On the recordJuly 19, 2010
I want to thank Congresswoman Fudge for taking leadership on this very, very important Special Order this evening on the subject of unemployment and the extension of unemployment benefits during this critical moment for our country. I just got back to Washington after spending the weekend in my district, and I'm telling you that is the issue. People come up to you, whether you are in a parking lot, just leaving a food store, whether you're in a religious institution on Sunday, people are asking what's wrong with Congress. It isn't the House. It's the other body that hasn't passed the extension of unemployment benefits. I want to commend the Congressional Black Caucus for bringing this forward this evening. By the end of this week, nearly 2.5 million Americans will have lost their unemployment benefits because our colleagues over on the other side of the Capitol chose to politicize with unemployed workers, trying to make some kind of political statement over there, rather than extending benefits for people who earn them. You would think that work, as a value, would be undergirded by those that serve us at this level in our country, and I think they really undermine the value of work itself by not allowing people who have earned those benefits as a result of going to work every day to then, when times get hard, reap some of the benefits that they, in fact, have earned.
