[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 16 (Wednesday, February 1, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H224-H225]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            TENETS OF FAITH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Rangel) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I came to this empty Chamber to discuss the 
issues of jobs and also the unemployment compensation extension, as 
well as taxes.
  As I neared the well, I heard one of our esteemed Members condemning 
the President for persecuting religion in a very broad and general way 
and then later more specifically in talking about the Roman Catholic 
Church. It would seem to me in a place like the United States of 
America, which was actually formed on the basis of freedom of religion, 
that such a serious accusation against the President of these United 
States should not be to an empty Chamber.
  This is such a serious allegation that it would seem to me that it 
requires

[[Page H225]]

and demands a bipartisan view to see exactly what the churches' or 
religious leaders' complaints are because I have one, too; and that is, 
at a time when this country is facing a fiscal, as well as moral, 
obligation to the most vulnerable people among us, I see the battle 
between the haves and the have-nots, the 1 percent and the 99 percent.
  I hear the disputes as to whether or not the capitalistic system is 
fair, but I always took the position that the capitalistic system is an 
invitation of how Americans and others can invest and make money; and 
the question of compassion, the question of taking care of your own, 
the question of illness and jobs and the social issues of today, that 
it was the Congress that had the responsibility to deal with that 
rather than to be condemning those who seek to get returns on their 
investments.
  Having said that, let's take a look and see what issues are biblical, 
what issues are in the Mormon faith, the Muslim faith, the Buddhist 
faith, the Jewish faith, Protestant and Catholic. It seems to me that 
throughout every one of these texts, there are things that say that we 
have a responsibility as human beings and God-fearing people to protect 
the vulnerable. It is abundantly clear, even in the story about the 
Good Samaritan. It is also a mandate that when someone is sick that we 
have a responsibility to assist them.
  Certainly, when we talk about Jesus Christ in Matthew where these 
wealthy people are attempting to get into Heaven and Jesus tells them 
he was hungry, thirsty, unclothed, in jail, and they didn't do anything 
to assist him and they said that they don't remember Jesus ever coming 
asking for anything. Then of course the international world-famous 
biblical expression is that it wasn't how you treated Jesus, the Son of 
God, but it was how you treated the lesser of our brothers and sisters.
  I think everyone would agree that whether you want to accuse the 
President of being the food-stamp President or saying he wants to bring 
socialism to the United States, all of that rhetoric doesn't hide the 
fact that the poorest of the poor now are suffering more than the 
people that caused this fiscal crisis.
  If we are going to do something about the deficit, we just can't say 
we've got to cut spending, especially when that spending is exactly for 
the people that the spiritual leaders have made vows to protect.

                              {time}  1020

  Oh, we don't call it the sick and the disabled and the uneducated, 
but we do call it Medicaid; we do call it Medicare; we do call it 
Social Security; we do call it education; and we do call it the ability 
to get a job so that a person can have not only the income for his 
family to be able to have the dignity and respect it deserves, but we 
also have to recognize that from an economic point of view, it is the 
people who are in the middle class who are slipping into poverty that 
makes the difference. I hope that people will give serious thought to 
the accusation.

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