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CONGRESS MUST WORK TOGETHER FOR PROGRESS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schneider) for 5 minutes.
Mr. SCHNEIDER. Madam Speaker, as we reach the middle of 2021, this House has made incredible progress, including fighting the global pandemic by passing the American Rescue Plan.
Already, more than 300 million vaccine shots have been administered. Communities are opening up, and business is picking up, creating jobs and opportunity.
Next month, parents will begin receiving their monthly child tax credit, legislation that will cut the Nation's child poverty rate in half.
We have a pathway to recovery and transformation that offers real promise to every American. But underneath all of this, our country faces a deep divide that threatens to undo the foundations upon which our country rests.
These divisions reached an apex on January 6, when our Capitol came under attack and five people died.
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The immediate threat to the Capitol may have receded, but the threat across the country still simmers.
It is therefore imperative that we fully understand the events leading up to and including the siege on the Capitol on January 6.
As someone who was here in the gallery during the attack, someone who watched in horror as they rushed the Speaker off the floor, who took cover as the Capitol Police barricaded the door against the mob, who fully understands the cost to our Nation and the implications of simply moving on, I am personally, deeply invested in preventing such an attack on our Capitol from ever happening again.
The divide in our Nation threatens the prospects of our recovery and the potential for America to lead on the global stage.
Congress must now work in unison, Democrats and Republicans, to institute the policies we need to prevent future acts of domestic extremism. For years, I have worked to pass legislation like the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act that would invest in the types of programs built to spot and intervene in this type of extremism.
When my friend Republican Congressman John Katko negotiated a bipartisan committee to investigate January 6, he did it because he knew the stakes we faced as a Nation.
The work of the Select Committee will be essential to history's understanding of what took place on January 6 and protecting the future of our Republic.
My hope is that the members of this committee will be committed to the sober and relentless pursuit of the truth so that such a crisis never happens again.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 112
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