Floor Statements

Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, the time will be equally divided, I presume?

Mr. President, on a more bipartisan note than the speech from the minority leader, we are now moving toward some legislation that has two bits of good news for the American people; one, it will help create jobs and employ those who have been out of work for too long a time; second, it is bipartisan. For the first time in a long time, we have a bill that is supported by both Democrats and Republicans. I would like to salute the five Republicans from the other side who joined us in moving the bill forward. I am very hopeful there will be a large number of those from the other side of the aisle who will join in this bipartisan measure that will show the American people that, at least when it comes to jobs, we can--and must for their good-- work together.

First, let me discuss the proposal, the part of the proposal authored by Senator Hatch and myself. It is very simple. It is a holiday from the payroll tax for any employer that hires a worker who has been out of work for 60 days.

Let me discuss why I think it will work. First, it is immediate. Most businesses, particularly small businesses, if you tell them they will get some kind of tax credit if they hire someone, but they will get that credit a year from April, are not very interested. This occurs immediately, the minute the worker is hired.

Second, it is simple. Again, you tell a businessperson, particularly a small businessperson, they have to fill out 30 pages, maybe hire an accountant to get a tax credit for a new worker, that is not life. They are going to tell you to forget it.

But here all the new employee has to show is that he or she was out of work for 60 days. It is very easy to show 60 days of unemployment compensation, and it immediately takes effect.

Third, it goes right to small business. So this is not a large government program. The money goes right to small business and is cost effective, which is the fourth point. If 3 million people are hired by this tax credit, it will cost $15 billion. That is a lot of money. But compared to the stimulus of $880 billion, it is much smaller. The money is cost effective. It goes right to where it should.

Finally, my last point is, it is bipartisan. The country is asking us to come and work together. Obviously, there are diverse views, both within the parties and certainly between the parties. But that does not mean, on areas that are getting close to emergencies, we cannot work together.

This proposal, let it be the start. But let this proposal be the start of a coming together on issues we can agree on. There are some job proposals my colleagues on this side of the aisle would support and my colleagues on the other side would not and vice versa. There are some they would support and we would not.

But there are a large number we can all agree on. We ought to endeavor to do them because what the American people want is not us just talking at one another and accomplishing nothing but us getting something done.

Finally, going back to the merits of this proposal, it should not be sold as a panacea. This is not a magic wand that is going to be waved and all our joblessness will decline.

But what it does do is harness the economic growth we have seen in the last quarter, 5.7 percent, and translates it into the creation of jobs. Let me explain. In the last quarter, there was economic growth, 5.7 percent, but hardly a job was created. You cannot sustain an economy and get an economy moving upward unless jobs are created.

But the growth gives us an opportunity--not every employer but a significant number of employers are getting new orders. They are thinking to themselves: Should I hire that new worker or should I just extend overtime or cut back somewhere else?

This job provision, a payroll tax holiday, says to the employer--to some, not all but to many--I am going to take that gamble and hire that worker and hire them now so it will help jump-start our economy. It will work for businesses, not those that see declining sales or flat sales but those that are beginning to see sales go up and will translate those increased sales into increased jobs, which will then, hopefully, create the virtuous cycle of more jobs, more money in the economy, more jobs still, more money in the economy still, and we can get out of this awful recession.

In conclusion, I wish to save enough time for my friend from New Hampshire. I traveled around my State this last Presidents week break. In every corner of my State, I sat with the unemployed. It was heartbreaking. Think of those people and those faces, what they had to say late at night.

A woman from Rochester had worked for 20 years for Xerox, lost her position in human services up in Rochester. She has been looking for 2 years, close to 2 years, for a job. She made a very good salary. She did not have a family. Her job was her life. She has turned things inside out to try and find comparable work. She cannot.

I met a man who was a blue-collar worker. He had risen to the top of his craft, tool and die. He thought he had a great life--worked hard, had six children, a good marriage. A year ago he lost his job and is still paying the mortgage. His wife cannot work to support him because of the six kids, one of whom was 2 years old, as I recall.

What is he going to do? You meet people like this again and again. Young college students get out of college, bright-eyed and bushy- tailed, and cannot find work. How disillusioning at the beginning of their career.

So we have an imperative to do something. We have an imperative not to say: It has to be my way or no way. We have to put those people back to work.

That is what Senator Hatch and I attempted to do with our proposal. To our leader, I wish to pay him a tremendous tribute. He was focused on getting this done. He took brickbats left and right. But the ultimate wisdom of what he did is now being seen as we move this bill on the floor today.

Hopefully, it will go through the House and be on the President's desk shortly. I thank Senator Hatch and all my colleagues who, hopefully, in a few minutes, will come together in a bipartisan way and tell the workers who are

unemployed: Yes, there is some hope. Tell the voters from Massachusetts: Yes, we have heard you. We are focusing on jobs.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have to object because the vote was set for 9:55.

Mr. President, we have had so much partisan gridlock. Today we have a real opportunity to show that this new legislative year can break through that with something meaningful to the American people, a jobs bill. I am hopeful that many colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join us. There has been great input from Senator Inhofe and Senator Hatch. These are people who are conservative, have different voting records than I, but they say we have to do something. I thank the new Senator from Massachusetts for leading the way and breaking through the miasma. This is a good, focused bill. It is a modest bill, but it will do some good for the hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions who are looking desperately for work. When they find jobs, our economy begins to move forward. That is long overdue.

Both sides of the aisle can show the American people we have heard them by overwhelmingly passing this well-crafted, well-honed, modest piece of legislation aimed at issue No. 1: jobs and the economy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask to be recognized.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about two issues. First, the jobs bill and the provision that Senator Hatch and I worked on that helped break the partisan logjam, and also the need for the Senate to take up and pass up to $25 billion in FMAP assistance to the States. First, the jobs portion.

During our break, I traveled all around my State from Cheektowaga to Oswego, from Syracuse to Poughkeepsie, from Long Island to New York City. In each place, I talked with people who had lost their jobs. It was heartbreaking. These are people who are looking desperately to find work.

One of the sadder points of this recession is, of course, its depth. It is deeper than all but one recession we have had since World War II. But, second, it seems to affect people at all income levels. If you are poor, if you are middle class, even if you are upper middle class, you can lose your job. Perhaps most painful of all, the amount of time that people are out of work is much longer than previous recessions. In other words, in previous recessions, you would lose your job, it would be horrible, but you would say to yourself: In 3 or 4 months, I can find a new job quite easily. That has not happened.

In fact, I met people such as a woman in Rochester who worked for a major firm in human resources. She is about 50. She does not have a family, but her job was her life. She was told she had to leave a year and a half ago. She has been looking and looking. Her salary was in the low six figures. She was a very talented person upon meeting her. No work. No job.

I met somebody who came from a blue-collar background. The family had no education. He climbed his way to the top of the tool-and-die industry. He was making a good living. He has six children and a wife who stayed home because when you have six kids, it is not easy to work. He was laid off about a year ago. Again, he has been looking and looking, first with his high skills in his industry, and then he kept looking lower and lower and lower on the pay scale, to no avail. No job. I could repeat this story over and over.

I can see why the people of Massachusetts voted the way they did. I did not agree with it, but I understand it. In my judgment, what they were saying was simple. If you look at the exit polls, about 50 percent of the people in Massachusetts supported the President's health care bill and an equal number against it. But, overwhelmingly, they were saying to us, whether they were for the bill or against it, focus on issue No. 1, jobs--jobs, the economy, helping the middle class stretch that paycheck so they can make ends meet.

That is why I think Senator Reid, our majority leader, was so wise to put together the bill he did, the HIRE Act. That is why he reached out to those across the aisle, as did I. That is why I am pleased this vital legislation--hardly a panacea; it is not going to cure all our problems--looks as though it will move forward late this afternoon or this evening.

I am very proud--we are all proud--that we have bipartisan support. I believe the vote later on will be even more bipartisan than the vote to move forward on the bill yesterday. Bipartisan victories such as this have been few and far between. But this could be the start of something good. I hope the bipartisanship will not end with this afternoon's vote.

Unemployment, of course, is not simply a blue State problem or a red State problem; it is an everywhere problem. It will take more than one party's solutions to solve it. So if there is only one issue that we can find common ground on this year, let it be jobs.

We all know unemployment, which is hovering just below 10 percent, is unacceptably high. When you hear the number 10 percent, it is an abstract figure. But if you are a husband or wife, a son or daughter who is out of work, or one in your family is out of work, unemployment is 100 percent.

As the economy shows signs of life, unfortunately millions of Americans remain out of work, struggling to make ends meet with savings and unemployment benefits. There are more than 15 million unemployed Americans. That is not even counting those who have stopped looking for work. There are more than 6 million people who have been out of work for 6 or more months. Each one has a story, a life, usually a family, such as the woman from Rochester I mentioned.

When I go to sleep at night, I sometimes think of the people I talked with last week while we were on break and about their pain at losing their job and their quest to find a new one. Unfortunately, despite their efforts, most of them have not found work.

This recession is unlike anything we have seen since the 1930s. It has created immeasurable hardship and heartache for tens of millions of American families. It doesn't matter if you are in a red State or a blue State. If you are unemployed, you want a job.

Last year, Congress took bold steps to bring our economy back from the brink of collapse, and GDP growth in the last quarter was as high as 5.7 percent. The purpose of the provision Senator Hatch and I have introduced is to take that growth and translate it into jobs because while the economy grew at a very rapid clip--5.7 percent--hardly a job was created. That is a problem because we cannot continue to grow at that rate unless people start going back to work. Until the unemployment rate drops significantly, Congress must do more to help families across the country who are desperately struggling to find work, and this bill is a step in the right direction.

Last year, I believe Congress was right not to add a jobs tax credit to the stimulus package. Economists told us that with the economy shrinking and losing 700,000 jobs a month when the President took office, our focus had to be on stimulating demand. But now that the economy is beginning to grow--at the very worst is flat--a tax credit is what is needed because there are companies that have seen sales blip up and they are wondering whether to hire that additional worker. The Schumer-Hatch tax credit may push them over the edge and they may say: OK, I will hire somebody. Then, instead of the vicious cycle of downward employment we have seen, a virtuous cycle will begin. That company will hire a worker, that worker will go to the stores and buy things, those stores may hire another worker and more money circulates in the economy and we start moving upward as opposed to downward.

After reviewing the criticisms of past tax credit proposals, Senator Hatch and I set out to develop an idea that would address some of the past concerns while honing in on the problem we are trying to solve, which is persistently high and long-term unemployment. I felt we needed a solution that was simple, immediate, focused, fiscally responsible, and potentially bipartisan. That is what our proposal does.

Let me talk about each word. It is simple. Small business, we know, is the job growth engine in America. But if you tell a small businessperson they have to fill out 40 pages or even hire an accountant before they get a tax credit, they are going to say: Forget about it. But this is immediate. Again, if you tell a small businessperson: Yes, you will get a tax credit, but it will be a year from April when your tax returns come in, they are not going to do it.

Our proposal is immediate. The minute the worker is hired, the benefit begins. As I said, it is simple: All the employer must do is show that the person they are hiring has been unemployed for 60 days-- and that is easy to do because they can show 60 days of unemployment benefits--and that is that.

Third, our program is fiscally responsible. It is not a big, huge bureaucracy. It is not a new government agency. The money goes directly to the small business that makes the new hire, and that is why it has bang for the buck. It is estimated that if 3 million people were hired by this credit, it would cost about $15 billion. Mr. President, $15 billion sounds like a lot of money, but compared to the stimulus-- again, for a different purpose a year ago when the economy was collapsing--the cost of ours is about one-sixtieth, and dollar for dollar it will be focused on jobs.

So it meets all these criteria. It will focus like a laser on the unemployed and will create jobs right away at a reasonable cost. In this day when communication is so important, it can be explained in a single sentence. Any private sector employer that hires a worker who has been unemployed for 60 days will not have to pay payroll taxes on that worker for the rest of the year. That is it. Nothing else. It explains the whole program from start to finish. By the way, if the employer keeps that worker for at least a year, they will receive an additional $1,000 tax credit.

Our plan is good for business and good for workers. The more a business pays a worker, the bigger benefit they get. Many of the previous programs were aimed, understandably, at workers at the lower income level. But these days, when you have people in our State who make $60,000, $80,000, $100,000 or $120,000 a year and who can't find work, they will benefit by the same percentage as somebody at the lower end of the spectrum. The sooner the employer hires, the bigger the break because it lasts this year. The employer doesn't pay taxes and the benefits go immediately into the business's cashflow. Unlike other proposals, there is no waiting to receive a tax credit. The employer doesn't pay the taxes to the government in the first place.

Obviously, employers decide to hire workers when it makes business sense. If your sales are declining, no tax incentive is going to encourage you to hire somebody. But we are now finding--at this stage of this Nation's incipient and all-too-small recovery--that many businesses, large and small, are finding orders are beginning to rise, sales beginning to increase. It is those businesses that our tax credit is aimed at. This proposal may give them the push they need to add a few workers or hire them a few months sooner than they otherwise might. Either would be a good thing.

I don't wish to delude my colleagues, and I know Senator Hatch, the coauthor of this proposal, would agree, that this provision is not a panacea. There are other proposals Congress could, should, and must consider to aid job creation, but I look forward to considering those ideas in the weeks to come. In the meantime, we ought to take advantage of the bipartisan camaraderie, which I hope lasts, and move this proposal forward.

I wish to thank a number of people who helped. At the top of the list is Chairman Baucus. When Senator Hatch and I--both members of his committee, the Finance Committee--brought him the proposal, he thought it was a good idea and helped champion it. I wish to thank Leader Reid, who jumped right at the opportunity to pass the proposal. I wish to recognize Senator Casey and Senator Gillibrand, my colleague, for the hard work they put into an alternative tax credit idea, which could end up complementing, not replacing, our idea. Finally, last but certainly not least, I wish to thank my colleague, Senator Hatch, as well as Senator Grassley, who worked with us on this proposal to refine it and make it possible to pass, which I believe we will do shortly.

I wish to turn the subject to another pressing issue; that is, the pressing issue of State fiscal relief. While our top priority is putting unemployed Americans back to work, nothing we do on job creation will be truly effective unless we also stop the bleeding caused by State and local budget cuts across the Nation. We cannot, with one hand, incentivize private sector employment while, on the other hand, through inaction, force State and local governments to lay off thousands of firefighters, teachers, health care providers, and other public servants.

Right now, States face the steepest ever dropoff in revenues. My State of New York and so many of the localities I have visited--from large major cities such as New York City and Buffalo, to the smaller towns and villages--are desperate for help. If they do not receive it, they are going to have to lay off thousands and thousands of workers. In the city of New York, they are talking about laying off teachers. That is hurting our seed corn. The number of police officers, at a time of crime and terrorist threats, is declining. That hurts our economy as well as our localities.

New York is not alone. From California to Arizona, to Alabama, to

Maine, and to Mississippi, State Governors have laid out proposals that will unfortunately eliminate jobs and cut critical services in the coming months. In fact, it is estimated, if there is no help, State and local governments will have to lay off 1 million workers-- something we can ill afford at a time of this incipient recovery. The cuts couldn't come at a worse time for our fledgling economy. States will be forced to make massive layoffs and they will be cornered into raising taxes on hard-working, middle-class Americans at a time when families can't afford to take another hit and at a time when taking money out of the economy makes no sense at all. It oftentimes makes no sense but now more particularly.

Last week, the Nation's Governors nearly unanimously endorsed a 6- month emergency extension of FMAP, the Federal Medicaid Assistance Program, which would send up to $25 billion to the States. They know firsthand that job losses in their States would have been much more severe were it not for the significant relief Congress provided for them in last year's stimulus package, particularly through the FMAP program. I know our economy is growing, but out in the States it sure doesn't feel like a recovery yet. Cutting off this assistance now, as the stimulus expires, would be like pulling the rug from under the States just as they are maybe beginning to turn the corner.

I was an ardent supporter of the Recovery Act's FMAP aid because, plain and simple, it saves jobs, and I argued for it then. I am especially proud to have authored a provision that ensured a stream of funding that went directly to county governments. In my State, the Medicaid burden, much of it--too much of it--falls on localities. If we were just to give Albany the money--not just the Albany share but the county share--the counties and New York City might never see that money ever again. So I was able to--with the help of Leader Reid and Chairman Baucus--write a provision into law that said the locality gets its share directly, and I am urging the Senate to include this language in a new emergency extension as well.

We cannot afford to delay any longer. This economic downturn didn't come with an end-of-the-year deadline. This critical aid to States shouldn't either. So I hope that in the next jobs bill we pass FMAP is a vital part, and I hope, just as with the provision Senator Hatch and I put together, it will get broad bipartisan support. I believe an overwhelming majority of Governors--Democratic and Republican--have already signed a letter urging that that happen, and I hope we will get people from both sides of the aisle to make sure the next jobs bill contains a healthy and robust FMAP extension. The House has already passed it. It is up to us.

We have much yet to do on the job front, but our efforts will be undermined if our Nation's Governors are forced to lay off workers and raise property taxes. We need to plug the holes in the dam so our recovery efforts are not washed away. We need to put this great Nation back on a path to prosperity by passing the tax credit Senator Hatch and I have offered and then by moving forward and making sure FMAP is extended for at least another 6 months.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask 4 minutes be taken from the Democratic side's time?

I thought I was next.

Mr. President, it was only a little over a year ago, with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, that we faced a financial crisis the likes of which few have seen in our lifetime. We were truly standing on the edge and staring into the abyss. For all intents and purposes the financial system was on the cusp of a total breakdown. A Great Depression loomed.

Now, a year later, while we cannot diminish the very real and large problems that remain in front of us, we did succeed in preventing the catastrophe that seemed very possible if not probable in the fall of 2000. Nobody was more important in preventing the collapse of the financial system and the rescue of the economy from what looked like imminent freefall than was Chairman Bernanke.

I was there at many of the meetings, and I saw his steady hand and guidance. That is why I am going to vote to reconfirm him as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

The Fed certainly made mistakes in the runup to the financial crisis: failing to use its regulatory authority to rein in a skyrocketing credit boom, failing to adequately fulfill its responsibility to protect consumers from predatory lending practices in mortgages and elsewhere, and allowing too risky activities with too little protection.

While most of these policies began under the previous Chairmen, Chairman Bernanke presided over the Fed and continued them. That is something I am sure he is not proud of, but he has acknowledged that he has many lessons to learn from the crisis and he is working hard to make sure the same mistakes are not repeated in the future.

I also want to say a word about the consequences of failing to reconfirm him. Our economy, while struggling to return to solid ground, remains fragile. Unemployment is way too high. We have yet to turn the corner on sustained job growth. Businesses, small and large, are still having a hard time getting access to credit they need to expand and grow, or even, in many cases, doing business as usual.

Singling out Chairman Bernanke and the Fed for punishment might be temporarily satisfying for some, but it will not help a single business add jobs. It will not prevent a single homeowner from being kicked out of his or her house. Instead, it will accomplish just the opposite. By sending a message that the Federal Reserve and its monetary policy decisions are under the thumb of Congress, businesses will be faced with the prospect that the Fed might not be able to do what is necessary for the economy because of pressure from Congress.

Economists tell us one of the major things holding the economy back is uncertainty about the policies that Washington will pursue. This would exacerbate that concern and create a very bad outcome for the economy and the country. I have said it before, and I will say it again: If you don't like monetary policy when the Fed does it, just wait until the politicians get their hands on it.

I am going to vote to reconfirm Chairman Bernanke as Fed chairman, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, at 10 a.m., to hear testimony on ``Corporate America vs. The Voter: Examining the Supreme Court's Decision to Allow Unlimited Corporate Spending in Elections.''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Lynden Armstrong at the Rules and Administration Committee on 202-224-6352.

I ask unanimous consent the next hour of Democratic time be controlled as follows: 10 minutes under the control of Schumer, with the remaining 50 minutes of time available for various Democratic Members to engage in colloquies.

Mr. President, today we stand at a crossroad. We can continue to turn a blind eye to the very real, very dangerous threat burgeoning health care costs pose to our economic future or we can choose the path to restoring economic opportunity in this country by tackling what my dear friend, Ted Kennedy, called the ``great unfinished business of our society.''

As so often is the case at any major crossroads in our history, embarking on what we all know is the right path is difficult. Indeed, this is the single most difficult undertaking I have ever seen in my 30-year career as a legislator. But my colleagues and I know what has to be done. Tonight is only one step down the road. There will be more procedural hurdles, more disagreements, more pressure from our opponents, more television ads, and many amendments. But I have no doubt we will pass this bill.

There have been many attempts over many decades in many Congresses to reform health care. This time, moral and economic necessity will guide us over the finish line. It is unacceptable that in this country--the wealthiest, greatest country in the world--there are Americans who are forced to choose between their health care and rent, between their health care and food, between their health care and an education. But there are. And there are too many of them, and that must change.

Consider these facts: Health care costs are out of control. Premiums for New York families have doubled in the last decade. Premiums have risen far in excess of inflation while median income has remained stagnant. Costs have risen so much that more than 20 million Americans have skipped a doctor's visit for no reason other than cost and 23 million Americans have premiums so high they consume $1 out of every $8 earned. Health care costs now account for a staggering 16 percent of our GDP, far more than any other industrialized country in the world. For every dollar a small business in the United States spends on health care, its foreign competitors spend a mere 63 cents. Yet the health care of the U.S. workforce lags behind all other industrialized countries. Plain and simple,

our small businesses will no longer be able to compete unless we act to reform health care.

Even among those Americans fortunate enough to have coverage, nearly 88 million don't have health care they can rely on. That is half of all Americans age 18 to 64 and their families. And 46 million of these Americans have a serious preexisting condition that has made it harder or more expensive for them to get coverage. In addition, 37 million of these Americans had a gap in their coverage during the last year.

Our health care system is holding our economy hostage. The entrepreneur in Binghamton who does not take a chance, who does not leave a job to start his own firm because he is afraid of losing his family's health care; the college graduate in Oswego, days away from losing her parents' coverage, takes a job because it provides health care, even though that health care eats up a quarter of her paycheck-- each of these individuals who limit their potential because they are concerned about their health care should inspire action among all of us.

Passing this bill is an economic imperative. The broken system we have is not only a burden on the present, it is a tax on the future. Every day we do not act to fix the health care system is a day that handcuffs our economy. It drains it of productive workers who do not treat illness. It drains businesses of money they could otherwise use to innovate and outperform their foreign competitors, and it drains it of savings and wealth that every American should have in retirement as a reward for a lifetime of hard work.

Inaction is not an option. The consequences of failure are simply too high. Premiums will climb higher, benefits will erode further, businesses will buckle under the cost of insurance, and Medicare will go bankrupt. Yet our Republican colleagues would rather see us fail. At every turn, they have obstructed our path with procedural delays, with calculated misinformation, and sometimes with outright falsehood. I am amazed they are against a government health care plan, but they want to protect Medicare. Medicare is a government health care plan. You can't have it both ways.

Yet when Democrats move to protect consumers from insurance company abuses, Republicans fight to allow these companies to drop, deny, or limit coverage for the people who need it most. When Democrats tackle waste, fraud, and abuse in our health care system, Republicans cry foul to preserve the status quo. When Democrats fight to protect and strengthen Medicare for future generations, Republicans try to weaken it.

Tonight, there is no question what path our Republicans will take. They will follow the map handed to them by the big insurance companies--protecting industry profits, defending unfair practices, and ignoring the threat rising health care costs pose to America's economic future. They will continue to speak with two tongues against government health care and for Medicare. You can't have it both ways.

Our Republican colleagues will not stand in our way. The road ahead is not a smooth one, but the wind is now at our backs. The American people want reform, and we will have the votes to finally deliver it to them. Sure, changes will be made to improve the bill as we move forward, but we will pass this bill. We will finish this great, unfinished business.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am sorry there is an objection. I will yield to the Senator from New Jersey. I will take the floor after the Senator from New Jersey.

I thank the Senator for his usual graciousness. I commend my colleague from Connecticut for the outstanding job he has done on this issue. I regret that the consent to move to the legislation has been blocked.

The bottom line is this: We know there are real problems in the credit card industry. We know that things are happening you would never imagine would happen. People are moving interest rates--maybe you had your balance at $4,000, 7 percent, and you know your family budget, and then it goes up to $23,000. This legislation would have stopped that.

What the banks are doing now is jumping the gun and moving things ahead in a way that is very wrong. To move up the date would simply make sure this legislation affects more people than it would have. It is a good idea. I hope we will still reconsider it later. I hope the public, who cares about this, will let all Senators from both sides of the aisle know how important this is.

With that, I thank the Senator from Connecticut. He has been such a leader in fighting for consumers throughout this session. He deserves every American's thanks.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, I wish to compliment my good friend from Vermont on his excellent remarks. I am proud to be a cosponsor on his legislation on the antitrust exception. I also wish to say to my friend that I know he was a little bit under the weather the last few days. I called him a couple times to wish him well. I think I can speak for every one of the other 99 of us, we are glad the Chairman is back and in fighting form.

Mr. President, I rise to speak in favor of the unemployment relief expansion that the Senate is poised to pass, hopefully, later today, with broad bipartisan support, although there were, I am sorry to say, some unnecessary delays from the other side.

This bill is vitally important and we could have, and should have, passed it weeks ago. I am relieved to finally see the light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel that being out of work has caused for hundreds of thousands of American workers who have lost their jobs.

Since we first began considering this vital legislation nearly a month ago, nearly a quarter of a million Americans, and 50,000 New Yorkers have seen their benefits dry up. With each passing day of inaction, tens of thousands of middle-class families have seen their safety net pulled out from under them. So I am glad to see the Senate finally take action.

I think of something that happened to me on Monday. I was rushing to my New York City office in midtown Manhattan. A well-dressed gentleman was obviously waiting at the front door of the office building in which my office is 17 floors up. He was well dressed, in a camel hair coat, and he was well groomed. I could see anxiety in his eyes. He pulled me aside and said, ``Senator, I have been waiting for you. Can I speak with you for a minute?'' I said, ``I am late for a meeting, so can you walk with me?'' He said to me again, ``I would like to ask you a question. When will you pass an unemployment benefit extension? I have a lot of friends who are asking.'' I sort of knew what was happening. Of course, he was a man who was obviously middle class, and maybe more, who had lost his job and could not find his benefits. He was too proud to ask me for himself, so he asked me for others.

It hit home to me that New Yorkers of all backgrounds and economic levels and all parts of our State are out of work through no fault of their own. They are desperately looking for jobs, and not enough of those jobs have come back. Our job is to help them. That is what this bill does. I am glad to see the Senate finally take action.

The bill will also extend the home buyer tax credit for 7 months, which I support, and it will provide for a 5-year carryback of net operating losses, or NOLs.

The main focus of my remarks today is on this last provision, since one of the important effects of this NOL part of the legislation will be to provide much needed and deserved tax relief and, in too many cases, the money needed to survive to thousands of Americans who were lured into Ponzi schemes such as Bernie Madoff's and have lost everything. These evil schemes hurt so many people.

When we hear about the Madoff investors, we hear a lot about celebrities who lost hundreds of millions. But for every wealthy individual, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people not at all of wealth who had their retirement savings stolen from them. They trusted Madoff or their investment adviser who put their money with Madoff. Now these poor folks have lost everything. In many ways, these average people are worse off than the people who lost many times as much, because so many--too many--of these smaller victims lost everything.

As you know, many of them are in New York, because Bernie Madoff was located there. I want to explain to my colleagues how what we are doing today helps the little guy, the average person, who saved for their retirement and now finds, at age 60, 65, or 70, that their retirement savings are gone. Everything they have worked for their whole life has been stolen from them. In many cases, the victims are destitute and have nothing to live on. They saved their money for years. They got statements and confirmations and 1099 forms that looked real. The SEC had checked out Madoff and said everything was fine. The victims did everything right. They played by the rules, and then their future financial security evaporated before their eyes on December 11 of last year.

Here is what we are doing to try to help those thousands of smaller investors. There are basically two types of Madoff investors, leaving out the charities and pension funds that were also

decimated. There are the direct investors, who knew Madoff and invested directly with him. Then there are the indirect investors, who went through someone they knew or an investment advisor called ``feeder fund'' investors. In general, direct investors tend to be the bigger investors, the wealthy who had personal relationships with Madoff. The indirect investors are the folks who tend to have a lower net worth, and a lot of them are elderly people who saved all their lives, and suddenly they are destitute. Many gave their money to somebody they trusted, such as an investment advisor, and didn't even know their money was invested with Bernie Madoff.

When the IRS issued a revenue ruling in April, which I urged them to do, the ruling simplified and clarified the rules under which a direct investor could take a theft loss deduction for their Madoff losses, by saying that theft losses could be treated as NOLs, as if the individual investors were small businesses. Direct investors were allowed to ``carry back'' their losses for 5 years instead of 3 and carry forward any remaining losses for up to 20 years. A longer carryback is important because it allows the investor to recoup some of those losses and put cash in their pockets.

But investors in a ``small business'' with more than $15 million in assets could not qualify for this relief. As a result, the IRS guidance was of help only to direct investors because the feeder funds that had the money of thousands of smaller investors were usually worth more than $15 million. They aggregated lots of little investors and gave one big chunk of money to Madoff. The IRS was sympathetic. They told us it was right to help these people, but they said they needed a change in the law.

I should also add that the indirect investors are also not eligible for the $500,000 of relief from the Security Investor Protection Corporation, or SIPC, so they have been hit by a double whammy: They are the smaller people usually, and they got shut out of the expanded carryback on the theft losses because the feeder funds of which they were a small part were too big, and they get no SIPC relief either.

The bill we are considering today will allow larger businesses to carry back their NOLs for 5 years. They can offset 100 percent of the income for the first 4 years and 50 percent in the fifth. I have worked hard to ensure that this language is drafted in such a way that the Madoff indirect investors will qualify for the expanded NOL relief, because these individuals will no longer be subject to the ``small business test.''

I believe very strongly that the indirect and direct investors should be treated equally. I tried to amend the bill so that those who are victims of theft losses from fraudulent investment schemes could get the full 100 percent in the fifth year. I particularly thank the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Baucus, and his staff, for being receptive to this, and for working with my very capable staff to make it happen. I believe we could have added this to the bill if we could have gotten it scored in the compressed timetable that we had had.

I will continue to work with the Finance Committee and the Joint Committee on Tax and the victims advocates to get the necessary data so that future tax relief for Ponzi scheme victims can be considered by the full Senate, and not stalled by unrelated scoring issues.

The action we are taking today will help millions of unemployed, thousands of home buyers, and many large corporations that need the refunds to improve their cash flow and make new investments, and that is hugely important. But I also wanted to explain how what we are doing today will help provide some modest assistance to thousands of people whose life savings were stolen from them 11 months ago.

The victims haven't been sure where to turn, but I assure them that they have allies in the Senate, including the chairman of the committee and myself. We hear them, and we are doing everything we can to help right these wrongs and at least make up for some of the evil done by Bernie Madoff.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first let me thank my colleague and friend from Illinois for, as usual, his articulate, right-on-the-money and right-to-the-point remarks which I agree with.

Right now, many middle-class families are facing the prospect of losing the unemployment benefits they are relying on to get them through this recession. Out-of-work Americans consider these benefits a lifeline. But too many Republicans are treating this like a political football. If Congress does not act to extend these benefits, nearly 2 million Americans will lose their unemployment insurance by the

end of the year--2 million. They have families, people who depend on them. And 90,000 of those are in my home State of New York. That is 2 million people--90,000 in New York--who have been trying to find work and are now going to have their safety net pulled out from under them. Well, we cannot pull the rug out from under so many Americans. We owe it to them to do the right thing and extend unemployment insurance.

It is a mystery to me why so many on the other side of the aisle are blocking passage of this legislation. Everywhere I go in New York-- downstate, upstate, large cities, urban suburbs, rural areas--people come up to me with a pleading look in their eyes: Can you please renew, extend unemployment benefits?

What in the heck are we waiting for? Why are we putting people through this agony? So far, Republicans have been opposed to this extension as they seek to extract political amendments out of Leader Reid. It is just another example--the latest one--of a stalling strategy. On one legislative priority after another, their motto has been the 1980s slogan ``Just say no.'' But if there is one thing this recession and budding recovery has taught us, it is that America can't recover leaving behind our workforce.

There is a general view that since much of the first stimulus package has not yet impacted the economy, a second one is not necessary. But unemployment benefits are the quickest, most effective form of economic stimulus, and they are aimed at the weak point of this economic recovery, which is jobs. The dollars get out the door fast and will be spent by those who don't have another source of income at a time when we need to boost consumer demand.

So I plead with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Stop playing the games, and let's just pass unemployment insurance. I know there are lots of extraneous amendments on all kinds of issues that you wish to debate. Leader Reid has been very generous in allowing debate after debate on these amendments, much to the chagrin, frankly, of many on this side of the aisle. This is one time when we should put the games aside. We should just unite. My guess is that unemployment insurance extension will get a large high vote on both sides of the aisle. Stop playing politics with this benefit extension. Extending unemployment benefits is crucial to ensuring that as our economy picks back up we do not leave the recession's victims in the dust.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I rise today to address the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act of 2009--the MOVE Act. Since its inception, the MOVE Act has garnered strong bipartisan support, and today we celebrate its passage as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

I want to recognize the importance of this Act and also to acknowledge my partners in this effort especially my friends and colleagues, Senator Saxby Chambliss, Senator Ben Nelson, Senator Bob Bennett, and Senator John Cornyn. I would also like to thank Senators Levin and McCain and their staffs, as well as the House and Senate conferees for their time, support, and work to ensure that the provisions of the MOVE Act were included in the conference report.

Every now and then an opportunity emerges to work on an important issue with a team of colleagues towards a single goal. This bill provided one such opportunity, and I am extremely pleased to have worked with such a committed team. This legislation is a bipartisan solution to a serious, yet all too familiar problem--the problem of military and other overseas voters not being able to cast their vote and have that vote counted.

Every couple of years there is a great push to improve the process of military and overseas voting. However, as soon as the election is over, Congress too often neglects to push for improved rights for military voters. That neglect is over. The needs of military and overseas voters have been heard, and met, with this legislation.

While the need for Congress to act is now, this is not a new problem and we are not the first to identify the problem and attempt to deal with it. The first revolution in military voting rights occurred not when our soldiers were overseas. It occurred during the Civil War. At that time, the right to vote was provided by the Constitution, and soldiers from both the Union and the Confederacy depended on State law to determine whether they could vote ``in the field'' during wartime.

According to historians, there were two methods of voting then. In the first system, a closed ballot box was taken to the field of battle, the ballots were cast there, and the box returned to the jurisdiction. States at the time questioned whether the act of voting outside their jurisdictions could be authorized by State law.

Other objections to voting ``in the field'' were heard when a State constitution prescribed the place, time and manner of elections; and if military voting was conducted prior to Election Day, whether early voting would violate State constitutions.

The second type of voting was known as ``proxy voting.'' A soldier's completed ballot was mailed to someone, such as a family member, in the soldier's regular place of voting. This completed proxy vote would then be delivered on Election Day. My home State of New York used the proxy vote procedure during the Civil War. While proxy voting avoided the constitutional problems of voting ``in the field,'' it was subject to other problems: the lack of a secret ballot; the transmission of the proxy ballot to the place of voting, and concerns about fraud.

Given the pressure to ensure that soldiers' rights were not diminished by their service, States in both the North and South passed laws to allow for voting for Federal office. President Lincoln, in addition to presiding over the War Department's filing of the first military voting regulations on October 1, 1864, intervened with his generals directly to ensure that those soldiers who could vote be given that right.

In an 1864 letter to GEN William Rosecrans, President Lincoln wrote these stern words: ``I have a report that you incline to deny the soldiers the right of attending the election in Missouri. . . . Wherever the law allows soldiers to vote their officers must also allow it.''

Eighty years later, with the country locked in the crisis of the Second World War, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sent a very pointed Message to the United States Congress on the same issue. It begins: ``The American people are very much concerned over the fact that the vast majority of the eleven million members of the armed forces of the United States are going to be deprived of their right to vote in the important national election this fall, unless the Congress promptly enacts adequate legislation. . . . The men and women who are in the armed forces are rightfully indignant about it. They have left their homes and jobs and schools to meet and defeat the enemies who would destroy all our democratic institutions, including our right to vote. [They] cannot understand why the fact that they are fighting should disqualify them from voting.''

President Roosevelt foreshadows the issues we are still fighting to fix when he further advised Congress:

By the 1944 elections, there will be than five million

Americans outside the limits of the United States in our

armed forces and merchant marine. They and the millions more

who will be stationed within the US waiting the day to join

their comrades on the battle-fronts, will all be subject to

frequent, rapid, and unpredictable transfer to other points

outside and inside the United States.

He concluded by arguing that ``. . . What is needed is a complete change of machinery for absentee balloting, which will give [the armed forces] all over the world an opportunity to cast their ballots without time-consuming correspondence. . . .''

I am subjecting us all to a bit of a history lesson here because I believe this is a very fundamental--and yet unresolved--issue facing our military and our system of elections. We meet again, 65 years after President Roosevelt's Message to Congress, and 145 years after President Lincoln's directive to let soldiers vote, to again address fundamental improvements to military and overseas voting.

Building on the tools already in law, this legislation creates a system of improved access with multiple fail-safes built into the process. We use new technology to create more options for registration and ballot delivery, and at long last provide enough time for the military service men and women to vote. The lost letter, the late delivery, the ballot not notarized, and the last-minute troop transfer should no longer impede these voters from having their votes counted.

What we did in the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act will have a direct and dramatic impact on the rights of military voters.

In May 2009, I chaired a hearing in the Committee on Rules and Administration on the problems that military and overseas voters face. What we heard was nothing short of shocking.

We learned that during the 2008 general election, our military and overseas voters still faced a complicated and convoluted system that made it impossible for many of them to have their votes counted.

The committee convened a study of last year's election, which revealed that more than one in four ballots requested by military and other overseas voters were never received by local election officials and, thus, never counted. Let me repeat: one in four ballots requested were never counted. We owe our men and women in uniform more. Does it make sense that they are fighting for the very freedoms that we enjoy, yet are unable to choose their Commander in Chief? No, it does not.

If we can deploy tanks, high-tech equipment, and food to the front lines, we can figure out a way to deliver ballots to our troops so that they can be returned and counted.

The MOVE Act does precisely that, correcting many of the flaws that riddle the absentee balloting process for overseas voters.

By modernizing the voting process, increasing accessibility to voter registration and balloting materials, and requiring election officials to send out

ballots to military and overseas voters in time for them to be returned and counted, this legislation--at long last--brings overseas voting into the 21st century.

Consider a letter one soldier sent to the Overseas Vote Foundation after the 2008 election, in which that solider said: ``I hate that because of my military service overseas, I was precluded from voting.'' That solider continued, ``Of all people, deployed servicemembers should have a guaranteed ability to vote.''

I say here on the floor of the Senate that I absolutely agree.

The MOVE Act will ensure that military and other overseas voters know how to register to vote and how to request an absentee ballot. They will receive their ballot in a timely manner, and have that ballot counted on election day.

How did we accomplish that goal? Through a number of simple, straightforward fixes to the overseas voting process:

First, this legislation gives the right to military and overseas voters to request--and requires States to send--registration materials, absentee ballot requests, and blank absentee ballots electronically. In the computer age, it is long past time we used technology to speed up the voting process. For many troops, this quick transmission of ballots will give them for the first time a sufficient number of days to vote.

Second, this legislation ensures that overseas voters have at least 45 days to complete their absentee ballots and return them to election officials. For those voters who have no access to electronic delivery of ballots, this should provide the time for a ballot to travel to Iraq or Afghanistan, and back to the local election official. This need was exposed by a 2009 Pew Charitable Trusts study aptly named ``No Time to Vote.''

This legislation also requires that military absentee ballots be sent through expedited mail procedures, further reducing the transmission time for voted ballots to make it back to local election officials.

In the Rules Committee hearing, we listened to the concerns of Air Force LTC Joseph DeCaro. One major concern he described was that there was no way to ensure that the ballots had been properly received by the election office. This legislation will allow military and overseas voters to determine whether their ballot has been received by the local election official. That way, if their ballots are not received, the voters can take steps to ensure a replacement vote is cast.

If a ballot is lost, or cannot be re-sent in time, we require the Department of Defense to create an online tool that allows military and overseas voters to identify all the races they are qualified to vote for, and submit a replacement ballot immediately. This ensures that troops can complete a full Federal ballot in time for the election.

The legislation prevents election officials from rejecting overseas absentee ballots for reasons not related to voter eligibility, like paper weight or notarization requirements. I ask you, how can a marine in Fallujah find a notary?

The legislation has the Department of Defense work with election officials to define and improve election data related to military and overseas voters. More accurate election data will reduce future problems and speed fixes to the voting process.

Finally, this legislation expands resources for overseas voters through the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

As a result of this new legislation, the Department of Defense will use online tools to train and inform its staff on crucial voting information. And all military servicemembers will receive uniform notices and information via e-mail prior to registration or election deadlines.

Finally, this legislation directs that every military installation have a place where soldiers can register to vote, update their registration information, and request an absentee ballot. Military voters, as they are transferred or reassigned to different bases, will be provided the opportunity to change their election information.

We also know that that there are improvements still to make. A pilot project included in the legislation will promote research into new technology to help assist future voters with absentee balloting. The tools and mandates set forth in this legislation are minimum requirements. And if technology can improve secure ballot transmission, we want that work done.

Again, it is simply unacceptable that those who fight to defend our freedom often face the greatest obstacles in exercising their right to vote.

While good work has been done in the past to improve military voting, I firmly believe that the MOVE Act has incorporated the best and strongest ideas on how to ensure a modern military receives every opportunity to cast their ballot. Working with States and local election officials, we must encourage prompt implementation of the MOVE Act so that the benefits of the act will impact voters in the 2010 elections.

In our Rules Committee hearing this May, I made the public commitment that we would not have another Federal election without these tools in place for our military voters, and I am very pleased that this act was agreed to by the House and Senate. I again thank our colleagues in this truly bipartisan effort, and I look forward to President Obama's signature on this important piece of legislation.

Madam President, I rise today in support of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered more than 11 years ago, and yet the bill that bears his name it still not law. Today, we will finally send this historic bill to President Obama for his signature.

Many of us here in Congress have fought for this day for years--my dear friend, the late Ted Kennedy, fought for this day for decades. It is a bittersweet day. For as much as this is a victory for all who stand for civil rights, it brings to mind those horrible crimes committed simply because an individual is gay, or black, or Latino, or Muslim, or because of any other aspect of their being.

These crimes must not be met with silence, but rather, with our loudest voices.

In an era in which we elected our first African-American president, we must condemn crimes based on racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, or any other small-minded and intolerant angst. We must act, as these are crimes inflicted not merely on individuals, but on entire communities. They are attacks meant to not only break bones, but to break spirits. These crimes know no state boundaries--they are a national problem.

And today we will present the President with a national response. But let me be clear: this legislation does not criminalize speech or hateful thoughts. It seeks only to punish action--violent action that undermines the core values of our Nation.

One particularly chilling hate crime occurred in my home state of New York less than two weeks ago. The victim, Jack Prince, was leaving a deli in College Point, Queens late at night when two men started yelling anti-gay slurs at him. Suddenly, the perpetrators began beating him, savagely breaking Jack's jaw, his ribs, and causing both of his lungs to collapse. This crime, which was caught on video, shook the entire gay community.

This legislation sends a clear message to Jack's perpetrators and to all others: In America, we do not tolerate acts of violence motivated by hatred. In America, you are free to be yourself, and you should never be attacked for being so.

The time for waiting is over. The time for silence is over.

With the Matthew Shepard Act, we are helping local law enforcement stamp out crimes like the one committed earlier this month and punish its perpetrators. With the Matthew Shepard Act, we are saying, ``Enough!''

And, with the Matthew Shepard Act, we are honoring a brave soul. I personally want to thank Judy Shepard and all who continue to fight alongside her to make sure that we not only remember her son's life, but that we continue to strive for a better America.

For one last time, let me say: I urge my colleagues to support the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize that September 27, 2009, is designated as ``Gold Star Mother's Day.''

It is fitting that we recognize the American Gold Star Mothers, whose sons and daughters have died in defense of the ideals of individual liberty. They should be honored and offered respect and gratitude for their personal sacrifice.

Gold Star Mother's Day is intended to honor women who deserve special recognition and gratitude for their tremendous personal loss on behalf of our country.

During the early days of World War I, a Blue Star was used to represent each soldier in military service of the United States, and as the war progressed and soldiers were killed or wounded in combat or died from wounds or disease, a Gold Star superimposed over the Blue Star designated the loss of these individuals. This tradition recognized soldiers for their ultimate sacrifice to our country, and the Gold Star offered families an outward symbol by which to honor the loss of a loved one. In 1928, the Gold Star tradition was formalized in Washington, DC, by a group of mothers who had lost sons and daughters in service to their country and met to form the American Gold Star Mothers organization. This organization is a nondenominational, nonprofitable, and nonpolitical organization that is dedicated in supporting veterans, military families, and servicemembers returning from our present-day battlefields.

In 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt issued a proclamation which recognized Gold Star Mothers for their strength and inspiration to this country. The

services rendered to the United States by the mothers of America have strengthened and inspired our Nation throughout history, and we honor the Gold Star Mothers of America for their courage and their strength.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I want to support the words of the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Rhode Island about moving the unemployment insurance extension forward.

We all know that joblessness is a tremendous problem in this country. We can argue about which States should get the unemployment benefits and for how much time, but if you are unemployed, your household is 100 percent unemployed. It doesn't matter to you whether you are in a State where it is a 6-percent or a 9-percent or a 12-percent rate. If you have been looking for a job for 26 weeks, you are in trouble and your family is in trouble.

It is hard to believe on an issue such as this, where you would think there would be some comity--you know, I was on one of the TV shows with the Senator from Texas and he agreed unemployment benefits should be extended. We talked about it on that show. Yet we are now holding things up. But people can't wait. They have food to put on the table; they have families to keep together. They have a work ethic. When you can't find a job, try as you might, it eats at you. It is one of the great things about Americans.

I hope my colleagues will reconsider. I hope they will reconsider-- yes, because the politics is not on their side here, but more important, because of the substance. We have the worst unemployment we have had over a period of time since World War II, since the Great Depression. We can debate what we should ultimately do. We have to do more, in my opinion, to get this country out of the economic problems in terms of jobs. We do not want to wait 2 or 3 or 4 years for unemployment to gradually come down. We can debate all that. Should there be a second stimulus? Should we do other things? What should we do about highway building? Should we extend the home credit? These are all legitimate considerations we should debate. There will probably be some differences. But in terms of helping those unemployed, the vast majority of whom are unemployed through no fault of their own, I don't think there can be much of a debate. I don't think there will be much of a debate. When it comes to the floor through the good efforts of the Senator from Montana and the Senator from New Hampshire, my guess is it will be overwhelmingly voted on.

Let's not delay. Let's move forward as quickly as we can to help those who, through no fault of their own right now, cannot find a job, try as they might themselves.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 253, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I have a brief statement I would like to make about the resolution.

I rise today in support of S. Res. 253, a resolution condemning the release and vile welcome home celebration held for Libyan terrorist and convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. I also express my sincere thanks and appreciation to my colleagues, Senators Lautenberg, Gillibrand, Webb, Voinovich, Cardin, Casey, McCaskill, Menendez, and Mikulski for agreeing to cosponsor this resolution.

Mr. President, it is upsetting that Libyan leader COL Muammar Qaddafi is in New York City at this very moment and will be given an opportunity to speak before the United Nations General Assembly. I am disappointed because I sympathize enormously with the families and victims of the deadly Pan Am terrorist attack who will be reminded of that deadly day in December almost 21 years ago when they see Qaddafi grandstanding at the U.N.

On December 21, 1998, Pan Am Flight 103, en route from London's Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, suddenly exploded over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 on board and 11 people on the ground. Many New Yorkers and New Jersey residents were among the 189 Americans killed in the bombing. A young man from my neighborhood, whose family was active in a neighboring parish--Our Lady Help of Christians--was killed in the bloom of his early life. That story could be repeated over and over because there were many students who were coming back from a program affiliated with Syracuse University. We know people all over New York State were lost, and many young college students.

In 2001, at least the families of the victims found some solace when justice appeared to have been delivered as Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. But to the shock of many people on both sides of the Atlantic, on August 20 of this year, the Scottish Government released al-Megrahi, who is currently suffering from prostate cancer and is predicted to have about 3 months to live. The Scottish Government claimed the release was a compassionate gesture given his failing health.

Upon his return, thousands of young men, who had been transported by the Libyan Government, gathered at the airport in Tripoli to greet the terrorist. They waved banners, threw flower petals after al-Megrahi was escorted from prison by Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the son of COL Muammar Qaddafi. The hero's welcome Libya gave to this terrorist truly shocks the conscience and deserves a formal rebuke.

It is outrageous that the Libyan Government would so blatantly disregard the suffering the families have endured for more than two decades. S. Res. 253 demands the Government of Libya apologize for the gross homecoming celebration of al-Megrahi.

This resolution does three important things: First, it condemns the August 20, 2009, release from prison in Scotland of Abdel Baset al- Megrahi, the lone person convicted in connection with the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people; second, it condemns the lavish welcome home ceremony held in Tripoli to celebrate the release of al-Megrahi; and third, it calls on the Government of Libya to apologize for the public celebration of al- Megrahi's release.

Al-Megrahi only served 8 years in jail. He committed one of the most dastardly terrorist attacks that has been known in the last 100 years. Eight years later, the families haven't recuperated. They live with their losses every day, every minute. There is a hole in their hearts that will never heal. To release al-Megrahi is terrible; to celebrate the release of this awful terrorist is even worse. And for the world to remain silent, the U.N. not to condemn but to greet Qaddafi--strike three. It is an awful situation.

I call on the Senate to support S. Res. 253 condemning the release and the vile welcome home celebration. I hope all Senators will join us in cosponsoring the resolution. Murder and terrorism are not forgivable offenses, and refuge should never be offered to those determined to terrorize and murder the innocent. If we do so, we are encouraging future terrorists to repeat these awful crimes.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, I thank my friend and colleague Senator Murray for her heartfelt words, and all of my colleagues. The love we all felt and feel for Ted Kennedy is genuine. It is person to person because that is how he was.

There is so much to say. I know we are limited in time. We could speak forever. I think every one of us could speak forever about Ted Kennedy because he had so many interactions with each of us. It is amazing that every person in this body has a long list of stories and thousands of people in Massachusetts and thousands more throughout America. One would think there were 20 Ted Kennedys. He had so much time for the small gesture that mattered so much, such as the hug, going out of his way to go to a reception and hug Patty Murray's mom. It happened over and over again. So we could each speak forever.

I know time is limited, my colleague from Oregon is waiting. We are going to shut off debate soon and others want to speak. I will touch on a few things.

I could speak forever about Ted Kennedy. I thought of him every day while he was alive; I think of him every day that he is gone. I had a dream about him the other night where typically he was taking me around to various places in Boston and explaining a little bit about each one with a joke, with a smile, with a remembrance.

There is also nothing we can say about Ted Kennedy because nothing is going to replace him. No words can come close to equaling the man.

You read about history and you read about the great people in the Senate--the Websters, the Clays, the LaFollettes, the Wagners. What a privilege it was for somebody such as myself, a kid from Brooklyn whose father was an exterminator, never graduated from college, to be in the presence and was actually a friend to a great man. I don't think I can say that about anyone else. It is amazing.

What I want to tell the American people--you all read about him. There were the good times and the bad times and the brickbats that were thrown at him, not so much recently but in the early days. But here in the Senate, when you get to know people personally and when you are in our walk of life, being a Senator, you get to know a lot of people personally. You get to meet a lot of famous people. Some of them, frankly, are disappointing. The more you see them the less you want to know them. But with Ted Kennedy, the more you got to see him, the closer you got, the better he looked.

He had flaws, but he was flawless. He was such a genuine person and such a caring person and such an honorable and decent man that I wish my children had gotten to know him, that my friends had gotten to know him, that all of my 19 million constituents had gotten to know him a little bit the way I did.

What a guy. There are so many stories and so many memories. One day Ted and I sat next to each other--I used to sit over there. I think it was one of the vote-aramas, a long session. We occasionally would go up to his hideaway to talk. I said: Why don't we bring some of the freshmen. This was a couple of years ago. I regret that you, Mr. President, and the Senator from Oregon in the class of 2008 did not have that experience. We would go up to his hideaway, and he would regale us with stories. He would talk about the pictures on the wall and tell each person in caring detail what each picture meant, what each replica meant. He would tell jokes and laugh. His caring for each person in that room, each a new freshman, was genuine, and they knew it. We would go up regularly. It sort of became a thing, freshman Members of the Senate. Ted didn't need them. He could get whatever he had to get done and they would support him. But he cared about them as if they were almost family.

Whenever we had a late night, we would sort of gather--I would be the emissary and I would go over to Ted and say: Can we go upstairs? Of course. Amy Klobuchar, Sherrod Brown, Claire McCaskill, Bobbie Casey-- their faces would light up, and there we would go to hear more stories about the past, the Senate, the individuals. It is a memory none of us will forget.

Ted Kennedy would size people up early on, and he would care about them. He was very kind to me, but he also knew I was the kind of guy you had to put in his place a little bit. I would get hazed by Ted Kennedy. Jay Rockefeller told me he went through the same thing when he got here. He knew who I was but would deliberately not mention my name. He would be standing there saying: Senator Mikulski, you will do this, and Senator Harkin, you will do this; Senator Conrad, you will do this--I was the last one--and the others will do this. It was fun. He did it with a twinkle in his eyes. We loved, he and I, the give and take, Brooklyn-Boston.

The first year I was here, the Red Sox were playing the Yankees in the playoffs. Ted and I made a bet. He said: The loser will have to hold the pennant of the winning team over his head and recite ``Casey at the Bat'' on Capitol Hill. We had a bet. The Yankees won. I went over to him--and he was feigning fear, this man who had been through everything. When we went out on the steps, he was hiding behind me. I have a picture of it on my wall. We were joking and laughing. And then he did his duty.

I was only a freshman Senator, sort of like Patty or anybody else. He went out of his way for all of us. He would tell me to remember the birthdays and the individual happenings in each person's life, in each Senator's life, and go over and say something to them. It was his way of teaching me. It was done like a father. An amazing person.

As I said, the closer you got to him, the better he looked. As a legislator and as a giant in our history--and all the history books record it--people have referred to all his accomplishments. But I want to share with people how it was in person, one on one. You could be a Senator or you could be two guys on a street corner. He was fun and he was caring and he was loving. He was a big man, but his heart was much bigger than he was.

He loved almost everybody. He saw the good in people and brought it out. He saw the faults in people, and in a strong but gentle way tried to correct them. He was great on the outside, and he was even more great on the inside.

Again, I see my colleagues are waiting. I will part with this little memory that I will never forget. Ted and I became good friends. We spent time together in many different ways. When he got sick, I felt bad, like we all did. I would call him every so often. This was October of last year. He was ill, but he was still in strong health. I called him a couple of days before it was October. I said: We have a DSCC event a couple days from now in Boston. I thought I would call and say hello, let him know I was going to be in his State, his territory.

He said: What are you doing before the event? He said: Why don't you come out to the compound at Hyannis. I did. He picked me up at the airport. I flew in on a little plane. I will never forget, he had his hat on. He was happy as could be pointing out everything, full of vim and vigor.

It is obvious why the man was not afraid of death. When you know yourself and you know you have done everything as he did on both a personal basis and as a leader, you are not afraid of death. Anyway, he was not at all talking about that.

We were supposed to go out sailing, but it was too windy. So we had lunch--he, Vicki, and I--clam chowder and all the usual stuff. Then he said: I want to show you something. He lived in the big house on the compound, the one you see in the pictures. He took me to the house by the side. That was the house where President Kennedy lived because when President Kennedy was

President, Joseph P. Kennedy, Ted's father, lived in the big house.

For about 3 hours, he opened all these drawers and closets, things on the walls, and with each one in loving, teaching detail talked to me about the history of the family and of Boston, what happened from Honey Fitz, the mayor, through his father and Ted growing up in all these pictures laughing and reminiscing, and then about President Kennedy as he was growing up, and then as President in this little house and through to Ted. He was sort of passing on the memories. He did it again out of generosity, spirit, love, and friendship.

As I say, he was a great man and every one of us knows his greatness was not only in the public eye but in the private one on one. A great man. The term is overused. There are not many. He was one. I was privileged to get to know him, to get to be his friend, to stand in that large shadow, learn from him, enjoy it, and to love him.

So, Ted, you will always be with us. They may take those flowers off that desk and they may take the great black drape off the desk, but you will always be here for me, for all of us, and for our country.

I yield the floor.