Congressional Black Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I thank her for her good work.

Madam Speaker, the people, the American people deserve a government that puts people over politics and protects hardworking families, not billionaires and special interests. That is why, throughout the 117th Congress, the House Education and Labor Committee has advanced legislation that meets the needs of students, families, workers, and our economy.

Over the last 2 years, Congressional Democrats and the Biden-Harris administration have made historic progress to rescue the American economy, create good-paying jobs, get students back on track, fight child hunger, and boost access to healthcare.

Just in the Education and Labor Committee, there was a lot that was done. We helped create over 10 million jobs in our economy since January 2021: the most jobs in history for 20 months. We recovered all of the jobs lost during the pandemic. We reduced unemployment to historically low levels.

We saved the pensions of over 1 million workers, and protected thousands of businesses by saving the multiemployer pension fund.

We delivered the largest one-time Federal investment to K-12 education in the United States history. And we delivered that money and distributed it according to the Title I formula where poverty is the main factor, meaning that the districts that need it the most got the most. Those that are traditionally overlooked got more money than they have ever gotten before.

We put money into school lunches so that students didn't go hungry during that period of time. We made sure that, with that money, the schools could open safely, stay open safely, and make up for lost learning. During that period of time, during the COVID relief bills, we had more money for historically Black colleges and universities than we ever have in history.

Now, we also made sure that the number of Americans without health insurance, because of the actions that we have taken, is now the lowest it has ever been. We have made sure that they can get vaccines, and those vaccines were distributed equitably. That is not always the case.

We made sure that drug prices were down, particularly insulin for seniors, no more than $35 per month for insulin. A lot of people right now before this bill were paying a lot more than that.

That is just the kind of legislation that came through the Education and Labor Committee. But House Democrats and the Congressional Black Caucus are committed to continuing this historic progress and building back a stronger economy for all Americans. That is why we passed the bipartisan infrastructure law, which not only modernized roads, bridges, and waterways, but will also create millions of good-paying jobs and will deliver broadband to areas that don't have broadband today. We will invest in neighborhoods that were destroyed by previous transportation plans going right down the middle of African- American neighborhoods, and we will invest in those neighborhoods to try to make up for that devastation.

Moving forward, we are committed to committee work, advancing policies like the Raise the Wage Act, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, the Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act, the Strength in Diversity Act, and the Rebuild America's Schools Act to ensure that every worker, student, and family has the opportunity to succeed.

We have done a lot. We haven't finished.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for her leadership and the opportunity to remind the American public of what we have already accomplished.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks. It is clear that there is a new day on the Committee on Education and Labor. That committee, led by Chairman Scott, has shown itself to be the people's committee, and I am delighted that his longstanding membership with the Congressional Black Caucus has shown that his work is for all of America. But through the Congressional Black Caucus he has helped and elevated families who have suffered because of racial discrimination and because of economic inequities. He has been focused.

Certainly, I credit him again with the work that has been done on HBCUs. I can assure you, with HBCUs in Texas, everywhere I go, they are taking note of the increased funding that has allowed them to do issues or handle matters with physical infrastructure, scholarship, the new Pell grant executive order, student loan executive order that is allowing for those with Pell grant loans making $120,000 to get $20,000 in relief. The Congressional Black Caucus worked extensively to ensure that those people with student loans were not forgotten.

Let me say it again. We work without ceasing to ensure that individuals who were overburdened with student loans, couldn't get down payments for housing and other matters for their quality of life--we were ensuring that we were in the front, if you will, to continue to advocate for student loan reduction.

Let me just say this, as I prepare to yield to my dear friend on the floor here.

As poet Langston Hughes reminds us, in his famous poem ``Mother to Son,'' life in America for African Americans ``ain't been no crystal stair.''

The goodness of this message is that in spite of it all, African Americans have put on uniforms and fought their battles on behalf of this Nation. African Americans are great lovers of this country, and they are great patriots. African Americans have worked in every level of government. They have, of course, been individuals who have worked, as some will say, at the bottom of the totem pole, meaning every manner of work they have done.

There have been African Americans who were enslaved who helped build the White House and the very building that we are in, never to hold the anger of their station in life but continue to work to insist on a better quality of life for their families.

It is very much important to take note of the bills that we have been able to do as individual Members of Congress.

I am just going to cite H.R. 7566, stops human trafficking in schools, that I introduced; working with an amendment to the Workforce Innovation bill; ensuring HBCU's full access to job skills training; amendment to H.R. 8294, the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development appropriations bill to ensure that HBCUs had specific work--it supports the work of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture by increasing the funding by $2 million.

Then I will finish more deeply on H.R. 40. That bill is much exhibited, as I have been on the floor before, with this slave and his back and the welts on his back from a whip. This was the life of slavery in America.

I just read recently of Germany's response to aging holocaust victims, which I applaud, providing millions of dollars to respond to their pain, just recently. In the course of the commission to study slavery and develop reparation proposals, it would give America a moment of healing. We have been hearing this discussion across the Nation and across the world, most recently, of course, in the halls or the places in Great Britain.

But for America to take that stand that the discussion is worthy, that the study is worthy, that the idea of what kind of proposals would come about, what inclusive ways would we deal with the recognition of over two centuries of slavery--unpaid, no insurance, no workers' comp, no days off, from sunup to darkness, beat by the whip, as the slave narratives in 1939 told us. The stories are powerful. Ripped away from our families. Made families, husband and wife and children. Then you would hear the pleas in the slave narratives when they say, ``Come home, husband. They are about to sell me and the children in different ways and different places.'' It happened to slaves all the time.

I was honored and humbled to meet the survivors of the Wall Street massacre. It happened in 1921. Those people were, in actuality, some even former slaves, but mostly descendants of the most recent people who were slaves, the most recent, their ancestors or their mother might have been a slave. But they built a Wall Street, but yet it could not survive because of racism and discrimination.

So to heal our land, the Congressional Black Caucus has worked in many ways to heal our land, and I am grateful for their advocacy for just a fair and simple study and assessment of what we should do to repair what occurred two centuries and continues even today.

The story is long about the inequities of the GI Bill, redlining, discrimination in voting, in the criminal justice system, the basis of wealth, so distinctive between other populations in this country.

So I thank the Congressional Black Caucus for the extensive legislative history that it has had over the 117th Congress.

It really is my privilege, Madam Speaker, to yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Carter) to speak about the accomplishments of the Congressional Black Caucus, my dear colleague and friend who has shown himself a leader.

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