MAJOR HURRICANES

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, to my colleagues in the House of Representatives, most of whom are not here right now but perhaps they are back in their office listening, and really to the American public and folks here in the Chamber, it has been a most interesting week-- well, actually, the last 3 weeks.

The United States has been hit with three major hurricanes. In Houston, they say was a 500-year storm. The Florida Keys, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, disasters beyond, in many cases, human understanding. We have never seen 50 inches of rain in a matter of days.

We have seen storms in the Caribbean that have been vicious. I don't believe we have ever seen one that completely wiped out an island, leaving 3.5 million people without water and power, islands in the Florida Keys flattened, and floods throughout most of Florida.
These are natural disasters.

We look to our neighbors in the south, and we see Mexico City, that great capital, once again, lay bare with an earthquake. Further south and west of that, another community. Yet, just yesterday and the day before, another earthquake.

These are natural disasters.

As Members of Congress representing 350-plus million Americans, we have an obligation. You heard a couple of our colleagues speak to this.

I went to bed last night with visions and pictures of Puerto Rico on the television screen. I woke up this morning, turned the television on, and it was all about the President calling a couple of athletes a name that I should not repeat on the floor.

What is going on here? How could it be that, 2 days after the devastation of Puerto Rico, our President would decide that the appropriate thing for him to do is to call out African-American athletes who are protesting the death of African Americans at the hands of police?

All of that was followed in just a few moments by experts who were saying that we are closer to nuclear war today than we have been since the Cuban Missile Crisis in the sixties.

What in the world is going on here? What is happening? Why are we in this situation? Why is it that we are not debating here on the floor of the House how to provide relief to Houston, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands--our own citizens?
Is there a debate going on in the House of Representatives in any hearing? No, there isn't.

Is there a debate on the floor about the necessity to rebuild, to find the money to put back the lives of people who are seriously at risk today?

What are we doing?

Well, here is what we are doing. We have got a President that is in a third grade brawl with a world leader. You may as well be in a classroom or on the school grounds with a bunch of third graders calling out each other about their mother. That is what our President did over the weekend.

How did that promote our humanity, our empathy? Not a bit.
How did it promote our division? Oh, it did a very good job of that.
We see fans in the NFL stadiums booing the athletes.

We see more division in our country. We see natural disasters. And our response? Let's pass a bill that will create a humanitarian crisis for 30 million Americans who will lose their healthcare over the next decade. That is what the Senate did over these last few days, a replication of what happened here on the floor of the House of Representatives months ago.

I think Americans thought those days were over when we would see the Senate and the House purposely harm people, purposely set out with legislation to physically harm people by denying them the health insurance that they have been provided over the last few years.

How can it be? How can it be that we would allow this to happen? But it is happening.

Thankfully, four Senators stood up to the President, stood up to the Republican leadership in the Senate and said: No. No. I am not going to set out on a vote that is going to harm people.
I thank them. They had courage.

Where were the others? Where were my Republican colleagues here on this floor who voted to do exactly the same thing months ago? Millions of Americans purposely denied their health insurance.
Where is the outrage?

It is out there. Take a look at the polling. Take a look at the disabled men and women who were in the Senate Chamber yesterday who were physically dragged out of there--a fine testament to America's democracy.

Where is the outrage? Where is the outrage that there is not a bill on the floor this week to take care of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands--American citizens? I guess there is something more important to do.

Where is our President? What is his tweet today? His tweet today is who knows what. I guess he is going to Puerto Rico next week, thankfully. Maybe there will be some humanity expressed and he will put in motion the great power of this administration to bring relief and to ask the Congress to appropriate the money that is going to be necessary. Maybe.

Maybe it will be another tweet about a leader who has the fourth largest army in the world. You have third graders on the school ground bullying and demeaning, and you expect somehow to go anywhere except into a brawl?

There is a road that we could take, but it begins with reducing the rhetoric. There is a road we can take with North Korea. It is called negotiation.

Don't say it is not possible. It is far more possible and would have a far better outcome than all the bombast, all the rhetoric, all the threats.

All of us have been in the third grade. We know what happens when two
boys start fighting on the school ground.

These boys have awesome weapons. We have 25,000 U.S. military on the DMZ border. They are ready to fight. We have an awesome military. It should only be used with wisdom. It should not be put at risk unnecessarily. There are tens of thousands of American servicemembers, spouses, and children nearby, and millions of South Koreans and North Koreans.

It is time for our President to speak softly. We know we have a big stick. Speak softly. Tone it down. Move toward the negotiations. It would be far more fruitful. We can do this.

I go back home, as I did this weekend, and I do my community events.

People come up to me and say: I am scared; I am frightened. What is our President doing? Why is he acting this way? Why is Kim Jong-un acting this way?

We don't need another crisis. We have got to deal with this. We have got to do it with wisdom, plenty of strength, and determination. God help us if we get in a war on the Korean Peninsula again.

Consider for a moment that the 1953 Korean war never ended. It was an armistice. It is time for a peace treaty. It is time to recognize that there are two countries. It is time to settle this down. It is time for this Congress to turn its attention to the reality of the crisis that faces Americans--yet we don't.
Instead, we have had more than 2 weeks of attention on legislation that would purposely harm millions upon millions of Americans by taking away their health insurance. We have got to put that behind us. We have got to find ways to improve the Affordable Care Act. We must do this.
People are hurting.

There are problems with the Affordable Care Act, and we know where the fixes are, but we can't get our colleagues on the Republican side to work with us here in the House of Representatives.
Perhaps we will find Senator Murray and Senator Alexander coming back together again, since it appears as though the ill-begotten Graham- Cassidy legislation is dead. Maybe Senators Murray and Alexander can come back together and work together.

I would ask my Republican colleagues here to work with us on the Democratic side to work towards solutions to strengthen and provide the necessary changes and fixes to the Affordable Care Act. We can do it.
While we are doing that, let us use the normal, natural empathy that resides in each one of us to reach out to those in Puerto Rico, Florida, Houston, and the Virgin Islands and use our innate compassion to provide the resources for them to rebuild.

Then, let's take it a step further. Instead of calling out Mexico, instead of getting into a verbal and perhaps economic conflict with Mexico, let us work with Mexico. Reach out to Mexico City now. Provide them with the assistance that this great country can. There are so many things we must spend our time on.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Espaillat), who spoke a few moments ago. I ask him to join me here on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Espaillat very much for
bringing to our attention the possibilities.

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The U.S. military is awesome. I am very thankful that Adam Smith, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, together with you and other colleagues, have called upon the President to deploy to Puerto Rico a military task force. The military is the most organized of all of our Federal organizations. They have the ability, they have the resources, and they certainly have the capability of addressing at least the immediate needs of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and even other islands that have been devastated in the Caribbean.

Ultimately, the task falls to those of us who are elected to represent the American people in the office of the Presidency, the House of Representatives, or in the Senate. And the questions we must ask ourselves: Are we meeting our responsibilities; are we deploying the resources of this Nation to assist in these devastated communities; are we providing the funding necessary to carry out these tasks; or are we engaged in legislation that would create a healthcare disaster on top of the natural disasters?

Well, thankfully, it appears as though four Senators have stopped a Republican effort in the Senate that is a repetition of an effort made here in the House of Representatives months ago, to stop the creation of a healthcare crisis in America.

There is more out there that will be brought forward. Tomorrow, my colleagues on the Republican side will meet to discuss tax reform. By all appearances, it appears that tax reform is likely to turn out--at least their version of it, is likely to turn out to be serious tax cuts for the superwealthy and for corporations with a hope and a prayer some day that it might create jobs.

There is precious little economic history to indicate that that would happen, but there is a lot of economic history and studies that indicate you continue to cut taxes for the superwealthy and we will have even a more serious inequality of wealth in the United States.
That is a discussion for tomorrow and beyond.

Today, now, the discussion must focus on our American citizens who are not in harm's way, they are being harmed.

My plea to my colleagues here is to put aside these other issues, to focus the great power and empathy of the American people on meeting the needs of our American citizens in Houston, Florida, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and then to reach out beyond to others who have been hurt, wherever they may be--Mexico City, other islands in the Caribbean.

Finally, a plea to our President. Mr. Speaker, a plea to our President: Tone it down. This is not a schoolyard for bombast and for belligerent talk. This is extraordinarily serious. It has been said by people who have followed these issues over the decades that we are closer to nuclear war now than we have been since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

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