[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16957]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         NATURAL DISASTER HELP

  (Mr. HIMES asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, you can't walk two steps in this Capitol 
without getting into a discussion these days about the fiscal cliff. 
The fiscal cliff is comprised of a lot of very serious issues, but it 
is a metaphor. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of my constituents and 
hundreds of thousands of people in the States of Connecticut, New 
Jersey and New York are suffering as a result of a natural disaster 
which was anything but a metaphor. Hurricane Sandy devastated 
communities across those three States.
  Traditionally, when our constituents were homeless, when they were 
hungry, when they were standing amidst the wreckage of their homes, 
they looked to this body for help and this body always said, yes, we 
will help. As we speak, there is a bill in the Senate that would 
provide that assistance to so many distressed constituents, Republican 
and Democrat, rural and urban. When that bill gets to this House, I 
urge my colleagues to remember that whether it was Hurricane Katrina or 
Andrew or the earthquakes of the west coast, we have always set aside 
considerations of the budget, or offsets, or whatnot, to do the decent 
and moral thing and help our constituents.
  Let's do it again.

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