Janice Schakowsky: “If that referred to me, I apologize. Thank you very much for organizing this hour for the Progressive Caucus. Mr.…”

“If that referred to me, I apologize. Thank you very much for organizing this hour for the Progressive Caucus. Mr. Speaker, we are talking about human issues that really don't lend themselves to any kind of political label. We are talking about people. And I think this is what has hurt me so much is the meanness, the meanness. I just celebrated my 15th year here in the House of Representatives, and I have to tell you that we have disagreed across the aisle on a lot of different things, but the demonization of people who are struggling just to live a decent life. We are talking about people when we talk about the unemployed who aren't looking for the huge fancy job. They want to make enough to be able to raise their children comfortably, to be able to eat, put a roof over their head, just modest things that add up to a decent life. Aside from all the arguments on why it is really dumb economically to not extend those unemployment benefits, that it will actually cost us jobs, 250,000--I don't know what the estimate is--if we don't put money in people's pockets that they can go out and spend, why would things that used to have a bipartisan consensus not prevail today? In 1959, 1962, 1973, 1977, 1985, 1994, and 2003, we extended unemployment insurance benefits until the level of long-term unemployment--those are people unemployed over 6 months--fell below 1.5 percent. Today that is 2.6 percent of Americans. That is over 1 million Americans. What are we doing? Who are we?…”