[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 146 (Monday, October 3, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6495-H6501]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 2020
CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS HOUR
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bucshon). 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. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Congressional Black Caucus is pleased, and we thank the
Democratic leadership for allowing us, once again, to come to the floor
for the Democratic hour.
General Leave
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. First of all, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks
and to add extraneous material on the subject under discussion this
evening.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands?
There was no objection.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. At this time, I am joined by two of my colleagues.
I would like to yield to the gentlelady from Ohio, who, for 2 years
religiously, had the responsibility in the last Congress to lead us in
these Special Orders--with a lot of conviction and great information to
share with the American people.
Congresswoman Marcia Fudge of Ohio.
Ms. FUDGE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Representative
Christensen for anchoring today's timely CBC Special Order on
unemployment in the African American community and on job creation.
It is no secret that the unemployment rate for African Americans is
almost twice that of the national unemployment rate. Studies show that
16.7 percent of all African Americans are unemployed. It's probably
closer to 20 percent when you take into consideration those who have
given up looking for jobs or who are severely underemployed. In some
cities, it is nearly three times the national unemployment rate.
Mr. Speaker, the people I represent are not talking about budget
cuts, and they're not talking about continuing resolutions. The people
in my community are talking about being laid off, and they're talking
about losing their homes while they're still trying to provide food for
their families. We are in a crisis that will undoubtedly affect our
children and our grandchildren as 11 percent of all American children
have at least one parent who is unemployed.
What does that mean for them?
It means fewer opportunities, and it means fewer meals.
As a Nation, we have always prided ourselves on defining ``success''
as providing a better future for our children. That's why my colleagues
and I are speaking out today. That's why it is absolutely essential
that we begin to make changes that will help our people get back on
their feet. We must do something to create jobs, and we must do it now.
I hosted a telephone town hall on the economy a few weeks ago.
[[Page H6496]]
Seven thousand people from around my district joined the call to ask
questions about resources for small businesses or how to find job
training programs. These people, like so many others, are looking for a
way out of this situation, and it must come now.
It's clear to me that we have settled for short-term solutions to a
problem that demands a long-term strategic resolution. We need to
retrain workers for the jobs of today. Surprisingly, there are millions
of positions that go unfilled in an economy where Americans are
unemployed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that there were 3
million job openings on the last business day of May 2011, yet the
unemployment rate at that same time was 9.2 percent. There were enough
jobs available to employ just over 20 percent of all of these
unemployed Americans. So there is an obvious disconnect.
Many people searching for work lack the job-specific skills they need
to be competitive for many of the job vacancies. Technology is
outpacing the Nation's current approach to job-related education and
training. The difference between white collar and blue collar jobs is
fading because, traditionally, blue collar jobs are more specialized
than ever before.
As a solution, I've introduced H.R. 2742, the Hire, Train, Retain Act
of 2011. This bill will give employers tax incentives for hiring
unemployed Americans and providing job training to fill job vacancies
specific to that employer. Employers will also receive a ``hire
retention tax credit'' of up to $1,000 for each qualified employee
retained for 52 weeks.
Another proven way to get Americans working is through infrastructure
projects. That is why I recently introduced the School Athletic
Facilities Restoration Act of 2011. This bill authorizes the allocation
of grants to local educational agencies for the construction,
renovation, or repair of school facilities used for physical education.
The funds will facilitate construction hiring while improving safe
places for children to exercise and play.
In closing, I want to mention that every single member of the
Congressional Black Caucus has sponsored job creation legislation. The
best way to reduce our deficit is to create jobs. That's why, in
August, the CBC took our message on the road and connected job seekers
with employers at job fairs across the country, and we listened to the
voices of our constituents during town hall meetings.
Mr. Speaker, I came to Congress to be a voice for struggling
Americans. My number one priority is job creation and economic
development. I am working hard to create jobs, and time is of the
essence. This is not a time for political posturing and partisan
bickering. The American people need help. They need our help and they
need it now.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congresswoman Fudge, for that
legislation and for your leadership on so many issues that are
important to the people of this country.
I would next like to yield such time as she might consume to the
former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus--again a leader on many,
many issues, whether it be health care, global health, AIDS, as well as
developing our agenda that we've continued even into this Congress of
creating pathways out of poverty--Congresswoman Barbara Lee of Oakland,
California.
Ms. LEE of California. Let me thank my colleague, Congresswoman
Christensen, for those kind remarks and also for leading this Special
Order, once again, in order to sound the alarm about the jobs crisis in
our country.
Also, Congresswoman Christensen, I want to thank you for your
leadership on so many issues, especially on health care. You remind us
of the importance of health care reform, not only because people
deserve affordable, accessible health care, but because of the many
jobs that will be created in the health care sector as a result of
these reforms. So thank you for continuing to remind us of that,
because many, many jobs are going to be created as a result of the work
that you did.
Under the leadership of our very brilliant and bold chairman of the
Congressional Black Caucus, Chairman Emanuel Cleaver, and of our jobs
task force chair, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the Congressional Black
Caucus has been hitting the street about jobs for some time now. We
held five ``for the people'' jobs initiatives around the country--in
Cleveland, Miami, Atlanta, Detroit, and Los Angeles--bringing together
employers who have jobs with people who need jobs. The response was
overwhelming. Thousands of people showed up at each event, all wanting
to share their stories, to learn how to interview or network or to just
strictly apply for a job.
As we know, communities of color are feeling this Great Recession
more than others. In fact, for communities of color, especially in the
African American community, the Great Recession has been more like the
Great Depression. While the national average unemployment rate is 9.1
percent, the unemployment rate for African Americans is 16.7 percent
reported. For Latinos, it's 11.3 percent--and that is for those who are
reporting they're out there looking for work. If we consider those who
have essentially stopped looking or who have given up on getting a job,
we can probably double these numbers. It's very, very tragic.
For the people's jobs initiative, this initiative highlighted what is
taking place throughout the Nation. People are desperately looking for
jobs. People want to work. We must pass the American Jobs Act as a
first step in addressing the jobs crisis that is sweeping the Nation.
Sadly, the jobs crisis moves hand in hand with poverty. The Census
released some staggering numbers last month in its report, ``Income,
Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010.''
For example, 2.6 million Americans fell into poverty in 2010.
{time} 2030
That's about 7,118 people a day falling into poverty. Let me put it
another way: It's like a small town falling into poverty each and every
day.
The poverty rates in 2010 that the census revealed are as shocking
and as staggering as the unemployment numbers. The poverty rate for
whites, non-Hispanics, was 9.9 percent; for African Americans, the
poverty rate was 27.4 percent; the poverty rate for Latinos was 26.6
percent; and for Asian-Pacific Islanders, 12.1 percent.
In 2010, 15.1 percent of Americans were living in poverty. Now,
that's 46.2 million people, in the wealthiest and most powerful country
in the world, 46 million people living in poverty, and 9.1 percent are
unemployed. Creating jobs will improve our Nation's economy and provide
people pathways out of poverty.
We need to target Federal programs to communities most in need, and
we can do this by using particularly the data sets like those from the
census to target programs with the highest unemployment rates and the
highest poverty rates. We can extend and should extend the Emergency
Unemployment Compensation program and the Extended Benefits
Unemployment program, both of which expire early in 2012. If we don't,
millions of unemployed Americans will no longer have a safety net until
jobs are created. Remember, for every four unemployed workers seeking a
job, only one job exists. That is a fact.
We also need to pass H.R. 589, which I introduced with a fellow CBC
member, a good friend, a great leader, Congressman Bobby Scott, which
gives an additional 14 weeks of unemployment benefits to those eligible
people who have exhausted their benefits and no longer receive this
support.
We have no idea today how these people are surviving in these
devastating times, and we can and must continue to support them while
we work to create jobs. Speaker Boehner still will not move this bill
to the floor for a vote and, once again, I am going to encourage the
Republican leadership to bring H.R. 589 to the floor.
We also must restore the TANF emergency contingency fund and increase
the amount of money going to this program, which directly supports
needy families with the basics and creates jobs. We also should develop
and implement various corps, similar to those implemented through the
Work Projects Administration, the Public Land Corps, and the Civilian
Conservation Corps aimed at programs and services needed in communities
across this country, including health care corps, public safety corps,
community corps, and teacher corps.
[[Page H6497]]
We should expand the Workforce Investment Act aimed at young people,
particularly the 25 percent of teenagers and young people who are
unemployed today--in the African American community over 40 percent,
all losing hope for their futures.
We should extend and support the expansion of on-the-job training for
unemployed workers, including those who are long-term unemployed and
those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits, to help them
refresh their job skills and ease their reentry into the workforce. We
know that these initiatives will put people back to work, and that is
what the Congressional Black Caucus continues to fight for.
We have to fight against the Republican opportunistic attacks on the
environment and the regulations that protect the environment and public
health which, of course, they are claiming as a jobs program.
It's no jobs program. In fact, turning back the clock on the Clean
Air and Clean Water Act will simply destroy jobs across the country,
along with destroying our precious, natural resources, while placing
human health in danger.
It's completely misguided. It's a terrible move by the Republicans.
They are turning a blind eye to the needs of Americans and the needs of
our economy.
Now, the most effective anti-poverty program is an effective jobs
program, and the CBC has been working to create jobs and connect people
to jobs. We are not going to back down. And as the CBC has done for 40
years, we are going to continue to fight for jobs, justice, and
equality. Our voice as the conscience of the Congress is needed now
more than ever.
So I want to thank, again, Congresswoman Donna Christensen, Chairman
Emanuel Cleaver, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and all of our CBC members
for bringing us together to conduct this jobs tour, to speak out
tonight, each and every day on this floor, in our communities on the
critical issue of jobs, and to remind the Congress that people do want
to work and we should hurry up and pass the American Jobs Act as a
first start.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congresswoman Lee. You were the chair of
the Congressional Black Caucus as we created and passed the Affordable
Care Act. And without your determination, many of the important
provisions that we felt were important to our communities and to
communities across our country would not have been there. We thank you
for that.
And thank you for reminding us that the Affordable Care Act is a jobs
bill. It is reported that it may produce as many as 4 million jobs. And
so it's not only a bill, an act, a law that would allow over 30 million
people to finally become insured and provide access to quality health
care for many people who have never had it, but it will also create
jobs.
It's interesting how health care is connected to so many of the other
things that we are dealing with. Two of the most important things that
have to be fixed, if we are to get out of this recession: We have to
create jobs, and we have to fix the foreclosure crisis.
There was an article in The New York Times today by Craig E. Pollack
and Julia F. Lynch that was entitled ``Foreclosures Are Killing Us,''
and it caught my eye. I just want to read a little piece of it into the
Record:
``A growing body of research shows that foreclosure itself harms the
health of families and communities. In our 2008 survey of 250 people
undergoing foreclosure in the Philadelphia area, 32 percent reported
missing doctors' appointments and 48 percent said they let
prescriptions go unfilled, significantly higher rates than others in
their community. A paper released last month by the National Bureau of
Economic Research found that people living in high-foreclosure areas in
New Jersey, Arizona, California, and Florida were significantly more
likely than those in less hard-hit neighborhoods to be hospitalized for
conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart failure.
``More than one-third of homeowners in our study had symptoms of
major depression.'' The N.B.E.R. study found significantly more
suicides also.
So these issues and these problems that affect, in large part,
minority, racial, and ethnic minority populations are responsible for
some of the health disparities that we talk about.
Ms. LEE of California. Will the gentlelady yield?
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.
Ms. LEE of California. I am very pleased that you raised this article
because the human toll, the physical and mental health impact of these
horrific public policies that either have taken place over the last 8
years or that are not taking place that we should enact are really seen
each and every day in our communities every day, and people are
desperate, they are suffering. And for the life of me I don't
understand why especially Tea Party Republicans don't get it, because
their people are suffering also.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Absolutely, absolutely.
We have been joined by another former chair of the Congressional
Black Caucus and the leader of our Health Care Task Force,
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and I would like to yield such time as she
might consume to her.
Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Donna Christensen. I
am very pleased that you took this time out this evening to give us an
opportunity to continue to focus on our top priority in the
Congressional Black Caucus. We are absolutely focused like a laser beam
on the fact that jobs are needed so desperately in all of these
communities that we represent.
We recognize that unemployment is unprecedented, at its highest
levels perhaps since the 1980s across this country, with 9.1 percent
being that of the country. But we also recognize that in minority
communities it is so much higher; in the Latino community, 11.3
percent; in the African American community, 16.7 percent.
Why are we focused like a laser beam on this issue? Because we
understand the pain that is going on. We understand the increasing
desperation. We understand the growing hopelessness and, as public
policymakers, we must do everything that we possibly can not only to do
actual job creation, but to help people out there understand that we
know what's going on. We feel their pain, and we are prepared to do
everything possible to come to their aid.
{time} 2040
So there are those who may get tired of us talking about it. There
are those who wonder why we took our vacation time and traveled across
this country in five cities with these job fairs and town halls that we
did, but it is all because we understand, perhaps better than others,
this pain and this desperation and this feeling of hopelessness; and
that's not good for this country.
So you're absolutely correct. The Congressional Black Caucus went to
Detroit. We went to Cleveland. We went to Miami. We went to Atlanta.
And we went to California, Los Angeles. And what did we see? As it has
been said over and over again, thousands upon thousands of people in
line desperate to be able to talk with employers.
I must extend a big thank you to employers. They heard our call and
they showed up. And they were at each of these meetings, these job
fairs that we had; and people were able to fill out applications, to
learn what the process is for that particular employer, to be able to
talk with someone. And I had job seekers in Los Angeles who said to me:
Ms. Waters, you know, I may not get a job, but I appreciate the
opportunity that the Congressional Black Caucus is affording me and
others to be able to take a shot at it, to be able to talk with
someone.
So in Los Angeles, in my own community, 10,000 people showed up. We
organized it in ways that they wouldn't have to stand in line for long
periods of time; and thanks to the Crenshaw Christian Center that has
the Faith Dome that holds 10,000 people, we were able to get people off
that sidewalk through that dome and to those employers where we set up
tents for 170 employers who came behind the dome, and it worked very
well.
Congresswoman, I want you to know this past weekend, as I traveled
throughout the area, people came up to me and said: Ms. Waters, I got a
job. I can't tell you how great that made me feel. And, of course, it
was only a small number of people that I encountered. But just to have
them say, thank you,
[[Page H6498]]
I received a job, was extremely impressive and inspiring and made me
feel so very, very good. We are going to follow up with the employers
and have them feed us back the information about how many people they
were able to hire so that we can give a report on that.
But in all of this, I am so worried that the unemployment in the
African American community may reach as high as 20 percent. Our
communities have been hit hard. I heard you allude to the foreclosures
that we're experiencing in our communities. Our communities were
targeted. They were targeted by financial institutions because they saw
that people were eager to have homes. They understood that if you gave
people an opportunity, that they would take advantage of it. But what
they didn't say was that they were coming up with all of these exotic
products, products that literally got people into homes, but it could
not be sustained because of the way these products were organized.
You had people who were told: you don't have to pay anything down;
you just have to pay a little down. Don't worry about the resets; don't
worry about what will happen 2 years from now. And these exotic
products were products that had the devil in the details. And so people
entered into mortgages they certainly could not afford down the road;
and so our communities are overwhelmed with foreclosures, the loss of
wealth, the loss of the only wealth that many of our families certainly
had and could ever have for years to come.
I just want to share with you, in addition to the joblessness and the
foreclosures and the loss of homes, 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 lopsided 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 ended in 2009. The median
wealth of United States 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 have zero or negative
net worth in 2009 compared with 15 percent of white households.
Basically, just looking at the joblessness and the lack of wealth,
the decreasing wealth tells the story. No communities can survive under
these conditions. Everybody must be concerned about unemployment in
general, but specifically these communities that are so bad off under
the situation and the environment that we're living in at this time. So
we support the jobs bill. We want to create jobs in our infrastructure.
This country needs to repair its roads and its bridges and its water
systems, and we believe that creating those jobs will help all of our
communities, not only get jobs but put money back into the economy.
The economy needs stimulating. You stimulate the economy not by cut,
cut, cuts, but by investing in the economy, both the private sector and
the public sector. So we've got to fight for it. We've got to stand up.
We've got to resist any Tea Party efforts that say that they came to
Congress to dismantle government and they want to cut, cut, cut. They
will not support anything that will raise revenues, or even maintain
revenues in some instances. We've got to push back on that. We've got
to be strong. We've got to say to our colleagues: the facts are clear;
they are in front of you. Nobody can deny these facts, and we're asking
you to join with us in making sure that not only we deal with the most
vulnerable in our society, but we pay attention to all of those who are
suffering and the families that are suffering.
I want to tell you, I have witnessed that some of our friends on the
opposite side of the aisle who represent very poor communities don't
seem to be able to rise to the occasion to offer them support. It seems
to me that they can basically talk about and inflame issues that have
nothing to do with the economic well-being of their constituents. And
so we have to keep reminding them that this is for everybody. This is
for your constituents that you're not really representing, those poor
people in rural communities who don't have health care clinics, those
poor people who don't have jobs, those poor people who don't have the
kind of education that they should have.
So thank you for bringing us to the floor this evening to once again
put the focus on jobs, jobs, jobs.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congresswoman Waters, and thank you for
the work that you've done to ensure that our financial regulatory
agencies have women and minorities on their boards, for the work that
you've done to help homeowners stay in their homes and address the
mortgage crisis, and for all that you do.
You know, even though many of the people who came to those fairs
didn't get a job, they got hope, and many of them had given up. I'm
sure that re-energized them to go out and keep looking. If they didn't
get a job then, they will get one. Thank you so much for your
leadership on that.
I'd like to yield now to the gentleman from Michigan, Congressman
Hansen Clarke. Thank you for joining the ladies this evening.
Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. You're very welcome, Representative
Christensen. What I wanted to do was, on behalf of all metro
Detroiters, I wanted to thank the Congressional Black Caucus and, in
particular, our chairperson, Representative Maxine Waters, the head of
our Jobs Task Force, for coming to Detroit and giving folks in Detroit
some chance of getting a job and definitely some hope that they have a
future for themselves.
This was so important for me because years ago back in the 1980s when
we had our last big recession, I was one of those guys who was
unemployed. What happened was I did give up hope for a moment there,
and it was devastating for me after I lost my income and then my food
stamps were cut off. When you give someone the dignity that they
realize they have something to offer themselves, their family and their
city, it doesn't matter if they don't get a job at that interview. They
will have then the drive to fight for themselves and not to give up.
That's why our people are still here thriving because we didn't give
up. But that jobs session did show that there are a lot of folks in
Detroit who still need a job.
{time} 2050
And I have introduced legislation to help provide those jobs
opportunities to Detroiters. And if I could, I wanted to share with you
and then share with our public how that would work. When you visited
Detroit, Representative Waters, you may have noticed we had all these
big parcels of vacant land with just nothing on it or maybe some burnt-
down houses or buildings. We could actually build plants on those
properties as we built plants back decades ago in World War II that
housed the arsenal of democracy that saved this world from fascism and
helped us win World War II, those same plants that build those great
American-made automobiles that put Detroiters to work but also put
millions of Americans back to work.
So in the same way, we have the land to attract these new plants. We
also have roads that have all these potholes in them that need to be
filled. We have bridges, we have water systems that need to be
repaired, we have a plan for a transit system that could connect
Detroit with the suburbs, help people get to jobs in the suburbs, help
folks in the suburbs come to Detroit and enjoy themselves; but we need
matching money to be able to do that.
What businesses have told me and what families have told me is that
they moved out of Detroit for a couple of simple reasons. Number one,
they didn't feel safe in the city. So it didn't matter how many
economic development incentives we provided businesses; few businesses
would take those incentives if they felt that their office would be
broken into or their employees would be robbed.
Similarly, businesses that had to hire a large number of people,
folks that they didn't know, they were concerned that the Detroit
public schools really didn't graduate folks that had the ability to
work on the job, that had the ability to read and write adequately to
be able to do a good job if they were hired.
[[Page H6499]]
And then, finally, because Detroit had overspent a lot of its money
and they had to finance that deficit with bonds and then pay off those
bonds by raising the property tax, a lot of businesses said, look, for
the services I'm getting, the taxes are too high. On top of it, many of
their employees, even if they lived in the suburbs, had to pay a city
income tax, definitely the residents had to do that.
So I said, look, the taxes are too high. If the perception is that
the city is dangerous, I'm not sure if we are going to hire qualified
people. They decided to leave the city. Safe streets, good schools, low
taxes. If we could have those pieces in place, we could attract all the
business. And I'll tell you why we could, because in spite of all of
our challenges in Detroit, we still have the best manufacturing know-
how in this country and in this world. We have the trained workforce to
put our State back to work and our country back to work. But we just
need the money to hire the police officers, to hire the school
teachers, to pay off our debt and cut our taxes.
Now, this Congress says we don't have the money. But I say we do.
It's in the very Federal taxes that Detroit individuals and Detroit
businesses pay every year; $2 billion a year Detroiters pay to the
Federal Government, to the IRS in Washington. My bill, House bill 2920,
would ask this Congress to say this: instead of sending Detroit tax
dollars to Washington, D.C., let's redirect that money to Detroit,
place it in a trust fund where it can't be touched, only to go to
projects that will create jobs, to retire our debt, to hire police
officers, to hire school teachers to keep our school buildings open
longer, high-quality schools, and, yes, to cut taxes to eliminate our
city income tax and reduce our property taxes. That would attract jobs
back.
And then we would have the money to fix up those roads, repair the
deteriorating water system, and train people for jobs and then possibly
even create a job program like the CETA job program that I got hired
into that saved me, that saved me from a life that my friends ended up
in--prison, incarcerated, on drugs, or dead. Those programs that this
Congress stood for 30 years ago helped save my life, and it can help
save this country.
So I want to thank you for giving me this time to speak before the
body. Detroit, we've got the money to put our people back to work. We
pay it to the IRS every year. I'm asking this Congress to allow us to
keep our money for 5 years, to put our people back to work as a pilot
basis, and to show this country what Detroit can do for itself and for
America. Thank you so much, and God bless you.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congressman Clarke. Your passion is
clear, and Detroit doesn't have a stronger advocate than you, and we
are pleased to be a co-sponsor of your bill. Thank you for joining us.
As you've heard, the Congressional Black Caucus is here this evening.
We're still waiting for the first jobs bill to pass this Congress. And
as you've heard from my colleagues, we need to begin with the
American JOBS Act which was proposed by our President Barack Obama. And
just to be clear, while we're advocates for the African American
community, we are advocates for everyone; and this bill is good for
everyone, everyone who lives in this country, and it is a good bill for
our country.
We happen to feel that putting people back to work in this country
now is more important than fighting over an election that is more than
a year away. The American JOBS Act provides tax cuts that will help
businesses grow and create jobs, it will help provide incentives to
hire the long-term unemployed, and it will keep teachers and other
essential workers like police and firefighters in their jobs where we
need them to be; and it will strengthen, repair, and build needed and
faulty infrastructure and in doing so will create even more jobs; and
it will give people a decent job which will allow them to take care of
their families, to buy what we make here in America, and it will
stimulate economic growth.
It would give every American worker and their family a tax cut
through extending the tax payroll tax holiday and do more to fix the
mortgage crisis that got us here in the first place by allowing more
refinancing of mortgages. It would help our fellow Americans take
better care of their families, putting their children in better
schools, supporting small businesses, building consumer confidence and
spurring the spending that our economy needs to get back on track. This
is what this Congress ought to be doing, not focusing on the solitary
goal of making President Obama a one-term President. That is a losing
proposition anyway.
No one should be willing to let our fellow Americans suffer, fall
into and become mired in poverty, remain unemployed, lose homes and to
cause our economy to crumble further just because they have political
and whatever other differences with our President.
Mr. Speaker, the Republican leadership, led by the Tea Party
extremists, are taking this country in the absolute wrong direction by
insisting on cutting and cutting and cutting important programs and
services like the Women, Infants and Children program, Maternal and
Child Health and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance programs at a time
when there are more people and more children in poverty, by working to
deny the opportunity for health care to the over 30 million people who
we worked so hard to get insured, including sick children, and people
who would otherwise go bankrupt because of catastrophic illnesses over
which they had no control, people who are already getting care because
of the Affordable Care Act that is being so wrongly maligned.
I agree with some of the posters I saw in the newspaper this weekend
calling for jobs, not cuts; jobs, not cuts. That is what we have been
saying all year, including here on the floor of the House every Monday
that we've been in session. If our leadership listened instead of talk,
talk, talk, I believe that is what they will hear the American people
at large are saying: jobs, not cuts.
And we have a golden opportunity to listen to them. For over the last
2 weeks, there has been an ``occupation of Wall Street'' because while
homeowners and pensioners and many people have suffered because of
their meltdown, we have not seen the kind of remedies for the folks on
Main Street, the side streets or the rural roads that would make them
whole. They are speaking loudly and effectively on their and on our
behalf.
And then right here in Washington, D.C. today and for the next 3 days
the Take Back the American Dream conference is here. They will be on
the Hill on Wednesday calling on us to end the nightmare that the dream
is turning into for far too many people and to restore the American
Dream access which has been the hallmark and the pride of this country.
What is happening at this conference and the one in New York is that
Americans are saying enough is enough. And they are fighting back
against the cuts that are making it hard for far too many people in
this country to survive.
{time} 2100
They're fighting back against attempts to repeal health care reform,
fighting back against proposals that would weaken Social Security,
Medicare, and Medicaid, and fighting back against voter suppression
laws. They're fighting for jobs, for a future for our children, and
they're fighting for our democracy.
It is so very interesting this talk about President Obama and
Democrats waging class warfare all because we want everyone in this
country to do their part to help this country recover from a deep
recession, all because we want to let tax cuts that were only supposed
to be around for 10 years that have now been extended to 12 years
finally expire like they were supposed to. Come on, colleagues, let's
be honest. They were never meant to be permanent.
And how many jobs have these tax cuts created as was loudly touted
they would do? In 2001, at the end of the Clinton administration, he
handed over this government with an over $2 trillion surplus. Now,
after those tax cuts enacted in 2001, after almost 12 years of them, we
are in record deficits and the worst recession since the Great
Depression. And President Obama did not create that; he inherited it.
The poverty rate is at the second highest in 45 years, and it is
hitting, as you've heard, African Americans and Latino Americans
hardest. The share
[[Page H6500]]
of Americans in deep poverty, with incomes below half of the poverty
line, is at the highest level ever recorded. And African Americans are
more likely to be in extreme poverty.
While we hear a lot about how much of a share of taxes the richest 1
percent or the richest 10 percent pay, let me remind everyone that
white Americans' wealth is 20 times--and you heard it earlier, but it
bears repeating--20 times that of African Americans and 18 times that
of Latinos. And that between 2000 and 2007, not 10 percent, not 20
percent, not 40 percent, but 100 percent, all of the increase in wealth
went to the top 10 percent in this country--all, the top 10 percent.
The gap between rich and poor got wider. The rich got richer; the poor
got poorer. That's a very dangerous trend for the future of this
country.
And then unemployment has reached record highs as well. You don't
hear about it much. You hear it from us. But in far too many places,
our rural and our urban areas, communities of color, unemployment
remains in double digits. African American unemployment nationally is
over 16 percent, but as you've heard, we know that it is higher than
that in many parts of our country.
So if we want to talk honestly about class warfare, class warfare is
what too many people in this country have been experiencing since 2001.
And now that we have a President who wants to end it, he is being
accused of class warfare. If we really want to end class warfare, my
colleagues, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle should be
supporting rather than opposing him. Let's get real.
In all of our 40 years, the Congressional Black Caucus has always
been a caucus of action. Our agenda has been consistent, and we've
pushed every Congress and every President. And so we resent anyone
trying to put a wedge between us and our President to further their own
agenda, one which is clearly not ours.
But we continue to be the conscience of the Congress, as Maxine
Waters coined when she was chair, the ``fairness cops of our Nation.''
That is why, when we could see none of our 40 job-creating bills come
to the floor under the leadership of our chairman, Emanuel Cleaver, and
the Jobs Task Force chair and former CBC chair, Maxine Waters, we
called on the private sector as well as government agencies to come
with us across the country to get people working again. And that is why
we worked so hard with our Hispanic and Asian colleagues to get the
Affordable Care Act passed. And we will work just as hard to see that
it gets implemented. We are not going to sit quietly and let a vital
door that is just opening for many to be slammed shut in our
communities and communities like ours who need it most.
Many scholarly reports have shown that just eliminating health
disparities could save $1.24 trillion in just over 4 years in indirect
and direct costs, in addition to saving lives. So if we really wanted a
deficit reduction, eliminating health disparities and achieving health
equity is deficit reduction at its best.
And that's why we will continue to work relentlessly as a caucus to
save homes, to build and equip better schools, to support regulations
that protect our families and all families from the health and other
effects of pollution. We have also worked together on budgets. And
because we know that our country can invest where needed in health
care, education, green energy, and job creation and reduce the deficit
at the same time, we are preparing to send our recommendation to the
Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. It will likely be based on
our proposed 2012 budget. And it will end class warfare by allowing the
high-end Bush tax cuts to expire while strengthening the middle class,
continuing to create pathways out of poverty for our fellow Americans,
and protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
This country, Mr. Speaker, is fortunate to have a Congressional Black
Caucus fighting on its behalf. And it is not only our duty, but it's
our honor and privilege to do so.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. CLARKE of New York. Mr. Speaker, the American people made it
abundantly clear what they expected from the 112th Congress. They
expect us to stop fighting each other and to do the right thing for the
country.
However, instead of doing that, the Republican majority has done the
exact opposite by engaging in partisan political games that cost the
U.S. our triple-A credit rating, resulted in several near government
shutdowns and nearly led to the first national default in our history.
These actions don't reflect the American people's will, but rather
the priorities of the Republican leadership of the House. The American
people have done everything they can to make it clear, but Mr. Speaker,
allow me to repeat their refrain: Jobs!
Last month, President Obama unveiled his vision for job creation in
the United States. While I would like to see a bit more with regards to
direct job creation, it is a good start to addressing our nation's high
unemployment, a rate that hovers around 16 percent for African American
communities.
Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Black Caucus has been at the forefront
of the call for jobs legislation in the 112th Congress. The CBC put
together a nationwide jobs fair to not only bring attention to the
appalling unemployment numbers in the black community and help bring
those seeking jobs together with employers, but to turn up the volume
on a national crisis that has taken a back seat to the majority's
favored approach of simply cutting our way to prosperity.
Would you believe Mr. Speaker, that just today, the Majority Leader
said that the House would not be holding a vote on the American Jobs
Act; saying that voting on the complete package was ``unreasonable''.
Mr. Speaker, what Americans find ``unreasonable'' is that the
Republican majority is, once again, going to allow the American people
to continue to suffer through our national jobs nightmare and continue
in their insistence to not bring a single jobs bill to the floor.
What, Mr. Speaker, is the majority afraid of? Are they afraid that
the American people, recognizing that this could be the start toward
resolving our national unemployment tragedy? Is the Republican
leadership so afraid of the tea party that they are willing to allow
continued national misery to satisfy a minority of their caucus?
Regardless, as Members of Congress we represent the concerns of our
constituents and I know what my constituents are telling me. They are
telling me that Congress needs to get its act together and start
focusing on the priorities of the American people and not those of a
tiny, radical fringe of the majority.
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, for the past 40 years the
Congressional Black Caucus, has earned the reputation as the conscience
of the Congress by providing a voice for the voiceless and fighting for
the forgotten. This summer, we worked diligently to live up to and
maintain our reputation.
To address unemployment and the need for job creation solutions in
underserved communities, the Congressional Black Caucus called upon
private and public sector partners to immediately remedy the crisis by
going into communities with legitimate, immediate employment
opportunities for the underserved with the ``For the People'' Jobs
Initiative--which included nationwide town halls and job fairs.
During the month of August, nearly half of the Congressional Black
Caucus traveled the country and saw firsthand how unemployment
continues to devastate our communities during the ``For the People''
Jobs Initiative.
Nearly 30,000 people from all walks of life attended CBC Jobs
Initiative events in Cleveland, Detroit, Atlanta, Miami, and Los
Angeles.
Given the substantial coverage of the events, our nation's citizens
will have great difficulty saying they were unaware of the suffering of
millions of unemployed Americans.
Like us, they too saw the lines wrapped around city blocks with
hopeful citizens searching for a job opportunity to provide economic
security for themselves and their families.
We all know that job fairs and town halls are not sufficient to
address the jobs crisis; however, it is a small step in the right
direction.
The unemployment numbers released in August demonstrate that there is
a significant hemorrhage in the African American community that is not
being addressed, which has resulted in extremely high job loss.
Overall unemployment remains stagnant at 9.1 percent while
unemployment in the African American community has risen dramatically
from 15.9 percent to 16.7 percent.
Well into the 112th Congress, the Congressional Black Caucus
continues to urge the Republican Leadership to address unemployment in
any meaningful way.
We cannot afford to watch a segment of our community suffer from
depression level unemployment, hoping that overall solutions will
trickle down and fix the problem. It is clear that method will not
work.
Therefore, the Members of the CBC unanimously co-sponsored and
introduced the Congressional Black Caucus ``For the People'' Jobs
Initiative Resolution (H. Res. 348) to urge the House of
Representatives to immediately consider and pass critical jobs
legislation.
[[Page H6501]]
Additionally, CBC members have introduced over fifty job creation
bills since the beginning of the 112th Congress, launched a national
jobs initiative, and provided nine job creation proposals targeting our
nation's most vulnerable communities in this document.
We believe that through Creating, Protecting, and Rebuilding those
who have suffered relentlessly from our country's great recession would
be granted another chance at perusing the American dream.
We stand at a critical point in our nation's history. The time for
bold action on jobs is now.
Every American has the right to be gainfully employed and CBC Members
will not rest until there is equality in access to jobs and economic
opportunity.
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