Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Democrats strongly agree that those who took advantage of the COVID crisis to commit fraud must be held accountable. Indeed, Democrats put $2 billion in the American Rescue Plan Act to fight fraud, and every House Republican voted against these investments to prevent fraud and hold criminals accountable. These Democratic anti-fraud dollars helped the Department of Labor create an important cross-checking system to catch fraudsters who apply for unemployment in one State while receiving income in another, a practice for which a Republican House Member reportedly was indicted earlier this week. Republicans are playing a dangerous game by cutting ongoing successful work by the Federal Government to fight fraud and leaving States to pick up the pieces. The Department of Labor expressed deep concern about how H.R. 1163 will ``throttle essential, ongoing efforts to strengthen and protect the UI program.'' Instead of punishing organized crime, the Republican H.R. 1163 guts Federal funding to fight fraud, weakens State unemployment systems, privatizes American public service jobs, and sends cruel surprise bills to innocent workers who were unemployed during the pandemic. We enacted bipartisan pandemic unemployment benefits that kept an estimated 5 million people a year from falling into poverty. {time} 1445 This assistance meant revenue and customers for businesses and helps spur our economic recovery.…”