A bill to amend section 44921 of title 49, United States Code, to provide for the arming of cargo pilots against terrorism.

Mr. President, I rise to briefly talk about the underlying bill and the vote we are going to have on cloture, but mostly to discuss the Cantwell amendment related to the temporary extension of unemployment benefits.

Mr. President, we had a vote on a similar amendment earlier this year, but the amendment before us today was redrafted to reflect changes in high unemployment states. First I want to talk about whether we should extend unemployment benefits--a temporary extension of the Federal program--based on the current unemployment situation. Then I want to talk about some of the details of Senator Cantwell's amendment and the changes that are in her amendment.

The employment picture in this country is looking up by all measures. In the past, employment was looking up according to the household survey, which is the survey that measures employment, including those who are self-employed, people who contract with the Government, and those on payrolls.

But, there are two surveys of employment. The payroll survey does not include people who are self-employed. It does not include small contractors who contract with the Government, and there are a lot of those people today. So the household survey is a more accurate survey of overall employment in this country.

In the past, the household survey and the payroll survey have paralleled each other. There really has not been a difference, so people mainly paid attention to one survey, the payroll survey.

In the past couple of years, we had a recession that was followed by a recovery. It has been called a jobless recovery. But, recessions always have a peak of jobless claims during periods of higher unemployment after recessions.

This is a chart of the last several recessions, and we can see the gray areas are the recessions. These dark lines are a measure of the unemployment rate. We can see after the recessions, either right at the end of the recessions or just after the recessions, we can see the peak in unemployment. This indicates there is always a lag in people being hired after recessions have ended. As the economy starts growing, people are still a bit unsettled in their businesses--Should we rehire people?--and so that peak of unemployment lags after recessions.

We have passed that peak. We had the recession. The recession occurred at the end of the year 2000 and going into the year 2001. We had this recession followed by a slow recovery. And then we had September 11 hit, which just decimated the economy in many areas, especially the tourist economy,

as in my home State of Nevada. It was almost a double dip of a recession. The first dip starting at the end of 2000 and the second dip after September 11, 2001. So we did some things in the Senate to try to overcome that situation. Working with the President, we passed two different tax bills. Those tax bills have had a positive effect on the economy. The economy is recovering. It is still in a growth phase, and it is now moving into the hiring phase of the recovery. As you can tell from recent job numbers people are starting to say: You know what, we really do feel good about what is going on. And they are hiring additional employees.

One of the criticisms has been in the decline of manufacturing jobs. In the past these jobs were declining, and we were losing manufacturing jobs in the United States.

This chart shows manufacturing activity. We can see it down in 1991, it is coming up in 2000, and then, going into 2001, it takes a nosedive. Then in 2001, it came back up a little bit and took another nosedive. We can see in the year 2003 manufacturing jobs have increased by a very nice rate. So the manufacturing activity in the United States is coming back. That is a good sign, and we all welcome that.

The Cantwell amendment would extend temporary unemployment benefits through November, but this is not just a clean extension. The amendment also changes the ``high unemployment'' definition to make more States qualify for additional unemployment benefits. In other words, if her original amendment that we voted on a couple of months ago was enacted today, the only State that would qualify as a high unemployment State would be Alaska.

She redrafted her amendment to where it eliminates what is called a look-back provision, and that look-back provision is what helps determine whether States are high unemployment States. It compares their current unemployment rate to the rates in the previous 2 years.

The amazing thing about that look-back provision is that states with relatively low unemployment could qualify as a high unemployment state under this amendment. According to preliminary analyses of the Cantwell amendment the State of Idaho qualified as a high unemployment state with about a 4.5-percent unemployment rate. That is very low. My State is 4.4 percent, and it is hard to find employees. When the unemployment rate gets that low, it is hard to find employees. Under the Cantwell amendment, the State of Idaho could potentially qualify as a high unemployment State.

Last Friday, the statistics were revealed for last month, the month of April. The unemployment rate dropped to 5.6 percent, and 288,000 jobs, according to the payroll survey, were created. In March, 335,000 jobs were created. Just since the beginning of 2004, almost 900,000 jobs, according to the payroll survey--the one the other side has been talking about--almost 900,000 jobs have been added to the payrolls in the United States. It is the eighth consecutive month of job gains, according to the payroll survey. In that 8-month period, we have had 1.1 million jobs created.

The other thing we have to look at are jobless claims, in other words how many people actually applying for unemployment compensation. The initial jobless claims declined by 25,000 last week, and that was the lowest level since before the 2000 Presidential election.

Also, something that has been talked about on this floor is the number of long-term unemployed, people who have been on the unemployment rolls for a long time or have exhausted their benefits. That number dropped by 200,000. Not only are the unemployment numbers improving, but so is productivity.

I talked before about payroll versus household. I want to emphasize that because the payroll survey is now showing jobs being created.

By the way, this chart shows the 1.1 million jobs by month, and this is the payroll survey. Comparing the payroll with the household survey, in the past we can see how these two surveys parallel each other. But in the years 2000, 2001 and beyond--this is the period we were in the last couple of years--these actually diverge because there were more jobs added to the household survey than the payroll survey. The payroll survey is now starting to catch up.

Why would this occur? Why would the household survey, which measures self-employed people, be different than the payroll survey? The difference comes about because our economy is changing. During times of recession--and this is not unusual for people who cannot find jobs-- they start their own companies. They become entrepreneurs, and sometimes it ends up being the best thing that ever happened to them because they start their own company and end up being more successful than they could ever have been working for somebody else. Senator Bennett referred to his successes in starting businesses earlier today on the Senate floor.

In the last few years, more people than ever have started their own companies. As a matter of fact, 430,000 people now make their full-time living on e-Bay. That is just within the last couple of years. Those people are not measured in the payroll survey; they are only measured in the household survey.

The other side says those who are self-employed do not have jobs. As a matter of fact, the other side says there have been 3 million jobs lost since President Bush took office. That number is according to the payroll survey. The household survey shows 2 million jobs have been added because a lot of those people are now self-employed.

Before my tenure in the U.S. Senate, I was a veterinarian. I was self-employed. My job did not count, according to the other side of the aisle. They say that the household survey does not count. If you are self-employed, you know you are working; you think you have a job; you think that should count. It is an insult to those self-employed people not to count them in a survey of jobs. If we are really talking about jobs, we should have the most accurate reflection of jobs.

Even giving the other side of the aisle just the payroll survey, the payroll survey is improving. It is improving dramatically. Almost 900,000 jobs since the beginning of the year have been added to the payrolls of the United States, which begs the question: why should we extend the temporary extension of unemployment benefits program again?

When the Democrats controlled the White House, the House and the Senate, after the early 1990s recession, the unemployment rate was at 6.6 percent. At that time they said unemployment was low enough to end the program. We have not heard the other side address that issue. I have made this argument on the Senate floor many times this year, and we have not heard the other side address that. They controlled all three of those bodies and yet they saw the fact that 6.6 percent was low enough to end the program.

Fast-forward to today, the Republicans control the White House, the Senate, and the House, and now the Democrats say that, even though the unemployment rate is almost a full percentage point lower than when the Democrats ended the program, now the unemployment is too high and we need to keep the temporary unemployment program going today.

I think that is disingenuous. It is saying while we were in control, 6.6 percent was low enough to end the program, but now the Republicans are in control, 5.6 percent is too high and we ought to keep the program going. They put out the statement from Alan Greenspan, who said we should keep the program going. Well, Alan Greenspan has also said that the biggest threat to our economic long-term growth is the deficit. The amendment that was offered by Senator Cantwell costs almost a billion dollars a month. It is a 9-month extension, and it is an $9.5 billion price tag. That adds $9.5 billion to the deficit. We have already spent $32 billion on this program the last couple of years, which added $32 billion to the deficit. It comes right out of deficit spending.

I believe it is time to end the program. The States have money we gave them. We gave them $8 billion to address the problem of high unemployment in their States. Many States, including the State of Washington, have not used this money. Out of the $144 million the State of Washington received out of the $8 billion, they have only used about $1 million. So if the State of Washington cared about their unemployed, one would think they

would use that money, but they have chosen not to use it. So I think we have fulfilled our obligation during the recession and post-recession when unemployment was high, but it is time to start worrying about the deficit. For those who talk about being deficit hawks, it is time to vote against this program.

Now I do not know whether this was done purposely or not, but in drafting this bill, the author of the amendment drafted it in such a way that it is retroactive to the first of the year. So that means if one is working today, but they were unemployed at the beginning of the year and would have qualified for TEUC at the beginning of the year, they actually would get a check from the Federal Government. I do not think that is the purpose of this program. The purpose of this program was to help those who really could not get a job.

The other reason I do not believe this program should be extended is, during times of economic growth, if one is having trouble getting a job it may mean that they have to move. Well, we are in times of economic growth, but the more comfortable we make it for people on unemployment insurance--in other words, when they are getting these unemployment benefits--the more comfortable we make it to stay on unemployment, the less incentive there is to go out and do what it takes to get a job. It is called personal responsibility.

I believe we are during that time of economic growth--I think all of the statistics show that--and it is time that we end this program and we vote down the Cantwell amendment. The Cantwell amendment violates the budget. We know that. That is why there is a budget point of order that is going to be raised against the Cantwell amendment. The vote we will have will be to waive the Budget Act so that we will deficit spend.

If we want to make sure those jobs are out there for the people who are unemployed today, we have to have a strong economy. Alan Greenspan says the biggest threat to our economy is the size of the deficit. Let us do something about the size of the deficit by voting down this $8 billion program.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our time.

How much time is remaining?

Mr. President, I will take 1 minute and then the Senator from Oklahoma will take 1 minute.

Mr. President, a couple of quick facts. First, when the Democrats were in control in the early 1990s, following the recession, we had this same program. They were in control of the White House, the House and the Senate. The unemployment rate was at 6.6 percent and they voted to stop the program, again, when the unemployment rate was at 6.6 percent. Today the unemployment rate is one point lower at 5.6 percent and, yet, now they want to extend the program. This, at the cost of $9 billion. If one is a deficit hawk and they are worried about the deficit, they should vote against the Cantwell amendment.

This amendment is also retroactive. In other words, if a person has a job now, qualified for TEUC after it expired, then this would apply to them. They would get a check from the Government for the time after January they were unemployed.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Thank you, Mr. President.

Let me start off by correcting a few things my colleagues have said on the floor. This is a debate about 1.5 million people who have lost their jobs and have not been able to find work and have been without benefits.

To be clear, the unemployment program at the Federal level does not exist today. It was terminated as of the 31st of December. This isn't a continuation of a program that has been in place for the last several months. It has not been in place.

As it relates to the Clinton administration and the economic numbers, say we cut the program off in better economic times and worse economic times, the whole point of this debate is the fact the economy and job creation has not taken place at the level that would have employed the number of people who have lost their jobs starting with over 2.6 million people. While we have had some job growth, we have not totally recovered. While the Clinton administration cut off the program at a time of higher unemployment, they actually had net job growth. That is why they terminated the program. We are not in that same situation.

In fact, it is no wonder Alan Greenspan basically, before a House committee, came to the same conclusion and said if you have a large number of exhaustees it makes sense to go ahead and use the program to take care of those exhaustees.

So here is one of our chief economists saying, Yes, the Clinton administration did something different, and they did it differently because they had job creation and net job growth going on. We do not have net job growth going on.

My colleague mentioned Alan Greenspan and the deficit and what we need to do to take care of the deficit moving forward. Alan Greenspan, who is also very concerned about the deficit, said exactly this. The number of exhaustees alone will tell you it is time for us to go ahead and take this program and take care of those 1.5 million exhaustees because of their large number.

Let us talk about where we are going to spend money. I think that is the reason we are in this debate. Some of my colleagues said it is about the deficit. Let us take this bill, for example. Let's take the underlying bill and talk about what we are spending money on. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of my amendment at $5.8 billion. If the Senator from Oklahoma can get a larger number----

I only have 5 minutes. I will be happy to yield after I finish speaking, if I have time.

The issue is this underlying bill has a lot of tax credits and programs to help corporate America. Many of them I support. But I think it is important for my colleagues to realize what is in this bill.

As opposed to the cost of taking care of the unemployment in America, there is $9 billion in here for the oil and gas industry; $2.2 billion for the clean coal industry; $2.8 billion for synthetic fuel. Actually, this particular program is under investigation by two different agencies. There are $2 billion for green bonds, which I say and Taxpayers for Common Sense say could still inadvertently go to a Hooters Restaurant. These two programs alone would pay for the unemployment benefit program.

We basically went ahead and authorized these in this legislation. I don't know where we found the money for those programs. Yet, we are taking money out of the unemployment insurance trust fund, a fund that is supposed to be paid into by employees, and somehow saying, out of the $13 billion that is there, we do not have enough money for working families who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, but, yes, we have money--$2.8 billion--for synthetic fuels, even though we are investigating whether the money should be spent there, and we have $2 billion for green bonds that could end up going to a Hooters Restaurant. Where are the priorities of my colleagues? Where are the priorities in passing this kind of legislation when we know that American men and women need our help and support?

Like my colleagues, I know this economy will get better. I have actually helped create jobs in the private sector. It will recover. But that is not the debate. The debate is, we have terminated a program in December and we now have data and information that shows the economy has not picked up to the degree in the last several months to take care of that huge number of unemployed who have exhausted their benefits. While everyone is talking about whether the economy is better, executive salaries are up, corporate profits are up, but total jobs lost is the issue. We are in a better economic situation, but we are leaving the American worker behind.

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. President, take last month's number. Say we had an average of 300,000 jobs created each month for the next 6 months. At the end of this program in October we would still be at a deficit. Even with 300,000 jobs created, we would still have over 112,000 people who had not gotten a job.

So the question is, What are we going to do for a stimulus in the meantime as we are going through this job creation exercise in America? Are we going to say these are the only programs we support, programs for the oil and gas industry, for synthetic fuels, for green bonds, for bourbon distributors, for horse racing, for archery manufacturers? Those are the things we will support and we will not support the American workers?

I ask my colleagues to think about our priorities and support the Cantwell-Voinovich amendment.

I am happy to respond to the issues raised.

One point is important to make. I am happy to modify my amendment if this would help clarify. This is not retroactive for someone who has gotten a job. If you got a job in March and you would have qualified for January and February unemployment, you do not get unemployment benefits. This only takes care of individuals who have lost their job and have not found a job.

I am happy to modify the amendment. That is not the intent of the amendment. The intent is only to take care of people who are still unemployed.

As I said, that is not the intent of the legislation. To make the Senator from Oklahoma comfortable, I am happy to consider whatever language he wants to clarify that point. This is not about someone who has gotten a job in the last 7 months; it is about the fact that we terminated this program in December and the fact that there are 1.5 million Americans who are without benefits. They are, basically, defaulting on mortgages, going into bankruptcy, not being able to take care of their own health insurance or the health care insurance of their family.

It is about giving them access to a fund that was created for these very economic times and giving them support during these economic times. It is stimulus that, as I said, is just as worthy as the other programs--I would say more worthy than a lot of the programs in the underlying bill.

I am happy to correct this perception by the Senator from Oklahoma and clarify it in any way so we can get this particular issue off the table.

Mr. President, this next amendment is the Cantwell- Voinovich amendment which will say when it comes to our economy and producing jobs, the priority of the Senate ought to be taking care of those individuals who lost their jobs and lost their benefits.

This amendment is crystal clear. It only applies to people who have lost their benefits and are unemployed as of the enactment of this legislation, which means it only covers people who have lost their jobs and are unemployed. It is about whether we are going to say 1.5 million Americans are more a priority than simply passing this legislation with all the tax credits, all the incentives for various corporations in America, but leaving American workers out in the cold.

Thirteen billion dollars of the unemployment insurance trust fund should be enough security to give back to workers who have paid into this account and through no fault of their own are unemployed. So while this institution today is going to make decisions----

So the question is whether we are going to continue to make a priority these kinds of tax credits in this legislation and leave the American workers out in the cold. I urge my colleagues, let us do both. Let us help those who have been left behind and continue to try to create a more positive economy.

I urge people to support the Cantwell-Voinovich amendment.

Mr. President, I move to waive the relevant section of the Budget Act and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask to be recognized for the time I have under the unanimous consent agreement.

The ancient Theban poet Pindar wrote: ``The test of any man lies in action.''

That was a very provocative, very prescient, and very wise statement. The test of any man, or woman, lies in action.

Today that test will be for the Senate. Today we will test whether the Senate can act to create and keep good manufacturing jobs in America. Today we will test whether the Senate can act to end European tariffs that hobble American businesses, and today we will test whether the Senate can act to extend vital benefits to the nearly 1.5 million jobless Americans who have exhausted their unemployment benefits.

The coming cloture vote is the defining test for the JOBS bill. If the Senate cannot vote today to complete action on this bill, then the majority leader will move on to other business. Yes, in a perfect world every Senator would have the opportunity to offer and debate every amendment. In a perfect world, every amendment would get a vote. In a perfect world, every Senator would get home for family dinner at 6. But by the standards of the modern Senate, I believe the Senate has given this bill fair consideration.

Over the course of 5 separate weeks, we have considered 28 amendments and adopted 17 of them. I think that is a respectable record. The coming cloture vote is now the test of whether we can pass the JOBS bill. The coming cloture vote is also a test of whether Senators on this side of the aisle can take yes for an answer. We on this side demanded a vote on Senator Harkin's overtime amendment, and the Senate did consider that amendment. The Senate adopted that amendment. We demanded a vote on Senator Dodd's offshoring amendment, and the Senate did consider that amendment and the Senate adopted that amendment as well. We demanded a vote on Senator Wyden's trade adjustment assistance amendment, and the Senate did consider that amendment but regrettably did not adopt it. However, Senators Wyden, Coleman, and I intend to bring that effort back to the Senate on another day. And we demanded a vote on Senator Cantwell's unemployment insurance amendment. Under the unanimous consent agreement governing this bill, in order to get a vote on the unemployment insurance amendment the Senate needs to invoke cloture.

If we invoke cloture, the Senate will consider that amendment, and I hope the Senate will also adopt it.

I believe that invoking cloture to get a vote on the Cantwell amendment is now a fair deal for Democrats, and I think we should take it. We should say, yes, for an answer. We should vote to invoke cloture so that we may vote on unemployment benefits.

After the cloture vote, the vote to waive the budget for Senator Cantwell's amendment will be a test for the entire Senate. Our vote on the Cantwell amendment is a test as to whether we can respond to the record number of jobless workers who have exhausted their benefits. America's free and open market economy has yielded unparalleled growth and vitality. Part of the genius of our economy is that we allow the private sector the freedom to adjust rapidly to changing circumstances. It helps our country grow. That freedom and vitality comes also with disruption and pain for workers who lose their jobs in hard economic times like those we have had in the last 4 years.

When, nearly 70 years ago, Congress created the unemployment insurance program, our society struck a deal. American workers agreed to participate in open and volatile markets, and the Government agreed to cushion the blow when markets turned rough. Unemployment insurance is the result of a vital social compact.

In past recessions, Congress has acted to extend those benefits, and the evidence is that in this recession more workers are remaining unemployed much longer than in previous recessions.

The share of the unemployed who have been unemployed for more than 6 months has hit its highest level in more than 20 years. Federal Chairman Alan Greenspan said recently ``an exceptionally high number'' of unemployed are losing their unemployment benefits, and he supported resuming temporary Federal benefits, saying:

I think it's a good idea largely because of the size of the

degree of exhaustions.

Thus, the coming vote on the Cantwell amendment will test whether the Senate can respond to this human need, keep our social compact, and extend these needed unemployment benefits. Finally, this coming cloture vote will be a test of whether the Senate can work.

This bill began as a venture of Democrats and Republicans working together in the Finance Committee. Its major provision, the heart of the provision--tax cuts for American manufacturing--is really a Democratic priority. Democrats sought all along to create and keep good manufacturing jobs here in America. This bill advanced in the Finance Committee as a cooperative venture. The chairman of the Finance Committee and I, working together, included many of the provisions of the bill in response to the request of Senators on this side of the aisle--on both sides of the aisle, but especially on this side of the aisle. This bill reflects an open, democratic process.

Once we came to the Senate floor, we tried to ensure the Senate consider the maximum number of amendments. Now the Senate has considered 28 amendments and adopted 17 amendments. Even after the Senate invokes cloture, the Senate may still consider germane amendments and there are going to be several of them, and I believe the Senate will be able to take them up and deal with them postcloture.

The time for talk is coming to a close. Soon will be a time for action. The coming vote will be a test of whether the Senate can act. Let us act to advance this bill to create good manufacturing jobs here in America. Let us act to extend unemployment benefits to jobless workers who need them. Let us act to show we can at least work together in the spirit of that great poet Pindar, again, who said, ``The test of any man lies in action.''

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

I ask the Senator from Oklahoma if he wishes to speak. There are several speakers on this side. As I understand it, on the other side of the aisle, the time is divided between 10 and 15. If the Senator from Oklahoma has 15 minutes, now will be an appropriate time for him to speak.

You have 9 minutes left. Now would be an appropriate time. We have a lot of speakers here--not a lot, three more.

Maybe you can set a precedent here.

I yield 1 of my minutes to the Senator from Washington.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

I will not use all that time.

I compliment Senator Cantwell. She has been dogged in her effort to bring up this amendment. I remember it was not too long ago when we were working, the chairman of the committee, Senator Grassley, and others in the leadership, to try to sequence amendments, to figure out how we would process this bill.

The Senator from Washington said she wanted to offer her amendment and we told her, absolutely she could. We were trying to work out some other amendments and asked if she could delay in pressing her amendment even though she had the right to offer it, and she said she would. She has been very good in, first, pushing to get her amendment passed and, second, working with Senators to try to figure out the very best circumstances under which her amendment could be brought up and passed.

It has been somewhat difficult because Senators on this side of the aisle have been standing up for her rights. This Senator, certainly, and the minority leader, Senator Daschle, are standing up very strongly for her rights. Senator Kennedy from Massachusetts also assisted her and worked with her to help get this amendment up.

There have been some Senators on the other side of the aisle who did not want to vote at all on Senator Cantwell's amendment, but she has persevered. She has done a great job representing people who are out of work and unemployed, especially for her State of Washington. That is why we are here today. Were it not for the perseverance of the Senator from Washington, it is problematic whether we would be at this point. We will have a vote first on cloture and then a vote on her amendment. I thank the Senator for that.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

We have 10.

Mr. President, I am happy to speak, but I don't believe the Senator from Washington has made her speech. Usually I would respond to her.

I rise in opposition to the amendment of my friend Senator Cantwell for a lot of reasons. This is not a simple extension, as Senator Ensign earlier said. This is an expansion. Yet despite the fact we have good economic news, despite the fact we had a report last month, 288,000 new jobs, before that, 300,000--700,000 jobs in the last 2 months--we want to not only extend temporary Federal unemployment compensation, we want an expansion.

Change the definition. I started looking at the amendment. I thought it was not very well drafted. It does a number of things. It is retroactive back to January. It expands benefits, and then it goes retroactive.

Let us say somebody is unemployed in January and February, but they get a good job in March. They would qualify for 8 weeks or maybe 10 weeks of benefits. Are we going to write them a check even though they have had a job for the last month or so? We have never done that.

What would that be if you were in the State of Massachusetts? It would be as much as $760 a week. For 10 weeks, that is $7,600--a lump sum, even though you may have a job that is paying over $80,000 a year.

That doesn't make sense. But it would be legal. It would actually happen, and it would cost Federal taxpayers probably in excess of $1 billion if that happened. That makes no sense whatsoever. But that is in the amendment.

The amendment also, as Senator Ensign explained, basically says for the high unemployment States we are going to change things so more States will qualify for high unemployment benefits. In other words, we are going to expand this program. Why? Because most of the States don't qualify for it because States that do qualify for the high unemployment Federal benefit have to have increasing unemployment. And, frankly, we don't have that. We have decreasing unemployment, including the State of Washington, in which I believe the unemployment rate is 6.1 percent. You have declining unemployment in almost every State. The trend is down. The trend is for more employment. We should be grateful for that.

Some people evidently want this program to be a permanent Federal program. But it is a Federal temporary program that has expired.

I am looking at the statistics we have used in the past. We discontinued this program for a couple of years when we had it in the early 1990s. We discontinued that program when the unemployment rate was 6.6 percent. Now the rate is down to 5.6 percent. We were well below the rates when we discontinued this program in 1994.

When we had a Federal temporary program in the early 1980s, we discontinued the program when the rate was 7.4 percent. In the mid- 1970s--1975-1977--we discontinued the program when it was 6.8 percent. Now the rate is 5.6 percent, and we are saying let's discontinue it. Some people say let's continue it for everybody. It makes no sense let's not only extend it, but let's expand it. That is in this amendment.

Finally, this amendment is not paid for. I am amused by the number of people who say, Yes, we want deficit reduction. We want pay-go, and 51 Senators voted for pay-go. Senator Feingold had an amendment to the Budget Resolution. I didn't support it. This is going to make it tough on taxes and people do not pay enough attention to it on spending. I hear all these people: No, we want pay-go.

We had an amendment last week on trade adjustment assistance. Of the 51 Members who supported the pay-go amendment to the Budget Resolution on the floor, only 3 voted to sustain the pay-go point of order I made on the floor--only 3--and 48 Members reversed themselves. In other words, they said we don't want pay-go when it comes to creating or expanding a new program like trade adjustment assistance.

Senator Grassley had a bill last week, the Family Opportunity Act. It

passed. A pay-go point of order could have been applied to this. A pay- go point of order will be applied, and I am going to make that pay-go point of order on this amendment.

I have tried to get cost estimates on this amendment. OMB estimates Senator Cantwell's amendment costs $9.5 billion, and CBO estimates $9 billion. I don't have a letter from them because it is hard to compute how much this retroactive provision is going to cost. But I think it is fair to say it is a $9 billion program that is not paid for.

At the appropriate point, I will be making a budget pay-go point of order that this amendment, if it became law, would increase the deficit over the next 10 years by $9 billion. I urge my colleagues to vote against it.

The economic news is good news. There are almost 1 million new jobs this year. I think there are almost 900,000 new jobs in 2004 alone. There has been some positive, good news on the employment front. The unemployment rate is down.

When I was in the manufacturing business, if the unemployment rate was around 5 percent, it was almost full employment. I could hardly find people to work. Now the unemployment rate is 5.6 percent. It is going down. That is good news.

We don't need to reach back and extend the program that has already been going, I believe, for about 36 months at a cost of $32 billion. I think it would be a mistake.

At the appropriate point, I will be making a budget point of order and urge my colleagues to vote to sustain that point of order.

I reserve the remainder of our time.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

I don't think the Senator is correct.

I clarify something for my colleague's amendment on cost. Her proposal in February was estimated by CBO to be $5.4 billion, but that proposal expired in June. This one expires in November. This one is retroactive. The one in February was not. So we have many more months, and we also have the retroactive provision. We have estimates that this proposal will cost $9 billion. It is not paid for. I will make a budget point of order.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

The intention of the Senator from Washington may be that it is not retroactive, but your amendment is retroactive. With the amendment before the Senate, an individual could be out of work in January and February, get a job in March, and receive payments. Read the amendment. It is there. It is retroactive. It may not have been the Senator's intention, but it is the fact.

The amendment is unnecessary even if it is prospective, but it is not. As written, it is retroactive. This is the middle of May. By the time this would get through conference, it would be in June, July, or later. Yet this amendment says, let's go back to January. So if someone gets a job in between then, they would be entitled to receive payments. It is grossly irresponsible and all the more reason our colleagues should not support the amendment.

I ask unanimous consent that both sides have 1 additional minute.

Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote for this budget point of order that I am going to raise because this amendment is retroactive. This amendment costs 67 percent more than the last time. It costs $9 billion and it is not paid for. I am going to make a pay-go point of order. We did this last week and most of the people who say they support pay-go voted to waive pay-go. We are going to give them another opportunity to sustain pay-go and make sure this amendment does not pass because it would increase the deficit by $9 billion.

The pending amendment offered by the Senator from Washington, Ms. Cantwell, increases mandatory spending and if adopted would cause an increase in the deficit in excess of levels permitted in the most recently adopted budget resolution. Therefore, I raise a point of order against the amendment pursuant to section 505 of the H. Con. Res. 95, the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2004.

Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the Cantwell-Voinovich amendment because it is the right thing to do for America's workers and the right thing to do for our economy. Although I am pleased that we are finally voting on this critical amendment, it saddens me that we are still talking about this issue. As many in this Chamber may remember, I worked with my colleagues, Senator Fitzgerald and Senator Nickles, to craft an unemployment insurance extension as the first legislation passed by the 108th Congress. That was back in January of 2003. Now, I find myself feeling like its Groundhog Day.

A year and 5 months have gone by and times are still tough for the 8.2 million Americans who are out of work. Little over a month ago, on March 30, tens of thousands of Americans lost their unemployment benefits because the Government's temporary extension of unemployment insurance expired. Every week, 85,000 workers have been running out of benefits and 1.5 million have lost their benefits since January. Since President Bush took office, our country has lost over 2 million jobs.

I represent a State with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. In March, New York State's unemployment rate was 6.5 percent. In New York City alone, unemployment has hovered around 8 percent since September 11, 2001. And, according to the Department of Labor, if New York City were a State, it would have the highest unemployment rate in the entire country. Almost 130,000 New Yorkers exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits between December of last year and today, none of whom qualified for Federal benefits.

Action to help New Yorkers--and all Americans--who are out of work is long overdue. That is why I am proud to cosponsor the Cantwell- Voinovich amendment. This amendment is virtually identical to a bill that I introduced with Senator Gordon Smith in November of last year. The Cantwell-Voinovich legislation will do what my bill with Senator Smith would have done: it will reinstate the Federal unemployment insurance program and probably every unemployed worker with an additional 13 weeks of benefits.

Ignoring the unemployed will not make them go away. In fact, today, despite Congress's inaction on this issue, long-term unemployment is at the highest level in recorded history. More than 2 million Americans have been our of work for 6 months or more, a higher percentage than ever before. According to the Children's Defense Fund, this represents an increase of 245 percent in the past 2 years alone. And if the past is any indication of the future, many of these jobs will never return. In past recessions, 50 percent of job loss is temporary, the other half is permanent. Economists estimate that today nearly 80 percent of job loss is permanent.

Permanent job loss isn't just a theoretical term. It is a father with a mortgage, a mother with car payments, and a young person with a college loan. We must never lose sight of that simple fact. While everyone wants to collect a paycheck, unemployment checks provide certainty in an economy that is anything but certain.

For months, administration officials have claimed that their tax package will grow the economy and create jobs. But the only thing it is certain to grow is our Nation's mounting debt. The last time their economic policies were enacted, Americans lost 2 million jobs. We cannot wait to see how this debate plays out while 10 million unemployed Americans struggle. They paid into this system--some for decades--and now, when they need those benefits the most, we should provide them.

It is long past time that we take care of unemployed workers in this country. We simply cannot keep repeating the past and let down American workers in these vulnerable and uncertain times. After all, Groundhog Day was officially February 2. And like more than 600,000 unemployed New Yorkers, I am ready to put it behind me.