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“ISSUES OF THE DAY” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H6489-H6492 on Oct. 10, 2013.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ISSUES OF THE DAY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 30 minutes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank the Speaker for his courtesies and thank my friends on the other side of the aisle who engaged in an hour-
long discussion that I am sure many of my colleagues were certainly interested in.
I want to congratulate the organization in my constituency, Catholic Charities. Catholic Charities in Houston is 70 years old and has a storied history of service.
I had the privilege of being inspired by a wonderful mass led by Cardinal DiNardo that catapulted that special day into the understanding of who we are in this country and how our service is guided by the principles of our faith. I remember that, in his words to the congregation, he offered these phrases: ``The just live by faith,''
``even a little faith can do great things.'' He added, ``When you are acting in faith, you are serving.''
I think those are powerful words for all of us, whether we are Republicans or Democrats or other in our political beliefs. That is what we are sent here to do. We are really sent here to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, to speak for the vulnerable, and to ensure that the United States of America remains an umbrella on a rainy day, for our country's principles are vested in a wonderful Constitution that says that we all are created equal, with a number of rights that allow us the pursuit of great things, such as liberty and health--if we interpret the term ``happiness'' to mean that we have a variety of rights, certain unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
So where we find ourselves on October 10, in the midst of this government shutdown, the 10th day, does not comport with the very principles of this Nation and our Constitution that says that we have organized to create a more perfect Union.
As I listened to my friends have a long discussion, they had some very vital points about the importance of the farm bill, a bill that we have not been able to bring to closure because the government is shut down. But even more importantly, we have not been able to put the phrases of ``just'' and ``acting by faith'' in the midst of that legislative initiative.
Our friends did not take note of the fact that $40 billion was cut out of food stamps. They didn't take note of that--$40 billion for people who are hungry. Forty-six million Americans live in poverty. They are poor, but they are Americans. They deserve equality. Sixteen million of those are children. But yet someone says it is the dependency group. Maybe the 47 percent. I say those are the next astronauts, captains in the military, Presidents of the United States, teachers, inventors, scientists who may need food stamps.
So I would like to talk this afternoon in the short period of time that I have in finding the truth, also recognizing the difficulties that we are now in with the government shutdown.
Let me pause for a moment and say that I know, as I speak, Republicans are meeting with the President. We met yesterday and the President made it very clear and was very strong on wanting to see America move forward, but was very strong on the fact that we needed to come together around a clean bill, a bill that could be put on the floor with 200-plus Democrats here in the House and a sturdy amount of Republicans. That is just.
We know that Republicans were invited, the whole Conference. Of course, they decided that they wanted a few to come and meet with the President. Of course, it is their choice. In a sense of humor, I say there is an IOU to my other Republican friends that didn't make it to the White House today.
But I hope the discussion doesn't center around leaving the government closed. I hope it doesn't center around a 6-week raising of the debt ceiling, though I am open to any way forward; but I would hope in my discussion you would see why that is faulty thinking.
I do want to thank my original cosponsors who joined me today to introduce this very important legislation, H. Res. 375, which now makes a statement that this House will never--I want to say it again, never--
I want to say it again, never--tie a nongermane legislative issue to the running and opening of this government.
What does that mean? We will never do what we have done, which is to defund a law approved by both Houses of Congress, the President of the United States, and the United States Supreme Court--the Affordable Care Act--and hold up the government while we are fighting against it because we don't like it.
H.R. 375 is legislation to have this House go on record to ensure that we do not ever do that and tie the government's hands and void the services that are relevant to my constituent who, again, I will call in a few moments, who is a cancer patient coming out of a hospital and is fearful of losing her disability checks because of the government shutdown.
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We are getting any number of phone calls on that matter.
So here is why I hope many of my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, will support H. Res. 375, which will put us back in regular order and do things in the right way.
My friends, I will acknowledge that all States are hurting, but let me first of all just cite for you the State of Texas, one of the largest States in the Union, and show the faces of those who are looking to go to Head Start, our children. This is what they are facing. This is all over America; 57,000 Head Start seats are lost because of the shutdown, because of the furlough, because of sequester. And now we continue down this road. Sequestration cuts are forcing Marlen Rosas to defer her preschool dreams for her 3-year-old Hector, who may be the next captain in the United States military, who may be the next pediatric surgeon, who may be the next outstanding professor of law, who may be the next wonderful teacher in an elementary school. But right now the Head Start program for 3-4 year olds in Houston is being cut by $5.34 million, 109 employees, 699 slots for children. This is in Texas. This is in Houston, not even in the entire State. This is what we get when we begin to think of the dependency crowd, and it is important that we understand the results of what is happening.
So I want to keep this particular poster in mind. I just want you to look at those faces and what is going on across America. We have got the government shutdown. We can't fix the sequester, which by the way, the Van Hollen Democratic budget is not only growth for jobs, but it also fixes the sequester. It gets people back to work. It is well known that we are losing jobs here, and 1 percent of the economy is going down because of sequester. We can't fix it because the government is shut down.
Now, if you want to know what is happening across America, $2.24 billion in Title 1 grants have been cut, and so our young people who attend high-poverty schools and who need to be able to have Title 1 grants to help them in education, Mr. Speaker, it is simply gone. And Title 1 funding at current levels does not merely reduce the level of services to our poorest and lowest-achieving students, but would likely cause the elimination of services to millions of students. The teachers know that. They know what is happening by losing $2.24 billion. So Hector and Ms. Rosas don't get Head Start. Then we take it beyond the pre-K to the K-12 and to our high school where we are looking for these young people to take their rightful place in society, and here we are cutting them again. I guess it is the dependency crowd.
These cuts come after the number of children living in poverty has grown from 16.3 percent, as I said earlier. So let me update it to 21.9 percent--losing opportunities for our children.
Here is a more tragic feature. For our special needs children because the government is shut down, we cannot fix the $1.73 billion that we have lost out of for helping our special needs children, the very children who need a stair step to help them climb up and to be all they can be. Some parent is out there feeling the pain of not having the services for their special needs child because the government is shut down, and we cannot get back to the business of appropriations, fixing the sequester.
Child care and development block grant, another problem where we are losing dollars, $142 million in real per capita dollars. To be able to say that we don't have child care, developmental block grants, I just want to refer you to my good friend, Hector, and his mother. These are the problems that we are facing because we have a shutdown of the government.
A good friend, the Speaker, is meeting with the President as we speak. He is entertaining the idea of a debt ceiling increase to pay our bills, the full faith and credit, to save us from a mortgage collapse, to save us from our interest rates on credit cards shooting through the roof, to hopefully start small business loans and young families trying to get mortgages on their homes or get a home. What a country if that happens. But, Mr. Speaker, they are suggesting that, in fact, we will not open the government. How is that possible? How is that possible?
I see my good friend here, and I am going to yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny Davis), who has been a champion on childhood development, on dealing with the special needs child, on dealing with assisting in developmental issues of children, dealing with rehabilitating families, giving a second chance to some of our individuals who have found a different path. As I do that, I want to remind my colleagues that we are not too far away from Veterans Day. And as of October 15, and this is probably happening around America, veterans cemeteries will reduce their staff and reduce their burials. This is the friend that we talk about over and over again. In fact, we have heard a constant refrain: Why are you giving me accolades and you are cutting my veteran service centers? You are not allowing homeless veterans to be placed or get job training, and here we are telling families that there will be a slow process in burying and honoring your loved one because of the government shutdown.
Mr. Speaker, let us unlock these doors and let the workers work. I have heard from them personally. They want to get back to work.
I now yield to Danny Davis from Illinois, who served on the Ways and Means Committee, served on the Education Committee, and we have cochaired a number of summits or seminars and sessions, brain trusts on the issue of childhood development.
Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Let me first of all thank you for the leadership you have provided and continue to provide. Those of us who know you well, we often joke and say we don't know anybody that has got as much energy as you have got. You are here this minute. You are someplace else the next minute. You were dealing with a group of ladies in the hallway the other day from Houston. They were the wives of ministers. One happened to have been a lady who had once lived in the community where my office is located in Chicago, and so I said, Hey, you went out to Houston and found yourself a minister who is a preacher and you have got a husband and so it must be a good place for people to go.
But I just want to join you in highlighting that we talk a great deal about low-income people, and we talk a great deal about the safety net; and it seems to me that our colleagues have decided to attack every safety net program that there is, no matter what it is. They believe that it is providing too much and that government really ought not be a government of service, that government should be a government of coordination and should just be a government of rules and regulations, but it should not provide any help, any assistance to those individuals who have fallen on hard times and tough times.
I have always believed you could measure the effectiveness of a government by how well it treats its young people, how well it treats its old people, and how well it deals with the needs of those who have difficulty caring for themselves.
But I represent a very diverse district, and so not only do I have all of these individuals who have all of the needs that we just mentioned, but I also represent the futures industry--the Board of Trade, the Mercantile Exchange, and the stock market. I was sitting beside a trader on the airplane last week, and he was moaning and groaning and talking about how devastating this shutdown is on the overall economy of our country. You know, you think in terms of the individuals who receive the benefits of a WIC program; but, guess what, if those who produce the food, if they can't sell it, if they can't move it, if they can't do anything with it, what is going to happen, it sits in somebody's warehouse and rots. It sits in somebody's warehouse and spoils. And so this slows down the economy. In order for the economy to get a lift, to pick up, people must be buying and selling, providing services, exchanging goods, exchanging ideas, moving money, moving money around, otherwise the economy goes flat. Nothing is happening.
So I don't know how we think that shutting down the government, and Chicago is a big town and of course it is a regional office town, and so there are a lot of government workers. We are the regional headquarters for Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. A lot of government workers are there. Now, all of these individuals are laid off. They are not able to ride the CTA. That takes money out of the transit system. Them not having to come downtown and park their cars, that takes money out of the parking garages, just like it is around here now. It is practically dead. All of things that people would normally be doing, the people who work in the cleaners, they can't work because there is nobody here to bring their clothes. The restaurants are practically empty. And so it seems to me that there is an effort not to move the economy, but to shut down the economy of our country. It makes no sense at all. None whatsoever. And so we have actually seen a shift now.
People are finally beginning to decide that, hey, ObamaCare, as they like to call it, but let me tell you, for me it is the best thing that ever happened to health care since the Indians discovered corn flakes. It provides an opportunity for millions of people to get care who never, ever had health insurance during their lifetime. Never, ever. And so now we see that that is going to stay. I mean, there are so many people signing up in Illinois, we can't even keep up with them. Our county government has signed up more than 100,000 people in one county, in Cook County alone. They started before we really started because they got a waiver and were able to do it.
I want to commend you again for the leadership and for the dynamic way in which you function, helping the American people know that we can't stand still, we can't stop, we have to keep moving and that struggle, struggle, strife and pain, as Frederick Douglass would say, are the prerequisites for change. So if we want change, we have to keep struggling, and that is exactly what we are going to do.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. What a significant, enlightened presentation by Congressman Davis, if I might summarize his very broad and effective presentation and the educating of our Members.
He has spoken about the collateral damage, and the collateral damage, Mr. Davis, is spreading like wildfire. You added that it is parking garages, it is the CTA or the MTA or the Metro. It is the restaurants. It is the District of Columbia that is collateral damage, a city that has to keep its doors open, but lo and behold, it is being impacted by the shutdown. Again, workers are shut out and shut down.
If I might ask the Speaker how much time is remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 9 minutes remaining.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Davis may want to comment as I proceed on some facts. I know that he has been a leader on some of these issues of SNAP and WIC.
Texas is just viewed as a well-to-do State and we don't need anything. Again, the previous dialogue and debate on the floor struck me that it talked about the dependency crowd on food stamps. I have already said that there are 46 million people living in poverty, and growing. I did not say they were nondeserving. I did not say that they were deadbeats. I did not say that they were making up their poverty. I didn't say they weren't working. I said there are 46 million people living below the poverty line, and large numbers of them are children.
It bothers me for individuals to talk about that we have got a dependency crowd and we have got to have these reforms, and what we are doing with reforms and sequester is we are taking food out of the mouths of children. We can't say it in any other way. So I just want some of our friends to know that even though there is a bemoaning about getting the agriculture bill passed--and I am out of Texas and have always voted for the agriculture bill because my district is surrounded by ranchers and others who need the farm bill. We have never separated on the farm bill in the State of Texas. We have had a lot of support. But when you cut $40 billion out of food stamps and you begin to talk about the deadbeats, that gets to be a problem.
With regards to SNAP and WIC, 47.8 million people are on SNAP and 8.6 million are women, infants, and children on WIC. Funding for these programs needs to be assured.
I have no problem with the documentation of everyone and ensuring that the one or two that are violating the requirements--nobody is arguing for maintaining those individuals. What we are saying is that there is collateral damage. Farmers are being impacted.
By the way, regarding Rural Development and Farm Service agencies, 99 percent of those employees are furloughed; and my good friend just got through talking about the commodities.
Let me just say these points. I am going back to Texas again, which is noted as a big and well-to-do State. In actuality, in a couple of days, Mr. Davis, we are standing to lose and have an impact or cutback of $64.7 billion. The government is shut down. $518 million of that is on Federal highways.
We were just in a meeting with the Texas Department of Transportation. We have got 1,200 people a day moving into Texas with
$411 billion for interstate highways--shut down; $130 million in home energy assistance for the poor--shut down; $71 million in homeland security grants and our ports--shut down; our borders--shut down; $55 million in coordinated border infrastructure. When I say the border is shut down, what I mean is resources that they need. And $97 million is something very important that I have worked with Senator Landrieu on, Federal adoption assistance to help our children.
I started by saying that we organized to form a more perfect Union. I am aghast that the wheels of justice have come off. The Department of Justice is in a complete dilemma. There are people keeping the lights on and doing what is needed for the absolute necessity of making sure the principles of our Constitution are not destroyed, but we have lost 950 lawyers who have cases pending, 4,000 U.S. attorneys.
We are seeing immigration review cases where people are fighting to keep their loved ones who legitimately should be here and 950 are gone; in the environmental division, 350 lawyers; the tax division, 200. People are expecting their refund so they can pay their bills. The U.S. Marshals, what a disgrace, 500 are gone. Why? Because the government is shut down.
Before I close, if the gentleman wants to offer a word on this, where are we in this shutdown?
Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Let me say one thing about the farm bill, because I am very sympathetic and empathetic with farmers.
I grew up on a farm, so I know a little bit about farming and how valuable. Of course, Illinois is a great farm State. But I am not in favor of all of these great big subsidies that we give to some people, like sugar growers that help to keep the price of sugar so high until the candy makers and the cookie makers and ice cream processors and all these people have serious difficulty making or producing the products that they sell.
There is a lot of give-and-take in these decisions that we make, and there ought to be enough give-and-take to know that it can't just be my way or the highway. It can't just be my thoughts and ideas. It is time to really put behind us all of the difficulty that we have had. I am hoping that the next time I go home that I can tell the people in my district, Yes, we have reached an agreement. The government is going to reopen. We are going to function, and America is going to move like we know it can, like we know it will. That is going to be the legacy of this shutdown, that we are going to cut it off and reopen.
I thank you for the opportunity.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank you so very much.
Let me just say that I am on the sugar farm side of the issue, but we are on the same side of the coin on opening the government. And I want to thank Congressman Davis.
I also want to make mention of my fellow Texas Democratic colleagues who stood together at 1 p.m. today, all of them calling for a bipartisan solution, actually calling upon our good friends, our Senators in the other body out of the State of Texas to come and stand with us and follow in the tradition of the Catholic Charities mission of helping our brothers and sisters, the most vulnerable, of the words of ``just live by faith,'' of the words that ``this government is an umbrella on a rainy day,'' cancer victims, children who need Head Start seats, the justice system of America, the interstate highway of America, sick patients in hospital beds needing disability checks, veterans who need service centers and need the resources of hospitals, all of these and beyond; teachers who are living under the pressure of a sequester that cuts off the money for their impoverished students and the services for special needs children, all tied into the sequester, all at a standstill because of the shutdown.
What is our plea today? Our plea today is to recognize that we can't live in this world alone, and that it is imperative that we unshackle ourselves. I have even gotten a Koch brothers letter that was sent to the Senators. The Koch brothers, the Koch Industry, said, Don't blame us. We never tied defunding ObamaCare to the funding of the government. I consider that a get-out-of-jail card. I hope all the Senators are getting it. I hope all the Members of Congress here are getting it. It means that you can vote on a clean bill and lift the debt ceiling for a period of time that allows America to pay her bills, young couples to get mortgages, young families to get loans. That is what we should be doing, and I will take in the words of my good friend, We want a way forward in a bipartisan manner.
But what I would offer to say to you, that America, the greatest country in the world, has a Constitution that has said we are organized for a more perfect Union, and, in fact, we have that perfect Union if we can open this government. We all are created equal with certain inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak. I believe that tomorrow we may have something on the floor that opens the government. Vote. Put it on the floor, a clean bill, so that we can vote and open the government and that we have a method for lifting the debt ceiling.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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