Providing for Consideration of H. Con. Res. 96, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2015, and Providing for Proceedings During the Period from April 11, 2014, through Aprial 25, 2014
Floor Speech
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Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I join him in urging my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that we can immediately bring up H.R. 4415, which is identical to a bill that passed on a bipartisan basis by the Senate just last night.
It would extend emergency unemployment benefits to the 2 million Americans who have lost those benefits since Congress failed to act late last year.
I also will note that I read today a report that seven of my Republican House colleagues have written the Speaker urging him to bring this legislation up immediately as well. So we have bipartisan support for this effort to restore necessary benefits to individuals who have lost their job.
It takes an average of 37 weeks for someone who loses their job in this country to find their next opportunity. Yet, in my State, after 20 weeks, you are cut off of unemployment.
So while today is a beautiful spring day outside, and all across the country people are breathing in the optimism that comes with spring, for 2 million Americans, they look at this a different way. They go outside today and wonder if today is the day that the foreclosure notice will come, if today is the day that the eviction will be tacked on to their front door, if they will go outside and today will be the day that the car has been repossessed or that there won't be enough food to feed their family.
These are real-life Americans who are facing this struggle. We have it in our power to do something about it.
H.R. 4415, like the Senate action, is fully paid for. Despite the fact that, in the past, on a bipartisan basis, we have approved an unemployment insurance extension without it being paid for, this is paid for. It will not increase the deficit but will decrease the suffering of millions of American people who go every day trying to find their next job.
I have heard some on the other side say, well, we shouldn't do this because it is not an emergency. Well, if you are about to lose your house, or about to lose your apartment, or about to lose your car, or don't have enough food to feed your children, let me tell you, for them, maybe not for all of you, but for them it is an emergency, and this Congress can act, and it should act immediately.
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