Susan Muffley Act of 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. RYAN. Madam Speaker, 13 years; 13 years. I have been in Congress now for a little while, and I cannot begin to tell you what an example that the Delphi salaried retirees have set. It is the absolute gold standard for activism and lobbying their government.

And I, you know, normally get up here and get pretty upset; but I have got to kind of laugh because when I hear our friends on the other side talk about irresponsibility and gimmicks and nanny states and socialists, I think of all my friends in the Delphi salaried retirement.

These are the most hardworking citizens that I have in my district. And they show up for work. They coach the baseball teams. They work at the church. They are veterans. They give back. They are great parents. They are great-grandparents. They are involved in the community.

Our job here is pretty simple. We look at the field, see what is happening in the country, and if some person or group of people are being wronged unfairly, it is our job to fix it. It is not a Democrat thing. It is not a Republican thing. It is not a left-right thing, not a free market thing, or a socialist thing.

It is about people. It is about American citizens who did everything right. They showed up one day in the middle of a bankruptcy that, as Mr. Kildee has articulated here, the government was organizing, and reorganizing, the American auto industry. This isn't some private- sector bankruptcy. The government was in there manipulating everything, and they screwed up.

There was no one screaming louder than I was at the Obama administration, Sherrod Brown and I, in meetings with Tim Geithner and all the rest over the last 13 years.

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Mr. RYAN. I thank Congressman Kildee from the Ways and Means Committee, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Richie Neal, Sherrod Brown, Rob Portman, Mike Turner. The Members of Congress and Senators who are on the ground with these families came together and have been fighting.

Here we are, 13 years later, where we are going to vote this out of the House, and we are going to send it to the Senate. We are going to try to help people because that is our job.

What I really appreciate about this is that during the rescue package, we were able to save hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pensions for people, about 100,000 in Ohio, because there was a problem, and we tried to fix it. That happened to be unions.

This group happens to not be union, but they deserve help all the same. That is what we are doing here. I was proud that the Auto Workers and the AFL-CIO are helping to support this.

We need more of this. I think this is an example of how to try to influence your government, try to get help, try to right a wrong, and not talk about Democrat and Republican and red and blue and all that nonsense that we are all sick of.

We are ready to move forward. If you need help, if you have been wronged, we are going to stand up and fight for you.

Again, I thank Mr. Kildee for his leadership here. We are going to send this over to the Senate.

I know there are a lot of people, again, living and working and talking to these families over the last 13 years. How many people have passed away? How many families have been harmed? How many other people have not gotten the healthcare that they needed because they couldn't afford it, or they had situations in their family, and they didn't have enough money, maybe, to help their kids or help their grandkids?

This is the right thing to do. This is the absolute right thing to do. I am glad it is bipartisan, and I am glad we finally got it done after 13 years.

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