Congressional Black Caucus Commemorates Women's History Month

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I would like to thank the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands for allowing us--and being the lead on Monday after Monday--opportunities to be able to engage our constituents and speak on a number of very important issues. I thank you for your leadership. I have certainly been privileged to be part of this very important opportunity to speak on a number of challenging issues.

Many of us have just arrived back into Washington. We have spent precious days with our constituents, and it is amazing the number of issues that we are encountering: individuals who are impacted by the broken and unfixed immigration laws; individuals who are in need of small business assistance or health care. These are the real issues of Americans. Or those who are gathering to join their allies and friends in Wisconsin as they are concerned and almost intimidated somewhat about the misdirected approach to budget cutting by cutting out rights of workers, many of whom are women.

So I think speaking about women is crucial as we commemorate Women's History Month, because we know from the early founding of this great country, women were standing side by side with the Founders. Those of us who come from a slave history, we know the history of slave women who were the backbone of keeping families together. That if a slave woman was sold, she could turn to another slave woman and say, Would you take care of my children? I can't take them with me. Or if, tragically, she lost her life in the violence of slavery, the families of other slaves rallied around those children.

I would think the same of Native Americans, Indian women, who were the backbone of their families, and pioneering women and women who came from places around the world, Irish women, women who came from Great Britain or Poland or from South and Central America or from the Caribbean. These are women who have come to the United States and were part of the founding.

I speak of my grandmother, Olive Jackson, who came from Jamaica, West Indies, and with her husband, Albert Jackson, went to Panama and helped build in the teeming woods and forests of that era, fighting against malaria and mosquitoes and diseases and were part of building the Panama Canal. How my grandmother kept the family together and gave birth to her first son and survived to be able to make it here to the United States and had children born in South Carolina and made their way up, and then finally got to Brooklyn, New York. A part of the history of this country. She kept the family together.

Let me just call a roll, if you don't mind, of some of the women from Texas. Please note that there are many others.

Women like Mrs. Johnson, the wife of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was so much involved in the beautification of Texas. Her daughter, Luci Baines Johnson. Her other daughter, Lynda Robb Johnson. The Honorable Barbara Jordan, who made a point in the 1974 Watergate hearings that she would not see the Constitution declined or diminished, and that she believed that even though it did not include her when we started, that this Constitution means We the People. That's what Women's History Month means.

Ann Richards, the former Governor, the late Governor of Texas. Mayor Kathy Whitmire. Beulah Shepard, the mayor of Acres Home. Ruby Mosley, who has been such a leader and a pioneer in changes in Acres Home. Jewel Houston, a great educator. Willie Belle Boone, a great political activist. Christia Adair, another great political activist. Esther Williams, a great early political activist and precinct judge. Irma of Irma's fabulous Mexican restaurant, a businesswoman who, with her children by her side, opened one of the famous restaurants in Houston. Representative Carol Alvarado. Representative Anna Hernandez. Commissioner Sylvia Garcia. Council Member Wanda Adams. Council Member Jolanda Jones. Doris Hubbard. The late Dorothy Hubbard. Mayor Annise Parker.

Small businesswomen. The late Nancy Berkman, who was so pivotal in working on the Mickey Leland Kibbutzim program. Joyce Schechter, a premier advocate and supporter of Democratic policies. Parvin McVey, an outstanding humanitarian. The women and doctors at the March of Dimes that I work with, the sacrifice that they make. Former Councilwoman Robinson, the wife of the late Judson Robinson, the first council member to be elected, and once he passed, Council Member Robinson, his wife took his place. Jewel McGowan, another great educator.

Teachers, nurses. Dr. Betty Lewis, a great nurse. Dr. Wanda Mott, a great doctor. Dr. Natalie Carroll, former president of the National Medical Association. And certainly Ling Lui, a Chinese American. Dr. Ahmed, an American from Bangladesh who's at Texas Southern University.

My mother, Ivalita Jackson. My aunts: Aunt Valerie, Aunt Audrey, Aunt Vickie, Aunt Sybil.

The reason why I just called their names is because they, along with the women of courage that we honored just a week or so ago with Secretary Hillary Clinton and Mrs. Obama--Michelle Obama, which I include in the greatness of how far women have come--they really make a statement, Congresswoman, that what we're doing in the budget and what we're doing in the CR really does not take into account all the sweat and toil of hardworking women.

Can you tell me how we would ignore a health care reform that women no longer have to be subjected to preexisting condition as a means of getting insurance and therefore pregnancy now does not stifle a woman who is working on a job from getting insurance and bans insurance companies, again, from dropping the women when they get sick or become pregnant. For women in new plans, it provides pre-coverage of important lifesaving preventative services. Women who are sometimes a single head of household, older women who have chronic conditions, they can now be covered because of preventative care; bans insurance companies from reauthorization or referral for access to OB/GYN care.

What an antiquated system that required women not to be able to go to a doctor for OB/GYN care. We have gotten rid of that; and the common practice of gender rating, meaning charging women substantially higher premiums. Yet this Affordable Health Care is on the chopping blocks. I can't understand it. Ensures children up to age 19 cannot be denied coverage for preexisting disease. Sometimes babies are born with asthma or sickle cell or juvenile diabetes. Those people cannot get insurance. Women would have to take off or quit or get on welfare just to be able to find some such basis of coverage or insurance.

Greater access to insurance by women. And yet as we commemorate Women's History Month, we have a situation where our friends on the other side of the aisle are slashing and burning. In fact, they have already voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. What does it say to the history of women in this country?

Let me quickly move to some additional harms to women, Republican-proposed cuts that will harm women and their families. Title X family planning. This program has provided family planning services, breast and cervical cancer screening and other preventative health care to low-income women. It has provided health centers that serve more than 5 million women.

Can you imagine that healthy women, who make a difference in this country--that is less hours of sick women, less children away from the home, less women able to bear children and then go out into the workplace, because they have suffered the lack of access to health care. Well, my friends, if you can imagine, this is where we are today.

We had $300 million in a vote just by a Congressperson from Indiana, who won the vote 240-185 to prevent any Federal funding to Planned Parenthood. By the way, Planned Parenthood reads. They understand. Their moneys are used for family planning. It is used to detect cervical cancer and breast cancer. It's used to provide preventative service to millions of women in health care dealing with HIV testing, breast exams, and, of course, contraception. But none of these dollars will be used for what I suppose this amendment was supposed to inhibit--and that's abortion. They read. They get it. They have been following the law for years.

In Women's History Month, what are we saying to our women? It cuts nutrition programs for pregnant women and children $747 million, special supplemental nutrition program, the WIC program. Can you believe it? Suggesting that it's a waste of money, when most educators will tell you children that are not nourished in the early stages, they have a default in their ability to think and to be able to do well in school. Cut Head Start and child care. People approach me in my district, on the streets here in Washington, D.C. Cutting $1.1 from Head Start, $39 million from child care.

I want you to know that I'm dealing with a case, Congresswoman, in my district where Federal dollars were supporting a home child care. As you well know, those requirements are less than Head Start. And now do you know what we have? Four dead babies in this child care home care center where a fire consumed them. Unfortunately, because the caretaker made a mistake. This is what I'm dealing with.

And so my question is: you're cutting Head Start, you're cutting child care. People are standing in line to get child care. People are being turned away. They don't know what to do. Young mothers who are trying to do right, are trying to get a job, and they realize this is a problem. It cuts job training. I've had young mothers in job training programs, $4 billion. Are they telling me it doesn't work?

These job training programs are particularly important to women workers, many of them coming out of the home after they've had children and they can place them in a school setting or Head Start. They can now get back to work. They can be contributing to the tax base and to the society and be able to teach their children about the work ethic because they're young and they want to do so.

Cutting that; cutting Pell Grants. When I went out to Lone Star College, what did I see? Young women, some of them young mothers, getting the opportunity of a second life. It halts funding for the implementation of the health care law. I've already spoken about that. Maternal and child health. And then Social Security for women who are seniors. I just don't understand what we are trying to do.

So I would just argue the point in this Women's History Month that there is a breakdown. There's a mental block. Don't let me start talking about the minority women-owned businesses where they're cutting MBDA $1.9 million; and denying minority workers skills training for the 21st century workforce, cutting $3 billion dollars, and leaving our American heroes out in cold, women who have been veterans, cutting them $75 million, who may be homeless. I have met women homeless veterans. I see them every day. And it has only been recently that we've acknowledged that these women have PTSD and other problems. I've met them. They have begged for the programs to continue because they served their country as well.

And then, lo and behold, we've just shut the doors on community health clinics, something that the Congressional Black Caucus worked so hard on, $1.3 billion, cutting 3.2 million patients where they can come out of their homes and go to a doctor and not wind up in the emergency room that pushes up the tax base or the tax cost by the public hospital system and the private hospital system. And yet we continue cutting these programs.

So I'm reminded of Barbara Jordan's words about not being worried about being called a politician. She just said, I want to be called a darned good politician. That's what we should be looking at here in this place as we honor women and Women's History Month, that we can all be good elected officials, good politicians that make a difference. We make a difference on behalf of all of the American people. No party affiliation. That we don't cut and jab into collective bargaining in States around this country when in fact collective bargaining is simply giving someone the opportunity to sit down at the bargaining table; nurses, many of them women; teachers, many of them women, clerical workers; many of them women; municipal workers; women who have come out of the household to support their family and may be the only bread winner.

So let me thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to be able to salute women of all persuasions all over this country. Let me personally thank you for the nurturing that you have given the soldiers and sons that you have sent off to battles throughout the ages; to the Gold Star Mothers, to the Blue Star Mothers that I work with in my district. Thank you for the sacrifices that you have made. Thank you for nurturing those who are still mending and healing those who have been wounded in war, whether it's the war of the ages or the wars that we've just encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And let me thank the mothers and the women of the Mid East, from Egypt to Tunisia to Bahrain to Yemen to Libya--and most of all to Libya. Let me thank the women who have gone into battle. Let me thank the women who have already lost children because they wanted freedom in battle.

Let me thank the peace lovers. And all I would say, as we commemorate Women's History Month, the names that I have just called, they represent the strength and our history. And it is on their shoulders that I stand. It is on their shoulders that I pledge that I will never give up; as John Lewis said, never give out; and never give in, because women today are truly having as the wind beneath their wings all the women who have gone before, all the older women that stand alongside of them.

Finally, Congresswoman, to the young women, let me say that the road is never as smooth as one would like. It is rocky, with mountains and valleys; but take the opportunity to learn and to build so that you can have wings as well.

Women's History Month, I salute you and the women. I believe in your strength, and I believe in your spirit and your history.

BACKGROUND ON WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

Every March, the country recognizes National Women's History Month. This national celebration and recognition of women's historic achievements began in 1980 when National Women's History Week was proclaimed by Presidential Proclamation. In 1987, this national celebration was expanded by Congressional Resolution to an entire month by declaring March as National Women's History Month.

In the last several years, we have had a number of historic firsts to celebrate in conjunction with Women's History Month--the first woman Speaker of the House, the first female President of Harvard--to name a couple. These historic events speak to the progress we have made in women participating in public service and the political process.

Further, there are now a record number of women serving in Congress. The 112th Congress includes 93 women Members serving in the House and Senate.

The Democratic-led 111th Congress focused on a number of key concerns of America's women, including quality affordable health care, investments to create jobs and stimulate growth, investments in early childhood education, ensuring that our military families are receiving the resources and services that they need, and ensuring equal pay for all of America's working women.

Unfortunately, in the 112th Congress, the GOP-led House has moved in the opposite direction--failing to pass measures to create

jobs and promote economic growth. Not only have Republicans failed to create jobs, they have passed a Spending Bill that is projected to destroy up to 700,000 jobs and reduce economic growth by up to 2 percentage points, as well as cut services particularly vital for America's women.

HOW HEALTHCARE REFORM BENEFITS WOMEN

Ensures being a woman will no longer be treated as a ``pre-existing condition,'' with insurance companies banned from denying coverage for ``pre-existing conditions,'' beginning in 2014. Currently, many women are denied coverage or charged more for such ``pre-existing conditions'' as breast or cervical cancer, pregnancy, having had a C-section, or having been a victim of domestic violence.

Bans insurance companies from dropping women when they get sick or become pregnant, as of 2010.

For women in new plans, provides free coverage of important, life-saving preventive services, such as mammograms and colonoscopies, as of 2010.

Improves the care of millions of older women with chronic conditions, by providing incentives under Medicare for more coordinated care.

Bans insurance companies from requiring women to obtain a pre-authorization or referral for access to ob-gyn care, as of 2010.

Ends the common practice of ``gender rating,'' charging women substantially higher premiums than men for the same coverage, beginning in 2014. According to a recent study, the women on the individual market pay up to 48% more in premium costs than men.

Ensures that children up to the age of 19 cannot be denied coverage due to a ``pre-existing condition,'' as of 2010.

Provides greater access to affordable health coverage for women, with the establishment of new Health Insurance Exchanges for the millions who do not have health insurance through an employer, beginning in 2014. Currently, less than half of America's women can obtain affordable insurance through their employer.

REPUBLICAN PROPOSED CUTS THAT WILL HARM WOMEN AND THEIR FAMILIES

Eliminates Funding for the Title X Family Planning--Entirely eliminates funding for the Title X Family Planning Program, which received $317 million in FY 2010. For more than 40 years, the Title X Family Planning Program has provided family planning services, breast and cervical cancer screening, and other preventive health care to low-income women in need. Title X-funded health centers serve more than 5 million individuals each year, at 4,500 community-based clinics. Six in 10 women who obtain health care from a Title X-funded family planning center consider it to be their primary source of health care. Grantees include state and local health departments, hospitals, community health centers, and private non-profit organizations.

Eliminates all federal funding for Planned Parenthood--In addition to eliminating all funding for the Title X Family Planning Program in the underlying bill, House Republicans also adopted an amendment by Representative Mike Pence (R-IN), by a vote of 240-185, to specifically prohibit any federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The Pence amendment would have a devastating effect on women's access to health care across the country. Planned Parenthood health centers currently provide preventive services to millions of women in need of health care, including the provision of contraception, cancer screenings, breast exams, and HIV testing. In fact, over 90 percent of health care offered by Planned Parenthood is preventive. Many low-income individuals depend on Planned Parenthood health centers for the majority, if not all, of their health care.

Cuts Nutrition Programs for Pregnant Women and Their Children--Cuts $747 million from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, better known as the WIC program. The WIC program provides nutritious food, counseling, and other supports to 9.6 million low-income pregnant women, new mothers, and infants each month. This program makes a real difference; studies have linked WIC participation with higher birth weight and lower infant mortality.

Cuts Head Start and Child Care--Cuts $1.1 billion from the Head Start program and $39 million from child care, causing hundreds of thousands of children to lose early learning support. Head Start, Early Head Start, and the Child Care Development Block Grant are our key federal early learning investments. These initiatives: (1) allow low-income children to start school ready to succeed, and (2) support and enable parents to work. Funding is already insufficient and these cuts will result in even fewer children benefiting from early learning programs.

Cuts Job Training--Cuts more than $4 billion for job training programs that are critical in preparing workers for employment in growth industries. For example, funding under Title I of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) is zeroed out--eliminating a $1.4 billion program serving 1.7 million youth and adult workers. These job training programs are particularly important for women workers, many of whom are concentrated in low-wage and low-skill jobs without opportunity for advancement.

Cuts Initiatives That Help Students Pay for College--Cuts the maximum Pell Grant amount by $845--from the current level of $5,550 to $4,705 for the coming academic year. Pell Grants provide the basic foundation of federal student aid and help millions of low-income American women afford to attend college. The bill also entirely eliminates federal funding ($757 million in FY 2010) for Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, which provide additional grants of up to $4,000 to the lowest income Pell recipients and reach 1.3 million of the Nation's neediest students. Cuts to these programs will make college less accessible for low-income women.

Halts Funding to Implement the Health Care Law--House Republicans adopted a series of amendments on the House Floor that essentially stop any funding to implement the Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care law enacted last year. The GOP bill, as amended, therefore takes away critical new patient's rights, many of which are critical to America's women. As a result, under the GOP bill, lifetime caps could once again be placed on coverage, young adults up to age 26 would lose the assurance they could stay on their parents' plan, pregnant women could once again be thrown off insurance rolls, and being a woman could once again be considered a pre-existing condition.

Cuts Maternal and Child Health--Cuts $50 million from the Title V Maternal and Child Health Block Grant. Title V-supported programs provide prenatal health services to 2.5 million women and primary and preventive health care to 31 million children each year. Cuts this deep will severely harm state and local programs serving women, babies, and children.

Eliminates Funding that Helps Schools Comply with Title IX--Eliminates the Women's Educational Equity Program, which promotes education equity for women and girls and helps educational agencies meet their obligations under Title IX, the law that requires gender equity for boys and girls in every educational program that receives federal funding.

Cuts Funding for Social Security Offices and Supports for Women Who Are Seniors--Cuts funding for the Social Security Administration by hundreds of millions of dollars. These cuts will force thousands of layoffs and furloughs in offices across the country, which means delays in processing applications for Social Security benefits Americans have earned. The bill also cuts funding for a range of supports for seniors, including senior employment services (cut by $525 million) and Administration on Aging programs (cut by $65 million). Women are a majority of Social Security recipients and more than two-thirds of the elderly poor--so they will be disproportionately harmed by these GOP cuts.

Undermines Food Safety--Cuts funding for USDA food safety inspections by $88 million--making it impossible to conduct daily inspections of meat and poultry plants. This would force many meat and poultry plants to shut down for more than a month in 2011, resulting in estimated economic losses of up to $11 billion. Furthermore, the bill cuts FDA funding by $241 million. This would lead to furloughs and/or RIFs of hundreds of FDA staff including those who inspect our domestic and imported foods.

Blocks Public Database on Safety of Consumer Products, Designed as ``Early Warning System'' for Parents--House Republicans adopted an amendment by Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS), by a vote of 234-187, which prohibits any funding for a new public consumer safety information database, opposed by Big Business, which is particularly designed to warn parents about potentially defective products aimed at children.

REPUBLICAN SPENDING BILL IMPACT ON MINORITIES

Inhibiting the Creation of Minority Businesses

Slashing $1.9 million from the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), the sole agency dedicated to fostering growth and innovation among minority-owned firms, creates barriers for minority businesses to employ more than the 6 million Americans they did last year.

In 2010, the MBDA generated $3.3 billion in contracts and capital for minority-owned firms.

Denying Minority Workers Skills Training for a 21st Century Workforce

Cutting $3 billion from the Workforce Investment Act eliminates access to essential job training initiatives that have helped millions of minorities gain the skills to compete in our nation's job market.

In 2009, Workforce Investment Act (WIA) programs helped approximately 8,370,000 people, with minorities making up 43 percent (714,314) of the WIA Adult Program, 38 percent (384,106) of the WIA Dislocated Worker Program and 68 percent (186,809) of the WIA Youth Program.

Ensuring a Second Rate Education for Minority Communities

Taking away $1 billion from Head Start denies 200,000 children an early childhood education and forces them to begin kindergarten less educated than their classmates. This cut disproportionately harms minority children with Latinos making up 36 percent and African Americans 29 percent of the nearly 1,114,000 children that receive a quality early education from Head Start funding.

By cutting $580 million from special education programs, Republicans are shifting the federal government's obligation to educate up to 324,000 children with disabilities onto our already burdened states, 45 of which are already running deficits. This cut will hurt special education programs where Latino children make up 19 percent, African American children 15 percent and Asian Americans and Pacific Islander children 4 percent of students.

Eliminating Health Care Services to Minority Communities

Eliminating $61 million in funding from the Maternal and Child Health Block Grants forces doctors to decide which of the millions of mothers they serve will not receive the prenatal care they need to give birth to healthy babies. In one year, these grants assisted over 4 million mothers, including 1 million Latinas, 723,000 African Americans and 195,000 Asian Americans who gave birth to healthy babies.

Cutting $1.3 billion from Community Health Centers will deny critical health care to nearly 3.2 million new patients. Currently, Community Health Centers provide quality, affordable health care to 20 million people 36 percent are Latinos, 22 percent are African Americans and 4 percent are Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Leaving Our American Heroes Out in the Cold

Revoking $75 million from veterans' housing programs will leave up to 10,000 homeless veterans without a roof over their head despite patriotically serving in our Armed Forces.

African American and Latinos make up 56 percent of the estimated 156,000 homeless veterans though they only comprise 11 percent and 6 percent of the veterans' population, respectively.

Finally, I can not end, without saluting NANCY PELOSI, the first women Speaker in the History of the United States. Many little girls will aspire to great heights because of her leadership and strength. Thank you, Speaker PELOSI, for all of your work over the years. Along with Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Coretta Scott King, Maya Angelo, Rosa Parks and Dr. Dorothy Height the women of Presidents, every U.S. President sought her counsel, we are blessed because of their fight and their victory!

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congresswoman Jackson Lee, for your inspiring words, and thank you for being such a faithful participant in these Monday evening Special Orders.

You listed a lot of the very special women in your district, as you said, on whose shoulders we stand. I could also list women from my district who are leaders in the fight for freedom and justice: who are labor leaders, doctors, clergy, writers, nurses, teachers, and those who have just been role models and who have helped to nurture our territory's children.

I do want to spend some of my time saluting a pioneering educator in my district of the U.S. Virgin Islands, one who would have celebrated her 96th birthday on March 26 had she not left us this past January. Like many Virgin Islands women of her generation, Mrs. Delta Dorsch was a force of nature.

Born in the town of Frederiksted in 1915, 2 years before the Virgin Islands became a part of the American family, Mrs. Dorsch was a renowned educator, storyteller and tradition bearer of the territory. She was tall in stature and stood out as a woman of class, of intelligence and excellence in all that she did. In her lifetime, she witnessed the birth, growth and development of the modern Virgin Islands: from the transfer of ownership from Denmark to the United States, to the quest of its people for greater self-government and self-determination, to its welcoming of many people from many shores, to its present position poised at the dawn of a new century with its modern concerns of quality health care and education for all, environmental and cultural sustainability, energy independence, and a future for its children of a life lived in peace and security, with access to a quality life that provides good, stable employment opportunities.

Mrs. Dorsch, who was educated at New York University, at Columbia University and who studied international education at the University of London in England and at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, served for more than 38 years as a teacher and elementary supervisor in the Virgin Islands school system. From 1977 to 1982, she also served as an instructor of elementary education in both undergraduate programs at the University of the Virgin Islands and as Deputy Commissioner for Curriculum and Instruction in the Virgin Islands Department of Education. She was also the chair of the board of directors of the St. Dunstan's Episcopal School in St. Croix.

Her excellent educational resume does not adequately convey the quality of care she gave to Virgin Islands students. She was a mentor and a special friend to many, encouraging them to achieve and to work for excellence. She also worked throughout her lifetime to preserve traditional values and her cultural heritage, taking it upon herself to learn the many folk stories that had been passed down from generation to generation and to share them with the young and with the not so young.

Her message was simple: As you progress and embrace change, don't forget your culture, your way of life, and the everyday things that make you unique and special and identifiable as a people.

In addition to education and culture, she was active in the political life of the community, supporting the campaigns of worthy candidates and giving sage advice to those who, like myself, sought her counsel.

In her lifetime, Mrs. Delta Dorsch received many accolades and awards. The National Junior Honor Society of the Elena Christian Junior High School is named in her honor as is the residence hall at the University of the Virgin Islands, St. Croix campus. She was among the tradition bearers who participated in the Virgin Islands Folklife Festival in 1990 here in Washington, DC, on The Mall, where she told the Bru Nansi and Jumbie stories that are particular to the U.S. Virgin Islands. She authored a book and an accompanying video on the role of the storyteller and of the preservation of the Virgin Islands culture, and she contributed to our town Frederiksted's current edition of the ``Glory Days of Frederiksted.''

Mrs. Delta M. Jackson Dorsch made her mark as a woman of substance in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and left a remarkable trail for the rest of us to follow. It is in her spirit of determination and advocacy that I stand here today to speak about the current state of women, not only in the U.S. Virgin Islands, but across our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, we are now in a time that has shown great progress for women, as I read from our President earlier; but we also find ourselves at a crossroads where there are many areas in which our welfare is threatened. Some of these areas were enumerated by my colleague from Texas.

According to the report prepared for the White House Council on Women and Girls, entitled, ``Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being,'' which was published this month, women have outpaced men in educational attainment, earning more college degrees and graduate education, but they are still more likely than men to live in poverty.

Black and Hispanic females are likely to be poorer than non-Hispanic white females. Black women have a 28 percent rate of poverty, Hispanic 27 percent, white women 11 percent--also too high. While more education increases income for both men and women, the pay gap between the two still exists. More women than men work part time, and of course that means they are less likely to be insured or to have other benefits. At all levels of education, women still earn about 75 percent as much as their male counterparts. The female-headed families have the lowest family earnings among all family types.

Women today face health challenges, with depression, for example, and more women than men report having chronic medical conditions. Yet more of us are uninsured, and many women report not having a usual source of care. Eighteen percent of nonelderly women lack health insurance. Of unmarried women, almost 25 percent are uninsured. Twenty-one percent of African American women and 38 percent of Latinas are uninsured.

So the challenge to improve the lives of all women continues, and we Democrats are proud that in the historic 111th Congress, presided over by the first female Speaker of this House, we passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which restores the rights of women and other workers to challenge unfair pay and work events.

We passed the Paycheck Fairness Act, which updated the 47-year-old Equal Pay Act, by providing more effective remedies for women who are not being paid equal wages for doing equal work.

We also passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which created 3.3 million jobs, many of them held by American women in emerging industries such as clean energy.

The stimulus package passed by this House expanded opportunities for women and minorities in the transportation industry by investing in on-the-job training for them and even highway construction and transportation technology. It included technical assistance for them to obtain transportation infrastructure contracts, and is helping 3.5 million women students obtain higher education through the increases in the Pell Grant funding. It provided for key investments in early education by providing additional funding to increase Head Start enrollment by 65,000, creating 30,000 jobs for Head Start teachers and staff, while strengthening families, including some of the women-headed families.

Services for families and children were strengthened in the 111th Congress with the increased funding for child care development block grants and for programs to reduce violence against women.

In the 111th Congress, the Affordable Care Act increased access for the high number of uninsured women to access health care. For the insured, it made their insurance more secure, and it made it illegal for insurance companies to charge women more than men for the same coverage or to limit their choices by making caesarean deliveries or domestic violence preexisting conditions.

Our 1.8 million women veterans have the chance at improved health care with the expansion of the VA health care services by removing barriers and providing up to 7 days of care for newborn children of women veterans and by enhancing treatment for sexual trauma for women at the VA.

Much was done in the last Congress to enhance and protect the lives of women; but in this Congress, the 112th, it seems as though we are about to take giant steps backwards when it comes to the health, education, business, and finances of women and their families. The budget cuts being proposed to fund this year's budget and the next are definitely going to adversely impact the women of this country.

I see I have been joined by another of my colleagues, Congresswoman Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, and I would invite her to use as much time as she might consume or to enter in a dialogue if she would like.

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