[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17546-17547]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       EMERGENCY UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION EXTENSION ACT OF 2011

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Nevada (Ms. Berkley) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. BERKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my strong support 
for the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2011.
  This legislation will extend unemployment insurance one additional 
year, preventing 6 million people across our Nation, as well as 
thousands of Nevadans, from losing their unemployment benefits.
  This is especially important in my home State of Nevada, which 
continues to struggle with the highest unemployment rate in the Nation. 
Nevada's unemployed need good-paying jobs that can't be shipped 
overseas. That's why I'm focused like a laser on creating clean energy 
jobs and cracking down on the Chinese Government's unfair trade 
practices that are cheating Nevadans out of thousands of good-paying 
jobs.
  But Nevadans also need relief in their job search. What they don't 
need is name-calling. Unfortunately, that's what they're getting in 
Washington. In fact, one of our Representatives had the nerve to 
suggest that unemployment insurance is creating a Nation of hobos. 
Hobos? Mr. Speaker, no one wants to be unemployed. No one wants to be 
out of work. No one wants to be called a hobo.
  No one has ever come up to me and said, Shelley, Congresswoman, I 
love being unemployed. Life on unemployment is such a picnic.
  No, they're not saying that. They say, Shelley, Congresswoman, I want 
a job. Find me a job. I want to work so I can take care of my family.
  Mr. Speaker, Nevada's unemployed are not hobos. They're unemployed 
through no fault of their own, and they're desperate--desperate--to 
find a job. They can't afford not to work, and they can't afford the 
kind of elitist and

[[Page 17547]]

insulting attitude representing them in Congress. They need all of us 
in the House and the Senate working day and night to fix our economy 
and to put people back to work. They don't have time for ideological 
battles about killing Medicare by turning it over to private insurance 
companies. They don't have time for vote after vote protecting taxpayer 
giveaways to big oil companies.
  It's time to get serious about creating jobs, and it's time we get 
serious about extending critical unemployment insurance for families in 
Nevada and across our Nation. I ask my colleagues to join me in support 
of this much-needed bill.

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