Congressman Jim Clyburn Talks about Freedom Being on the Line: It’s All About Freedom (Part 2 of 2)
Representative Jim Clyburn talks to a gathering of Black community leaders and members at the Urban League’s Black Business Hub on June 30th.
by Jonathan Gramling
U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn is currently one of the longest serving African Americans in the U.S. House of Representatives, having been elected in 1993 to represent a majority-minority district in South Carolina in the center of its Black Belt. When President Barack Obama took office in 2007, Clyburn became the Number Three Democrat in the House, holding the position of Majority Whip when the Democrats are in the majority.
On June 30th, Clyburn spoke at Mt. Zion Baptist Church and Fountain of Life as well as at a gathering of community activists at the Urban League’s Black Business Hub to talk about the differences between the Democratic and Republican Parties as well as push the candidacy of President Joe Biden.
Clyburn used the American Rescue Plan to delineate the differences.
“Let me say this,” Clyburn said. “I want you all to just think. We passed the Rescue Plan without a single Republican vote. That bill immediately lifted half of the children living in poverty out of poverty. That bill immediately reopened businesses that were shuttered. It immediately got kids back in school. And then we passed the infrastructure bill. That bill didn’t just build roads and bridges and put in water and sewage. In Flint, Michigan, they are using that bill to get rid of all of their lead pipes. Communities across the United States are using that bill to get rid of lead pipes. And we know what lead pipes are doing to children. We’re getting rid of all of that just in that bill alone. But it didn’t stop with roads and bridges and water and sewage. We put in $65 billion to put broad ban internet throughout this country so that everyone can get online. That’s the infrastructure bill. And for four years, Trump talked about infrastructure and never spent one dime on infrastructure. Just the infrastructure bill alone will say how valuable reelecting Joe Biden is all about.”
In recent years, there have been supply issues for computer chips that operate automobiles and some everyday electrical products, in part due to the production of computer chips moving to facilities outside of the U.S. The CHIPS & Science Act was passed to reverse that trend.
“I was up in Flint, Michigan,” Clyburn said. “I’ve seen those cars that go as far as you can see parked over there because we had to take a chip, take it up the mountainside, take the chip out of that car and go get the other cars because we didn’t have enough chips to get these cars out to the dealerships. Joe Biden said, ‘You’ve got to start making new chips here again. It started here and it’s gone.’ Ninety-eight percent of all of the chips were being made outside of this country. I came up here to open the big plants. I tried to get one in South Carolina, but y’all got it.”
Clyburn talked about the strides that have been made in the area of health care.
“The Inflation Reduction Act, he couldn’t do anything about food costs,” Clyburn said of Biden. “But he could do something about medicine. I’m looking around here now. I just fessed up to being 84-years-old. Some of y’all are on Medicare. My late wife fought diabetes for 30 years. She lost her battle to diabetes. I saw her insulin bill every month. One time, it was $600 a month, just for the insulin. She was a full shot per day diabetic. Now, you’re on Medicare, thanks to Joe Biden, it’s capped at $35 per month. They do that by using the Affordable Care Act that Trump has already told you, given the opportunity, he will rip it up by its roots. Why was he so mad at John McCain? Because they had the vote, they thought, in the Senate, John McCain came to the floor and put thumbs down on that bill. He got so angry with him, he started mocking him, talking about his arm that came about because of being a prisoner of war. That’s the kind of sensitivity that this guy has. He has no compassion, no sensitivity. And you’re thinking about voting for him?”
And speaking of veterans, Clyburn recounted the impact of the PACT Act that expended the health care that veterans receive to combat the effects of toxic substances like Agent Orange that veterans were exposed to.
“How many veterans are in here,” Clyburn asked. “Did you go to Vietnam? I know what happened to the prisoners from South Carolina. A lot of them are my constituents. They went to Vietnam. They came back. They never got their full benefits because of all of the carcinogens they were exposed to, they were only able to get Agent Orange covered. But they were exposed to all of the rest of them. The ones who had Agent Orange were only getting 15-20 percent. If the rest of them were put in, some of them would have gotten 95-100 percent. So when we were working on the PACT Act, Joe Biden said, ‘Yeah, we need to get these things from the burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, well let’s got back and pick up the rest of those soldiers from Vietnam.’ And we did.”
Clyburn recounted an interaction that he had with a constituent that highlighted the impact that the PACT Act had on her family.
“You don’t ask questions unless you know the answer,” Clyburn said. “Well I violated that last year down in Charleston. I was at Emanuel AME Church holding an event in the basement of that church where there were nine souls who were murdered. And I was sharing with the media the PACT Act stuff. And there was a lady in the group. And when I mentioned the PACT Act, she yelled out. I thought I recognized that yell as a friendly yell. Not knowing her or what she was going to say, I said, ‘Yes ma’am, I noticed you just yelled out when I mentioned the PACT Act. Come down here a minute.’ I put my arm around her shoulder and said, ‘Tell these reporters what the PACT Act means to you.’ I had no idea what she was going to say. I kept my fingers crossed. I was trying to cross my toes. I was praying. And she told us a story about her husband who has spent 23 months in a hospital in Japan because of his injuries in Vietnam. And when he came home, he had 15 percent disability after 23 months in a hospital. She said, ‘When y’all passed the PACT Act, he went back and got his benefits recalculated and he went to 100 percent.’ I did not know this until she said it. And you know what happens when you talk to the media, I’ve just got my arms around her and I said, ‘Keep talking.’ You know what happens when a soldier or a veteran gets 100 percent? Their spouse is then covered and their children. ‘Now I’ve got insurance and my children have insurance because of the PACT Act.’ Now thousands of soldiers and veterans now get the benefits of the PACT Act because of Joe Biden.”
In a phone interview the next day, Clyburn talked about the need to reach young voters whose support for Biden was not as strong as other generations in the Black community.
“It is very, very important for us to make sure that young people see the relevancy between their one vote and what their future might be,” Clyburn emphasized. “We have to make sure that young people see that their vote is an investment. I feel just ask them to imagine where you would like to be five years from now or 10 years from now. And think about these two candidates. Which one of them is offering a platform that you can identify with as a part of your future. And if we get that done, properly, I have no fear, but that they will choose Biden every time because Biden proposes the building of the infrastructure whereas Trump is nothing but chaos. Biden is providing leadership, Trump division and lying. Biden is a candidate that proposes a future. This time Trump is all focused on the past. And when you hear him say, ‘Make America Great Again,’ he is talking about a thing in our past. What he calls great, that is never, ever to be a part of our future again. And we have to get young people to understand what these ‘dog whistles’ mean. And when I do that, I get a very good and positive response from young people.”
While President Joe Biden has since ended his quest to be elected for a second term, the issues raised by U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn will resonate with Vice-President Kamala Harris or whomever the Democrats select. While the personalities may change, the underlying issues do not.
