Congressman Cummings Speech on the House Floor

U.S. house of Representatives

 “Speaking on H.R. 836”

March 9, 2011

Floor of the U.S. House

Congressman Elijah E. Cummings

Thank you very much,

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

As I sat on the floor this morning and listened to my esteemed colleague on the other side; I must tell you that I am a bit upset..

For he talks about common sense and balance. These are two words… common sense and balance is something I talk about all the time as the Ranking Member of the Government and Reform and Oversight Committee.

We talk about common sense.

We talk about balance.

Part of that is trying to make sure our children are educated.  Part of common sense and balance is making sure that my neighbor, who just died of cancer-- I would have to go into my pocket over and over again, to give him the money to supplement his chemo -- Common sense and balance is making sure that people have jobs.

When I appear at my jobs fair in a few weeks it will be just like last year when nine thousand people showed up at six o’clock in the morning in circles around buildings.

Common Sense and Balance—so that the students of Morgan State University will not have to have their Pell grants by eight hundred dollars, when they’re struggling right now, and they’re working to trying to get a job, if they can get one. They’re working doing the best they can. It is their turn.

Common sense and balance says that we do not cut them off. 

So as I listen, you know I think about all this.  I’m trying to figure out how does the American people make or get common sense and balance out of what is going on in this House.

I heard my friend talk about regulations, just this morning in a hearing we had in Government Reform. We had all of these execs from corporations come and talk about how they wanted to get rid of “job –killing” regulations.

Every one of them agreed with me that regulations are important, because they protect the health, welfare of the American people.

As I told them this morning, I said to them, and I was very clear, I said when I was a young student, a high school student. I would go to Bethlehem Steel every summer to work.

When I blew my nose after being there for an hour, when the mucus came out it was black. 

It was regulations that addressed that.

There were men who had been there for forty years who were breathing that every day …. Eight hours a day. And many of them died early.

Common sense and balance.

I said it to my constituents and I said it to them at a town hall meeting this week. I said I wish the Congress would address issues like we deal with our family problems.

If you’ve got a family problem or if you’ve got a daughter or son who wants to go to college—maybe go to an expensive college -- you don’t say to them you’re not going to go to college.

You find a way to cut back on some things.

You don’t cut back on everything.

You don’t say to that child you cannot go to school, because it’s now their turn.

You just don’t turn your back on them.

You don’t cut off people’s jobs and then their training, when they’re trying to be retrained. When that father, who lost his job, is trying to be retrained.

Common sense and balance.

I rise today in strong opposition, to this rule which provides for the consideration for HR 836, a bill that seeks to kill the Emergency Homeowner Loan Assistance program.

This program was created to provide limited low cost loans to enable borrower that are unemployed due to no fault of their own.

Or who face debilitating medical costs --and by the way a lot of people say that they will never face these medical costs. Well all of us are the walking wounded; all of us will face difficult problems.

The question is will America be the America that it has always been.

We do not get our authority by might we get it by the way we treat each other.

These folks are going through the difficult times, these are the same people that this loan program is about, these are the same people that have showed up time after time sitting in the front row of something I call my Foreclosure Prevention Program, with tears running down their faces. 

Many of them have never missed a mortgage payment, have worked hard every day, and have done everything that was required of them.

These are our American neighbors. Those are our American neighbors that sit in Ohio, they are the ones that are in California and, and New York.

Those are our neighbors that are in an hour of need.

We’re talking about a billion dollar program.

To try to help people as they are struggling trying to get up after the economy – by the way where regulation failed them. 

They find themselves in these difficulties, in many instances because people were not regulating properly.

Yes it upsets me. Because I go back to a district every night, forty miles away from here, where people are stagnant, and there are areas in my district where you probably have 25 percent unemployment.

So I care about the jobs--they’re important to me.

I care about people living and staying in their homes, and so if anything was said that by the November elections, it was about, we need to sit and get together and work through people’s problems like any family would address a family problem.

We must be about the business of making sure we do the things to have a future.

I don’t want any child in America -- I don’t care if he’s is your district or your district Mr. Speaker, or anybody else’s district -- I want every child to have an opportunity.

I want the same opportunities for your child Mr. Speaker, as I want for mine.

And with that I yield back.