[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 297-298]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        BIPARTISANSHIP EVERY DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Connolly) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I salute my colleague for those eloquent 
remarks.
  Mr. Speaker, the famed English poet Alfred Tennyson once wrote, 
``Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come.'' Indeed, let's 
hope that this is the spirit that greets us here in the start of the 
second session of the 113th Congress. Having ended last year on a high 
note with the passage of the bipartisan budget agreement, we should 
resolve to keep that momentum going in this new year.
  Our first order of business should be delivering on the bipartisan 
accord reached before the holidays. Thanks to that agreement, we, for 
the first time, will replace a portion of the indiscriminate cuts of 
sequestration with a more balanced approach. That is particularly 
important in communities like my own in northern Virginia which were 
disproportionately affected because of their strong ties to the Federal 
Government.
  Next week's anticipated appropriations package will increase Federal 
investments in research, innovation, and transportation. That, in turn, 
will help unleash business investments and create jobs, which have 
lagged due to the sense of uncertainty fueled by the political 
brinkmanship here in Congress. Until those dollars produce results, we 
need to work together to extend the current safety net, specifically, 
unemployment insurance and nutrition assistance, to make sure we are 
not leaving our friends and neighbors behind.
  We have made significant strides pushing down the unemployment rate 
to 7 percent, its lowest point in 5 years. We have added more than 8 
million jobs in the past 4 years nationwide. That is still 1.3 million 
short of the number that were there before the Great Recession.
  Equally important, 40 percent of the unemployed are long-term 
unemployed, 2 years or more. This structural unemployment has been 
devastating for those individuals and their families in their 
respective communities. That is why extending emergency unemployment 
benefits is so critically important. This is a lifeline that families 
rely on to keep food on the table.
  More than 1.3 million Americans, including 9,000 in my own home State 
of Virginia and another 39,000 in the Speaker's State of Ohio, have 
already lost benefits because of Congress' inaction. Thousands more 
will see their benefits cut in the coming months. I remind my friends 
on the Republican side of the aisle that both unemployment insurance 
and nutrition assistance provide an immediate and tangible boost to our 
local economies. Pulling that assistance back now would be devastating 
in its effects and would undercut the economic momentum we have worked 
so hard to build these past few months.
  Every dollar in assistance provided to the unemployed generates $1.64 
in the local economy, and similarly, every dollar provided under the 
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

[[Page 298]]

has a multiplier effect of $1.79. These programs have helped keep 
generations of families out of poverty even while income inequality is 
growing worse.
  A recent report shows that nearly half of the Nation's schoolchildren 
now qualify for free and reduced lunches. Those children, who come from 
low-income homes, account for more than half of all of the students in 
17 States, mostly in Republican districts in the South and the West, I 
might add. A decade ago, just four States reported a majority of their 
schoolchildren eligible for free and reduced school lunches.
  While I and many of my colleagues remain hopeful that the House will 
extend these vital supports, we are disheartened to see that the very 
first legislative action scheduled by the House majority in this new 
year is a return to the cynical attack on the Affordable Care Act. 
Ironically, just this week, the actuaries for Medicare and Medicaid 
released a report showing that in the 4 years since the adoption of the 
Affordable Care Act, for the first time ever, national health care 
expenditures have grown at the slowest rate since the government began 
collecting that data 50 years ago. The growth for insurance premiums in 
particular has slowed more than 60 percent, which equates to real 
savings for real workers, real families, and for our government.
  I want to work with my Republican colleagues to ensure proper 
oversight and accountability for the Affordable Care Act, but let's 
hang up this tired routine of trying to chip away or outright repeal 
these essential benefits and protections for families.
  One of our Republican colleagues was quoted in the paper this week as 
saying, ``A lot of Republicans think the big, bipartisan deal was the 
budget agreement'' last year. Working together in a bipartisan fashion 
is not a limited exercise. It is what our citizens expect of us each 
and every day.

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