[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 21441]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       A SHELL GAME ON THE FLOOR OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

  (Mr. COHEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. COHEN. We've witnessed a shell game played here on the floor of 
the House of Representatives.
  Republicans talked about having voted for an extension of the 
unemployment compensation and for extending the payroll tax, but what 
they gave with the right hand they took from the left. They said, We 
give you this, but we cut your benefits to 59 weeks of your 
unemployment compensation.
  They all voted against the Affordable Care Act. So in this bill as 
well, if you have a preexisting condition, they want you not to get 
health care as you can today. If you're 26 years of age or younger, it 
would be that you can't get on your parents' insurance policies, which 
you can today because of the ACA. Also, the doughnut hole would be 
closed, which it is because of the ACA, but they're against that 
because they wanted to cut funds to put the America Cares Act into 
operation.
  The fact is that Senate Republicans and Democrats didn't vote for a 
60-day extension. They voted for time to get together and do a 1-year 
extension. That's what we need. They had wiser heads. You saw a good 
reason not to have term limits. First-year Members are acting as if 
they know everything; and in a petulant way, they have jeopardized 
millions of Americans.

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