On the recordJanuary 15, 2014
I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding. Madam Speaker, I am here to express my disappointment that we are not bringing up H.R. 3824, a bill that would extend for 3 months emergency unemployment compensation. It causes me to think of what the American people would expect of us here in Congress if we were facing a national emergency of some type that resulted in the immediate loss of basic support for the basic needs of 1.3 million Americans. What would we do, especially if that national emergency somehow caused every week 72,000 additional Americans to lose the basic help that they need to provide rent, to provide heat, put food on the table--to take care of the basic human necessities? We would act. Sure, as the gentleman pointed out, we would discuss ways to prevent future national emergencies that would cause this sort of problem. We would find ways to prevent those sorts of things from happening. The gentleman referred to job training, economic development programs like job training. We would do those things for sure. But in the meantime, we would--and today we should--act to restore those benefits.
