[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18851-18853]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      STOP THE POLITICAL POSTURING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. DEUTCH. Madam Speaker, the holiday time is upon us when Americans 
from all walks of life rejoice in our shared values of generosity, good 
will, family, and thankfulness. Yet, this cherished holiday spirit is 
absent here tonight as Congress once again finds itself in partisan 
gridlock. This is doing absolutely nothing to ease the worry felt by 
families across America during these difficult times.
  Tonight the clock is ticking for 2 million Americans unable to find 
work and on the verge of losing their unemployment insurance. They 
worry, and they worry greatly, how they will meet their next mortgage 
payment, how

[[Page 18852]]

they will put food on the table, or how they just may be able to afford 
a gift or two for their children this year at this season.
  Likewise, tonight millions of workers across America wonder if a tax 
increase is headed their way. They have been suffering from stagnant 
wages and fewer hours for years, but without these tax cuts they know 
times will get even harder. They are not asking for much, just a few 
extra hundred dollars in their paychecks next year, yet they are 
holding their breath tonight because those on the other side of the 
aisle are holding middle class tax relief hostage in favor of tax cuts 
for millionaires, holding off providing tax relief to the middle class 
at a time when it is so desperately needed.
  Tonight, the retirees in my district and all across America worry 
that their needs are going unnoticed by Congress. Already just today in 
the United States Senate Democratic efforts to provide some measure of 
benefit to seniors who have now gone 2 years in a row without a cost of 
living adjustment to their Social Security even as their costs go up 
every single year, efforts to provide them with just a payment to help 
them through these difficult times were cut off as a result of this 
partisanship.
  Come January, if the Republicans have their way, health care reform 
will be repealed and the donut hole will be reopened, saddling seniors 
with massive prescription drug bills. In short, political posturing is 
threatening to reverse the progress that this Congress has made, and 
more importantly, at this difficult time it is political posturing that 
threatens to hold up the middle class tax cuts, that threatens to hold 
up an extension of unemployment benefits even as 2 million Americans 
are starting to see their benefits end, and it is indeed this posturing 
that will make things exceedingly more difficult for our seniors.
  So instead of giving middle class Americans some peace of mind this 
holiday season--which is what we absolutely ought to be doing--the 
Republicans in Congress are demanding another $700 billion for those 
who don't need that tax cut right now. At least if there is to be a 
debate, a further debate on the merits of that tax cut, let's do what 
everyone wants, what everyone knows is necessary, and provide that tax 
relief to the middle class, and let's do it now.
  Now nothing drove home some of these misplaced priorities--placing 
profits all too often ahead of people, and more importantly and 
obviously these past few days, putting partisan gain ahead of old-
fashioned compromise, compromise that Americans want us to make--
nothing drove that home for me more than a recent letter I received 
from a dear friend, a mother with a child who needed some medical care. 
I would like to read this letter on the floor of the House of 
Representatives today because I would like to give voice to the 
millions of mothers and fathers across America who have felt the 
anxiety and the powerlessness that comes when a child is sick and a 
health insurance company denies a claim.
  The letter reads as follows by my friend Amy. She said, ``Losing 
control was a luxury that I didn't have. And yet my hands were shaking 
uncontrollably as I held the letter from the insurance company about my 
6\1/2\ year old son's third open heart surgery. `Patient. Date of 
birth. Description of surgery: Replacement of aortic valve. Elective.'
  ``Elective? Oh, that's right, we were electing to save my little 
boy's life. I felt myself about to explode, literally explode. Blood 
and guts and that second bowl of pasta that I should never have eaten 
anyway would be splattered all over the over-priced Turkish rug on our 
bedroom floor. Three, two, one, and then I held it in because I am a 
mommy, and I had to keep it together for my three young, beautiful, 
willful boys, one a kindergartner with congenital heart disease whose 
heart happened to be failing again, and who just the other day asked, 
`Mommy, if I have to go to heaven early, will you go with me?'
  ``I glanced up from the letter at my husband who had handed it to me 
moments ago, my sweet, it-will-all-work-out husband who right now looks 
so small and tired and helpless, and I said with all the conviction of 
a mother who's got nothing to lose and everything to fight for, `I'm 
going to bomb them.' He burst out laughing. `No, seriously. I'm going 
to the store to buy vinegar and dish soap and pop rocks--or whatever 
you're supposed to mix together.'

                              {time}  1930

  ``More uproarious laughter that quickly trailed off when he realized 
I wasn't laughing, too. `You are joking, right?'
  ``And that's when I understood them: those crazy people on the news 
who sometimes just snap. I got how someone could wake up one day and 
just lose it and how that someone could be me. I defiantly told my 
increasingly worried looking husband that the insurance companies 
should not mess with the mommy species. When I told one friend about my 
violent thought, she offered, `I'll come light the fuse.' Another said 
if I was sent to prison, she would go with me in solidarity. Plus, I 
could stand to go on a bread and water diet if I'm ever going to fit 
into my jeans.
  ``Truth is,'' my friend writes, ``there's not a single mommy I know 
who wouldn't go to jail to protect her kids. Certain things in life 
just are not a choice. They are a given. Like,'' she wrote, ``my son's 
upcoming surgery. I looked down at the letter and felt another wave of 
anger overtake me,'' she writes. ``I mean, I had my issues with our 
Nation's health care, but even I didn't think it had gone that far 
astray. And yet, how dare they, them in that office building so far 
removed from anything our family was going through, call our son's 
being hooked up to that damn heart-lung machine for 7 hours . . . 
elective?
  ``Here are some of the only things that I deem elective about fixing 
my son's heart:
  ``After his last open-heart surgery, when he started slipping into a 
coma, I elected to kick the nurses and doctors in the Cardio-Thoracic 
Intensive Care Unit out of his room and screamed at my son--yes, I 
literally yelled at the poor beautiful boy lying there with breathing 
and chest tubes and other grotesque wires spilling out of him. `This is 
your mommy talking, you hear? Wake up, dammit. Don't you even think 
about leaving me. You're just a kid--you don't even know how to swim.'
  ``Twenty minutes later he miraculously woke up, and we're still 
working on the swimming.
  ``Recently, soon after we had to quarantine our son so that he would 
be germ-free for this latest operation, I elected to have Botox 
injected over my eyebrows,'' she writes. ``I wanted to make myself look 
perkier so no one would think that I was worse for the wear from this 
ordeal and, God forbid, feel sorry for me.
  ``When a child died somewhere in the Midwest, his parents elected to 
sign the organ donor form so that my son could have his valve to save 
his own life. There are not enough benefits in the world assigned to 
that kind of heroism.
  ``But what of the insurance letter in my hand? `I'll call them 
tomorrow,' my husband said. `We'll straighten it out.' And then more 
uproarious laugher. This time it wasn't my husband laughing, but our 
three willful boys who just that second ran into our room shooting one 
another with Nerf guns.
  ```I got Evan on the butt,' Noah screamed, exhilarated. `So what? 
That tickled.' Evan recoiled on the floor with laughter, but not before 
he nailed Benjamin with three foam darts in the back of his head.
  ``Yes, technically the family rule is not to shoot at a person, but 
who were we were to interfere with this kind of unbridled frivolity? 
That was something that we would never elect to do.''
  I would like to thank my friend, Amy, for allowing me to share her 
story tonight.
  It was horror stories like these that propelled this Congress to move 
forward on health care reform, to reform a system so that no family is 
put into a situation where life-saving surgery can be deemed elective.

[[Page 18853]]

  And as we stand here at this holiday season, the Members of this 
Congress, the Members of this House of Representatives, all 435 of 
them, the Members of the United States Senate, all 100 of them, all 535 
of us who are employed, who have the benefit of working for the 
citizens of the United States, have a duty to those citizens, at this 
time of year in particular, to ensure that those who don't have jobs 
don't see their benefits cut off so that they're not cast aside at this 
holiday season unable to pay their mortgage, unable to afford a gift 
for their children.
  We spend a lot of time on the floor of this House debating the grand 
issues of the day, and I look forward to coming back here in January in 
the new Congress and having great debates about the future of our 
education system, about the war in Afghanistan, about the best ways to 
reduce our deficit, about how we reduce our dependence on foreign oil. 
These are important debates that we need to have. But how can we let 
partisan gridlock, let the obstructionism that we've seen these past 
few days, how can we see that stand in the way of extending 
unemployment benefits to those who desperately need it, stand in the 
way of middle class tax cuts for those whose wages have been stagnant 
for so long, and stand in the way of providing just a little bit for 
the seniors who are struggling as well in this terribly difficult 
economic time?
  I heard a lot about what people expect we should learn from the 
outcome of this election. And the one thing that's perfectly clear to 
me, and should be clear to all of us, is that the American people want 
a Congress that works for them, that does their business, and that puts 
the Americans' interests ahead of the political interests of those of 
us who are privileged to serve here.
  When we come back next week, let us resolve to do what needs to be 
done at this difficult moment to ensure that those who don't have work 
can get by, that those who have been getting by can get the benefit of 
a tax break, and that those seniors who have given so much for so long 
can receive the benefit of a payment in lieu of two straight years 
without a cost of living adjustment.
  Madam Speaker, I look forward to coming back to perform that work. I 
look forward to casting those votes, and I look forward to having those 
debates. The days in this 111th Congress are short, but the people want 
us to get this done. It is time that we remember why it is that we have 
been sent here. Working together, we have to provide what everyone 
knows needs to be provided and to take those first steps as soon as we 
can upon our return.
  Madam Speaker, that's what's at stake right now. Let us not get so 
caught up in this holiday season to think that the joy that so many of 
us feel is felt all around the country--not when things are so 
difficult for so many. Let us be thankful for what we all have, but let 
us work to ensure that everyone has at least a bit of joy this holiday 
season.
  Thank you, Madam Speaker. I yield back the balance of my time.

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