[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 17838]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      EXTEND UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

  (Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland. Madam Speaker, I rise today to highlight the 
need to immediately extend unemployment benefits and to make permanent 
the middle class tax cuts.
  To the 14,600 Marylanders and 2 million Americans across the country 
who are facing the loss of their unemployment benefits, this Member of 
Congress and Members on this side of the aisle understand who you are 
and understand what you're facing.
  I've stood in an unemployment line. I wasn't lazy, I wasn't not 
looking for a job, but I needed unemployment benefits. I've stood in a 
food pantry, and it's humiliating, the entire experience. And so the 
idea that we are going to allow Americans, hardworking American 
families who have earned their benefits, to go home at Thanksgiving and 
not know whether they're going to put a turkey on the table to feed 
their families, we should be ashamed if we allow that to happen.
  I know that I am committed, my colleagues are committed, to make sure 
that the American public understands that you need your unemployment 
benefits and that you want to work, and that you have worked before and 
that you want to work again.
  And so I would say to all of those out there who would choose to not 
allow Americans to put food on their tables to ask themselves who we 
are as a country.

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