Tenets of Faith

Floor Speech

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I came to this empty Chamber to discuss the issues of jobs and also the unemployment compensation extension, as well as taxes.

As I neared the well, I heard one of our esteemed Members condemning the President for persecuting religion in a very broad and general way and then later more specifically in talking about the Roman Catholic Church. It would seem to me in a place like the United States of America, which was actually formed on the basis of freedom of religion, that such a serious accusation against the President of these United States should not be to an empty Chamber.

This is such a serious allegation that it would seem to me that it requires and demands a bipartisan view to see exactly what the churches' or religious leaders' complaints are because I have one, too; and that is, at a time when this country is facing a fiscal, as well as moral, obligation to the most vulnerable people among us, I see the battle between the haves and the have-nots, the 1 percent and the 99 percent.

I hear the disputes as to whether or not the capitalistic system is fair, but I always took the position that the capitalistic system is an invitation of how Americans and others can invest and make money; and the question of compassion, the question of taking care of your own, the question of illness and jobs and the social issues of today, that it was the Congress that had the responsibility to deal with that rather than to be condemning those who seek to get returns on their investments.

Having said that, let's take a look and see what issues are biblical, what issues are in the Mormon faith, the Muslim faith, the Buddhist faith, the Jewish faith, Protestant and Catholic. It seems to me that throughout every one of these texts, there are things that say that we have a responsibility as human beings and God-fearing people to protect the vulnerable. It is abundantly clear, even in the story about the Good Samaritan. It is also a mandate that when someone is sick that we have a responsibility to assist them.

Certainly, when we talk about Jesus Christ in Matthew where these wealthy people are attempting to get into Heaven and Jesus tells them he was hungry, thirsty, unclothed, in jail, and they didn't do anything to assist him and they said that they don't remember Jesus ever coming asking for anything. Then of course the international world-famous biblical expression is that it wasn't how you treated Jesus, the Son of God, but it was how you treated the lesser of our brothers and sisters.

I think everyone would agree that whether you want to accuse the President of being the food-stamp President or saying he wants to bring socialism to the United States, all of that rhetoric doesn't hide the fact that the poorest of the poor now are suffering more than the people that caused this fiscal crisis.

If we are going to do something about the deficit, we just can't say we've got to cut spending, especially when that spending is exactly for the people that the spiritual leaders have made vows to protect.

Oh, we don't call it the sick and the disabled and the uneducated, but we do call it Medicaid; we do call it Medicare; we do call it Social Security; we do call it education; and we do call it the ability to get a job so that a person can have not only the income for his family to be able to have the dignity and respect it deserves, but we also have to recognize that from an economic point of view, it is the people who are in the middle class who are slipping into poverty that makes the difference. I hope that people will give serious thought to the accusation.

Source