[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16650]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     HOPE FOR AMERICA'S UNEMPLOYED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Rangel) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RANGEL. Last Christmas the gift that we gave to the unemployed 
was the shock of their lives, as they thought that the Congress would 
not extend the unemployment compensation. So this morning, I'm joining 
with Congressmen Stark, Doggett, Levin, and Crowley to make certain 
that we don't do that again this year.
  The opposition to the extension last year was due to a large number 
of Republicans truly believing--and voting against the bill--that these 
people really would rather receive unemployment checks than look for 
work. Of course it's more than just the salary when you are working. 
It's the pride and dignity of knowing that you are taking care of your 
family, you are responsible for putting food on the table, clothing on 
your children's backs, and all of those things that America has come to 
believe as just the normal way of life.
  With the poverty numbers growing so fast and the unemployment going 
up so fast, a lot of people are losing hope in terms of finding a job. 
As a matter of fact, it's oftentimes forgotten that in order to qualify 
for extended unemployment comp, you have to be qualifying for a job. 
But because jobs are so scarce and people want to remain with a little 
bit of dignity and not just automatically increase the rolls of 
poverty, we ask that this body, in the name of humanity, think about 
these people as they would think about themselves if suddenly they 
found themselves without work and without their savings and without 
health care and without the resources to save their families from 
disaster.
  In addition to that, when we go home next week--and again, we will be 
home--talk to some of the local vendors. We all recognize that it's 
small businesses that are really the backbone of our economy, as it's 
the small businesses that produce the jobs. But one of the problems 
they're having is, if consumers don't buy, they can't sell, and they 
cannot continue to hire people, which adds to the vicious cycle of 
unemployment.
  So if those people truly believe that they want to spur the economy, 
allow these people to be able to buy the goods and services that they 
would normally buy if they were employed. And for God's sake--since the 
day before yesterday we made it abundantly clear that we trust in God--
so for God's sake, let's get a jobs bill on the floor. Let's put aside 
our party labels. Let's just put the election aside long enough to be 
able to get our country back to work. More and more people are not only 
losing their jobs, but the most important ingredient, I think, that 
America has: giving hope to people who don't have much.

                              {time}  1050

  If we take that away from them, by seeing the solid pillars of our 
society without work, without the ability to take care of their 
families, little hope that it gives for those people that have been 
consistently unemployed as the job market shrinks, and so I do hope 
that there will come a time, and very, very soon, that there will be no 
need in this great country for unemployment compensation because we 
would have been able to have a jobs bill that would include severe cuts 
in terms of expenditures that we make but also would include putting 
revenue on the table so that we just don't balance the budget at the 
expense of those people who have little or no resources.
  The United States of America, unfortunately, is becoming one of the 
countries that have the widest gap between the handful of 1 percent of 
the people that own almost half of the wealth of this great Nation. 
That formula doesn't work economically, it doesn't work morally, and it 
doesn't work spiritually. So we all have to come to the table to save 
this Nation, whether we are wealthy or whether we hope one day to 
become middle class and wealthy, because without the country having 
hope for the future, there's absolutely no hope for the people who are 
looking for employment to raise their family and to forever protect 
this great Nation.

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