[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14536]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   FINANCIAL CRISIS AND MORAL CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Rangel) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RANGEL. This morning I was pleased to see that the Conference of 
Catholic Bishops has organized in order to influence Washington as it 
relates to the question of same-sex marriage and abortion. I think that 
we all agree that these are moral issues and under our country's 
freedom of speech, the churches, the synagogues, the temples, have a 
right and, indeed, in their case, an obligation to speak out on the 
actions of Congress that they disapprove of morally.
  I hope that this is a signal to other religious institutions that 
what this country is going through is not only a financial crisis, but 
a moral crisis. And perhaps the other religions might broaden their 
agenda to talk about what I truly believe is a priority and concern of 
every religion, and that is a deep-seated moral obligation to take care 
of the vulnerable in our society. Whether it's the lesser of our 
brothers and sisters, whether it's the sick and the aged, there's 
something about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, about having a 
home and a job that to me has something that involves a moral 
obligation.

                              {time}  1040

  When a great country like the United States, a beacon for people to 
come to from all over the world in order to be successful, finds itself 
with so much of our national wealth being concentrated in the hands of 
so few people, never before has this happened in history, where we find 
more and more children and adults going into poverty in historic 
numbers.
  We find the shrinking of our middle class, where all of our dreams 
and aspirations are planned, born, and conceived in the United States 
of America; where we have so many brave American men and women fighting 
causes in foreign countries that their parents don't understand and 
they come home with emotional and physical disabilities; that we can 
never thank them for their courage; and when we see young people on 
Wall Street and the Wall Streets around this country protesting, and 
they're being ridiculed because they have no leaders, they have no 
single cause, they never knew each other, they're not organized. But 
neither is America's pain and concern organized.
  People are mad as hell. They really think that they've been let down. 
They worked so hard to achieve what they had achieved in this great 
country; and the greatest thing about America is not what you've 
achieved, in my opinion, it is having the hope that you can make it in 
America.
  So that's why it is so painful to see how this middle class that was 
more recently, if you look at history, formed in this country, where 
people thought having a car and a home and a job, sending your kids to 
college for an education, being secure in your retirement, and knowing 
that one day health care would be available for everybody--are these 
just political issues? No. I think they're moral issues. And that's why 
when I went down to meet with the protesters, I had hoped that more of 
our spiritual leaders would be there to give guidance, to give 
encouragement, to give direction so that we can say that this is a 
civilized society and people can't just break the law and scream; but 
they can demand attention, and that's what they are doing.
  So it seems to me that we in the Congress are getting involved too 
politically and ignoring the pain and the suffering that's taking place 
in this country today. When we can find one of the parties saying that 
they will not entertain a bill that's being proposed to us in order to 
put America back to work, when they say that their primary goal is to 
get rid of Obama, when they say that no jobs bill is going to be 
accepted except what they pick and choose, when they refuse to bring to 
the floor of this House something that we can discuss to give hope back 
to the people, I think that's not just a political question. I think 
it's a moral question as well.
  God--yes, God--bless America.

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