentives if they hire people who have been unemployed for more than 6
months? Who can argue with that? I don't think anybody that is serious
could argue with any of that.
So jobs must be found. Jobs must be had. And I am pleased to join
with my colleagues to say that we must turn around that there are no
jobs so that the guy can sing, I got a job, I got a job.
Thank you, Congressional Black Caucus.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Danny.
This morning I was with the postmasters at their convention, and
they're facing some difficulties and are having to downsize. And those
are some jobs that we know that you and Elijah Cummings, Eleanor Holmes
Norton, Ed Towns, and Lacy Clay have been working to protect; and we
thank you for that.
At this time I yield to the gentlewoman from California,
Congresswoman Maxine Waters.
{time} 1930
Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Christensen. I would
like to thank you for taking this time this evening so that we could
focus on this issue of jobs. It's extremely important.
I would like to thank Steny Hoyer for coming to the floor to
recognize the work that we are doing, to increase job opportunities for
people in this country.
The Congressional Black Caucus is to be commended because they heard
the cry. They felt the pain of so many people out there who have lost
their jobs, who do not know how they are going to pay their mortgages,
who do not know how they are going to provide for their families.
So despite the fact that the Congressional Black Caucus organized and
introduced over 40 bills dealing with this issue, the Congressional
Black Caucus decided to do something more, recognizing, yes, that we
have a public policy responsibility, that's why the 40 bills. But
beyond that what else could we do?
So the Congressional Black Caucus took to the streets and went out
into America and hit five cities: Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan;
Atlanta, Miami, and then my city of Los Angeles. And what we saw was
mind-boggling. Even though we understood that 16.7 percent is a huge
number for people to be unemployed, we did not realize the thousands
upon thousands of people who really were hurting out there.
They came. They came by the thousands in every city that we were in.
They were young, they were middle-aged, they were the unemployed, they
were people who had been looking for jobs for over a year. And it was
awfully painful to see all of these young college graduates who
happened to be African American, who went to school, graduated, and
looked forward to going to their job, who had no jobs. And so we saw it
firsthand.
In my own city of Los Angeles where we organized one of these job
fairs, there were over 10,000 people who showed up. Luckily, we had a
venue, the Crenshaw Christian Center, where they had a dome, a faith
dome. They could hold 10,000 people, and people didn't have to stand in
line.
In Atlanta people got ill standing in line 3, 4 hours trying to get
connected. The employers are to be commended. They came and they
listened, they interviewed, they took applications, they assisted
people in learning how to get an opportunity with their companies. We
would like to thank all of those employers who participated with the
Congressional Black Caucus in trying to help connect people with jobs.
We have to continue with this push for jobs. The press has done a
relatively good job of shining a light on the devastation that's going
on in these African American communities. We support all people getting
an opportunity for jobs, but we must target our resources to those
communities that are most in need.
We are talking about rural communities where there's unemployment and
poverty, and we are talking about these urban areas. We believe that
the resources must be targeted, the attention must be paid, not only to
the entire population in this country of unemployed, but those areas
that are absolutely suffering.
We need to continue to do this. And while the white unemployment rate
stayed the same last month, black unemployment increased by 4
percentage points to 16.7 percent. Today in The Wall Street Journal
they noted that black teenage unemployment is bordering on 50 percent.
Fifty percent.
These figures don't even take into account the discouraged workers,
involuntary part-time workers, and underemployed workers. Moreover, let
me just tell you about the wealth gap. It is at its largest levels in
more than a generation.
The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black
households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew
Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009.
These lop-sided wealth ratios are the largest since the government
began publishing such data in 1984 and roughly twice the size of the
ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two
decades prior to the Great Recession that supposedly ended in 2009.
The median wealth of white U.S. households in 2009 was $113,149
compared to $5,677 for blacks and $6,325 for Hispanics.
The percentage of African Americans with no wealth has increased.
About 35 percent of black households and 31 percent of Hispanic
households had zero or negative net worth in 2009, compared with 15
percent of white households.
So while unemployment and the housing crisis is impacting everyone,
it is hitting minority communities the hardest. That is why we must
continue to push. I am so pleased that the President presented a huge
opportunity to focus on job creation, and so now the devil is in the
details.
It must be targeted. The public policies must take into consideration
targeting these efforts so that these resources are put where its most
needed. The Congress must have hearings and markups for the American
JOBS Act. We must work together to ensure that its stimulative
investments are protected and strengthened through greater targeting.
Our entire jobs-creation agenda can't simply be the tax cuts alone.
We need to focus infrastructure repair in the communities with the
bridges, roads and sewer systems that are most in need.
[[Page H6083]]
We need to rebuild schools in urban and rural areas that have long
been neglected.
We want housing, a national housing trust fund to produce,
rehabilitate, preserve, and operate rental housing in areas where our
homeless veterans and seniors are concentrated.
We need targeted aid to the unemployed, who are the most likely to
spend their money and stimulate the economy. If we do not pursue
targeted public policy, I predict that the African American
unemployment will hit 20 percent. The American economy will never be
stable if we have one segment of our population, particularly a segment
as large as the African American population, that faces a systemic jobs
crisis.
So, again, my appreciation and my thanks to our chairman, Emanuel
Cleaver, and to the entire Congressional Black Caucus for having the
courage to step up and make this a priority issue, not only for our
caucus but for their Congress and for their country. We cannot sit idly
by in silence and watch what is happening as this devastation is
continuing in these communities.
Thank you one more time for allowing us to be here this evening.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congresswoman Waters. We want to thank
you for your leadership in leading the jobs task force for the CBC and
for being such a strong voice for those who are continually being left
out and left behind.
At this time I would like to yield to the gentleman from North
Carolina.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Let me thank you, Congresswoman Christensen, for all
of your work, not only here in the House of Representatives, but what
you do for the Congressional Black Caucus all across America.
What hasn't come out tonight is you are actually the first vice chair
of the Congressional Black Caucus, and you work so hard for all of us
and we want to thank you very much. We want to thank you for convening
this Special Order tonight. You work so hard to make it happen.
I also want to extend my appreciation to Congresswoman Maxine Waters,
who worked so tirelessly to help make successful the tour that we had a
few weeks ago. She and her staff worked so very hard, and I want to
publicly thank them for all that they did.
I had intended to go to two of the five events, but because of
Hurricane Irene in my district, I did not make it to Los Angeles, but I
did go to the first one. I was there in Cleveland with Congresswoman
Marcia Fudge when we had the jobs fair and the town hall meeting, and
it made such a powerful impression on me for us to get up that morning
and to drive over to the community college and to see thousands of
people lined up trying to get an interview for a job.
There was no question about it that these people were sincere, they
were jobless through no fault of their own. Many of them told us that
they had been jobless for more than 2 years, and they were standing in
line hoping to get an opportunity to be interviewed by some of the fine
companies that had come with the jobs in hand.
So I want to encourage us to continue our work. We have so much work
to do. The national unemployment now is 9.1 percent and African
American unemployment is at least 16.7 percent and probably more. As
Congresswoman Waters said a few moments ago, among African American
youth the number now approaches 50 percent, and so we have work to do.
The President has announced a very bold jobs plan that I hope that we
can come together on as a Congress, both Democrat and Republican, House
and Senate. I hope that we can come together and pass that package, the
complete package, in just a few days because the American people are
demanding that we do it.
{time} 1940
We have a deficit panel that has now begun its work, 12 Members
equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, half from the Senate
and half from the House; and we are hoping and praying that deficit
panel will be able to come together and present bold ideas to this
Congress by November 23 so that we can demonstrate to the American
people that we are serious about trying to create jobs.
But you know, Congresswoman, we as a Congress cannot do this alone.
We as the CBC cannot do this alone. We have got to have shared
sacrifice from people all across America, and that includes America's
corporations. I have been disturbed over the last few days that
America's companies are sitting on more than $2 trillion in retained
earnings, and that is so disappointing.
So when we talk about creating jobs, American corporations have a
responsibility, too, to put people to work and to start spending and
investing in their own companies. So we go forward now, and we have a
lot of work to do. We have a short term, as the minority whip said a
few moments ago, and he is absolutely right; and I want to thank Steny
Hoyer for his willingness to come to the floor tonight and to make the
statements that he made. But we must have a short-term solution and a
long-term solution. In the short term, we have to create jobs and we
have to grow the economy. We have got to help businesses innovate, and
we've got to improve the infrastructure so we can start getting more
revenue from American workers. And, hopefully, in the long term we can
begin to pay down the deficit.
So thank you for allowing me to come to the floor tonight and thank
you for your leadership, and I thank the chairman of the Congressional
Black Caucus who works tirelessly. I don't know when he goes to Kansas
City. He is from Kansas City, Missouri, and a good friend of all of
ours. I don't know when he rests. He is our tireless leader. I
understand that he may be next in the queue to speak, and I will
eagerly await the statements from our chairman.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congressman Butterfield, and thank you
for pointing out the fact that America's corporations are sitting on
billions of dollars. They have an obligation. As I understand it, they
claim there is uncertainty, and so they are holding onto their funds.
But there can't be any more uncertainty in our corporations than in the
families around this country who are hurting because they need a job.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Without question.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you again, Congressman Butterfield, for
joining us. At this time, it is my pleasure to yield to the leader of
our Congressional Black Caucus, Reverend Emanuel Cleaver. And thank you
so much for your work and reminding this Congress and this country on
the importance of job creation for America's families and for leading
us on that tour over the August recess.
Mr. CLEAVER. I thank the vice chair of the CBC. And to follow
Congressman G.K. Butterfield, who I think hit on all of the proper and
necessary areas of concerns, it has been written that ours will be the
last generation in this country to experience surpassing the previous
generation, that our children will not achieve what we have achieved
and the jobs are not there. And while the individuals who have written
about this and presented research on it are certainly brilliant and
wise, I will gently rebuke them and disagree with their prediction.
I am not in any way willing to accept the fact, the fatalism, that
the United States will inevitably fall to number two in the world
behind China. Yesterday there was a news story that said at best there
will be two superpowers equal in terms of influence and their
economies: China and the United States.
This Nation that placed men on the Moon, this Nation that creates a
new technology almost hourly should never surrender its place in the
world to any other nation. And, further, I don't think that it is in
our best interest to even give a hint that we believe that we can't
continue to create jobs for the next generation.
The jobs tour that we had during the month of August was eye-opening
and Earth-shattering. When we walked from our cars inside the Cleveland
State University place where we held the jobs fair, there were people
who had been in line since 5 a.m. that morning. And so it always
troubles me to hear people say, and say baselessly: Well, you know,
some people don't want to work. So 5 a.m. in the morning, standing in
line. And at best, of the 5,000 or 6,000 people who were there, we only
had about 2,000 jobs. But people stood patiently in line.
[[Page H6084]]
One of the things that happened that I think some of you may already
know about who are in the CBC, an Anglo gentleman, and there were
people from every race in every city, but this particular gentleman
caught my attention because he said: Look, I listen to black radio. He
said, I just like R&B and I heard about the jobs fair and I thought I'd
come over since I'm unemployed. And he said, Is it all right? And of
course our position is, has been, and shall always be, one of including
everybody, particularly in a time of crisis. But even if we're not,
that is what we would want. And so he remained in line. I'm not sure
what happened, whether he was one of the successful applicants or not.
The point I want to make is that the pain that is being experienced
in this Nation is not just being experienced by African Americans. It
is true that our numbers are higher, but our numbers are higher for a
variety of reasons. Number one, African Americans historically have
tried or sought employment in government. One of the reasons
Washington, D.C. is predominantly black is because African Americans
from the South came to Washington by the tens of thousands because it
was believed that if you could get to the capital of the United States,
you would experience far less bigotry and discrimination. And so by the
thousands they came to Washington.
The same thing holds true with government. African Americans have
sought employment with State, local, and the Federal Government. So
every time people read in the paper or cheer that some State laid off
200 or 300 people, they need to understand that those are 200 or 300
real human beings, and chances are also great that they are
disproportionately minority. So that is one of the reasons why our
numbers are swelling like they are.
But also I think we have got to realize that there are some other
factors through no fault of people who are unemployed. I served as
mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, from 1991 until 1999, two terms, 8
years. One of the things we always had to fight was expanding. Urban
sprawl is what it is called sociologically. Kansas City is a city that
stretches 322 square miles. To show you how large that is, you can
place the entire city of San Francisco inside the city limits of Kansas
City 30 times, or the city of Washington, I think it is like 42 times.
It is a huge city.
Now while many politicians brag about that, the truth of the matter
is we stretched out our resources. One of the things I learned during
the jobs fairs--we started out in Cleveland, went to Detroit; left
Detroit and went to Atlanta; left Atlanta and went to Miami; left Miami
and went to Los Angeles--and there is one thing that was present at all
of those that this Congress needs to deal with and it is this: the jobs
that were brought to our fairs were not new jobs. The truth of the
matter is they were jobs that already existed except they were in the
suburbs.
And so as the cities have expanded, the jobs have moved to the
suburbs. And so we cannot speak of creating jobs without dealing with
the issue of transportation. There's an inextricable connection between
jobs and transportation: how do you get people in the highest
unemployment areas to the areas where the jobs are.
{time} 1950
For those who live on the eastern seaboard, you have a little better
situation because you have, as we do in Washington, the Metro. But when
you start moving toward the western part of the United States, or the
Caribbean, there is no mass transportation that is as effective as it
is on the east coast. Therefore, if jobs are in suburban Kansas City
and people who live in the urban area are unemployed and do not have a
car and do not have any way of getting to the jobs, there is no way
they can get there. Remember, Kansas City is a city of 322 square
miles, which means that people could need to go essentially 30, 40, 50
miles to get a job.
Now, let me also say that nothing has been discussed thus far dealing
with transportation. The jobs bill is seeking to have what I think most
of us would support, which would be some kind of transportation bank
where it would end up that the government would put money in and
hopefully the private sector would come in and we would be able to get
these infrastructure jobs going. But the amount of money that is being
discussed is woefully inadequate, and there's probably little chance
that we're going to be able to create any new mass transit programs in
the country. In fact, UMTA, the Urban Mass Transit Administration, is
broke virtually broke. So there's very little in the way of help coming
forth.
Now, there's some politics involved, and we're all in the political
environment. And the people at home may not even understand what's
going on.
Tragically, I have watched our country move to a state where people
are constantly angry. They're being told to hate their government, and
then both sides of the aisle use inappropriate language to discuss
things with the other side of the aisle. It's continuing to ratchet up,
and it's getting worse and worse. And the people around the country are
not only participating in it, they are encouraging it.
This is the United States of America. My hope and my dream is that
this Nation will be around for my children and my grandchildren. But
I'm telling you that what our children are seeing is not a pleasant
sight because they are looking at a Nation that is becoming more and
more divided. You can't look at television or radio without this
constant attack, attack, attack, and it's just sickening to see this.
As we're moving into an election cycle, we're going to see ``thermal
nuclear'' campaigns. And the American public needs to come to grips
with the fact that if people will run a nasty campaign where all they
do is attack, chances are when they come to Congress they're going to
do the same thing. And the more we bring people in here who come for
the sole purpose of fighting against the other side, the less business
we're going to take care of for the people of this country.
I said last week there are some people who'd like to defeat the
President of the United States. Fine. Campaign against him. Get your
spouse, your children, your grandchildren, your friends, and everybody.
Vote against him. If you can vote twice, vote twice. Do everything you
can to defeat the President. But right now, vote for the American
public. Fight him later. Vote now for the American public.
And the American public is in trouble. We've got to create
opportunities for jobs to grow and develop or we're going to find
ourselves faced with a new normal, a new normal where unemployment is
considered normal at 8 percent rather than 3.5 percent, which is what
our predecessors decided that we're going to keep unemployment at, 3.5
percent. So we can't allow this to happen. I think we've got to fight
against it. But, more than that, what we've got to do is quit fighting
each other. Nothing is going to happen worth anything if we're fighting
each other.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CLEAVER. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Cleaver, you brought up the subject of
infrastructure in your remarks. That's a very important conversation
that we've got to have in this country. You have served 8 years as
mayor of a major city. Would you again speak to the importance of
infrastructure and what it can mean to job creation and economic
development in communities all across America?
I'm from a rural community. I have 88 small cities and towns in my
district and they don't have access to money to build infrastructure.
The infrastructure bank that you made reference to would just bring new
life to rural communities. I know you served as a mayor. Just talk
about the relationship between infrastructure and job creation.
Mr. CLEAVER. What is generally said is that you get, four to one,
jobs to money spent if we do infrastructure projects, and those jobs
are long lasting.
Now, most of the infrastructure in this country is in decrepit
condition. Most of the storm water sewers, wastewater sewers in cities
around the country are over a century old. Roads are collapsing. Our
bridges are collapsing. We saw in Minnesota 2 years ago what happens
when we neglect our own infrastructure.
And the worst thing about it, Congressman Butterfield, is that we're
[[Page H6085]]
building roads and bridges right now in Iraq, new roads and bridges and
schools in Iraq right now. I'm just a dumb Methodist preacher, but
something doesn't add up. We're doing all of this in Iraq and our roads
are crumbling?
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. And we have American workers ready to do the work if
we can create the opportunities.
Mr. CLEAVER. And we can with the infrastructure bank. But we've got
to put enough money in the bank to attract the private sector dollars.
And that's a part of the President's plan, and hopefully people will
buy into it. But I don't think we have a lot of time to waste.
Americans are sitting around now hoping, many of them even praying,
that we will do something to help them out of the economic doldrums in
which they find themselves.
So, I appreciate the opportunity to come and share tonight in this
discussion because I think people around the country who are watching
this need to know at least there are some people in Washington who are
looking out for their best interests. And I think, based on what we're
doing, we are part of it. I'm not going to suggest that other folks are
not interested in helping folks. They are. I'm saying that sometimes,
maybe even unintentionally, we allow political ideology to trump
anything and everything else, and at some point we ought to be more
Americans than we are Democrats or Republicans.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Chairman Cleaver, and thank you for the
perspective that you always bring to these discussions, helping us to
focus on the important issues, sometimes the underlying issues that
often get overlooked.
Yesterday and today, we've taken time out of our daily routine to
remember the over 3,000 people who went to work on a bright, sunny
morning and whose lives were snuffed out in three dastardly acts of
terrorism. We remember and honor them and their families and the first
responders who returned to help and also met their death on September
11, 2001. We pay tribute also to the men and women of our Armed Forces
who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, continuing our fight
against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and those who are still
there protecting us and the world from attack.
Today, I had the honor of addressing our postmasters at their annual
convention and remembered Thomas Morris, Jr., and Joseph Curseen, who
died after being exposed to anthrax sent in the mail in the weeks after
as they worked at the Brentwood postal facility here in Washington. We
didn't look at those who died or talk about those who died as
Republicans or as Democrats or Independents. They were workers in both
the public and private sector, who some groups today are trying to pit
against each other. We honor them all and their families for their
sacrifice.
Tonight, we've been focusing on the workers that remain with us, but
most especially we are singling out for our attention--to the attention
of this Congress and for all Americans--those who have no job and for
whom, until now, it had appeared as though there would be no
legislation to come to their aid. But thanks to our great President,
there's now a bill before us, and we're calling on both bodies to pass
it as soon as possible and without taking it apart. The 1.9 million
jobs and the 2 percent economic growth projections are dependent on
those two things--that we pass it promptly and that we pass it intact.
Most importantly, as President Obama said, and all of us know, the
American people cannot wait 14 months until after the next election.
They have already been hurting too long and they need those jobs. They
need our help today.
{time} 2000
As you heard, the Congressional Black Caucus did not wait either. We
felt the pain and anxieties in our communities and communities across
the country and used our August recess to partner with the private
sector and some government agencies to bring jobs that are needed so
desperately into our communities now. People of all ages, all
educational backgrounds and levels came out in the thousands everywhere
that held those job fairs.
Mr. Speaker, the people of this country are crying out to us to put
them back to work, to allow them to make it in America and to be able
to take care of their families and our Nation once again. Sure, there
are things in the President's draft bill that some of us are not
particularly fond of that we're willing to accept for the integrity of
the entire package and for the good of our country. And others, like
Social Security and Medicare, we accept the President's goals and hope
that we can work with him to achieve them through any alternative
measures wherever our approaches might differ.
The ladies in the markets in the Caribbean at home in the Virgin
Islands used to what we call ``marry'' different fruits and vegetables
for sale. You had to buy the two of them, whether it was limes and
peppers or yams and okra, you had to buy the two; the vegetables were
married. The purpose of that, of course, was to get everything sold by
tying something everyone wanted to something that might not be as
popular. Now I know that was not our President's approach, but he did
put together a package that could best appeal to us so that we could
all come together and buy it as a package. And so, Mr. Speaker, and
colleagues, that is exactly what we should and must do.
Creating jobs and stimulating our economy is critical not just to our
present, but to our future. This is not an issue that's about the
President, and it ought not to be about the next election. Neither is
it about the CBC or Members of Congress, or about Republicans or
Democrats or Independents. It's about the welfare and the well-being of
the American people and of our country, which I know all of us care
about.
We are in a crisis. In crises, people always come together to the aid
of each other, as we did on 9/11/01 and in the weeks and months after.
So it's our hope and prayer that this Congress can do the same thing
now.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I yield back the balance of our time.
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