Investments to Build Back Better

Floor Speech

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Ms. PRESSLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding and sister in service here, Congresswoman Leger Fernandez, for convening us here today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of every worker, every parent, and every caretaker that has questioned how they will make ends meet and keep food on the table for their families; the parent that has felt that pit in their stomach, the anxiousness as they look over monthly bills with the growing costs of rent and childcare; the frontline worker, who is terrified to stay home sick and lose their job because of our Nation's failure to provide paid leave; the family afraid of being displaced from their home due to extreme weather and the existential threat of climate change; the student living in a transit desert with unreliable access to jobs, food, community; the daughter who is a caregiver to her parent who is one of 820,000 people on a wait list for much-needed home and community-based services; and our immigrant neighbor who has been unjustly denied a pathway to citizenship.

Mr. Speaker, the Build Back Better Act will help us get one step closer to rejecting the unjust status quo and beginning to build a recovery that centers on the people. As Angela Davis once said: ``I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I can no longer accept.''

Despite what some might argue, the needs of our communities go far beyond our Nation's roads and bridges, and we must ensure that our policies and our investments reflect that reality. Mr. Speaker, I refuse to choose between the union worker who builds our highways and the child worker who protections our babies and sets them on a pathway to a healthy life, to bring into bear their contributions to the world. I would ask every Member of Congress that they do the same. Reject the unjust, false binary choices that force us to choose between the livelihoods and well-being of the two that pit community member against community member. We have the opportunity and responsibility to finally make universal paid leave, home healthcare, and universal access to quality and affordable childcare a reality.

In my district, in Massachusetts, it costs $21,000 per child for childcare. We have the opportunity and responsibility to address climate change to combat our housing crisis, and to finally establish a pathway to citizenship for millions of our immigrant workers. You know, those essential workers that you were all clapping for during the pandemic.

They don't need your applause. They need you to value more than just their labor, but their lives and the preservation of their families. We must rebuild stronger as a just Nation that takes care of its people. In order to truly build back better, we must truly address both the human and physical infrastructure needs of our communities. This is responsive to the needs of the people. We have to focus on impact, advance policies that will be felt by all families. Leave no community behind. This is how we set forth a just recovery and chart a new course forward.

This is the moment to repair generations of hurt and harm and what I would characterize as policy violence inflicted on our most vulnerable and neglected communities. This is our moment to legislate our values; to honor the decisive mandate that we have from the people. This is our moment to make this Democratic majority--House, Senate, and White House--that that is more than a talking point that we are in the majority. We must affirm and codify once and for all.

Infrastructure are those things that are essential to the functioning of our very society. Care is infrastructure. Housing is infrastructure. Climate justice is infrastructure. Paid leave is infrastructure. Disability justice is infrastructure, and the list goes on.

Here is what I know. There is no deficit of resource in this country, only a deficit of empathy and political courage. Let's pass the Build Back Better Act so that we can deliver for the communities that for too long have been asked to wait. Justice delayed is justice denied. Our constituents deserve more.

Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman so much for bringing to light and describing those individuals for whom we are working today, but it is they who are us. We are part of their communities and they have been telling us these stories and we are responding now because now is the time for us to act.

I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Barragan), who cosponsored the resolution I spoke of earlier for the Latina Equal Pay Day. We care for each other. That is why we look after each other.

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