[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14867]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          GREATEST COMMON GOOD

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, Members will leave this week behind 
physically but not mentally and not without a sense of joy and, 
certainly, questions. Many things have happened this week, and more 
will come in terms of further explanations about our leadership and 
about our direction, but one thing we know that occurred is a mighty 
statement of balanced injustice. I will paraphrase the words of Pope 
Francis, when he said to us that politics requires more than 
divisiveness; and he said ``the greatest common good: that of a 
community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in 
justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life''--an 
instruction on the goodness of our Members, no matter what their party.
  So in these next couple of weeks, I would ask that we look 
collectively together about working to pass a budget that is fair and 
just and that helps the needy: comprehensive immigration reform, 
helping the homeless, and helping veterans who have suffered, Mr. 
Speaker, some hundreds of thousands who died waiting for hospital 
services.
  I think we can do better. Get rid of sequester. Pass a budget for 
America.

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