[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6331]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      RENEW UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to show you and my 
colleagues the faces of the Americans that are hurting by refusing to 
renew unemployment benefits.
  Just 3 days after Christmas, this House leadership left these people 
out in the cold and made it more difficult for them to provide for 
their family, to buy food, to pay their mortgages or pay their rent. It 
has been 4 months since the House Republican leaders turned their backs 
on millions of unemployed Americans, and the situation grows more dire 
for these individuals and their families with each passing day.
  For far too long, this Congress has described the long-term 
unemployed in numbers, figures, and statistics only. Well, today I hope 
that will begin to change and that the Speaker and other Republicans 
leaders will understand what is happening to real people because of 
their refusal to extend unemployment benefits.
  I am launching something called the ``Faces of the Unemployed'' to 
show my colleagues on the other side of the aisle just who they are 
hurting. This poster board will be outside my office, and I will be 
adding people to it as they share their stories. It will force my 
Republican colleagues to look into their eyes as they pass them in the 
hallway and to understand that these individuals should not be 
invisible.
  Mr. Speaker, I want you and all of my colleagues to look at these 
faces and explain to your colleagues and to America why you won't allow 
a vote that will help them put food on their table, pay their rent, and 
provide for their families.
  These are real people, Mr. Speaker, who have been left behind and 
forgotten about by this body. It is disgraceful that, while the 
Republican budget spends billions of dollars abroad and protects 
special interest tax loopholes that encourage companies to ship 
American jobs overseas, this body can't provide immediate relief to the 
long-term unemployed who are still recovering from the Great Recession.
  In the end, this debate is about more than dollars and cents. It is 
about the families who continue to lose unemployment benefits with each 
passing day that the House fails to act. It is about the more than 
200,000 veterans and more than a million children who have been 
affected by this loss of benefits.
  It is about my constituents, Michael from Riverside, Rhode Island, 
who is about to lose his electricity and gas because he can't pay his 
bills and, in his own words, has ``nowhere to turn.''
  It is about Paula from Bristol, who has always worked since she was 
15 years old and says she is ``being made to feel like a thief.''
  It is about Lillian from North Providence, who said she would 
``rather be working'' but can't find a job.
  These stories are not unique to Rhode Island. This is happening to 
people in every part of our country: Nevada, Illinois, California, 
Kentucky, and Mississippi, to name a few. These people aren't 
Republicans or Democrats. They are hardworking Americans who can't find 
work and need our help.
  It is time to put aside our differences and come together to provide 
immediate relief to these struggling families. In tough times, Congress 
has a longstanding history of extending these benefits, as we saw 
during the Bush administration. I urge Speaker Boehner to look at the 
faces of these unemployed Americans and hear their stories so we can 
work together to solve this problem as we have in the past.
  These photos and stories will be posted outside my office--and I hope 
many of my colleagues will do the same--to serve as a reminder that 
this is about the individuals and the families who are hurting every 
day because we have not extended this critical lifeline. I hope this 
will put a face on the real stories of the people who are hurting and 
it will cause the Speaker to bring a bill to the floor that will extend 
unemployment so we can answer the call and be sure that we are doing 
everything we can to help those most in need.

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