Kevin Brady: “If you ever wonder why the American people have lost faith in politicians, all you need to do is look at this amendment.…”

“If you ever wonder why the American people have lost faith in politicians, all you need to do is look at this amendment. It is very disappointing. It is a cynical political stunt that hurts the unemployed in America, and it is shameful. The fact is, this leadership amendment by our Democratic friends does not extend unemployment benefits to even one American. It does not help even one American. That is because they do not use our unemployment insurance fund, the one we help people with. They say, we will create a new program out of an agency that does not even deal with unemployment. It will take months, years, whatever, to set it up, but we are trying to make a plumber do brain surgery, and we will convince you this will help you. Everyone in this room knows this is false. One would think if something was important, one would put money toward it, but this amendment does not even have a dollar, not even $1 allocated to back it up. Nowhere in this bill. And I would challenge anyone in this room to just point to the part of the amendment that includes the dollar amount we are going to provide for those who are unemployed. The answer is you cannot find it because there is not a dollar, nothing to help the unemployed in this amendment. We know that people have lost jobs, which is why this Congress sent to the States an unprecedented $8 billion to help people who are out of work.”