[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 13 (Tuesday, January 24, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H668-H669]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1730
WOMEN'S MARCH MESSAGE OF RESPECT AND RESISTANCE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Soto) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. SOTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today wearing this pink scarf in
solidarity with so many millions of Americans who rose up this past
Saturday, whether it be in D.C., on the West Coast, East Coast, so many
cities in the Midwest, as well as those around the world.
It is interesting. My wife and I awoke to chanting of thousands of
people. It almost felt like the protest was in our living room. And
when we got out on the balcony, we saw thousands of people who were
wearing pink hats and carrying signs and so boisterous with hope.
Amanda and I decided we would go down to join them. When we got to
the street, it was an amazing scene, with the Capitol ahead of us, and
so many folks just gathered together--like-minded--with a message of
respect and of resistance. As we tried to get towards the stage as we
got to The Mall and about a mile away, we couldn't even get past a wall
of bodies of so many people who were there to cheer on the message of
so many great speakers.
But we found our way through, eventually, and made it onto the stage.
And what I can tell you was just sheerly unimaginable: 17 blocks of
Americans, of all States, of all creeds, of all colors, of all
backgrounds, who were there with a message.
We had some wonderful speakers that day. We had folks from labor. We
had folks from criminal justice reform groups. We had folks who were
fighting for reproductive rights. We had many celebrities there, of
course, and we also had folks who cared about everything from our
economy to agriculture, to equality, to anything you could imagine, so
many values that we fought for over the last 8 years.
There is a sense that there is going to be common ground among many
of these issues as we go forward.
American jobs, obviously, everybody in this Chamber wants to make
sure that we protect Americans and make sure that we have employment
for everyone.
We are also going to fight for common infrastructure among all of the
50 States, and that is something that we saw in the Senate the other
day that was presented.
We may also have some common ground on tax reform, particularly if it
means bringing back from overseas a lot of corporate money that
certainly would be important to go through the same process as profits
derived here.
But there is certainly, as we saw at the speech of so many people,
there will be areas of resistance.
We care about workers' rights. We care about making sure that we have
a Department of Labor that will stand on the side of working American
families.
We care about having an inclusive economy, one that will respect a
higher minimum wage; one that will fight for more high-tech, higher
paying jobs; one that will fight for our manufacturing base; one that
will be based upon tax cuts for the middle class, tax cuts for folks
who are working, everyday Americans, as opposed to trickle-down
economics and tax cuts for the wealthy.
It was also about health care and about saving ACA or, at the very
least, replacing it with something that is still going to make sure
that we don't have 18 million Americans, according to the CBO, losing
their health insurance.
It is about making sure that we have a Medicare system that is not
going to be block-rented out to the States as a creative way to cut
Medicaid for our seniors and for our poor.
It is also about protecting Medicare for our seniors who paid into it
through their whole lives and making sure it is not privatized, as well
as Social Security, making sure that not only those who are receiving
it today, but up to those who are millennials and beyond, will be able
to receive that benefit. We all paid into it, and we all expect it to
be there.
But it was also about equality. Many of our LGBT community are
worried: Are these executive orders in place that are protecting
equality in our Federal workforce going to be continued? Is this
advance, this progression, this success in the Supreme Court and in so
many other areas of society to have equality for the LGBT community
going to be continued onward? There is a big doubt about that.
It is also about women's reproductive rights. We saw so many,
including Planned Parenthood and so many other groups, who fought not
only to protect health care, but to protect women's choice, stand up
and say that they don't want to revert back, that they don't want our
society to revert back on equal rights for women.
And we saw that today with the reinstatement of the gag rule across
the Nation and the world, to encourage nations to prohibit reproductive
rights, prohibit the ability to have birth control, prohibit the right
to be able to exercise the right to choose.
So many of my fellow Hispanics are worried about immigration. A
simple executive order can assure that our DREAMers go from law-abiding
students and members of our military and those who are applying in part
of this program to being undocumented and being potentially even hunted
down by their government. It is about long-term comprehensive
immigration policy and reform.
So many from my district, whether it be those who are also Hispanic
or those who are from the Caribbean in my district, they care deeply
about this. So does our agriculture community, so does our tourism
community, so does business in general. These are going to be things
that people are going to stand up for, and they certainly stood up for
them during the march, along with women's rights, along with equality
in general.
Then there is the concern about climate change and how there was a
push forward over the last 8 years and there will be an attempt to
backtrack.
I don't have to tell everybody, from the way the weather has been
working over the last 10 to 15 to 20 years, that this is going to be
one of the greatest challenges of our time--and for our kids and for
our grandchildren. We do have to do it the right way, but we stood up
to make sure that everybody knows we cannot go back.
[[Page H669]]
In addition, Dodd-Frank and financial reform, so critical to
preventing another Great Recession. Many of us remember in 2008, in
October, when President George W. Bush got on TV and told everyone that
we were in for a Great Recession and one that President Obama described
as the greatest recession since the Great Depression. There will be an
attempt to chip back on those reforms and an attempt to try to get away
from the lessons we learned to try to prevent another global meltdown.
And of course criminal justice was critical. So many of our youth, so
many Hispanics, so many African Americans, so many people who find
themselves in greater proportion than other Americans in jail from a
system that sometimes discriminates against them.
All of these folks stood up, millions of Americans stood up, and,
yes, we had hats and, yes, we had pink scarfs and, yes, we spoke about
the progress that we made in the fight. But in one word, this was about
respect. It was about respect for all women across the Nation, all
minorities across the Nation, regardless of ethnicity and religion, all
Americans, all of our Americans with disabilities, all of our working
class folks who are fighting every day to try to make a good living.
The message is clear. The message is clear from the millions of
Americans who marched on Saturday that we will be watching, that we
will speak up when we see things we disagree with, and when we have to,
we will resist.
Those who marched on Saturday, we welcome you to the resistance, and
we thank you for your support. It is going to be a long 2 years.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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