[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 99 (Thursday, June 14, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H5188-H5195]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1700
POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
General Leave
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and
include any extraneous material that they would bring on the subject of
this Special Order.
=========================== NOTE ===========================
June 14, 2018, on page H5188, the following appeared: The
SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. RASKIN) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their
remarks and include any extraneous material that they would bring
on the subject of this Special Order.
The online version has been corrected to read: The SPEAKER pro
tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2017,
the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. RASKIN) is recognized for 60
minutes as the designee of the minority leader. GENERAL LEAVE Mr.
RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their
remarks and include any extraneous material that they would bring
on the subject of this Special Order.
========================= END NOTE =========================
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Maryland?
There was no objection.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to take this hour with
several of my distinguished colleagues to talk about a matter of moral,
social, political, and economic urgency to the American people, which
is the vast group of Americans who are living in poverty today.
We are observing the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's
Poor People's March on Washington, the Poor People's Campaign, which he
was organizing and starting work on shortly before his assassination.
The Poor People's March on Washington took place even after the death
of Dr. King.
Today, there is a new Poor People's Campaign, a national call for
moral revival that has been working for the last 2 years, reaching out
to communities across the country, working in more than 35 States
across America in order to put in the very forefront of the public
consciousness the fact that tens of millions of our fellow citizens
simply don't have enough money to meet the basic needs of life.
The Poor People's Campaign has met with tens of thousands of
Americans and witnessed the courage and strength of a lot of poor
people across the country, and they have gathered testimony from
hundreds of individual Americans. A number of the testimonials will be
read this evening by Members of Congress in this Special Order.
The testimony we are going to read powerfully reinforces the
empirical assessment conducted by the Poor People's Campaign and the
Institute for Policy Studies about the effect of systemic poverty,
racism, ecological devastation, and militarism in the country. ``The
Souls of Poor Folk'' report reveals how the evils of these interrelated
problems are persistent, pervasive, and perpetuated by a distorted
moral narrative that must be challenged today.
We believe that, when Americans across the country see the faces and
the facts that are represented in this testimony and by this report,
America will be moved deeply to change things. When confronted with the
undeniable truth of the indignity and the cruelty of poor circumstances
that so many of our fellow Americans are living under, we believe that
millions more Americans will join the ranks of those who are determined
to see an end to poverty in our lifetime.
I am joined by a number of my colleagues this evening who will come
up
[[Page H5189]]
and read some of the testimonials as well as give thoughts of their
own. I will be interspersing some commentary of my own as I bring up my
colleagues. I am beginning first with my colleague Gwen Moore from
Wisconsin.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore),
who is a great leader for the people of Wisconsin and a terrific
spokesperson for poor people across the country.
Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, as you mentioned, the Poor People's Campaign
was a national call for a moral revival.
What we are doing here now: We are reengaging the Poor People's
Campaign for the nonviolent economic reform movement that the Reverend
Dr. Martin Luther King was organizing when he was assassinated in 1968.
This resurgence is being called the most extensive wave of nonviolent
direct action in our Nation's history. What this resurgence recognizes
is that Dr. King was right, that the trifecta of racism, poverty, and
militarism are interconnected. Today they are trapping more than 140
million Americans in poverty and low wealth, and many of them are
children and veterans.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk to you about one of Dr. King's
triple evils, militarism. I want to talk about it because we have a
total volunteer Army now. We don't have the draft. So the young people
who are being recruited into our military today are young people, often
from low-income households, who are seeking an opportunity, and they
are being seduced into the military with promises of technical
training, bonuses, and college.
I would like to share with you a letter from one of those people, Mr.
Brock McIntosh of Illinois. He says:
This way of injecting the poisonous drugs of hate into
veins of people, normally humane, cannot be reconciled with
wisdom, justice, and love.
I would like to tell you all about the precise moment I
realized that there was poison in me. I am the child of a
nurse and a factory worker in the heartland of Illinois, the
family of blue collar and service workers.
At the height of the Iraq war, military recruiters at my
high school attracted me with signup bonuses and college
assistance that some saw as their ticket out. For me, I hoped
it was my ticket up, providing opportunities that I once felt
were out of reach.
Two years later, when I was 20 years old, I was standing
over the body of a 16-year-old Afghan boy. A roadside bomb he
was building prematurely detonated. He was covered in
shrapnel and burns and now lay sedated after having one of
his hands amputated by our medics. His other hand had the
callused roughness of a farmer or a shepherd.
As he lay there with a peaceful expression, I studied the
details of his face and caught myself rooting for him: ``If
this boy knew me,'' I thought, ``he wouldn't want to kill
me.'' And here I am, I am supposed to want to kill him, and I
feel bad that I wanted him to live.
Now, that is the poisoned mind. That is the militarized
mind. And all the opportunities afforded me by the military
can't repay the cost of war on my soul.
It is poor folks who carry the burden of war for the elites
who send them. A working-class boy from Illinois, sent
halfway around the world to kill a young farmer--how did we
get here? How did this crazy war economy come to be?
First, there is the demand. A society that feels
perpetually threatened perpetually prepares for war, even in
the time of peace. To do this requires a military industrial
complex, a vast war economy whose charters, profits, stocks,
and jobs depend on permanent militarization and whose fortune
prospers most in times of war.
Secondly, there is the supply. A Nation that wants to
attract volunteers to its military and care for veterans
provides opportunities that will lure recruits who are
predominantly working-class folks with limited opportunities.
We need a Poor People's Campaign to amplify the voices like
this, of regular folks, above the lobby of a militarized
industry, a poisoned economy, to demand jobs in industries
other than war-making, to demand opportunities for working-
class folks that don't require killing other working-class
folks.
We need a Poor People's Campaign to demand justice for
people of color, killed by militarized police forces, a
poisoned law enforcement.
We need a Poor People's Campaign to transform a militarized
politic, a poisoned Congress, and a poisoned White House that
proves their toughness with chest beating and unites their
base with war drumming.
War always has a way of distracting our attention and
perverting our priorities. We need a Poor People's Campaign
to organize for racial, economic, and ecological justice, to
force these issues to the front and rectify our Nation's
agenda.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Moore for that powerful
testimony.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms.
Jayapal), my colleague.
Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership in
the Progressive Caucus and thank all my colleagues for the deep
devotion that they have shown over the years to addressing racism,
poverty, and inequality.
It is my honor to help bring a light, shine a light, on the stories
of men and women around the country who are fighting to make ends meet.
These are our neighbors, our brothers, our children, our parents, our
friends, and they are struggling.
Here is an incredible statistic: Across the United States today, 67
percent of all Americans do not even have $1,000 in their savings
accounts. That means they can't take care of a leak in the roof; they
can't take care of a sick child; and if they don't get paid sick days,
they don't get to take care of an aging parent. They are focused merely
on surviving and not on thriving. That is outrageous for a country of
our wealth.
It is time for us to lift up the American people who are the bedrock,
the national bedrock, of our country: the teacher who spends more time
with our children than any other but hasn't yet been compensated for
that; the domestic workers and the caregivers who take care of our
elderly, our homes, and our lives with their grace, strength,
compassion, and efficiency; the laborers who build the foundations of
the homes and the workplaces that we stand on, live and work in; the
women in every single industry who have faced disrespect, unequal pay,
but are the glue that hold our society and our families together; the
farmworkers who pick the food we eat; the nurses who listen to our
hearts and bring us back to wellness; the sanitation workers; the parks
people; the oceanographers; the scientists; the servers; the artists;
the advocates who shine a light on the most vulnerable, the poorest,
among us.
These are the people who have come together as the Poor People's
Campaign under the incredible leadership, the visionary leadership, of
Reverend William Barber, and with a huge coalition of organizations to
fight against racism, poverty, inequality, militarism, and ecological
devastation that continue to plague our country still today.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to join Representative Raskin and others as
we tell their stories today. I am proud to stand with these courageous
soldiers for peace and for justice as we fight for equity, and I thank
them for leading with love, with generosity, and with abundance.
One of those people is Reverend Sarah Monroe from my home State of
Washington. I wanted to start by reading her testimony:
I wanted to start by speaking to the context I am in. I am
speaking as a Christian theologian. I am speaking as a person
working in one of the least religious parts of the country.
And I am also speaking, more specifically, as a pastor and an
Episcopal priest in Grays Harbor County. This is a rural
community on the Pacific coastline of Washington State.
I also grew up in this county. We face a postindustrial
economy. Timber was our main industry, and today it is gone.
We live in a context where 46 percent of our people are on
public assistance and one out of 25 people are homeless. We
are a majority White community just south of the Quinault
Indian Nation, who were and continue to be victims of
genocide.
We have very little legal industry to employ our people,
which means that our people turn to a black-market economy
that most often sells and trades drugs, sex, just about
everything else, and also brings our young people into
extensive gang involvement.
So many of our most struggling people, both White and
Native, are very young. They are millennials. They are
teenagers who have never had a steady income, many of whom
have been incarcerated as young as 8.
So, in this context, morally, we face a lot of issues, and
three of those I want to talk about right now.
First, we as an organization are committed to lifting up
the leadership and the agency of poor and struggling people.
e:
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We believe that God takes the side of the poor. And we
believe that Jesus built the poor people's movement. We
believe in raising up young leaders from the streets, from
the jails, from the homeless encampments, from the trailer
parks in Grays Harbor County. And we believe that they are
the only
[[Page H5190]]
moral voices that can save us and that can lead us to
liberation.
We believe that the outcasts and the sex workers and the
drug addicted will find their own healing and will bring that
healing to us all. We believe that no poor people's movement
or campaign can be built without this fundamental commitment.
As one example of that, we had a group over this past
Easter of young men in jail, and they organized their own
Bible study. They fasted and prayed. And they came to us and
said, from Isaiah 58, which they were reading and studying,
that they were called to be the Restorers of the Streets with
Dwellings.
Second, in this county, as in so many other places across
this country, we face the moral issue of State violence. What
I mean by this is that poor people in this country are
systematically disenfranchised at every turn. That means that
the county has money for militarized police equipment, but
not for housing. The county and the cities in this county
have resources for consultants to build the tourist industry,
but not for providing a path out of poverty for young people.
But what I also mean is that our people across lines of
race face extensive police brutality. Death, beatings,
shakedowns, and the use--and really the extensive use--of a
bench warrant system that ensures that if you are young and
you are poor, you are likely to have a warrant that allows
you to be stopped or chased at any time.
Most of our young people go from the juvenile system to an
early felony for drug possession or property crime and spend
most of their lives in and out of jail and prison where they
also experience extensive and institutionalized violence.
State power now, as in the time of Jesus, is used to
violently repress people and to deprive them of their rights.
But last, we are theologically committed to hope. And for
us, hope is not a feeling, because we face powers that are
larger than us at every turn, and we know that we face
impossible odds. We face a staggering amount of personal and
communal trauma. We openly stand against the narrative of
White supremacy that has often been fed to our people, and we
believe in the power of the Gospel.
We believe in the power of the moral voice of the people
waking up and claiming their own dignity, even when they are
taught to deny it at every turn. Claiming their own power
when they are taught that they are powerless. We believe that
we are a resurrection people. Even when Jesus was murdered by
empire, and I said this in a sermon a couple of years ago for
Easter, that he rose again, and, in rising, God gave the
finger to every power in this world that seeks to oppress the
poor and keep us down.
I thank the reverend from our community for that testimony and that
story. We have other stories, but I want to make sure other Members
have a chance to tell theirs as well.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Jayapal for her eloquent
statement and thank her for her leadership here in Congress.
One of the shocking findings of the Poor People's Campaign is that
there are nearly 140 million Americans, more than 43 percent of people
in our country who are either legally poor, living below the poverty
line, or low income in the United States, which is the world's richest
Nation, and we are at the richest moment in our history today.
And yet, we still have 140 million people who simply don't have
enough money to meet the basic expenses of existence. This should not
be a matter of partisan politics. It should be a matter of concern to
everybody on both sides of the aisle and across the political spectrum.
Here is President Dwight Eisenhower speaking in April of 1953. On
April 16, 1953, he said:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every
rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from
those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are
not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its
scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern
bomber, President Eisenhower said, is this: a modern brick
school in more than 30 cities, 2 electric power plants, 2
hospitals, a half million bushels of wheat, 8,000 new homes.
And he said:
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense, this
cloud of threatening war that is paid for by the treasure of
our people.
So we are appealing to people across the political spectrum at this
time of roaring stock market and trumpeted claims of great wealth and
bounty in the society to look at the costs of social and economic
inequality; that is, what it is like looking, not from the top down,
but from the bottom up at the situation with wealth in America.
I am delighted now to yield to the gentleman from California (Mr.
Khanna), my distinguished colleague, who has been a great champion of
putting the question of poverty and economic inequality at the
forefront of our discussions here.
Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Raskin for his
leadership in putting focus on the Poor People's Campaign and his
advocacy for so many issues of economic justice and racial justice.
I want to join my colleagues in recognizing the extraordinary moment
in this country that the Poor People's Campaign has had under Reverend
Barber's leadership. There was a panel that Senator Warren had a few
days ago where Reverend Barber was there and ordinary individuals were
testifying about their experiences, the people we should be hearing in
Congress.
I want to share two quotes, and then share some testimony.
One is what Reverend Barber said, which, in my view, makes him one of
the great civil rights leaders in this country. He said:
I would rather join with you and die trying to change the
moral direction of this Nation than to live and die and it be
written on my epitaph: ``Lived in the time when moral dissent
was necessary. And he, and they, said nothing.''
That requires such courage, and it is so believable.
When Dr. Barber was with a number of others at the hearing, they had
this chant that before the Poor People's Campaign will fail, they will
go to jail. And that sense of civil disobedience for a moral cause is
part of the great tradition of our Nation and what has brought change.
I want to thank Reverend Barber for being such a moral leader and
everyone who is risking arrest, risking their life for justice.
Now, I am honored to read the testimony of Paul Boden, who is the
Western Regional Advocacy Project lead in my home State of California.
He writes:
My name is Paul Boden, and I am with the Western Regional
Advocacy Project lead. We are based out of California,
Colorado, and Oregon with core member groups doing local
organizing around poverty and homelessness issues in 10
communities. I am testifying today about the advent of
contemporary homelessness in the early 1980s and the
connection to neoliberal economics and how that has played
out over the past 35 years.
In doing this research, we found that with 2 less attack
submarines, 29 less fighter jets, and 2 less combat ships, we
would more than triple all of the funding that is currently
dedicated to public housing capital investments, public
housing maintenance, and all of the Federal homeless
programs. Clearly, these spending priorities have nothing to
do with security or the need for an investment in our
military complex.
As part of the consequence of the advent of homelessness
that this kind of approach to governance created, we've
spoken to 1,600 homeless communities, and 82 percent of them
have reported that they are getting arrested, harassed, and
ticketed. And we know the fines-and-fee-games that local
governments play. 77 percent of these people are getting that
same kind of policing activity for sitting or laying down on
a sidewalk. 75 percent for loitering. Sleeping, standing, and
sitting are criminal offenses when you are the population
that is being targeted by local government for removal from
those communities. And this is happening, unfortunately, in
communities across the United States.
My research also brought out very clearly and undeniably
that these are the same policing programs, these are the same
laws, the same racist and classist policing programs that
were used with the Anti-Okie laws, with the Sundown towns,
with the Japanese-American Exclusion Act, with the ugly laws,
and with the Jim Crow laws. The darker your skin color, the
greater your disability, the poorer you are, you are way more
likely to be a target of these policing programs, and that is
the way it has been playing out for years.
We have written legislation and gotten it introduced in
California, Oregon, and Colorado. We had introduced it 8
times. We got crushed 8 times. But we are going to keep
bringing it back until the final answer is yes. Our law, our
legislation would make it illegal for local government to
criminalize life-sustaining activities and activities that we
all commit: eating, sleeping, sitting, standing still. We all
do that. To criminalize doing it is to purposely and
maliciously create legislation specifically aimed at
enforcement only applying to some people. That is us, all of
us.
Paul Boden's words are ones I hope this entire country will hear. And
as we are listening to the voices of so many people marching in our
streets in Washington, I hope we will take some inspiration from their
courage, their courage far exceeding any of ours in this body, and be
inspired to do the
[[Page H5191]]
right thing and fight for economic justice and the policies that they
recommend that would help alleviate poverty and help the working poor
and poor people across this Nation.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Khanna so much for his very
moving statement that he made.
I yield now to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), my
colleague, who has been a terrific champion for economic equity and
social justice in our country. I am delighted to yield to her now.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congressman Raskin for
his leadership, consistent leadership, on these issues. And certainly,
I think, the recognition of the fact that the poor of this Nation, both
in the biblical sense of our faith or the document of your faith, the
poor have always been acknowledged, and, in a certain sense, in the
Christian Bible honored.
And it is a sad state of affairs for us to come to this point in the
Nation to realize that our poor are suffering at large numbers and that
there is no relief.
I know that Dr. King, some 50 years ago, as he was planning the Poor
People's march--and many of us realized that he was not able to fulfill
it for he was shot by an assassin's bullet on April 4, 1968. But the
valiant people went forward with his dream of eliminating poverty. And
I am reminded of his words: Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
And so I speak today of the sprinkling, the harsh sprinkling of
poverty and injustices in this Nation today, and I make it a very
special message to the leader of the free world, who has every power to
collaborate with this important body, to make commitments to end the
very conditions that Dr. King, some 50 years ago, sought to come to
Washington that was ultimately proceeded with by leaders of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference and poor people from around
the Nation.
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They might not have succeeded specifically, but they did bring to the
Nation's eyes and hearts the violence of poverty among Native
Americans, Latinos, African Americans, poor, and Caucasians in places
beyond the South. And, interestingly enough, that poverty continues.
I speak, in particular, of certain elements that show our lack of
concern and where we must get steady and back on track. First, what all
of us have been speaking about over the last couple of days and weeks
is the untoward and the impossible thought of taking children away from
parents who are fleeing poverty, violence, and desperation to come.
We know that, in my home State of Texas, a migrant was separated from
his family and committed suicide while in Federal detention. Injustice
anywhere is injustice everywhere. And a mother, while breastfeeding her
young child, while both were in Federal detention, had her child ripped
away from her arms. That must stop. That is a poverty of mind, a
poverty of heart and spirit.
I want to thank Reverend Barber, who will be headed to Washington on
June 23 with the massive, largest expression of those who still,
unfortunately, live in the shadows, not of their own making. When I say
that, they are not in the shadows, they are there, but seeming there in
the shadows with respect to the policies of this administration, the
terrible Robin Hood tax bill that has created nothing but a balloon of
wealth to the top 1 percent, so much so that the wages of Americans
have not gone up. When you travel throughout the country and in my
district, most people don't know, working Americans have no idea that
any tax bill was passed that was supposed to impact them because it has
not impacted them, and the only thing that is happening is a flush of
corporate profits.
Now, it would seem that one is criticizing that success. We are
criticizing the unequalness of what happens to working families who
work every day and have not had a wage increase.
Then out of that comes the implosion of the Affordable Care Act,
brick by brick being taken away. I know of people who have told me that
their loved one was put in a wheelchair and pointed toward the door:
Get out. And the Affordable Care Act provided that there were no caps
on one's insurance until you got better in the hospital. But because of
the atmosphere, and the climate, and the constant attack on the
Affordable Care Act, hospitals are feeling the burden and are sending
people out the door who are not well.
Even more frightening for people are those who have preexisting
conditions, one of the glaring parts of the Affordable Care Act, one
where people were waving the flag. They were excited, if they had a
preexisting condition, which, before the Affordable Care Act, it could
have been acne or it could have been pregnancy. But now, that coverage
and protection for our loved ones who may have preexisting conditions,
loved ones who could function with healthcare and not be relegated to
be homebound because they were so sick they could not work.
This is a terrible approach to how you run a country.
In these last two points, I want to make it clear how important it is
to recognize that poverty still is. And not only Dr. King, but we
recognize that Robert Francis Kennedy, also struck down by an
assassin's bullet, worked in his campaign for President in 1968 to
bring to the attention of Americans the fact that it is so important to
realize poverty exists in the worst way in the mountains and valleys,
and urban centers, and that Americans should stand up against poverty.
Poverty impacts the criminal justice system. In 1968, African
Americans were about five to four times as likely as Whites to be
imprisoned, or jailed. Compared to today, they are six to four times as
likely as Whites to be incarcerated, which is troubling, given the
population difference.
As Judge Learned Hand observed, ``If we are to keep our democracy,
there must be one commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.''
It is important that, as we match meaningful prison reform, we must
match it with meaningful sentencing reduction. We must stop the tide of
poverty by ending mass incarceration. And we must, in fact, recognize
that we must fight against recidivism, open the doors of opportunity
for ex-felons as they come out, and make sure that we are reducing
those mandatory minimums that have kept people in jail 15, 20, 25, or
30 years away from their family so that their children grow up without
them.
We must recognize that poverty attacks at a very young age. It moves
people toward the juvenile justice system, and it only causes them to
believe this is the only thing that they can engage in. I have
introduced legislation to give hope to the juvenile justice system: no
more solitary confinement; alternative placement; and if they are able,
as they rehabilitate, we ban the box on saying that they have been in
the juvenile system.
I want to stop homelessness. That is what Dr. King knew had to end to
end that aspect of poverty, and to, of course, end it among our
veterans.
I want to end the idea of $23 billion out of SNAP's program.
And, of course, I want to recognize that when we have these
devastating storms, the amount of homelessness goes up. It is so very
important to recognize the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, that there
are those who are still unhoused, and to make a commitment after every
disaster that we make those communities whole: volcanos, tornadoes,
fires, and floods.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for allowing us to be here
tonight. And I want to conclude by showing this Robin Hood tax bill,
stealing from the poor. This year, the administration, President Trump,
proposed to slash housing benefits by $11 billion because we had to pay
for the tax cut. Weeks after that tax cut was passed, President Trump
proposed to pay for the bill by slashing housing benefits and other
supports for low-income people who struggle to make ends meet. And here
we stand with the $1.5 trillion deficit.
So, what is our message? That we must never give up in this fight. We
must stand in the tradition of Dr. King. We must be reminded of those
who are coming to Washington in the coming days. We must say to have
mercy on them. And, of course, as Reverend Barber would always seek,
that they be blessed, blessed with mercy and success, as they stand
against poverty and stand for the ending and elimination of poverty
[[Page H5192]]
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Congressional Progressive Caucus for
anchoring this important Special Order.
In the spirit of the 50th Anniversary of the Poor People's Campaign,
we are here today to bring the nation's attention to the issues that
affect them: immigration, health care, paid sick leave, criminal
justice, homelessness, and environmental justice.
We must act without delay regarding the ``zero-tolerance'' policy
that separates families apprehended on the southern border by U.S.
Border Patrol.
As the member of the House Committees on Homeland Security and former
Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Maritime and
Border Security, I cannot think of a situation more devastating than
having the government forcibly separate a parent from her child to a
place unknown, for a fate uncertain, absent any form of communication.
Every day, hundreds of persons, ranging from infants and toddlers to
adolescents and adults, flee violence, oppression, and economic
desperation from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, seeking safe
harbor in the United States.
They are not criminals or terrorists, they are refugees seeking
asylum.
The level of callousness displayed by this administration towards
those seeking refuge within our borders is shocking.
Every day that passes seemingly reveals another horrific tale of a
migrant interacting with Trump's border patrol forces and then being
worse for the wear because of it.
We know of the immigrant who was deported to Mexico, a country he
left when he was three years old, only to be murdered by gang violence
just three weeks after his forced return.
We know of the young mother, separated from her children at the
border, left to wonder about their fate, safety, future, and whether
she would ever see them again.
In my home state of Texas, a migrant who was separated from his
family, committed suicide while in federal detention.
A mother who, while breastfeeding her young child when both were in
federal detention, had her child ripped away from her arms.
This cannot be how we make America great again, this is how we make
America hateful again.
This week brought news that the Trump administration is seeking to
build a tent city at Fort Bliss for the purpose of housing children
separated from their parents.
This is unconscionable, outrageous and it must stop.
I have written to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security calling for an immediate end to this policy.
America is the envy of the world, in large part because of our
welcoming and generous nature.
For over 100 years, those seeking a better life have been drawn to
this land by the words on the Statue of Liberty: ``Give me your tired,
your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched
refuse of your teeming shore.''
The current president fails this obligation, but he is who he is.
We must be who we are: a loving, embracing people, eager to share the
bounty of this country to all who seek it.
The President and GOP have promised for years now to create a plan to
improve health insurance for everybody.
But that promise has not been kept.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has significantly improved the
availability, affordability, and quality of health care for tens of
millions of Americans, including millions who previously had no health
insurance at all.
Americans are rightly frightened by Republican attempts to repeal the
ACA without having in place a superior new plan that maintains
comparable coverages and comparable consumer choices and protections.
It is beyond dispute that the ``Pay More For Less'' plan proposed by
House Republicans a few months ago fails this test miserably.
The Republican ``Pay More For Less Act'' is a massive tax cut for the
wealthy, paid for on the backs of America's most vulnerable, the poor
and working class households.
This ``Robin Hood in reverse'' bill is unprecedented and breathtaking
in its audacity--no bill has ever tried to give so much to the rich
while taking so much from the poor and working class.
This Republican scheme gives gigantic tax cuts to the rich, and pays
for it by taking insurance away from 24 million people and raising
costs for the poor and middle class.
It is despicable and shameful that those elected to serve their
people would rather see their pockets full than their constituents
healthy and well.
Fifty years or so ago the American Labor Movement was little more
than a group of dreamers, and look at it now.
From coast to coast, in factories, stores, warehouse and business
establishments of all kinds, industrial democracy is at work.
From ending sweatshop conditions, unlivable wages, and 70-hour
workweeks, we have come a long way from our practices over 100 years
ago.
However, we still have work to be done.
Currently in America, there are no federal legal requirements for
paid sick leave.
For companies subject to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the
Act does require unpaid sick leave and are only eligible to take FMLA
after they have worked for their employer for at least 12 months,
worked for at least 1,250 hours over the previous 12 months, and work
at a location where at least 50 employees are employed by the employer
within 75 miles.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, state and local
government workers were more likely than workers in private industry to
have access to paid sick leave but less likely to have access to paid
vacations and holidays.
As with workers in private industry, state and local government
workers in the lower wage categories were less likely to have access to
paid sick leave than workers in higher wage categories.
Workers in lower wage categories were less likely to have access to
paid sick leave than more highly paid workers.
For private-industry workers with an average wage in the lowest 10
percent, 27 percent had access to paid sick leave; among workers with
an average wage in the highest 10 percent, 87 percent had access to
paid sick leave.
This is an atrocity.
We must allow for all of our constituents to be able to work within a
healthy environment.
In 1968, African Americans were about 5.4 times as likely as whites
to be in prison or jail; compared to today, African Americans are 6.4
times as likely as whites to be incarcerated, which is especially
troubling given that whites are also much more likely to be
incarcerated now than they were in 1968.
It is clear the inequalities and disparities that ignited hundreds of
American cities in the 1960s still exist and have not been eliminated
over the last half-century.
As Judge Learned Hand observed, ``If we are to keep our democracy,
there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.''
Reforming the criminal justice system so that it is fairer and
delivers equal justice to all persons is one of the great moral
imperatives of our time.
For reform to be truly meaningful, we must look at every stage at
which our citizens interact with the system--from policing in our
communities and the first encounter with law enforcement, to the
charging and manner of attaining a conviction, from the sentence
imposed to reentry and collateral consequences.
The need for meaningful prison reform cannot be overstated because
being the world's leader in incarceration is neither morally nor
fiscally sustainable for the United States, or the federal government,
the nation's largest jailer.
For individuals who have paid their debt, the reentry process is
paved with tremendous, and often insurmountable, obstacles resulting in
recidivism rates as high as 75 percent in some areas.
More must be done to ensure that the emphasis on incarceration is
matched with an equal emphasis on successful reentry so that the
approximately 630,000 individuals who reenter society each year are
prepared to be successful in civilian life.
This is why I have also strongly supported and cosponsored
legislation that will allow those with a criminal conviction to have a
fair chance to compete for jobs with federal agencies and contractors.
I have also been working for many years to stop the over-
criminalization of our young people.
Today, more and more young children are being arrested, incarcerated,
and detained in lengthy out-of-home placements.
Harsh and lengthy penalties handed down to young offenders increase
their risk of becoming physically abused, emotionally traumatized, and
reduce their chance of being successfully reintegrated back into their
communities.
I have introduced and supported legislation to help reform how youth
and juveniles are treated to reduce contact and recidivism within the
juvenile and criminal justice system; to help protect them from a
system that turns them into life-long offenders.
Just as we need to minimize the conviction of innocent people, we
must address the unnecessary loss of life that can result from police
and civilian interactions.
Effective law enforcement requires the confidence of the community
that the law will be enforced impartially and equally.
That confidence has been eroded substantially in recent years by
numerous instances of excessive use of lethal forces.
There is no higher priority than improving the peacefulness of these
interactions and rebuilding the trust between law enforcement and the
communities they serve and protect.
Currently, over half a million people in the United States on any
given night are experiencing homelessness.
[[Page H5193]]
Now that Congress has lifted the low spending caps required by law
for defense and domestic programs, lawmakers should ensure the highest
level of funding possible for affordable housing.
When U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)'s
resources are cut, families may lose access to stable housing, putting
them at increased risk of homelessness.
This year, President Trump proposed to slash housing benefits by $11
billion compared to current levels.
Weeks after passing a massive tax bill that grows our deficit by $1.5
trillion, the President proposed to pay for the tax bill by slashing
support for low income people who struggle to make ends meet.
HUD and The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) affordable
housing programs have lifted millions of families out of poverty.
Without this investment, many of these families would be homeless,
living in substandard or overcrowded conditions, or struggling to meet
other basic needs.
As well, homelessness among the American veteran population is on the
rise in the United States and we must be proactive in giving back to
those who have given so much to us.
Today, in our country, there are approximately 107,000 veterans (male
and female) who are homeless on any given night.
And perhaps twice as many (200,000) experience homelessness at some
point during the course of a year.
We have an obligation to provide our veterans the assistance needed
to avoid homelessness, which includes adequately funding for programs
such as Veterans Administration Supportive Housing (VASH) that provide
case-management services, adequate housing facilities, mental health
support, and address other areas that contribute to veteran
homelessness.
We must commit ourselves to the hard but necessary work of ending
veteran homelessness in America because providing a home for veterans
to come home to every night is the very least we can do.
As one of the original members of the House Committee on Homeland
Security, I am well aware of the range of threats that our nation has
faced.
However, I believe that the threats posed by climate change have been
ignored to our nation's detriment.
Climate change is the challenge of our lifetime and for far too many
years we have heard the warnings from prominent scientists regarding
the danger to people if nothing is done to reverse the amounts of Green
House gases released into the atmosphere.
All of you will recall the devastation that Hurricane Harvey wreaked
on the Houston community last fall.
Neither Houston nor any other city in the nation had ever experienced
flooding of the magnitude caused by Harvey.
In addition to the immense costs of recovery and reconstruction, the
cost of human lives is always immeasurable.
If we do not collectively and concretely address the looming threat
of climate change, we must prepare for many more devastating natural
disasters that destroy lives and livelihoods.
In 2015, the Pentagon published a report that found climate change to
be a security risk, because it degrades living conditions, human
security and the ability of governments to meet the basic needs of
their populations.
Communities within the United States and countries around the world
that already are fragile and have limited resources are significantly
more vulnerable to disruption and far less likely to respond
effectively and be resilient to new challenges caused by climate
change.
The poor and marginalized who live in areas that already prone to the
consequences of severe weather because the land was cheaper or unwanted
by developers will suffer the early consequence of climate change, but
the damage will not stop there it will be felt by all.
As many of you well know, Greenhouse Gases such as carbon dioxide
(CO2) absorb heat (infrared radiation) emitted from Earth's
surface.
Increases in these concentrations of these gases in Earth's
atmosphere are causing our planet to warm by trapping more of this
heat.
Warmer temperatures have caused the Arctic Ice sheets to melt at an
unprecedented rate.
This winter we have seen extreme temperature swings in some parts of
the country, while in others they have seen no winter at all.
We are at a point where we can no longer wait for action only from
Washington D.C., we must begin to take action in our own cities,
counties and states to prepare for the challenges we will face if the
rise in temperatures is not abated.
It will continue my efforts in Washington to make sure that we have
flood study of the greater Houston area to determine the implications
of flooding and development in our area.
I urge my colleagues in Congress, and all Americans, to look at what
unites us rather than what divides us.
We are linked by our compassion, and bound by the fundamental edict
of the American Dream that says we will strive to provide our children
with a better life than we had.
We can, and we must, find the common ground necessary to make this
dream a reality for Americans of every race and creed, nationality and
religion, gender and sexual orientation; indeed for every American
wherever he or she may live in this great land regardless of what he or
she looks like or who they may love.
We can do it; after all, we are Americans.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Jackson Lee for her
eloquent words.
There is a distinction between misfortune and injustice. I know this
because I am somebody who is a cancer survivor. If you wake up one day
and a doctor tells you that you are suffering from stage III colon
cancer, and you have not one but two jobs that you love, and
constituents that you love, and work that you are engaged with, and a
great family, and you are told that you have this terrible diagnosis,
it can happen to anybody, and that is a misfortune in life. It happens
to people in every State, in every city, and in every country all over
the world every day.
But, if you get a diagnosis like that and you can't get healthcare
because you are too poor, or because you lost your job, or because, as
it used to be, you loved the wrong person, that is not just a
misfortune in life, that is an injustice because we can do something
about that. We know how to organize society in such a way that
everybody gets healthcare, that everybody gets the attention they need
in the event of a catastrophic diagnosis like that.
Life is hard enough with all of the sicknesses, the illnesses, the
misfortunes, and the accidents that we don't need to compound the
misfortunes of life with governmentally imposed injustice on people.
The role of government has to be to liberate people from injustice and
to alleviate the misfortunes of life.
But now we have, here in Washington, a whole new public philosophy,
which is government is a moneymaking operation for the President, and
the President's friends, and the President's business associates, and
the people who surround him. That is the new royalist vision of
government that we have in America. It is a betrayal of the original
conception, which is that government would be an instrument of the
common good of advancing the public interest of everybody in the
country, not just the people who happen to use their wealth and their
power to get into public office.
Now, if you are poor in America today, you have a lot of problems.
You have problems with healthcare. We know that health crises remain
the single dominant cause of personal bankruptcy, not business
bankruptcy, the kind that the President of the United States filed for
five different times. Business bankruptcy is not caused by a sickness
or an illness. Donald Trump was perfectly covered in healthcare while
his businesses went bankrupt and he got covered. But we have millions
of Americans who have been forced into bankruptcy because someone got
sick and we didn't have a national health insurance policy to take care
of them and they didn't have the private health insurance that they
needed.
As Congresswoman Jayapal told us, two-thirds of Americans don't have
$1,000 to deal with a personal crisis, whether it is a healthcare
crisis or something else. They don't have $1,000 to deal with it. And
we know that for a serious kind of diagnosis, the bills can run in the
tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Education is affected by poverty. It affects where you can live, what
kind of schools your kids go to, and, if you have to move a lot the way
that a lot of poor people do, it is disruptive of the continuity that
the educators tell us is necessary for young people to make progress in
school, if you are constantly being uprooted and shifted to another
school or you have to deal with the various crises and agonies that
attend to homelessness.
Well, what about voting? Well, here is someone who provided some
testimony about voting, from Kansas City, Missouri. Her name is Latifah
Trezvant, with Stand Up Kansas City. She writes this:
[[Page H5194]]
My name is Latifah Trezvant, and I work at Burger King,
where I make $9.50 an hour. I am a leader with Stand Up
Kansas City. As a low wage worker in America, I deal with a
lot. I don't have paid sick leave, and I don't make enough
money to afford all my basic needs, like a stable place to
live. And now, Missouri lawmakers want to make it harder for
people like me to vote.
Earlier this year, we weren't able to afford our rent and
had to move out on a moment's notice. In the rush to pack up
all my stuff and find some place where I can lay my head, I
lost my ID. So I had to get a new State-issued ID. Should be
pretty simple, right?
I go to the DMV office, and I am already knowing that I had
to have proof of address. As I walk to the window, I tell the
lady I need a new ID. She asked for my proof of address and I
show her my debit card statement. Immediately, she tells me,
``There is nothing I can do for you.'' And she gives me a
piece of paper of the things I needed to use:
A utility bill--I don't have that because I am homeless and
I stay with a friend.
A paycheck--I don't have a paycheck because I had to leave
my last job when I couldn't afford reliable transportation so
I could get to work.
A government check--I don't have that.
A mortgage statement--well, I sure don't have that because
I am a low-wage worker and I can't even afford rent, let
alone a mortgage statement.
Property tax--no.
A housing rental contract--well, I am homeless, so no.
A bank statement--I don't have a bank account. I don't have
enough money to open up a bank account and deal with all
those fees and penalties.
Okay, so here, I am looking at this long list that I do not
have. I am so upset. I am standing in line looking at this
paper with tears running down my face.
But there is one more way I can prove that I am a Missouri
resident: a voter registration card. Okay, I actually have
that because I plan on voting this year, for the first time
in my life, so I had to register back in March. So I go into
the election board and get a voter form to take back to the
DMV. Two days later, I finally get my ID.
There are so many people in my shoes: unpaid workers living
in poverty, our elderly people, people who don't have a
State-issued ID. For us, it can be really hard, or even
impossible, to get an ID.
{time} 1745
If Missouri passes amendment 6--which is an attempt to
restrict who could actually register to vote--over 220,000
people may lose their right to vote in our State. The people
who would be disenfranchised would be mostly elderly,
students, and low-wage workers like myself. Please make sure
that all people in our country have the right to vote. Fight
for America to be a country of freedom, justice, and equal
rights for everyone.
There is one more. Because my grandfather used to say to us, you
know, it is very expensive to be poor, and a lot of these statements
that I read dealt with the way that people are essentially charged or
taxed for being poor. So here is one that comes from Kentucky.
My name is Mary Love, and I have testified in Frankfort,
Kentucky, and other places about the payday lending trap.
Fourteen years ago, when I was making a pretty good salary, I
came up short one month when the rent was due. I saw an ad
for a payday lender and I thought, ``This will be a good way
to cover the rent until I get to payday.'' So I applied for
their $200 loan. I gave them a check for $230, and I walked
away with the cash that I needed.
When payday came around, I went into their office and gave
them $230 in cash, and I got my check back. But I wanted to
pay off a few more bills, so I wrote them another check that
same day for $400 plus $60 interest, and I walked away with
$400 cash. Next payday, I did the same thing, and the next
and the next and on and on for 2 years.
Because I was paying them an exorbitant amount of
interest--$60 every 2 weeks--I could never catch up. Someone
told me that I paid over $1,400 in interest over 2 years, but
I sat down with my computer and recalculated that, and I
ended up paying them almost $2,880 in interest charges over 2
years.
Payday lending as advertised is a one-time solution for
emergency financial needs, but all too often the story
doesn't end there. Many people like me get loan after loan
and end up paying an exorbitant amount of interest. I was
finally able to pay all my outstanding debts, but it took me
over 2 years to do it.
The payday loan industry is making millions every year by
charging exorbitant interest rates and driving consumers
deeper into debt. I believe the Bible has something to say
about folks engaged in usury. It is past time that
politicians stopped letting them engage in this criminal
practice.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to yield back to my friend, Ms. Jayapal, who
has come back with further testimony to read.
Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Raskin for yielding.
You know, that story about payday lending just reminded me of how in
the State senate right before I came here, we had to fight back to make
sure we stopped the rollback, because we actually were able, with
activists from around our community, to pass some of the strongest laws
that prevented payday lenders from taking advantage of people, with
great off-ramps.
Unfortunately, there were over and over again attempts to try to roll
those back, and we at the Federal level need to make sure that the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is strong, so that we can make
sure that these folks are not getting trapped in payday lending.
So I know we are running short on time. I want to make sure we get
some of these read. So let me read another one from my home State. This
is testimony from Mashyla Buckmaster.
I am 28 years old. I am a proud single mom of a beautiful
1-year-old named Ella. As of today, I am celebrating almost 2
years clean and sober. I live in Westport in Grays Harbor
County, Washington. I have spent 5 years of my life homeless.
Once during my homelessness, a neighbor tried to assault me
by throwing a log through the window of the empty building
where I was squatting because he was so enraged that homeless
people were living on his block.
I got Section 8 housing after my daughter was born just
before my organization began providing cold weather shelter
to our homeless members. For 110 days last winter, Chaplains
on the Harbor hosted about 20 people in our church, most of
them millennials who caught a record trying to survive in a
county with no good jobs; no decent, affordable housing;
horrible healthcare; and plenty of heroin.
Business and property owners were outraged by our cold
weather shelter. Our homeless members were stalked by police.
Our pastor was threatened with vigilante violence. The same
man who had tried to attack me during my own time squatting
also assaulted a 19-year-old homeless member of our community
on church property and later attempted to run him over with a
truck.
I volunteered to stay overnight at our church and keep
people safe while they slept. I stayed there through the
nights while the threats continued to pour in. I stayed
because my community stepped up to save my life, when the
rest of society didn't care whether I lived or died, and now
it was my turn to protect my community.
I am joining the Poor People's Campaign because I need a
movement that is as tough as I am.
Poor and homeless people get stereotyped like we are too
stupid or lazy to solve our own problems. I wasn't homeless
because I was stupid and lazy. I was homeless because our
country has no problem with pregnant mothers being homeless
in the dead of the winter, while just 2 hours away in
Seattle, the founders of Microsoft and Amazon have made
themselves the richest individuals on the planet. You tell me
who is messed up in this situation.
Some of you might be suspicious about a Grays Harbor County
person getting up in front of this crowd, thinking, ``Aren't
they just a bunch of rednecks out there?'' Hell, yes, we are
rednecks. We are radical rednecks. We are hillbillies for the
liberation of all people. ``We are the living reminder that
when they threw out their white trash, they didn't burn it.''
We are here to stand shoulder to shoulder with anybody
taking up this campaign, and trust me, we are the kind of
Scrappy you want on your side in a fight.
Mr. Raskin, that testimony resonates for me, because I represent
Seattle where we do have some of the biggest corporations. But I will
tell you what, we also have 11,500 homeless people in Seattle. And it
has been breaking my heart that my community, so tolerant, so
wonderful, so inclusive, has been, unfortunately, turning anger of
inequality in our system against people who are experiencing
homelessness just like the testimony I just read.
I want to read another one that also strikes home for me, because it
is a testimony from the Fight for $15 in Massachusetts. As you know, I
was proud to be on the committee that passed a $15 minimum wage in
Seattle, proud to be one of the first cities in the Fight for $15.
This is testimony from Deanna Butler, and this is from August of
2016. She is in Massachusetts. I think I said that.
I am a 31-year-old resident of the Dorchester area. I am a
fast-food worker and a member of the Fight for $15. I have
been working in the fast-food industry for over 15 years. I
work at the Shake Shack, and I make $11 an hour as an end
cashier. I am married with three children ages 8, 14, and 15.
My check is the only income for my family, because my husband
is disabled and battling with several health conditions.
$11 an hour isn't much. I have worked other jobs, too. I
have worked in the retail industry and at the YMCA. But the
one thing I have found in all of those jobs is that anything
less than $15 an hour just isn't enough. It prevents families
like mine from thriving to our full potential.
My family receives food stamps and MassHealth, which takes
off a heavy load,
[[Page H5195]]
but I am still left to figure out how I am going to make my
$350 paycheck stretch for five people. School is about to
start again, and I have three kids getting ready to go back
to school. I have student loans that I have to pay back, but
I am also behind in bills, so I am left to prioritize which
bill I can afford to pay this month.
Me and my family have been living in the shelter for 6
years--yes, 6 years--because I don't make enough to afford
market rate rent anywhere in the greater Boston area. I don't
understand how these multibillion-dollar corporations are
able to build an empire on the backs of low-wage workers and
get away with making millions in profits while we have
nowhere to live and have to depend on brothers and sisters to
help us make it through. My kids deserve so much more, and I
deserve so much more.
That is why I am fighting for $15 an hour, so that one day
soon, I will be able to provide for my kids the way I have
always hoped to. I will be able to go back to school and
finish my medical billing program that I had to put on hold,
because making poverty wages and taking care of my family
made it challenging for me.
We work hard. We deserve more. And people have started to
realize that $15 an hour is the new minimum wage standard. We
have been winning in cities across the country, and I hope
through this moral revival, we can build a tomorrow where not
only the rich matter, but we all matter.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Jayapal for participating in the
Special Order.
What does climate change have to do with poverty? Well, today we face
accelerating extreme weather events, such as intensifying hurricanes
that displaced and impoverished hundreds of thousands of citizens in
Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, New Jersey.
Here is another way that climate change affects people in poverty:
through healthcare events that take them out of the workforce.
Here is the testimony from Liz Betty-Owens from Vermont. She writes:
I am 26, a home care provider and a bartender. Just over a
year ago, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease and began a
lifelong battle with not only this crippling disease but also
the healthcare industry and my struggle to access the
healthcare I need.
At 25, I was incredibly ill, attempting to continue my work
as a healthcare provider and making all of my healthcare
decisions not based on a doctor's recommendation, but based
on what my health insurance at the time would cover and what
I could afford with my meager out-of-pocket expenses. I
realized that BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont had more power
over my health and wellbeing than me or my doctor.
I accumulated several thousand dollars of debt, and then,
in April, I was booted off my mom's insurance plan because I
turned 26. I began the 3-month process of registering for my
State's Medicare. I was unable to go to the doctor for months
while I was still showing symptoms and recovering from
initial treatment. I was held up in the process of trying to
prove I made such a small yearly income that I was in fact
eligible for the State's Green Mountain health plan. And
ever since I was finally accepted, I have had to try and
tread a careful line making sure I don't make too much
money and get booted off the State plan, risking fines
from lack of health insurance and, yet again, not having
access to the care that I need as I fight this
debilitating disease.
It is devastating to experience the exhausting and harmful
approach of a healthcare system controlled by insurance
companies, Big Pharma, and hospital monstrosities that care
more about the bottom line than the needs of healthcare
workers and patients, rather than living in a society where
everyone can get the care they need and have it be solely
based on decisions between the individual and the doctor. It
is exhausting to know that I am already struggling with this
at the age of 26 and that I live in a rapidly aging State
where an entire generation will have to fight to get the care
they need. And home care providers like myself will be caught
in the crossfire of providing care services with working
people who are not allowed the resources to compensate for
the care that they actually need.
It is also terrifying being diagnosed with Lyme disease,
which is transmitted by a tick bug that is infected by a
bacterium. As weather patterns continue to hit new extremes
because of climate change and the northeast continues to
warm, the number of infected tick bugs is only expected to
grow. The people at the greatest risk are those of us who
work outdoors growing food or working on farms, maintaining
State and Federal lands, and our heightened risk to this
disease is made even more terrifying by the continued threat
of our already limited access to healthcare.
We need universal healthcare as a human right and a public
good, and not a commodity to buy and sell. We need this Poor
People's Campaign to unite the poor and dispossessed, and
indict the immoral status quo that produces poverty and is
ravaging our communities.
Mr. Speaker, with those words, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________