Unemployment Benefits
Mr. President, first, I congratulate all of my new colleagues who were sworn in today, and all of those who won reelection--but particularly those who are here for the first time, and my good friend from New Jersey who is here for the…
Mr. President, first, I congratulate all of my new colleagues who were sworn in today, and all of those who won reelection--but particularly those who are here for the first time, and my good friend from New Jersey who is here for the second time, with a hiatus. I congratulate the new leadership on the Republican side, along with Majority Leader Frist. We look forward to working together for the good of our country.
Today, I stand here feeling, I guess I would say, boxed in because we on this side of the aisle who feel that the unemployment package was not adequate are faced with the choice of taking half a loaf or none. Of course, when you are in a legislative body, you tend to take that half loaf. We will do it today--or we have done it already today. But when it comes to people out of work, when it comes to the pain in the eyes of fathers and mothers, young men and women who talk about missing or losing a job, knocking on doors and not being able to find one, half a loaf is not very adequate.
I find it confounding that the other side did not allow the amendment my colleague from New York proffered. We only asked for a half hour of debate, so it cannot be that it would take up much time. We certainly do not believe that they didn't want to help the unemployed. So the only logical answer is dollars. They thought it might be too expensive. To me--the main point I want to make this afternoon is this--the contrast of our President speaking in Chicago and putting forward a $600 billion plan of relief, mostly on the tax side--and the vast majority of that plan goes to the very highest income levels. I read somewhere that 42 percent goes to 1 percent; 1 percent of the highest income get 42 percent of the relief. One percent is 311,000. So there is $600 billion to go to tax relief, mainly for the most well off, and there is not a billion dollars to include a million people--150,000 New Yorkers--to give them the unemployment benefits they now do not have.
How many Americans would support that? Our job is to juxtapose those two issues. I hope the media will do that. These are not two separate issues because we have not heard a single reason that we cannot take the larger bill. They say our colleagues in the House will object. Then let the American people look at them and say to them, if you can afford and you are going to support $600 billion in tax relief, largely to extremely wealthy, high-income individuals and families, why can't you support a billion dollars for the unemployed?
If the election we just held were on that issue, what do you think would have happened? My guess is that the results would have been quite different. Frankly, our colleagues in the House and some on the other side of the aisle don't like to see this issue contrasted. The tax relief--huge amounts of it--is going to the upper income spectrums and the stingiest, the parsimonious attitude when it comes to the unemployed. It is not that we cannot afford it, because I offer to my colleagues, let's do $599 billion of tax relief and do this billion dollars. Hardly anyone would notice, except those million people who are out of work and desperately looking for work.
So I hope we will have another opportunity to work this amendment forward. I worry that we can make a lot of speeches on the floor of the Senate, but, yes, they will say, bring it up as
part of the stimulus package, we will pass it in the Senate. But it will die in conference, and then there is nothing we can do legislatively.
So while I didn't agree with my colleague from Illinois for objecting because we are in such a box--I thought we should not object and try to persuade them--I sympathize with his anger and with his frustration that we could not spend a half hour to talk about some money for people who are out of work, or our colleagues here would have withdrawn the bill and hurt the 2.8 million who will benefit, and justifiably so.
The issue of money for the jobless doesn't change America. Unfortunately, it is not the most important issue we face. Getting a good education and good health care and more jobs for people is far more important than a stopgap measure. Until we are able to do that--so far we have not--we have to help those who need help. These are not people sitting on their duffs trying to get a check. They are people who are knocking on doors every day. When a notice goes out that one company is hiring, you see hundreds and even thousands in my city and elsewhere throughout my State lined up around the block.
People desperately want work. The best thing we can do is give them jobs by stimulating the economy in a real way. But until we do, it is our fundamental and solemn and important responsibility to at least let them live a life of dignity, maintain the payment on the home, feed the child, put a coat on the spouse's back. That is all we were trying to do today. It is unfortunate that we were put in such a box and we were told take half a loaf or none. When it comes to unemployment, we should not have to deal with half a loaf.
I yield the floor.