Jackie Speier: “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In some respects, I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. Can anyone explain, when we are 144…”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In some respects, I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. Can anyone explain, when we are 144 hours from crossing the brink, from going over the ledge, to have this country come to a screeching halt financially, tell me why we are debating the appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior? Why aren't we dealing with what the American people want us to be dealing with right now, and that is the debt limit, raising the ceiling on the debt limit? But, no, we're going to spend hundreds of hours here over the next couple of days talking about the Interior appropriations bill. Let me tell you what I'm hearing from my constituents, and maybe my colleagues on the other side of the aisle aren't getting phone calls from their constituents, but I am, and let me tell you what I'm hearing. One woman wrote me and said: ``My mom is 79 years old, worked all her life in a factory and retired. Her pension was handed to her on her very last day of work, $25,000. The plant closed, moved the work to Mexico, and her husband died 8 years later. That $25,000 didn't last long. Now her only source of income is Social Security. She lives in a senior retirement center that she loves. Last Thursday, she and my aunt, who is 83 and also widowed, called me to pick them up and take them to the bank.…”