Do-Nothing Congress

Floor Speech

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thank the gentleman so much for yielding and for pointing out how languishing in the House of Representatives are many pieces of legislation that have passed the United States Senate in a bipartisan way with a Democratic majority. Yet here in the House, where we have a Republican majority--and as you pointed out, some of these bills have actually passed their own committees led by Republicans--are still not being considered on the floor today.

So we are going to adjourn and will not meet again for almost 2 months--the earliest adjournment before an election in over 50 years. Republicans are going to turn off the lights in this Chamber, shutting down debate on matters of serious consequence to Americans and the economy. Shame on them. We should be staying and dealing with those bills.

They have voted, for example, time after time to repeal ObamaCare and to protect tax cuts for the wealthy and rich corporations, but have taken no action on preserving tax cuts for the middle class--for 98 percent of American taxpayers.

They've not taken any action on the Violence Against Women Act, which passed the Senate by a bipartisan vote of 68-31. For the many years that the Violence Against Women Act has been enacted, it has always had bipartisan support.

We haven't passed the wind production tax credit, which, again, would mean jobs for Americans in an industry that has just been developing right now and that is so important to our environment and for people, for instance, in my State of Illinois as well as in Iowa and other Midwestern States.

We haven't passed the doctor fix, making sure that Medicare reimbursements to doctors don't drop by 27 percent.

We haven't dealt with sequestration, which would have a devastating impact on investments that create jobs and protect low-income people.

There has been no action on the post office reform or the farm bill, which has been mentioned. In southern Illinois, where we have a serious drought, our farmers are waiting for some drought relief, but they're not going to get it from this Congress.

Most importantly, while Republicans have found the time to vote again and again to end the Medicare guarantee--making it harder for seniors to choose their own doctors and raising the costs of health care for seniors by over $6,000 a year--they still haven't found the time to bring a comprehensive jobs bill to the floor or one that deals with making it in America, which is an industrial policy that would actually put Americans back to work right here at home.

Millions of hardworking American people are still looking for more than just talk about jobs. Over a year ago, I introduced the Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act in order to create more than 2 million jobs and to put people back to work in the most straightforward of ways--by hiring them. My bill would put people to work in critical areas to our communities and our economy--people like teachers, cops and firefighters, health care workers, school construction and maintenance workers.

Over a year ago, President Obama sent to Congress the American Jobs Act, which incorporated parts of my bill and also would provide tax credits to small businesses--yet another tax credit--and assistance to State and local governments in order to prevent the layoffs of critical workers. Independent experts estimate that President Obama's American Jobs Act would create up to 2.6 million jobs.

But the Republican do-nothing Congress brought neither of these jobs bills to the floor. No. They are, every day, sabotaging every effort to actually help create jobs and to Make It in America. Democrats truly do want to stay to fight for jobs, for the economy, for farmers, for taxpayers, for battered women. It's time for the Republicans to join us.

Thank you, Mr. Minority Whip, for leading us in this effort, and I urge all of the Republicans to join us in staying here.

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