Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Floor Speech

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Mr. Speaker, we have taken a first step to come together. Well, it is a bigger step than we have seen in a while, but let's remember, it is only a first step. And I think people have said a small step, but it is a step and I am as excited as some of you are saying that we have been able to do that.

However, and more than that, unfortunately, we have not been able to come together to keep up the safety net for 1.3 million unemployed Americans by extending emergency unemployment insurance. In fact, the problem of long-term unemployment is not even addressed. It wasn't even discussed at length. If you want to pull away the safety net and leave people with nothing, well, at least have some creative solutions for getting them back to work.

Now, like many of you, I have to go back to my district, my constituents in San Diego, who have been struggling to find work for so long and tell them that we could not come together to preserve their only means of subsistence.

So let's remember, as we take this step forward, let us keep working together to extend unemployment benefits for those in desperate need and start--let us start coming up with some bigger solutions to getting people back to work.

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