Timothy Roemer: “this is the people's House, and this is the consummate bill put together by the people, by the members of this…”

“this is the people's House, and this is the consummate bill put together by the people, by the members of this committee. I thank the leaders of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) and the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), for their support to our subcommittee and their leadership. I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) for his efforts to create a bipartisan product to bring to the floor. I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) for his skills and experience over the years working on these issues, and I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) for his work as a social worker and the experience that he brought to this bill. Mr. Speaker, this bill is a bill about balance, it is about linkages, and it is about the middle ground. It is a bill that breaks our hearts if we do not address the problems. I was at a fund-raising dinner in Kosciusko County in Indiana a couple of years ago, and it was a fund-raiser to raise money to prevent child abuse. We heard the stories of children locked in closets, burnt with cigarettes, defecated upon, chained up and released months later. These stories break my heart. The stories here in D.C., about Brianna. She is reunited with her parent and eventually killed weeks later. If we do not do something about these problems, they cost children their lives.”