Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, just let me say that, unfortunately, I had never taken psychology during my college preparation, but I do know certain things such as, what avoidance behavior is.

I tell you, the message discipline on that side is just perfect. You can talk about the southern border and inflation and all of that to avoid the topic of discrimination.

Sit down. I have the floor, sir.

You are avoiding the fact, and I know personally, as a person with my hair, that I have had people tell my employer that I was an embarrassment sitting in the front office because of the way my hair looked.

And so, to avoid a big conversation about discrimination that has an impact, particularly on African Americans, you talk about everything else. It is wrong. You are not engaging and, quite frankly, you are not being honest.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to commemorate the 1-year anniversary of the American Rescue Plan, or the ARP.

The ARP helped to provide critical assistance to individuals and small businesses during our historic COVID-19 pandemic that has driven job and wage growth in our country.

I will focus on just one little piece of this law: the provision boosting the child tax credit.

Study after study has shown the benefits of this policy: helping families meet basic needs such as food and utilities, a need that has become even greater when we talk about the rising costs and inflation we are all experiencing.

Unfortunately, this support ended as families are grappling with higher prices for a range of basic needs.

If you really want to help families struggling with inflation, renew the successful ARP child tax credit. It is the right prescription for struggling families.

Madam Speaker, last week President Joe Biden delivered a strong State of the Union address focused on building a better America.

Our jobs recovery is strong and well underway, as noted by the most recent numbers, which shows unprecedented job growth so far under this President. More than 7.3 million jobs have been created by President Biden's very first year in office, even with the challenges posed by omicron and delta COVID variants. But we have so much more to do in this never-ending process of building a more perfect Union.

One area highlighted by the President was his desire to prioritize mental health needs in our country, particularly among our children. Our country faces an unprecedented mental health crisis in which our youth have been particularly impacted.

A number of mental health organizations have declared a youth mental health crisis and our surgeon general has issued an advisory calling it ``an urgent public health crisis.''

Today, I rise as we celebrate School Social Work Week, to talk about one way to help address that issue by supporting and investing in school social workers.

First, I just want to take an opportunity to thank our school social workers who work every single day to make a difference in the lives of their students and their families. School social workers are responsible for fostering students' social and emotional well-being so that they are ready to learn. As trained mental health professionals, social workers can deliver a wide spectrum of services, from building social skills to providing mental health support.

Their presence in our schools is invaluable and the support they provide for students is critical. I personally can attest to how school social workers make a difference. I would not be here if not for the support I received from a school social worker when I was a student.

Make no mistake, school social workers are key members of a school's educational team. Their expertise can help guide students through serious life challenges, including poverty, addiction, bullying, children whose parents are incarcerated, and even the military deployment of a family member.

It is more important, now more than ever, to reduce the barriers to mental health services for children, especially in our schools. As we do, improving access to school social workers must be a part of those efforts.

That is why later this week I will introduce, along with my very good friend and former professional social worker, Representative Barbara Lee of California, my School Social Workers Improving Student Success Act, as we create a grant to help schools hire additional social workers and retain existing school social workers.

There should be one social worker for every 250 students in most schools. In high-need schools, one social worker for every 50 students. Many schools struggle to meet these ratios.

My bill would also create a National Technical Assistance Center for school social work to help develop strategies for improving the effectiveness of school social work and help disseminate best practices.

Madam Speaker, I want to say thank you to the front-line school social workers for the hard work they put in every day to help our students succeed. It is going to be much more challenging after COVID.

I applaud the President for his commitment to take on mental health, especially among our youth, and to make it part of his unity agenda for the Nation that I believe colleagues on both sides of the aisle should be able to get behind.

I share his dedication to getting all Americans the mental health services they need. I look forward to seeing the proposals included in his fiscal year 2023 budget, including to help increase access to school-based medical health services in which school social workers will play a key role.

I sincerely hope that this House and this Congress can come together to address our children's mental health. Democrats continue to prioritize efforts to make our economy recover. I encourage all Members to consider our youth's mental health.

Madam Speaker, the United States of America is home to hundreds and thousands of people of Ghanaian heritage-- including those who were born on this soil to those whose family emigrated here for education, job, or economic opportunities--for the American dream.

Ghanaian Americans are an important fabric in the tapestry of America from the cab driver to the medical doctor. You will find them in all parts of the country from Milwaukee to New York to suburban Ohio and Massachusetts. The culture is hard to ignore with rich food, the iconic Akan Kente cloth, storytelling, inventions, architecture and music.

Today more than ever Ghanaians living in the United States worry about racial injustice, home ownership, access to education, access to small business and immigration support.

Like many Americans, the Ghanaian community in America is not exempt from the COVID-19 crisis. Ghanaian Americans are essential workers and are very active in the health care industry, especially as nurses, personal care aides, and nursing assistants. Ghanaians are included in the 27.5 percent of all Black immigrant workers in the U.S.--more than 750,000--who work in the healthcare sector. Additionally, essential workers include frontline workers in other key industries like food and service & hospitality and leisure.

And Ghanaian Americans have been contributing to the success and business continuity of important industries during these dire times. Ghanaian Americans are included in 23 percent of immigrants in the U.S. who work in the food and service industry, as well as 20 percent of immigrants in the U.S. who work in hospitality and leisure.

On this day, I recognize the 65th anniversary of Ghana's independence and my intention to launch the Congressional Ghana Caucus that will create an inclusive platform in this body for discussing critical policy issues affecting Ghanaians in the Diaspora, as well as bolster the relationship between the U.S. and Ghana.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have worked

tirelessly to get the supermajority necessary to consider S. 321 to award a Congressional Gold Medal to the Women's Army Corps 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.

Let me just say that I am so pleased to be a sponsor of this bill, particularly as we end Black History Month, honoring these women, and as we begin Women's History Month. The intersection of those two things is certainly a very appropriate time to mention the Six Triple Eight.

You have heard about the heroic efforts of this only-Black-female battalion in history that served in World War II who are being honored here today. They are being honored because their heroic efforts enabled them, as a central battalion for the delivery of mail, to give people that little measure of a piece of home when they were away.

I just have to ask my colleagues: When there are 7,500 Robert Smiths who weren't able to get their mail during World War II, who did they call? The Six Triple Eight, Black women.

When they were coming under fire and there were 17-and-a-half million pieces of mail that were backlogged and couldn't be sent to these soldiers, who they did call? Oh, yeah, the Six Triple Eight.

When mothers were worried that their sons and wives were worried that their husbands had lost connection, who kept that connection going? The Six Triple Eight.

Their motto was ``no mail, low morale.'' They weren't just sorting mail. They were, in the words of Judi Glaeser printed in the Niagara Gazette on May 21, 2021:

Their work was more than sorting mail. It was ministering

to the souls of soldiers, making sure they received that

piece of home that reminded them that they were not

forgotten.

Today, we are not forgetting them.

I say, in the name of my constituent, who is still alive and will be enjoying her 98th birthday on March 5, Anna Mae Robertson, I congratulate her on this gold medal.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to enter into the Record the names of First Lieutenant Fannie Griffin McClendon of Arizona; Corporal Lena Derriecott Bell King of Las Vegas, Nevada; Private Catherine Romay Davis of Alabama; Private Hilda Griggs of New Jersey; and Private Crensencia Garcia of the Bronx, New York, who are still alive.

And to the son of their leader, Major Charity Adams, I thank the Major for leading the Six Triple Eight to this great victory today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Bonnie Watson Coleman for her stewardship over this bill. I also want to thank Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and so many women who rose up to support this, not only this session but last session as well. I want to thank State representative LaKeshia Myers in my State in the city of Milwaukee for the ordinances and the bills that they have passed, which are similar to the CROWN Act.

Mr. Speaker, just let me say, with my short 2 minutes here, that my being instilled with low self-esteem started before I got to kindergarten, and it all revolved around my nappy hair and the way it just coiled. Two minutes is not long enough to carry you on this journey of what it is like to have your employers tell you that you are making them look bad because of the way your hair looks, and having hot combs, lye, chemicals, and being burned so that you can look White.

When I ran for this office in 2005 because I had so many pictures with my hair coifed in a European style, my handlers wouldn't let me change it. After 20 hours a day of campaigning every day, I had to figure out how to straighten my hair out. Thank God for the CROWN Act.

Mr. Speaker, I thank God for being able to stand here under the e pluribus unum as my authentic, nappy-headed self.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2142, to honor Ms. Indiana Hunt-Martin, a member of the Women's Army Corps (WAC) groundbreaking 6888 Central Postal Directory Battalion (Six Triple Eight), the only all-black WAC battalion deployed overseas during WWII.

As a cosponsor of this bill and the author of the House measure to award a Congressional Gold Medal to all the women of the Six Triple Eight that the Congress will soon enact, Ms. Hunt-Martin's story is the story of most of the women who served in the 6888.

According to her daughter, ``she was born in a time and place where share cropping, lynching, and hatred of people, especially males of color were everyday occurrences.''

Yet, she was not deterred from serving her country. Born in Georgia, she moved to New York in the 1920's when she was still a young child. After graduating high school, she read about an effort by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, the founding president of the National Council of Negro Women, to ensure that women of color could join the war effort as part of the WAC.

So she applied. And waited. And after, her application was apparently ``lost'', she did not give up. She applied again, was accepted, and enlisted.

She was subsequently chosen to serve in the Six Triple Eight. And served honorably with that groundbreaking unit.

After her military service, she worked for the New York State Department of Labor, retiring after some 40 years of service. In 2014, in a story that is very familiar to me, she reached out to her local congressman, Mr. Higgins, for help getting the medals she had earned through her service so many decades earlier. This story is familiar to me because my own constituent, Ms. Anna Mae Robertson, who also served with the Six Triple Eight, similarly reached out to my office around the same time to help her get the service medals she had earned.

This evening, I will have the honor of hosting Ms. Hunt-Martin's daughter in my office as we celebrate the passage of this bill and my Six Triple Eight Gold Medal bill (H.R. 1012/S. 321). While Ms. Hunt- Martin and the vast majority of the women who served with the 6888 may no longer be with us, today we make sure that their service and sacrifice is not forgotten.

As noted by Debbera Ranson, the commander and founder of the Johnetta R. Coles AmVets post in Buffalo, NY, ``There are so many times when African American soldiers have done wonderful things but it takes forever for them to get recognized. Many times, the honors that they eventually received--if they even do--is way after they have passed. And so, as we do these different honors, at least family members will be able to enjoy knowing that their loved ones have been honored.''

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3076, the Postal Reform Act. It is my hope that the changes in this legislation will help the United States Postal Service and its hardworking employees continue to serve our communities.

Our communities depend on a strong and vibrant Postal Service. The United States Postal Service reaches into every community of every size across our nation through its unmatchable delivery network. Over 600,000 hardworking Postal Service employees, nearly a quarter of them veterans, help the Postal Service carryout its obligations and provide top quality service to our communities which has helped the Postal Service consistently rank as one of the most respected institutions.

My constituents, like most Americans, rely on the efficient and timely delivery of bills, parcels and medication by the Postal Service. And when asked to do more, our postal workers step up. For example, the administration recently leaned on the Postal Service to help distribute at home COVID test kits, given its presence and ability to reach every community in our country. It is critical that the House take up legislation to help strengthen the Postal Service. This debate has been long overdue and so I welcome today's vote. I hope our colleagues in the Senate will quickly follow suit.

The challenges facing the Postal Service are well known. The adverse impact of mandates imposed by Congress in 2006 Postal Reform legislation that have hurt the Postal Service. The declining volume of first-class mail and associated revenue losses. Policy changes initiated by the current Postmaster General that has slowed the mail while raising mailing costs, a recipe for disaster.

At the same time, the Postal Service has an aging vehicle fleet that becomes more expensive every year to maintain and keep on the road.

The bill before us, while not perfect and not addressing every issue, would help put the Postal Service on a better path. I fear that every day of further inaction or delay on legislation such as the Postal Reform Act would only worsen the situation facing the Postal Service, its customers, and its employees. And failing to act may only lead to even more drastic measures and service cuts that will only adversely impact the millions of Americans and businesses that rely on the USPS. For example, some have used the current situation to push for ill- advised privatization of the Postal Service.

The Postal Reform Act includes provisions from stand-alone bills that I support such as preserving six-day mail delivery and repealing the requirement that the USPS prefund future retirement health benefits. And it would provide more flexibility for the Postal Service to offer work with state, local and tribal governments, to explore avenues to help generate more revenues.

We need a strong and vibrant Postal Service that maintains accessible services for all in our community. As the most trusted institution in the federal government and the cornerstone of a trillion dollar plus industry, the Postal Service and its dedicated postal workforce deserve every effort on our part to ensure it remains a viable and thriving institution.

I support this legislation and urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this latest continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded through March 11, 2022. I commend my good friend, the gentlelady from Connecticut, Ms. Delaura, the Chair of the Appropriations Committee for her leadership in helping the House get its funding bills passed last year and her continued dogged efforts to reach an agreement to finalize FY 22 funding.

I hope that this is the last CR that this chamber has to consider. The House passed funding bills provided critical increases for a range of education, health care, transportation, housing, funding for our veterans, and other priorities that cannot take effect under a CR.

This includes priorities that I was pleased to work to secure including additional funding for the TRIO program which helps provides services to help students not only get to college, but graduate. Other priorities include programs such as WIC, McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants, and funding for school breakfast programs, among many other programs that this House was able to support in its FY 22 bills.

Additionally, enactment of the final FY 22 funding bills is crucial to unlocking programs and funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that passed Congress last fall with bipartisan support in both chambers.

The House passed some great FY 22 funding bills that will help our communities, create jobs, and provided long overdue investments. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to work with us to get these bills over the line. And soon.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of the bipartisan amendment that I have put forward, along with my colleagues Deborah Ross, Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, and Jamaal Bowman.

As my colleagues from both sides of the aisle have made clear, our Nation owes a tremendous debt to our veterans.

I am pleased that this week, the House will take up a bill to help improve access to services and benefits that our men and women in uniform have earned.

H.R. 1836--the National Guard and Reserve GI Bill Parity Act of 2021--would allow Members of the National Guard and Reserves to count time spend in training towards their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits.

I am so proud of the men and women in Wisconsin's National Guard who have mobilized throughout our nation's history in support of overseas combat operations in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, during both world wars, the Spanish-American War, and the Civil War and are now engaged in their longest ever domestic mobilization, to combat COVID-19.

They are a key part of our communities and to efforts to protect and defend our nation.

Our amendment to this bill simply attempts to help ensure that the VA take every opportunity to ensure that new veterans who are leaving or about to transition from active duty are aware of the VA benefits they may be eligible for, including critical health care services.

Unfortunately, too many vets leave the military without knowing what they are eligible for at the VA or do not have the documentation they need to prove their eligibility. As a result, they can find themselves missing out on critical benefits and services they need or trying to navigate bureaucratic red tape, without success, to try and find the right answers. These men and women answered the call to serve their country and it is our responsibility to honor the debt our Nation owes them for their service.

We can do better. And that must start with providing as much information as early as possible to those who could be eligible for VA benefits or services.

Our amendment requires the VA to inform new veterans of the medical care and services for which they are eligible, including community care; mental healthcare, care relating to military sexual trauma; and any other information the Secretary deems appropriate.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and the underlying bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in remembrance of Rosemary Holley, a lifelong advocate for the poor and needy, a community leader, a trailblazer, and a multiple tenure Chairperson of the Board of Commissioners for Milwaukee's Social Development Commission (SDC). It saddens me to say that Mrs. Holley passed away on December 7, 2021, at the age of 95.

The Social Development Commission is a community action agency with the sole purpose of advocating for and assisting Milwaukee County residents living in poverty. SDC is a citizen led coalition designed to give people in poverty the organizing power to influence policies that will directly affect them. The members of SDC are not politicians or bureaucrats--they are everyday citizens that care deeply about their communities and want to have their voices heard. One-third of the governing board members live in poverty. The SDC equips its members to affect meaningful change in their own lives.

None of this would have been possible without the hard work and self- sacrifice of Mrs. Rosemary Holley.

Mrs. Holley has been with SDC since its creation. She first served on the Head Start Parent Council and was elected to the SDC's Board of Commissioners. Her passion and leadership were soon recognized by all and in 1996, she was elected as the Chairperson of the SDC's Board of Commissioners. She was reelected as the Chairperson in 1998 and served until 1999.

Mrs. Holley stepped away from SDC in 1999 while in her mid-70s. Most people would have then retired, but Mrs. Holley continued to serve the Fourth Congressional District on a volunteer basis. She coached young leaders with her wisdom and experience, all while continuing to serve the very neighbors who inspired her in the first place. In 2013, she rejoined SDC's Board to serve as Governance Technical Assistance Resource Provider, using her knowledge and experience on the SDC Board to provide advice on matters related to Board Governance. SDC and the Milwaukee Community are indebted to Mrs. Holley for her lifelong, tireless service.

Mrs. Holley was a lifelong advocate for the poor and needy. She had multiple opportunities to work in more financially rewarding positions but found her purpose in helping those who were not able to help themselves. Mrs. Holley was the epitome of public service and altruism--to say Rosemary Holley has been a beacon of light to this community is not an exaggeration. Her altruistic spirit and love for others are an inspiration of what we all should strive for in our service to the public.

The citizens of the Fourth Congressional District, the State of Wisconsin and the Nation have benefited tremendously from her expansive service. As a former employee of the SDC and as both a Congresswoman and a mentee of Mrs. Rosemary Holley, I am deeply grateful for her service and impact on our community. I am honored for these reasons to pay tribute to Rosemary Holley. May she Rest in Peace.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Julia Taylor, an innovative business leader, trailblazer, and the president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee (GMC) for 19 years. In 2002, Ms. Taylor became the first woman to become president of the Civic Group and tirelessly served for almost two decades.

GMC is a private sector civic organization whose mission is to contribute to the cultural and economic base of the Milwaukee Metropolitan area. The organization was formed in the late 1940s and is comprised of leaders in business, the professions, labor, education and philanthropy, and nonprofit community development. The GMC is made up of almost 200 leaders of businesses, financial institutions, law firms, nonprofit groups, and educational institutions in the metropolitan area and is dedicated to improving Southeastern Wisconsin's civic life and economy.

Since 2002, the GMC and the City of Milwaukee progressed exponentially under Ms. Taylor's leadership. Julia Taylor brought greater diversity to the membership and the GMC board. GMC now has a record number of minorities and women serving in leadership roles. Ms. Taylor expanded GMC's work to develop and innovate all areas of Milwaukee, especially impoverished areas that are too often forgotten. She worked tirelessly to build new relationships with local community leaders and stakeholders. Because of Ms. Taylor's work, GMC is having a much greater impact in neighborhoods, education and economic development at the most basic levels.

Under Ms. Taylor's leadership, the GMC won local and national support for its projects that include efforts to promote and support economic prosperity, vibrancy of place, and development of innovation and talent. Due to Ms. Taylor's work, the work of the GMC in building a better, greater Milwaukee for all of our citizens is more important than ever.

Ms. Taylor serves on several boards and was the Executive Director of the Milwaukee YWCA for many years before assuming her current position. She is being honored and recognized for her decades of community engagement in the Greater Milwaukee Area. In fact, Ms. Taylor continues to set a strong example to us all by displaying humor, grace and good will to all and we wish her a long and happy retirement.

Madam Speaker, for these reasons, I am honored to pay tribute to Ms. Julia Taylor for her contributions to the Fourth Congressional District and the State of Wisconsin. She has helped transform the lives of many people in our community.

Mr. Speaker, I am so proud to support the Build Back Better Act. It is time for us to pass this historic legislation that invests in our communities, our workers, our children, and our families, while asking the wealthiest among us, who have benefited from our growing economy, to pay their fair share.

These investments will lower the costs of childcare, which has kept women out of the labor force. It invests in our future workforce through our children. It helps us tackle the climate crisis, bolsters resilience, and creates economic and job opportunities and good-paying jobs for millions. I could go on and on and on.

Mr. Speaker, I want to end by talking about the millions of people who depend upon insulin, something that has been a bipartisan issue. It is going to lower those costs to just $35 a month. That is reason enough to pass the Build Back Better Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss something that is very, very important to me as public policy, but it is something that is really personal to me, and that is the Federal TRIO Programs.

The TRIO programs are a set of higher education initiatives authorized by the Higher Education Act of 1965 that provide an educational opportunity to first-generation, low-income students.

You see, in 1969, at age 18, as a high school senior, I became pregnant with my first daughter, Jesselynne. I was a college-bound student, suddenly feeling that I was derailed from my prospects and my future, but the outreach of the TRIO programs in Marquette University enabled me to get a high-quality education at Marquette University, else I might have slipped through the cracks.

You see me here standing today as a Member of Congress, but even prior to that, I contributed greatly to my community, because of my educational opportunity, as someone who created affordable housing through our State agency, put together a financial institution, a credit union for low-income communities to fill the financial gaps, and contributed in so many other ways, including paying taxes--and by the way, my daughter is a special education teacher today.

But without TRIO support, I wouldn't be here, and there are so many other millions of young people who are talented, but they are just poor and don't have the family background to enable them to get to college. Access to quality and affordable education can change your entire life because a college education is one of the greatest democratizers and greatest equalizers in our democratic society. And that is why it has been the honor of my career to be the cochair of the bipartisan TRIO Caucus here in Congress to pay it forward for the next generation.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to introduce a resolution, along with my cochair, Mike Simpson, in recognizing November 8 as National First- Generation Celebration Day, a day that commemorates the signing of the Higher Education Act of 1965 by President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

I thank the many Members who signed on to our resolution, especially our Senate cosponsors, Senator Warnock, a TRIO alum, and Senator Marshall, a first-generation college graduate, as well.

Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to highlight how the Build Back Better Act will help to advance the goal of helping more first generation and students of modest means get to college and be able to benefit from the programs like TRIO that can help to ensure that they graduate and gain the skills necessary to participate in our ever, ever complicated economy. And without efforts to make higher education affordable and reducing the debt burden on our students, I am afraid that many students will never have the opportunity to benefit from TRIO, so we need to do more to make sure that cost is not a barrier to quality higher education.

And that is why I think the Build Back Better effort--and I just want to call out Chairman Bobby Scott for all the work he did in increasing the maximum Pell grants to help low-income students get to college. It is clear that Pell grants haven't kept up with the rising costs of college and would provide $500 million over 7 years for grants to States and institutions of higher education and Tribal communities and universities to improve student outcomes, including enrollment retention, completion, and employment placement.

So I just thought it was important to say that when the Build Back Better bill gets to the floor, we should all support it for the educational initiatives that are in it.

But the story of TRIO is a remarkable one that benefits students of all races, creeds, colors, both genders, veterans. It ought to be celebrated.

Mr. Speaker, I am urging, when it comes to the floor, that you all support the bipartisan resolution to celebrate National First- Generation Day.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman so very, very much for that question. It really has been a joy working with him on the Ways and Means Committee. It has been an education, and it has also been an opportunity to do those things that he has indicated that are close to my heart, and that is to create some equities for women and children.

I want to just thank Representative Sheila Jackson Lee for anchoring this extremely important conversation with the American people today.

One of the things that has been disturbing me about this entire debate is that people seem to really want to make some sort of bright- line demarcation or differentiation between the bipartisan infrastructure bill--which will create economic opportunities, get rid of those darned lead pipes, expand broadband, create good union jobs, help create some great jobs for guys--and the Build Back Better initiative, as if that is some sort of welfare, a giveaway. Social spending is what it is referred to, a safety net.

So what I wanted to seek from you, a clarification from you, Mr. Horsford, particularly since you were appointed by the Committee on Ways and Means, along with our colleagues, Representatives Sewell and Gomez, to look at our racial equity issue. Of course, we know that African Americans and Latinos are more likely to be poor, have a greater wealth gap, and lack of educational opportunities, so that when we think that we are investing in their improvement, that somehow it is welfare.

But I would sort of want you to take up the argument where you left it with regard to some of the economic problems that we are experiencing. There are major complaints in our country about a slowdown in economic growth. What good is it to just grow the economy when only the people at the top get it and it doesn't, excuse me, trickle down to Rosetta, who is making $10.25 an hour doing the hardest work on earth there is?

How does the earned income tax credit--I mean, we were taxing, before we changed this policy, to allow single, hardworking, essential workers that brought us food during the pandemic, stocked the shelves, we were taxing them into poverty. They had tax liability before the earned income tax credit expansion.

Going to work with no healthcare, no health insurance, being unable to afford it, not having childcare, as you mentioned. Expanded Pell grants.

Please explain how the Build Back Better plan really improves and buoys the economic platform upon which the country can improve. The workforce development initiatives that are in here, I was wondering if you could elucidate the connection between that and our economy and sort of diffuse this notion that it is simply a safety net and welfare.

Excellent.

It is going to be great. Madam anchor, I don't know how much time we have, but I just want to say, I want to join Mr. Horsford in saying that I am really enthusiastic about voting for both of these bills, because I do think that it is going to create a brand-new environment for all of us where we will have workforce development training for these new technologies on climate and battery storage.

I am so proud of the African Americans who have been chairs of these committees, like Bobby Scott and Eddie Bernice Johnson, Maxine Waters who put $150 billion in for housing. As was indicated, these things are going to enable workers to truly participate in the economy. It is going to help companies, and we are going to build back better.

I yield back to the gentlewoman from Texas.