Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Dina Titus of Nevada’s Third District joined unemployed workers and Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee today to call on Republicans to stop blocking the extension of unemployment benefits.  Below are her remarks as delivered.

“Extending these benefits is critical to the people of Southern Nevada.  Our economy has been especially hard hit during these bad economic times in the area of tourism and construction – 14 percent unemployment.  You look at the construction industry and it’s at least twice that.  So we have got to give these people some help moving forward.  38,000 people are scheduled to lose unemployment benefits in just a few days if we don’t pass this legislation.

“You know, when I see Republicans stand in the way of passing this legislation and hear them say things like unemployment makes people ‘spoiled’ or people don’t want to look for a job, it just makes me angry.  Nothing could be further from the truth and it is such an insult to the American people, the hardest working people on the planet.  These are the people who build America, who run America, who serve America, who keep us going forward.  And then to say to them they are spoiled; it is a disgrace. 

“I hear the stories too.  We get calls all the time.  Some may not be as eloquent as our guests today who spoke so beautifully from the heart, but they tell us equally sad and tragic stories.  I just got one from a person named Matt, a young man with a young family who lost his job.  We are trying to help him stay in his home by getting him a modification on his mortgage.  Now he says, ‘if I lose those unemployment benefits I’m not going to be able to pay a mortgage payment.  I won’t be able to save my home.  What am I going to do?’  Those are the kind of people we are trying to help every single day. 

“So it’s bad enough that the Republican economic policies got us into this economic mess in the first place, but now when they stand in the way of passing this, passing this bridge for people to get by until they can get back to work, I say to them, have you no shame? Have you no shame?”

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Tags: economy, jobs