[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 198 (Friday, November 20, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H6009-H6010]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ECONOMIC HARDSHIP IN AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2019, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Ocasio-Cortez) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
General Leave
Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their
remarks and to include extraneous material on the subject of my Special
Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from New York?
There was no objection.
Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address what is top
of mind to Americans across the country, and that is the extraordinary
economic and health hardship of the COVID-19 pandemic throughout this
year.
The reason I decided to rise today is because we are here convening
in Washington, and just a day or two ago, the Senate majority leader,
Senator McConnell, decided to break the Senate.
He broke the Senate as there are thousands of people in Texas lined
up for food lines. He broke the Senate while hospitals no longer have
beds to house the sick. He broke the Senate and dismissed the Senate
while 30 million Americans are on the brink of eviction.
He dismissed the Senate when every single day when we go back to our
communities, people are asking us: Is there going to be help? Is there
going to be a second stimulus check? Are we going to get the resources
that we need?
He broke the Senate. And in breaking the Senate, we are abandoning
our people.
Thanksgiving is around the corner, and there are millions of
Americans that won't be able to afford a meal to eat, that don't know
if they will be kicked out of their home, that are unsure if they are
going to have to quit their job to care for their child. And we are
having entire bodies, and the Senate prides itself as one of the most
deliberative bodies, they abandoned them.
The number of Americans living in poverty since May has grown by 8
million people, since just May 2020. According to a study from Columbia
University, this rise in poverty has been concentrated in Black and
Latino children and people.
The CARES Act stimulus checks and unemployment benefits lifted more
than 18 million individuals in the United States out of monthly poverty
in April alone. But this number fell from 18 million to 4 million
individuals in August and September after unemployment benefits were
expired.
Just 44 percent of people in the United States are very confident
that they can afford the needed food that will be necessary for the
next 4 weeks. That means the majority of people in the United States
are not very confident in their ability to eat over the next 4 weeks,
according to a new Census survey data. About 10 percent, or 3.5 million
households, are not at all confident in their ability to eat the week
before Thanksgiving, and the Senate broke. It is unconscionable,
unconscionable leadership to abandon our people.
{time} 1230
And while we are arguing about negotiations, and while we are arguing
about points, people are going hungry. And we are dismissing their
needs as blue State needs or as bailouts depending on what party you
voted for. Hunger has no party. Illness has no party. And when we allow
suffering to be alleviated or concentrated based on political
affiliation, we are doing a disservice to our entire Nation.
This uncertainty in food reflects food hardship across the country,
with 5.6 million households with children struggling to put enough food
on the table in the last 7 days.
Landlords filed at least 43,500 evictions in 17 major cities from
March until September. An estimated 13.4 million adults living in
rental housing today--nearly one-in-five renters--were not caught up on
rent.
Small businesses don't know if they are going to survive or exist in
a month, in a week, in January.
We cannot afford to wait for a new administration or another
election, or a political state of play. We need to get people help now,
and the Senate broke. They broke.
We are supposed to be here to work for everyday people. We are not
supposed to be here to work for political donors or political favors or
the powerful. We are here to serve the people who are most vulnerable,
all the way up to the top. But we start with the people most in need.
Our country is going hungry on the week before Thanksgiving, and the
Senate broke. I don't care what party you are. It is an abandonment of
our responsibilities as elected officials who are charged with acting
in the public trust.
The unemployment rate jumped in April to a level not seen since the
1930s and still stood at 6.9 percent in October. Some 10.8 percent of
Black workers and 8.8 percent of Latino workers were unemployed in
October compared to 6 percent of White workers. Last week, 1.1 million
Americans filed new unemployment claims. Today, 4.4 million Americans
are receiving pandemic emergency unemployment compensation, up from 1.4
million in August.
Last week was the 35th straight week total initial claims were
greater than the worst week of the Great Recession, and the Senate
broke.
You know, I want to address some of the claims, because yesterday I
said that we need to make sure that people get economic relief due to
these shutdowns. And I was surprised to hear so many Republicans now
concerned about how we are going to pay for it or using other people's
money. But the Senate majority leader wasn't concerned about other
people's money when he authorized a $4 trillion leveraged bailout for
Wall Street in March. He wasn't concerned about where that money came
from. He wasn't concerned about how we were going to pay for that.
It is only when we are talking about relief for working people, for
children, for families, for parents, for education, for healthcare
that, all of a sudden, we can't pay for any of these things. But when
it comes to tax subsidies for private jets, we have got the money for
that. When it comes to the endless appropriation towards more and more
military spending, when we aren't even, technically, in growing
elements of war, according to some people, we have money for that. But
we don't have money to feed our own kids. We don't have money to
educate people. We don't have money to provide healthcare.
But we have money for private jets. We have money for tax loopholes
for yachts. We have money to incentivize stock buybacks. We have a
billion dollars to invest in research and development for a vaccine--
which was proudly invested in and a good use of public funds--just for
pharmaceutical companies to take these publicly developed drugs and
then sell them back to the public at no discount, so we don't even get
a return on this investment. How is that fiscally responsible?
So we are living in a world and a state of play in our governance
where the party who is eager to help subsidize private jets somehow
can't find the dollars and the cents to get people a $1,200 check. It
is unconscionable, and it is wrong. And the Senate broke.
I am rising today, because it is extraordinarily difficult to
represent a
[[Page H6010]]
working-class district, not a private jet district, and go home every
week, just as I am about to do again, and feel as helpless in this body
because the majority of its Members and the majority of the Senate
can't seem to get it together and get people the help that we need. And
the Senate broke.
This is what I have to do. This is what we are resorting to, speaking
to an empty room because the Senate broke.
So if there is anything that I have left to say, if there is anybody
out there that is listening, if you are a working family, if you are
struggling to get the food that you need, if you feel like you are on
the brink of eviction, we see you. We see you.
What I ask of the Senate and what I ask of our Republican colleagues
in the Senate is to act as if you were the one that was going hungry.
Act as if it is you getting evicted from your house. Act with that
urgency.
That is all I have to say.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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