[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18382]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1410
                  WE NEED A SHARED CONCERN FOR AMERICA

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Thank you for these words. I share a desire 
to serve the Nation in this pivotal time.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is enormously important that, as Starbucks 
said, we ``come together.'' And we can do so. We can do it in a 
rationality that takes a simple analysis. A simple analysis says that 
if I like a bag of potato chips, that's a luxury item, I can run in and 
get it. I don't have to think about it. Its cost is manageable. If I 
want to go in and get a high-end Cadillac, I'll think about it for a 
couple of days.
  That should be the thought process for this fiscal cliff. Pass the 
$250,000 that will give 99 percent of Americans a tax break. Protect 
those who are unemployed who have worked and provide for their 
unemployment insurance. Protect those with the AMT--30 million 
taxpayers will fall over the cliff if we don't fix that, 222,000 
Texans. And then if we have to deal with looking at how we address the 
question of reforming those benefits of Americans who work like 
Medicare and Social Security, we can do so. But I join the AARP, I join 
senior citizens: Leave Social Security alone. The changed CPI will not 
work, and that is not a time to deal with it in these waning hours.
  We, Republicans, created this quagmire with the sequestration. We 
need to go and be able to address the immediacy. Get your bag of potato 
chips, cut the taxes for 99 percent of the American people and protect 
the unemployed.
  We can do this. We don't have to go over the fiscal cliff. A shared 
concern for America, that's what we need today.

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