mesut/congress_speeches huggingface dataset:
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET, FISCAL YEAR 2017
Ron Wyden (Democrat, OR) \u2014 2017-1-5

I want to begin my remarks this morning by taking stock of how the 115th Congress, led by my colleagues, seems to be coming out of the gate. Here is what is coming if the budget process that began this week plays out: 30 million Americans from Portland, OR, to Portland, ME, will be in danger of being kicked off their health care plans; sharply rising health care costs for everybody else, even those who get their insurance through their employer; broken campaign promises about a replacement coming on day one. With this resolution, s in the Congress are building a Trojan horse of tax cuts for the most fortunate in America. prgtoken I want to discuss each of those issues this morning, but first let us recognize the bottom line. What is at stake in this debate is whether or not America is going to go back to the dark days when health care was reserved for the healthy and wealthy. For nearly 7 years and through 4 punishing campaigns, Americans have heard and felt the steady, partisan drumbeat of repeal and replace from the other side. Dozens and dozens of show votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act have been held in either Chamber. There have been countless press conferences, speeches, and hearings, even a government shutdown, and the message is always the same. The President-elect himself said that repeal and replace would happen--his words, not mine--simultaneously. prgtoken The replacement plan was coming. It would be fully written, ready to plug in--no gap, no harm relevant to anyone in our country. The same words, ``Coming Soon,'' have sat on that marquee for 7 years now. It seems to me it is time to admit that the show will not open. This is a broken promise, plain and simple. Americans are no longer looking at repeal and replace; now it is repeal and run. The consequences will be serious and immediate for tens of millions of Americans, both in access to health care and the bottom line for family budgets across the country. In short, it is a plan that will make America sick again. According to independent analysis, nearly 30 million Americans will lose their health insurance quickly after repeal. The first act of a new Congress: Kicking 30 million people off the insurance rolls--that is seven times the population of my home State. prgtoken The overwhelming majority of those 30 million Americans are not wealthy people. They are not in a position to be able to afford to go out and pick an expensive plan once the insurance companies get back in the driver's seat. Millions come from working families who will lose tax cuts for health insurance. Millions of others toil, often working multiple jobs, but still what they bring home is just barely enough to keep them out of poverty. prgtoken For many, signing up for Medicaid brought an end to the years when they had to choose between visiting a doctor and putting food on the table. If repeal goes forward, Americans all over th
READING OF THE CONSTITUTION
Darren Soto (Democrat, FL) \u2014 2017-1-5

. ``But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the Members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty- one years of age in such State.''
FEDERAL WORKERS
Derek Kilmer (Democrat, WA) \u2014 2017-1-5

I rise today to defend jobs. prgtoken In my region, Federal workers at Olympic National Park, which brings millions of visitors to our area, help that park run smoothly. They provide needed health services and care for our veterans at local VA facilities. Federal workers serve our Nation and help our sailors and submariners be safe through their work at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, which has been operating for 125 years. prgtoken We should have admiration and respect for the work they do. I don't think that this Chamber did right by them this week. That is because the prgtoken House approved a rule that would allow any Member to add an amendment to spending bills to cut Federal jobs and lower the pay of workers. prgtoken These workers shouldn't be unfairly singled out on the House floor. This is not the way to do business. Having worked in the private sector, you would never see a successful employer treat their employees with the disrespect that Congress treats the Federal workforce. prgtoken It is time to tell everyone at that shipyard, at the park, at the VA, and all Federal workers in my region and throughout this country that Congress respects and honors the work that they do. It is time to do away with this rule.
SAVING THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
Betty McCollum (Democrat, MN) \u2014 2017-1-5

today I rise in support of the Affordable Care Act, a law that has made a real difference in the lives of Minnesotans and Americans. prgtoken After 7 years of attacking the ACA, s still have not come up with a plan to replace this law. Instead, they plan to work with President-elect to repeal the law and destroy the progress we have made. prgtoken Repealing the ACA would leave tens of millions of Americans uninsured. Repealing the ACA would let insurance companies deny coverage to more than 2 million Minnesotans with preexisting conditions. Repealing the ACA would eliminate free, high-quality preventive health care for hundreds of thousands of families in my district. Make no mistake, s' ACA repeal plans would turn back the clock, leaving millions of Americans just one illness away from bankruptcy. prgtoken For the sake of Minnesotans and all Americans who have benefited from this law, join me in fighting to save the Affordable Care Act.
Barbara Lee (Democrat, CA) \u2014 2017-1-5

I want to thank the gentleman for yielding and for his steadfast commitment to ensuring global peace and security. prgtoken , I rise in opposition to this rule and H. Res. 11, which is a flawed and misguided effort as currently written. Let me be clear: H. Res. 11 would undermine longstanding and bipartisan U.S. policy on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This resolution is deeply flawed because it does not accurately portray U.S. policy on Israeli settlements. What is worse, this resolution completely mischaracterizes the United Nations Security Council resolution and the United States' abstention vote. prgtoken , yesterday, the Rules Committee shamefully rejected an alternative introduced by Congressman Price, Congressman Connolly, and Congressman Engel, which reflects current U.S. policy that would have reaffirmed our commitment to a negotiated and peaceful two-state solution. This is the only pathway to peace and security. It is appalling--but really, it is not surprising--that s pushed through a closed rule and hurried this to the floor.
COMMITTEE FUNDING
Charles E. Schumer (Democrat, NY) \u2014 2017-1-5

this approach met our needs for the last three Congresses, and I too would like to see it continue. In addition, special reserves have been restored to its historic purpose. We should continue to fund special reserves to the extent possible in order to be able to assist committees that face urgent, unanticipated, nonrecurring needs. Recognizing the tight budgets we will face for the foreseeable future, it is necessary to continue to bring funding authorizations more in line with our actual resources while ensuring that committees are able to fulfill their responsibilities. I look forward to continuing to work with the majority leader to accomplish this.
REGULATIONS FROM THE EXECUTIVE IN NEED OF SCRUTINY ACT OF 2017
Joe Courtney (Democrat, CT) \u2014 2017-1-5

I rise in support of this amendment, which really is a life-or-death question before the Chamber. prgtoken On February 7, 2010, a bunch of workers who were at a natural gas plant construction site early in the morning lost their lives in a horrific explosion because there was a natural gas blow where they intentionally put natural gas through the pipe that was being installed as a way of cleaning it. This is a practice which the pipe suppliers, Siemens, GE, and others have issued serious warning is an unsafe practice. Unfortunately, it wasn't followed that day, so six men lost their lives. One of them was Ronnie Crabb, who was a dear friend of mine. prgtoken It never should have happened because, again, in the private sector, the workplace standard was there, but there was no workplace standard in OSHA, which is now, again, trapped in the Chemical Safety Board and the regulatory process. prgtoken This bill is just going to do nothing but, again, add additional obstacles so that preventive measures that OSHA is really about--it is about compliance, not retribution. There was a $16 million fine imposed after the fact. The company, the contractor, went out of business and paid just a fraction of it. That is not the way to protect workers' lives. Let's allow a healthy regulatory process with private sector input so that people like Ronnie Crabb won't lose their lives in the future. prgtoken , again, I strongly support the Scott amendment.
TRIBUTE TO DR. BETH BELL
Patty Murray (Democrat, WA) \u2014 2017-1-5

today I wish to recognize an exceptional public servant, Dr. Beth Bell, who is retiring from the directorship of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, NCEZID, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC. prgtoken Dr. Bell began her career with the CDC in 1992, in my home State, as an epidemic intelligence service, EIS, officer assigned to the Washington State Department of Health, where she led a seminal investigation into E. coli infections. After completing her EIS training, she moved to CDC Atlanta to join the hepatitis branch in the division of viral and rickettsial diseases, later serving as chief of the epidemiology branch in the division of viral hepatitis. During her 13 years working on viral hepatitis, she led important efforts to better understand the epidemiology of hepatitis A in the United States, applying this knowledge to the development and implementation of hepatitis A vaccination policy. These extraordinary efforts contributed to reductions in national hepatitis A incidence of more than 95 percent. She also worked on implementation of global infant hepatitis A and B vaccination programs during the early days of the Global Alliance for Vaccines Initiative. She later served as the acting deputy director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases during the H1N1 influenza pandemic before being appointed director of the newly formed Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, NCEZID, in 2010. prgtoken In that role, Dr. Bell has been at the forefront of the agency's critical and complex emergency response efforts. In 2014-2015, Dr. Bell was called upon to lead the center through the largest Ebola epidemic in history. After reaching a near breaking point where, according to CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden, it was ``spiraling out of control'' in late 2014, the epidemic was contained through the aggressive use of proven outbreak-control measures such as patient isolation and contact tracing. prgtoken In 2016, Dr. Bell found herself leading the response to yet another pandemic as Zika exploded in South and Central America, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, and Florida. The impact of Zika on women and children through microcephaly, a life-threatening condition in which children are born with unusually small heads, was heartbreaking and historically significant--never before has a mosquito-borne infection caused such devastating birth defects. CDC's early alert--under Dr. Bell's leadership--to people traveling to countries with Zika likely prevented an untold number of infections among women of child-bearing age; and, continuing through her very last day of Federal service, Dr. Bell was critical in CDC's support for U.S. territories, cities, and States--as well as other impacted countries. prgtoken In addition, Dr. Bell oversaw the Center's response to chikungunya spreading throughout the Americas in 2013-14, the second
OBJECTING TO UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 2334
David Scott (Democrat, GA) \u2014 2017-1-5

. I thank the gentleman because this part is very important. prgtoken , this Nation is blessed. We have been blessed with divine intervention all through our history to be that shining light on the hill, to let all of our great work show for the world. We have an opportunity here tonight for this Congress to stand up and show that light for Israel. prgtoken Stand up for Israel and show our great works to this world. That is what I say, so let it be written and let it be done.
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET, FISCAL YEAR 2017
Thomas R. Carper (Democrat, DE) \u2014 2017-1-5

. It is great to see my friend from Kansas on the floor and looking forward to serving the next 6 years. prgtoken One of the things I focused on as a member of the Finance Committee on the Affordable Care Act was the idea that we have doctors, hospitals, and nurses who in some cases provide entirely too many tests and procedures and so forth that are needed to treat somebody just in order to cover--as Naval aviation used to say--our 6 o'clock. You didn't want to have somebody come up from behind you to shoot you down. So we talked about covering our 6 o'clock. Doctors, hospitals, and nurses spend a lot of time covering the 6 o'clock, as my friend knows. prgtoken I am an Ohio State boy. I am going to say something nice about Michigan, which is really out of character here. In Michigan, the University of Michigan Medical School and hospital came up with a policy called Sorry Works. If a doctor, hospital, or nurse made a mistake that adversely affected a patient, they apologized. The idea was to apologize, make up for it, make them whole, help them get well, cover their financial costs and so forth. It is called Sorry Works. It is a good idea. prgtoken I met a guy who is a doctor and a lawyer--a --from Illinois who took the idea of Sorry Works and he put it on steroids and they called it Seven Pillars. It has been a great example of what actually works to reduce the incidents of medical mistakes in hospitals and nursing homes and also to get better health care outcomes. You reduce medical malpractice costs, and you also get more satisfaction from the patient side. prgtoken We have taken that idea in Delaware--Seven Pillars--at Christiana Care, which is the big health care delivery system in our State. We have taken that and have begun to incorporate it in the way they work. If I am your doctor and you are my patient and I perform a procedure on you, if you are harmed or hurt--not your fault, my fault--the idea is I apologize. I meet with you privately--no lawyers--and apologize for what has happened and try to make you whole. If you lost wages, if you have pain and suffering, they pay your health care costs and make you whole. Don't hide it. Don't put it under the rug but take full acceptance, responsibility. That is one of the approaches being used to try to deal with medical malpractice costs. I think it is a good one. It is not the only good one, but it is one. prgtoken I happened to be walking through the Chamber and heard my friend speaking, and I thought I would share that with you, with everyone. prgtoken When I was Governor of Delaware, we used to meet with my Cabinet. We would be talking about a particular problem or challenge we faced in Delaware. I would say to my Cabinet: Some other State or some other Governor has actually addressed this issue. They figured out how to deal with this this. Our challenge is to find out what works and do more of that and to see if it can be transferred to Delawa
READING OF THE CONSTITUTION
Alan S. Lowenthal (Democrat, CA) \u2014 2017-1-5

. Amendment XVII: ``The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for 6 years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures. ``When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: . . .''
Steny H. Hoyer (Democrat, MD) \u2014 2017-1-5

I thank my friend, the majority leader, Mr. McCarthy, for yielding. prgtoken I rise to thank and to pay tribute to Tim Berry. prgtoken , the American public sees us so often when we are confronting one another--disagreeing strenuously sometimes and disagreeing sometimes disagreeably. What they don't see is the staff working with staffs across the aisle in a constructive effort to reach consensus and to move democracy forward. What they don't see is the collegiality that is engendered through the years between staff who have the responsibility of ensuring not only that their Members have full knowledge of what is being considered and their advice and counsel, but also of assuring that there is positive communication across the aisle even when we disagree. prgtoken Tim Berry has been one of the most adept, most cordial, most positive, and most effective staffers in effecting that end. We Members sometimes mask how effective our staffs are. I am sure they will lament that from time to time. prgtoken Tim Berry, I want you to know--we are very proud--is from Silver Spring, Maryland. He grew up in Silver Spring and grew up in our State. Tim Berry is a proud son of our State. Yes, he is a ; yes, he has been on staff on the other side of the aisle; but he is an American first, who has cared about his country, who has cared about this institution, and who has cared about showing respect and concern for staffs on both sides of the aisle. prgtoken I have had a number of chiefs of staff, one of whom is Cory Alexander, now the vice president of UnitedHealth. Cory Alexander and Tim are good friends. They worked together very constructively when Tim was with Tom DeLay. Mr. McCarthy is in that office, and I had the privilege of using that office for 4 years. There was never a time when we walked down that hallway that we didn't think of Detective Gibson losing his life and Officer Chestnut losing his life outside that door. Tim Berry was there to serve. Tim Berry served, notwithstanding the dangers that were self-evident. prgtoken Lisa is in the gallery and his children who have been mentioned by Leader McCarthy. Young people, you can be extraordinarily proud of your dad. I know, Lisa, you are as well. He has made this institution a better institution. He has made the relationship between the parties more positive in times when it was greatly strained. prgtoken Tim, thank you. Thank you for your service to the Congress, thank you for your service to the country, and thank you for your service to each and every one of us. God bless you and Godspeed.
PATHWAY OF DESTRUCTION
Sheila Jackson Lee (Democrat, TX) \u2014 2017-1-5

today, in the Senate, the other body, unfortunately, joined the pathway of destruction for most Americans and voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. These are not my words, the pathway of destruction, but is evidence what will happen to millions and millions of Americans. By repealing without a replacement, which does not exist, insurance will be taken away from 32 million working families. Now, some 4 million uninsured children will have no insurance. prgtoken Let me be very clear that many of these individuals do not have college degrees. Many of them, the voters of those who now will take the rein of government. Healthcare premiums will increase by 50 percent for millions of Americans. Hundreds of billions of dollars will go to tax breaks for insurance companies while eliminating the tax credits and subsidies for millions of working families. prgtoken It will take healthcare coverage away from millions of low- and moderate-income Americans by cutting Medicaid, and it will close rural hospitals and public hospitals that provide the lifeline for many Americans. It will cut off Federal funds for health care for women through Planned Parenthood. And yes, it will eliminate and have cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. prgtoken , this is a pathway of disaster. We should not repeal the Affordable Care Act.
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET, FISCAL YEAR 2017
Tim Kaine (Democrat, VA) \u2014 2017-1-5

I rise to offer this amendment, amendment No. 8, with Senator Murphy and other Senators, to the budget resolution we are currently considering, and the purpose of amendment No. 8 would be to create a point of order against considering any legislation that would either strip Americans of health insurance coverage, make health care more expensive, or reduce the quality of health coverage. prgtoken Our amendment creates a high hurdle to any legislation that would make America sick again, and basically that is what we are trying to do. If we are going to either strip coverage from people or make health insurance more expensive or reduce the quality of health coverage for Americans that they currently have, we shouldn't make that easy to do. We should have a high hurdle in place so we consider it before we do it. prgtoken The point of order is necessary because the entire purpose of this budget resolution is not to really address the budgetary matters facing the country. I say that as a member of the Budget Committee. In fact, the budget process was basically ignored in the last Congress. prgtoken This budget is only before us to set up a pathway to pass a fast- track repeal of the Nation's most consequential health care program in decades, a program that affects millions of people and a repeal being fast-tracked that would strip health care from millions of Americans. prgtoken I will come back to the health points in a second, but I want to address how we got to where we are on the budget question that was in the province of the Budget Committee. prgtoken I think it is a little strange that halfway into Fiscal Year 2017, which began in October 2016, we are going to be setting budget levels now. A budget resolution is a tool to set forth the guidelines for spending in Congress. prgtoken We know, in the history of this body, we are not always successful in passing a budget through both Houses of Congress and approving that budget through a conference process, but at least some progress is usually made; for example, both Houses doing their budget resolutions. As you know, that did not happen in 2016. Last year, our GOP counterparts in each House decided, for the first time in the modern budget era, not to hold a hearing on the President's submitted budget, not to have any activity on a budget in the Senate, either in the committee or on the floor. prgtoken To begin, I have to ask, if the budget wasn't important enough for us to consider last year, why is it now so important for us to be taking up a budget? The answer is obvious. We are debating a budget for the sole purpose--the sole purpose--of setting in motion a process to repeal health care coverage for tens of millions of Americans. This is really about an attack on people's health care. prgtoken I and many of my colleagues have said there is a significant need to make improvements to the Affordable Care Act and, more generally, to our health care sys