[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 190 (Monday, December 12, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2229-E2230]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CBC SPECIAL ORDER

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BARBARA LEE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, December 12, 2011

  Ms. LEE of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
include extraneous materials and statements into the Record.
  First let me thank Chairman Cleaver for organizing this timely 
special order and for his leadership on these issues that are so 
critical for millions of Americans who are looking for work and living 
on the edge.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise with my Congressional Black Caucus colleagues to 
call for an immediate extension of emergency unemployment benefits and 
to extend the vital payroll tax holiday for millions of Americans.
  We must not fail to do the work of the American people and we must 
not fail to extend these critical benefits before they run out.
  Republican politicians continue to play games with the American 
people and threaten the recovery of our entire economy just to score 
political points with their extreme Tea Party base.
  If you believed, even for a moment, that Republican politicians truly 
cared about the plight of the millions of Americans who are struggling 
to find a job and did not care just about protecting their special 
interests and getting more tax breaks for the super rich, then this 
bill should end all doubt.
  H.R. 3630 reveals their true colors.
  This latest bill, the so called Middle Class Tax Relief and Job 
Creation Act of 2011, is another slap in the face to the millions of 
Americans who are struggling to find a job and are living in poverty or 
on the edge of falling into poverty.
  Republicans are holding hostage critical unemployment benefits and 
threatening every working American with a tax hike so that they can 
advance the special interest agenda.
  I call on Republicans to quickly bring a clean bill to the floor that 
extends emergency unemployment for the millions of jobseekers who 
continue to struggle to find a job in the middle of the economic 
disaster that the careless deregulation of the banks created.
  Let's have an up or down vote on a clean bill that extends the 
temporary reduction of the payroll tax for millions of Americans that 
has been critical in boosting demand and lifting our economy.
  Let's have an up or down vote on a clean bill that isn't bogged down 
with riders and special interest spending.
  Let's have an up or down vote on a clean bill that keeps millions of 
families and 1 million children out of poverty.
  Failing to extend these critical benefits would cripple our recovery 
and cost the economy over half a million jobs.
  If you speak to nearly any business person, they will tell you that 
they are not hiring and

[[Page E2230]]

not expanding, not because of ``uncertainty about the tax code'' or 
``burdensome regulation,'' but because they are certain that they don't 
have customers.
  Failing to extend these critical benefits and cutting off 
unemployment benefits during the holidays would strip 2 million 
customers out of the economy by March and over 6 million customers out 
of the economy by the end of the year.
  We could not make a worse decision than to cripple our recovery by 
failing to protect millions of families and children from poverty, 
because that is just what unemployment benefits does, it keeps 1 
million children from falling into poverty.
  Mr. Speaker, our economy is on the way to recovery, but much more 
must be done.
  We may have seen a small drop in the national unemployment last 
month, but during that same month that saw a .4 percent drop in 
unemployment nationally, we saw a .4 percent rise in unemployment for 
African Americans.
  There can be no clearer reminder of the ongoing racial and ethnic 
disparities that continue to plague our Nation and keep minority 
communities suffering disproportionately higher rates of unemployment, 
poverty, and tragic health disparities like the unconscionably higher 
rates of HIV infection.
  100 million people--1 in 3 Americans--live in poverty or the zone 
just above poverty. The budget shortfalls caused by the Bush tax cuts 
for the wealthy and his two unfunded wars are causing massive lay-offs 
in States, counties and cities across the country and those lay-offs 
are again striking minority communities at disproportionate rates.
  Not only must we immediately extend the emergency unemployment 
benefits, but we should also immediately pass legislation that I, along 
with my colleague Congressman Bobby Scott introduced, H.R. 589. Our 
legislation would add an additional 14 weeks of tier I unemployment 
benefits for the millions of Americans who have already completely 
exhausted their benefits.
  Mr. Scott and I have introduced an amendment which would replace the 
draconian cuts to unemployment benefits contained in the Republican 
bill with a clean extension of the existing Emergency Unemployment 
Compensation and H.R. 589 which would give some help to the 99ers who 
have completely run out of unemployment benefits.
  We cannot ignore the needs of the millions of Americans who have run 
out of time and are now losing their homes, falling out of the middle 
class, and relying more and more on other forms of government 
assistance.
  We should be taking strong action to implement targeted programs and 
policies that ensure that we are a Nation that truly does provide equal 
opportunity and equal access to the American Dream.
  This is nothing short of a national emergency and more must be done 
immediately to put in place programs that directly address the on-going 
crisis of poverty and unemployment in America by creating millions of 
new jobs now.

                          ____________________