John Tierney: “I suppose that the gentleman who just spoke up understands that the constituents in his State have lost about $5.25…”

“I suppose that the gentleman who just spoke up understands that the constituents in his State have lost about $5.25 billion of their hard-earned nest egg due to a poor economy, corporate scandal, and weak pension laws, and in fact, what is amazing is all of the things that he talked about at that hearing were true. That was what the hearing told us. Nothing in the bill that passed this House would address any of those issues. That poor employee still would never have gotten information from the employer, from the CEOs and the other high corporate officers saying that they had bailed out on their stock and left the employees holding the bag. The bill that passed the House does not resolve that. Nothing puts those people on the board of directors so that they can be aware of situations like that and help them. The fact of the matter is once again we are here in this House talking about a sense of the House, which makes no sense because it does not do anything. We are instructing the other body on how to do its business instead of doing our business. Do we want to help people in this country? What they need is an extension of their unemployment benefits. They are out. But we are not talking that action. We are talking about a sense of the House resolution. Let us talk about people who do not have health insurance. There are almost 40 million of them now. We are not doing anything on that. Let us talk about education.…”