Floor Statements

Mr. President, I wish to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the legislation that allowed for the formation of real estate investment trusts, now commonly known as REITs.

On September 14, 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Cigar Excise Tax Extension Act. Included in that law were the critical provisions that first enabled investors from all walks of life to benefit from the income generation and diversification advantages of commercial real estate investments. Our predecessors in Congress recognized that without this innovation such investments would continue to be limited to institutions and wealthy individuals.

The law signed by President Eisenhower enabled the creation of the first REITs. However, the groundwork for the modern REIT era was truly laid in the Tax Reform Act of 1986, when REITs were given the ability to operate and manage real estate, rather than simply owning or financing it. As a result, the great majority of today's REITs are owners, operators, and developers of properties in the office, retail, industrial, health care, apartment, lodging and self-storage sectors-- properties used by a broad range of tenants from across the economy.

Reflecting the evolving real estate market, Congress and the Treasury have implemented incremental changes to the REIT approach to real estate investing over the years. For example, laws such as the REIT Simplification Act of 1997, the REIT Modernization Act of 1999, the REIT Improvement Act of 2004, and the REIT Investment Diversification and Empowerment Act of 2008 have been enacted with the support of Congresses and Presidents of both parties.

While the REIT model has evolved, the original legislative intent of making large-scale, income-producing commercial real estate investment available to all types of investors remains at the core.

For example, by definition in the Internal Revenue Code, 75 percent of a REIT's assets must be in qualifying real estate, 75 percent of its income must come from rents and other qualifying sources, and 90 percent of its taxable earnings must be distributed to shareholders in the form of dividends. Among active businesses, the requirement to pay out 90 percent of taxable earnings is unique to the REIT industry, which distributed approximately $13.5 billion to shareholders in 2009.

Additionally, the income, asset, and distribution requirements, when combined with the disclosure and other regulations that govern public companies, protect shareholders and provide transparency in a way that other real estate investments do not. With 132 REITs traded on the New York Stock Exchange, ownership of shares in these companies also provides a significant liquidity advantage over alternative real estate investments.

Michigan has played an important role in creating the vibrant REIT industry that exists today. Taubman Centers, Inc., based in Bloomfield Hills, is a leading owner of regional malls. In the 1990s, when they pioneered a new way to take public a portfolio of real estate that had been privately held, they unleashed a wave of initial public offerings by REITs in the 1990s.

Three other REITs--Agree Realty Corporation, Ramco-Gershenson Properties Trust, and Sun Communities, Inc.--also call Michigan home. And, more than 620 properties across my home State are owned by REITs.

Commercial real estate accounts for more than 6 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States, and my colleagues and I are all too aware of the challenges facing this sector. In the face of this challenge, REITs have been well-served by staying true to their core values of careful investment, transparency, and liquidity. While commercial real estate is not yet out of the woods, I believe policymakers and the other participants in the commercial real estate market can learn a great deal from this business model, which has been emulated by more than two dozen countries around the world.

I thank you for this opportunity to commend the REIT industry on its 50th anniversary. Allow me to also commend our predecessors in Congress for having the foresight to enable all Americans to access and benefit from investments in real estate. I look forward to working with my colleagues to continue this work that began more than 50 years ago.

Mr. President, I also want to start by thanking the chair of the Small Business Committee, the Senator from Louisiana. She has done a remarkable job. Her tenacity and passion and commitment for small business and for this legislation has gotten us to where we are today, and I am proud to be joining with her in this effort, along with the Senator from New Hampshire, who just spoke, and the Senator from Washington, Ms. Cantwell, who has been such a champion, and the Senator from Oregon--both Senators from Oregon--and the many Members who have come to the floor and colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have joined in particular provisions of this bill.

As the leader and the chair of the Small Business Committee has said, this is, in fact, a bill that has significant pieces, if not the majority of pieces, that have been bipartisan or have come from the Republican side of the aisle. Yet what we are seeing is a strategy by the Republican leadership to continue to block and block and block, and to filibuster, filibuster, filibuster even something that is important for Main Street.

This is not about Wall Street. This is not about a bailout to Wall Street hoping that they will lend to small businesses, which didn't happen after the crisis when credit markets froze up and lending didn't happen, certainly, in my State of Michigan or across the country. So we have had to come back and try a different route for Main Street, and this is what this is about--Main Street, the folks who are creating the majority of jobs which are in small businesses.

We also have a lot of folks who have lost their jobs and who are now starting a small business. I know lots of folks in their forties, fifties, and sixties who have never been out of work before in their lives who are now out of work and are turning to a small business. They are going out in the garage or the basement or maybe the spare bedroom--maybe they are starting up a business with someone else--and they are starting something new. The problem is they can't get a loan to get started. They can't get the capital they need, and that is exactly what this bill is about.

This is about a new partnership with community banks and small businesses to create a lending facility to open the doors to capital. It is also about expanding what the SBA is doing.

Another very important provision of this addresses what happens when people's assets go down in value. People are seeing a decrease in the value of their own property, whether it is their home, their business, their equipment, their commercial buildings, so that their collateral has lessened and the ability for them to go to the bank and say: I have X amount of collateral to put up against the loan--now they are finding that the value of that property has been cut in half and they can't continue their line of credit or they are not able to get the loan.

There is also an important provision in here that addresses a program that actually started in Michigan, Mr. President, and I am very proud of it. It is with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. This will allow a partnership with the State economic development entity to be able to back up the business, to be able to help them be able to finance even though their collateral has decreased.

Before I talk more about that, I also want to mention that we are talking about basically allowing investors and small businesses to take a 100-percent exclusion from capital gains on small business investments made this year. So eliminating the capital gains provisions for this year--100 percent.

We are focusing on other important provisions that relate to tax cuts for small business and also trade and export promotion. We want to help our small businesses export their products, not their jobs. So there are many important provisions in here, and I believe we have some 80 different business organizations supporting this legislation.

This is not Republican versus Democrat out in the real world. We have Republican businesses, Democratic-owned businesses, tea party-owned businesses, all kinds of folks out there who can't get loans. This is not a partisan issue, and it is extremely unfortunate that it has become a partisan issue.

I want to share a couple of stories. This is about a business called American Gear in Michigan. It is a 25-year-old manufacturer of custom- made machine parts. They sell parts to the automotive industry, to the U.S. Navy, the glass industry, and the steel industry.

In 2008, American Gear made a record profit. But then in 2009 they saw a tremendous pullback from their customers and lost money for the first time in history. They were forced to cut staff, trim overhead, and tried to work with their bank to access additional cash to keep going. But they weren't able to secure access to enough of the capital they needed to complete their existing orders--even the existing business that they had.

They are trying to expand. They are trying to get new customers. They are profitable once again. But because their 27,000-square-foot building has lost so much of its value, the bank has pulled their loan and they have been unable to get another lender.

They have just hired two new employees to help with new orders, but they can't get credit. They might have to start cutting back again and turning away customers because they can't get access to capital.

This bill will help American Gear. It will help this company that has been dealt the double whammy of reduced cashflow and property, which is used as collateral, that has decreased in value because of the recession. This is very important. This is something that has been overwhelmingly successful in Michigan. Michigan's program started in 2009 and targets businesses with good credit risks but those who can't get the cash they need because their collateral or their cashflow is falling short.

That is what this is all about. The business I am talking about, American Gear, is a solid business. They are making a profit again. This is a business with good credit, but they have lost the value on their buildings, and they are unable now to get a loan. This bill addresses that. This bill addresses that.

We also have another story from Michigan--and there are many stories from Michigan--about Michigan Ladder in Ypsilanti, MI. It is the oldest ladder maker in the United States. They have been in business since 1901. They are still in their original buildings with 20 employees in Ypsilanti, MI. Nearly all the other makers of ladders have moved to Asia or South America.

Michigan Ladder sells primarily to commercial and industrial contractor suppliers directly. They manufacture several sizes of wooden ladders, distribute fiberglass and aluminum ladders which they have produced for them as well. The company experienced difficulty due to the poor commercial real estate market and the housing market. They trimmed their staff, cut benefits, and worked hard to rightsize themselves. They believe they can be competitive. They are aggressively working to continue to produce in Michigan, but they can't get the financing they need to buy equipment to produce new products because of the fact that their equipment, the collateral they have, has been reduced in value.

This is a story that I have heard repeated hundreds and hundreds of times, Mr. President. This bill addresses that. This bill fixes that.

Let me move now to process because substantively we have no reason not to pass this bill. There is absolutely no reason, based on the substance, on the need for small businesses and the support from over 80 different organizations across this country, not to pass this legislation. So why do we have a filibuster going on?

I just want to speak about that for a moment because the reality is, we need to vote.

The democratic process is to vote. When we run for reelection, if you get one more vote than the other person you win the election. We don't say a supermajority. We say simple majority, one more than the other person. That is a democracy. We are saying here, let's vote, give us a vote, an up-or-down vote. You can vote no or you can vote yes, but don't keep using these efforts that block us and force a supermajority to block us from even having a vote. That is what is happening here. Over and over again we are being blocked from even having a vote.

Can you imagine in the election if there were a capacity to block an election day from even actually having the vote? We have men and women serving us in this country around the world, putting their lives on the line, losing their lives for the democratic process based on the ability to vote and majority rule. Yet here in the Senate the rules have been totally perverted and twisted to throw sand in the gears and require a supermajority to even move a step forward on anything.

Let's review where we are right now. We have had 246 objections and filibusters since we started 18 months ago--246. That is unheard of. Not all of those have actually gone to a cloture vote, a vote to stop a filibuster, because we do not have 246 weeks. The leader cannot get us through that whole process that takes a week to stop a filibuster on every single objection. Some of these have gone to an actual vote, a 60 vote, and on others there have been objections that have stopped us from voting. It is unheard of. We have never seen this before in the history of our country.

When our country started, there were two that year. Then some have been zero, some there have been maybe three or four or ten. Some sessions of Congress there have been no filibusters.

Here we are. In the last Congress we ended the year at 139 filibusters, and we have topped that. This is what happened last time when this began to be used as a strategy by the Republican leadership. It is way off the charts. Now it is so far off the charts we cannot put it on the chart. This is now used as the basic strategy for everything: Stop everything, throw sand in the gears, and make sure nothing improves, that nothing happens that will improve the lives of families in this country, improve the economy, create jobs. I find that to be extremely unfortunate.

We have a situation right now where we have the opportunity to do something for those on Main Street, the folks who have not caused any of the crises that have been facing our country. They did not make the reckless decisions on Wall Street that brought the financial crisis. They were not the ones who didn't enforce our trade laws fairly so we lost jobs overseas. They are not the ones who made any of the decisions. But they have been affected. Middle-class families, who may not consider themselves middle class anymore, are just holding on.

Many of them own small businesses or work in small businesses or are trying to start a small business. These are folks in every one of our States, in every community that we represent--small businesses, mom- and-pop operations, small suppliers. Most of the people in the auto industry are small businesses. They are small companies, small suppliers such as the ones I mentioned, such as American Gear, a small supplier. They find themselves now in a

situation where they cannot operate; they can't expand; they cannot conduct business. They are having to lay people off because they cannot get credit.

We can fix that. We can fix that right here. All we have to do is one of two things: Have courageous colleagues on the other side of the aisle join us to stop a filibuster or, all together, stop this thing and vote. That is vote, that is all we are asking for, an up-or-down vote, yes or no. But allow a vote to happen.

I hope we are close on an agreement. Unfortunately, our leader, who has an incredible amount of patience, finds himself too often in a situation where he is trying to negotiate but the numbers keep changing, the circumstances keep changing, and we are never actually able to get an agreement in good faith. I hope that is not the case here because we need to get this done.

People are watching us and wondering what in the world is going on in the Senate. People understand what is happening in the real world, what is happening to small businesses. Every weekend when I go home--and I do go home every weekend--every weekend when I go home I hear about small businesses not getting access to capital. They cannot get a loan, they cannot continue their line of credit. Everywhere I go I hear about that.

I understand my time is up. I again thank my colleague, the chair of the Small Business Committee, for standing strong. I stand with her. This is incredibly important and there is no reason whatsoever that we cannot get this done on behalf of small businesses across America.

Mr. President, before my friend from Washington State leaves the floor, I thank her as well. She has been an incredible leader on this issue and we are very fortunate to have someone who has been in business, a successful businesswoman who brings her knowledge of business and of finance into the Senate. Her passion and partnership with Senator Landrieu have been very important in getting us to this point. I want to say thank you to the Senator from Washington for her leadership as well.

Mr. President, before my friend from Pennsylvania leaves, I thank him for his wonderful commitment to small business and passion and voice on this issue. We are lucky to have him and very much appreciate all of his wonderful work. Pennsylvania and Michigan have a lot in common. Our hard-working folks, a lot of them who have been losing their jobs in one industry, are starting small businesses. They are looking to us to understand what it takes to start a small business and to keep a small business. That is what this bill is all about. I echo what the Senator from Pennsylvania said about the importance of this bill, and the chairman of the Small Business Committee, and wish to stress a couple provisions we haven't talked as much about.

First, of course, the major piece is about access to loans from SBA, increasing the loan limits and the size of microloans. That will increase lending through the SBA by about $5 billion next year. A lot of small businesses will buy new equipment, will be able to hire staff to expand or keep their business going.

The large lending facility we have all talked about that takes $30 billion and partners with community banks and creates $300 billion worth of capital for small businesses--I can't imagine a better shot in the arm than having that capital available.

There is something else that is also important. I am pleased to be a part of the President's Export Council. The President has set a goal of doubling exports in the next 5 years. Many of the businesses we are talking about interested in exporting are small businesses. We have international businesses in Michigan, and they have their own operations around the world. They are not in need of support through the export operations in the Department of Commerce, but small businesses need that.

I think of one woman whom I know. Her sister-in-law is a dear friend of mine. I talked with her. She lives in northern Michigan on Leelanau peninsula, which is absolutely beautiful, north of Traverse City, MI, the kind of place you would like to be today. It is absolutely beautiful up there on the Great Lakes. It is certainly much less warm than here. She is in an area where there are wonderful cherry growers and all kinds of fruit and vegetable growers. She has put together nutritional products from the power and nutrition of cherries and has come up with a number of things that are very healthy to help people with joint problems and other issues which cherries are actually very helpful with, a very powerful commodity in nutritional assistance. She is interested in exporting. She started a small business up in northern Michigan, and she has now moved out to, the last time I talked to her, 300 different places around Michigan and the country.

We have talked to her about what she could do to sell her product overseas as a nutritional product. There is a great deal of interest in doing that, and I hope we can help her do that. But she needs assistance from the export expertise in the Department of Commerce.

In this bill, we have small business trade and export promotion efforts. The great Senator from Minnesota, Ms. Klobuchar, championed this effort. It would improve the SBA's trade and export promotion programs. It establishes a State export promotion grant program and strengthens coordination. It would leverage more than $1 billion in export capital for small businesses. That is estimated to create or save about 50,000 jobs this year.

So there are new opportunities. With the wonders of the Internet, we are now in a global economy. We can communicate around the world with our cell phone or certainly with the Internet. We have the ability to help small businesses create jobs by connecting them to the world in terms of the markets they can access. Help for that is in this bill. So that is another very important piece.

There is also an increase in Federal contracts for small businesses. Just increasing Federal contracts for small businesses by 1 percent is estimated to create 100,000 jobs. Now, we know in the bidding process, again, larger businesses tend to participate, tend to have major contracts from the Federal Government. Yet this is an opportunity for small business. If we can increase contracts by just 1 percent, we can create 100,000 jobs; 2 percent, 200,000 jobs, and so on. Provisions are in the bill to increase contracting opportunities, which are very important opportunities for small business.

We have talked about the tax cuts. I hear frequently as a member of the Finance Committee from friends on the other side of the aisle concerned about raising taxes on small business, and we certainly share that concern. We certainly are not supportive of doing that. But here you have an opportunity to cut taxes on small businesses, doing away with the capital gains on small businesses this year, increasing the deduction to start a new business, expanding the expensing provisions, bonus depreciation provisions for small businesses, and also something very important that we, of course, have been working on in health care, and put in place in the structure that will help small businesses down the road, in 2014, with the new insurance pool--a

competitive way to price and purchase insurance. But until then we have a lot of self-employed people who find themselves in a very difficult situation, who cannot find affordable insurance, if they can find it at all.

This bill would allow them to deduct their health care costs for payroll tax purposes on their tax returns. This is another important matter that people who own small businesses care about and worry about for their families. That is a part of this bill.

When we go down through here and look at the huge effort around capital available for small businesses, the efforts in partnering with States to help small businesses that have lost the value of their property, their equipment--the collateral they would use normally to get a loan--there are provisions to address that, provisions to help small businesses afford health care by deducting their health care costs, help for exports, expanding bonus depreciation and expensing, eliminating capital gains, and giving small businesses more opportunities to contract with the Federal Government.

When you look at all of this, I am stunned. Why are we still having to have this debate? How long are we going to have to do this when every day we have small businesses that are holding on trying to figure out what they are going to do to keep their doors open? We are at a point now where we have to come to a conclusion and pass this bill. I hope anyone who says they care about small business will join with us and show they do--not just talk about it--but show they do by supporting the small business bill, as the chairwoman said, that now has over 100 different organizations, business organizations, supporting it.

I hope they will do that. I hope they will stop the filibustering, stop blocking this bill, stop the strategy of throwing sand in the gears over and over, using the rules of the Senate to tie this place in knots. What we need--what we need--is to just vote. That is it. What we need is to exercise the democratic process of just voting, do away with the filibusters, do away with all the efforts to block, and just allow the democratic process to work. People can vote ``yes.'' They can vote ``no.'' But just allow us to have a vote.

We are looking for colleagues, just a couple of colleagues, joining with us. We have colleagues who have worked across the aisle. We are urging them to stand with us to stop this filibuster and allow us to vote on behalf of small businesses in America, to give them the support they need.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Will the Senator yield?

I thank the Senator from Louisiana for her tireless advocacy and leadership in getting us to this point, because this is absolutely critical for small businesses, certainly in Michigan and across the country. I know we talked about it before.

Isn't it true that when we look at job growth--and this is a jobs bill, I am sure the Senator agrees--small businesses are creating the jobs? Would she not agree, as well, that when we look at manufacturing in my State, the suppliers are small businesses? So what we are talking about here is growing jobs. Would the Senator agree and speak about the fact that this is about jobs, about the fact that the majority of the jobs are coming from small business, and these are the folks who didn't cause the financial crisis, and they didn't create the recklessness on Wall Street? They got hit by it, along with our community bankers who didn't cause it; would the Senator agree?

Mr. President, I thank the Senator, the chair of the Small Business Committee, for her leadership and her passion.

I could not agree more. We have to focus on jobs. When you support small business, both the underlying bill and the changes, in terms of tax cuts for small business, as well as this provision, this is a great opportunity for us to support small businesses in this country, where the majority of jobs are created.

Every time I go home, as the Senator from Florida mentioned, I am approached by small businesses that cannot get capital and cannot get the loans they need or get their line of credit extended. This is absolutely critical for us.

In addition, I thank Senators Klobuchar and LeMieux for their export promotion piece, which is equally important. When we look at opportunities for small business and the opportunity to support their efforts to sell their products overseas in a global economy, this is also about creating jobs. I had the opportunity not long ago to be in Beijing, China, at the global auto leaders summit. I heard from people with the Foreign Commercial Service that they needed more assistance. If they had more staff, they would be able to support more businesses being able to sell into China.

We want, in this global economy, to be exporting our products, not our jobs. So focusing on exports and supporting what the President has called for--doubling exports in the next 5 years--creates jobs as well.

I again thank Senators Klobuchar and LeMieux for their efforts on exports, and I thank Senator LeMieux and Senator Landrieu for the amendment as it relates to the lending authority. All of this adds up-- all of this together, the underlying bill, with tax cuts, support for small businesses, which have seen collateral depreciate, and the efforts that we can provide to be able to support them to get loans through a collateral assistance program, the loan program, which is, in my judgment, a core provision, and then adding exports--all of it together is a jobs bill.

This is a fundamental jobs bill for small businesses all across the country. I urge colleagues to come together. I can't think of anything more bipartisan or anything that should be more bipartisan than a focus on American small businesses. This amendment is at the heart of that.

I strongly urge a very strong bipartisan vote.

I thank the Chair.

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

Mr. President, I wish to take a few moments to talk about what is currently happening in the Senate, in my judgement, representing a State with now the second highest unemployment rate in the country--Michigan. We are glad not to be No. 1, but we sure would like to be No. 50. We have an awful lot of people right now who are waiting for us to complete action on extending unemployment insurance benefits.

I continue to be appalled at the lengths to which the Republican minority will go to stop people who are out of work from getting some help. We are in a situation where we finally, after eight different votes and weeks and weeks of trying, had enough votes to overcome a filibuster. As we all know, that takes 60 votes. I am very grateful to our Republican colleagues from Maine for joining with us to make that happen. We had a vote yesterday that was a supermajority vote. We

know extending unemployment benefits is going to pass because we had 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and the vote on the actual bill only takes 51.

We know we have the votes, but under the procedures of the Senate, technically, unless there is a bipartisan agreement, we have to wait 30 hours before we can actually vote. It used to be that once we secured the votes of a supermajority, then everyone would agree: OK, the votes are there, and they would agree to yield back time so we would not have to wait; we could go on to something else.

That is not what is happening now. While people in Michigan and around the country are waiting, trying to figure out: OK, can I pay the rent tomorrow, can I get gas for my car to look for another job tomorrow, can I put food on the table tomorrow, what is going to happen on Monday, what is going to happen on Tuesday--while people are waiting, we have nothing happening on the floor of the Senate. We are just burning time, 30 hours of time. In my judgment, it is just mean, because when we look at what has to happen yet--we will pass the bill. We know we are going to pass the bill. It has to go back to the House and then to the President for signature. This, at least, is the difference between families getting some help on Friday so they can feed the kids for the weekend or whether they are going to have to wait until Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. For a lot of folks, for a lot of us--we have a salary, we have a job--that may not seem like much. For over 2.5 million people in this country who have lost their insurance benefits--and these are insurance benefits. You pay in when you are working to get some temporary help if you lose your job through no fault of your own. Mr. President, 2.5 million people think waiting from Friday to Monday is a big deal. They, in fact, think Thursday and Friday is a big deal. We have a situation that, frankly, I cannot characterize any other way than saying it is just plain mean.

I will be happy to yield.

Mr. President, I say to our distinguished leader in the Senate--and I thank him for his advocacy--he is exactly right. We have waited--I am not sure now if it is 10 or 11 weeks--trying to extend unemployment benefits. We have had multiple votes. We finally get the votes through all kinds of different means. We finally get the votes yesterday, and it is unheard of that we would be in this spot, after getting a supermajority of 60 people and after having this go on as long as it has. It is unheard of. Never before with a Democratic or Republican President have we ever seen this, but now we are stuck again, and I don't understand why. I cannot fathom the motivation of why the folks on the other side of the aisle, the leadership on the other side of the aisle, would say: Let's wait another 30 hours, which for most people means it is on into next week, and most people have already been without that little bit of $250 or $300 a week. We are not talking about a lot of money.

But it is a difference between having a roof over your family's head, food on the table, and not. So now we are pushing into next week.

That is right.

Well, you are exactly right. I also hear, on top of that, about people who have done what we have told them they should do--they should go back to school and get retraining. So they go back, and the only reason they can actually afford to go back to school to go through one of the job training programs is that small check that has allowed them to have a little income for their family while they do what we have told them to do, which is to get a different skill to go into a different career and then hope there will be a job there.

I have had so many e-mails from people not only about losing their homes and what is happening to their families but that they have had to drop out of school. Well, how does it make any sense, when we are trying to make sure people are productive in the workforce and are able to find a job that people are dropping out of school because of this as well?

Well, people in Michigan are extremely offended by this, and I am very offended on their behalf. The people we are talking about have never been out of work in their lives. They are mortified. The idea of having to go get food assistance is unbelievable to them. These are people who built America. They built the middle class. It is not their fault Wall Street had the crisis.

We had the good fortune to be with the President signing a bill that will change that, but it is not their fault what happened. It is not their fault there was recklessness on Wall Street and then the financial system collapsed so small businesses can't get loans and manufacturers can't get loans.

It is not their fault we went through a decade of policies where the previous administration was not enforcing trade laws so our jobs went overseas. It is not their fault they find themselves in this economy. So they are saying to me: I want to work. Hey, I want a job. I don't want to extend my unemployment benefits. Give me a job.

That is what we are focusing on too. I say to the distinguished Senator from Illinois, one of the things I find doubly insulting about wasting this time is that the legislation we are trying to get to is a small business bill so small businesses can get loans to hire people. So we are trying to create jobs and, instead, all this time is being wasted on an effort just to try to help people get by.

Well, the Senator is absolutely correct. That is the fundamental question. It goes to a question of values and priorities. We will never get out of deficit with over 15 million people out of work, and that doesn't count people working two or three or four part- time jobs or who are underemployed. If people aren't back to work, aren't able to purchase as consumers, aren't able to contribute, we will never get out of deficit, which is why we start with jobs in the beginning.

But to add insult to injury, we hear that giving another round of tax cuts to the only part of the American public that has dramatically increased its income--those who are at the very top; the top 1 and 2 percent--doesn't matter if it adds to the debt. Adding to the debt for tax cuts for wealthy people doesn't count, but changing the rules, such as we have never done before, and focusing on helping out-of-work people does count. That counts. We can't do that, if it is somebody who is out of work. But we don't worry at all about deficits when it is helping the privileged few.

I can't imagine that. That is not the America I know and the majority of Americans care about right now.

Well, I absolutely agree. I wish to thank the Senator for his continuing leadership and passion on this issue.

I would simply say, if over 15 million people out of work in this country isn't an emergency, I don't know what is. Those are the folks we are fighting for right now--the people who want to work, the people who have been part of this great middle class in our country and who now find that slipping through their fingers because of a global economy, where we have not understood the rules should be fair, where we have had policies put into place that affect only the privileged few, with the theory that it will trickle down to everybody else.

You know what. I wish it had. I wish the policies of the former President and my friends on the other side had worked. I don't want people to be out of work. If trickle-down economics would work, I would celebrate it. But my folks are still waiting for the trickle down. They are still waiting. Instead, what is happening to them is they have lost their jobs or they are finding themselves with fewer hours or they are finding themselves in a situation where they are working two jobs, three jobs just trying to hold it together. I mean I have seen numbers that show almost half the families in Michigan have somebody in their immediate family who has lost their job.

The idea of saying that somehow that is all because people are lazy, well, I would not say the words I would truly like to say, but I would just say that is a bunch of bunk--the idea that somehow Americans who have worked all their lives and are caught up in this are somehow just lazy. But this goes to a broader pattern that is extremely concerning to me, and it is the difference in world view and how we view what should happen and what is important in our country.

When we had a bill in front of us--the President just signed it today--to put back some commonsense regulations on Wall Street so there are no more big bailouts and consumers can get good information to be able to protect themselves and their 401(k)s and their savings and to be able to address all the jobs--the 8 million jobs lost since the financial crisis started over a year ago--and when we have a bill on the floor that takes on the big banks, the big bonuses, the recklessness of some on Wall Street, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle vote no. Almost every single one of them sided with the big banks and the big bonuses.

We are going to have a big debate about whether to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, whether we should give even bigger tax cuts to the top couple hundred families with huge estates in this country--to do even more than President Bush did on tax cuts for the wealthy and the wealthy estates that are literally only 200 or 300 families in the country. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will argue for that. They will argue that is the right thing to do. That is a different

view. It is a different view than we have about what is happening in this country and where the priorities ought to be.

Middle-class families in my State are saying: What about us? What about us? The big banks got their bailout, what about us? That is why we have been focused on jobs and on innovation. While we aren't out of the hole--we are nowhere near out of the hole--we are at least digging our way out. There were 750,000 a jobs a month being lost when President Obama took office. We changed the focus to working families, to middle-class families, and by the end of the year that was zero. Now we are gaining 100,000 or 200,000 a month, but we are at least gaining.

I am not happy at all about the unemployment levels in Michigan. But when President Obama took office we were looking at 15.7 percent-- unbelievable--and that is just the people being counted. Now it has come down a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, and now it is 13.2. That is still way, way too high, but at least it is moving in the right direction. We had 8 years of it moving in the wrong direction and we have turned the ship and it is beginning to turn around.

The problem we have is that while it is slow in terms of job creation, too many families are caught in the middle on this, waiting for that next job, wanting that next job that is going to pay enough so they can care for their family. They are caught in a situation they never thought they would be in, in their life and they are embarrassed and they are mortified and they are angry. They are looking at the Senate and saying: What is going on here? You can't even get it together to do what every other President, Democrat and Republican, has done in the history of our country to come together and to understand this is an emergency--15 million people plus is an emergency--and that we ought to be extending the small unemployment insurance benefits to families who are caught in this.

That is what this is all about. We find ourselves in a situation where we are wasting time right now on the floor of the Senate that we could be using after voting to extend unemployment benefits to go on to small business, which is also absolutely critical for us. The No. 1 concern from businesses is the inability to get a loan, to get the capital they need to extend their line of credit to do business or be able to expand, to get the loans they need. That is the bill we have waiting in the wings. That is the one we are trying to get done.

Instead of focusing on that, which is jobs and small business, which is the growth engine of the country, we wait. We watch the clock--30 hours. For whatever reason I do not know. But I think it is a shame.

I want to close reading a letter. I get thousands of e-mails. I am sure my colleague does too. I find them very heartbreaking. I want to read a little bit to put it in the Record, from Philip, from Belding,

Mr. President, I wish to thank our colleague from South Carolina for giving us the opportunity tonight to decide whose side we are really on. We are talking about upward of $1 trillion in spending to help a few hundred of our wealthiest Americans. We would not be helping small businesses or family farmers, all of whom we support helping, but the wealthiest Americans--close to $1 trillion--or helping 2.5 million people who lost their jobs, are out of work through no fault of their own.

The crash on Wall Street, the crisis on Wall Street, which, unfortunately, colleagues chose not to vote to repair and to fix, has caused a situation where families are hurting.

Mr. President, I would like to discuss the derivatives title of the Wall Street reform legislation with chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, Senator Lincoln.

I would like to first commend the Senator and her staff's hard work on this critically important bill, which brings accountability, transparency, and oversight to the opaque derivatives market.

For too long the over-the-counter derivatives market has been unregulated, transferring risk between firms and creating a web of fragility in a system where entities became too interconnected to fail.

It is clear that unregulated derivative markets contributed to the financial crisis that crippled middle-class families. Small businesses and our manufacturers couldn't get the credit they needed to keep the lights on, and many had to close their doors permanently. People who had saved money and played by the rules lost $1.6 trillion from their retirement accounts. More than 6 million families lost their homes to foreclosure. And before the recession was over, more than 7 million Americans had lost their jobs.

The status quo is clearly not an option.

The conference between the Senate and the House produced a strong bill that will make sure these markets are accountable and fair and that the consumers are back in control.

I particularly want to thank the Senator for her efforts to protect manufacturers that use derivatives to manage risks associated with their operations. Whether it is hedging the risks related to fluctuating oil prices or foreign currency revenues, the ability to provide financial certainty to companies' balance sheets is critical to their viability and global competitiveness.

I am glad that the conference recognizes the distinction between entities that are using the derivatives market to engage in speculative trading and our manufacturers and businesses that are not speculating. Instead, they use this market responsibly to hedge legitimate business risk in order to reduce volatility and protect their plans to make investments and create jobs.

Is it the Senator's understanding that manufacturers and companies that are using derivatives to hedge legitimate business risk and do not engage in speculative behavior will not be subjected to the capital or margin requirements in the bill?

Again, I appreciate the Senator's efforts to work with me on language that ensures manufacturers are not forced to unnecessarily divert working capital from core business activities, such as investing in new equipment and creating more jobs. As you know, large manufacturers of high-cost products often establish wholly owned captive finance affiliates to support the sales of its products by providing financing to customers and dealers.

Captive finance affiliates of manufacturing companies play an integral role in keeping the parent company's plants running and new products moving. This role is even more important during downturns and in times of limited market liquidity. As an example, Ford's captive finance affiliate, Ford Credit, continued to consistently support over 3,000 of Ford's dealers and Ford Credit's portfolio of more than 3 million retail customers during the recent financial crisis--at a time when banks had almost completely withdrawn from auto lending.

Many finance arms securitize their loans through wholly owned affiliate entities, thereby raising the funds they need to keep lending. Derivatives are integral to the securitization funding process and consequently facilitating the necessary financing for the purchase of the manufacturer's products.

If captive finance affiliates of manufacturing companies are forced to post margin to a clearinghouse it will divert a significant amount of capital out of the U.S. manufacturing sector and could endanger the recovery of credit markets on which manufacturers and their captive finance affiliates depend.

Is it the Senator's understanding that this legislation recognizes the unique role that captive finance companies play in supporting manufacturers by exempting transactions entered into by such companies and their affiliate entities from clearing and margin so long as they are engaged in financing that facilitates the purchase or lease of their commercial end user parents products and these swaps contracts are used for non-speculative hedging?

I agree that the integrity of these exemptions is critical to the reforms enacted in this bill and to the safety of our financial system. That is why I support the strong anti-abuse provisions included in the bill.

Would you please explain the safeguards included in this bill to prevent abuse?

I thank the Chairman for this opportunity to clarify some of the provisions in this bill. I appreciate the Senator's help to ensure that this bill recognizes that manufacturers and commercial entities were victims of this financial crisis, not the cause, and that it does not unfairly penalize them for using these products as part of a risk-mitigation strategy.

It is time we shine a light on derivatives trading and bring transparency and fairness to this market, not just for the families and businesses that were taken advantage of but also for the long-term health of our economy and particularly our manufacturers.

Stable Value Funds

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor, as I have on a number of occasions, to urge colleagues to extend unemployment benefits for now well over 1 million people who have lost their benefits because of the stalling, the filibustering, unfortunately, by colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

I am very appreciative of the fact that we have two Republican colleagues joining with us to stop a filibuster, but as the Presiding Officer knows, that is not enough. We need one more Member to come forward to join us, not to get a majority to pass unemployment benefits--we have a majority--but we do not have a supermajority. That has now been required on every single issue that has come before the Senate in order to try to get things done for the American people.

When I was home last week--of course I jump on a plane every Friday and come back on Monday; I view this as a long distance commute to work--I heard over and over concerns from families who have been employed all their life, had good middle-class lifestyles, have had the ability to take care of their families, have had not only the ability to have a home but maybe a cottage or a mobile home to be able to enjoy beautiful northern Michigan and the Great Lakes in the summertime, and folks who have felt confident they could send their kids to college, who literally had the rug pulled out from under them through no fault of their own.

We can go through all that brought us to this point: a decade of policies under the previous administration that created huge deficits, policies that did not work, making sure that those doing very well in this country received tax cuts, but middle-class families were left out there on their own; not enforcing trade laws so that more and more of our jobs were being shipped overseas.

That needs to change. And, in fact, it is changing. Despite what this President inherited, what we inherited 18 months ago when President Obama came into office, 750,000 jobs a month being lost, we have begun to turn that around. We are now gaining jobs every month rather than losing jobs. But we know there is so much more to do.

While we are doing that, while we are focused on creating jobs, partnering with small businesses and manufacturers to create jobs, we have millions of people, over 15 million people, who have been caught in this economic tsunami, through no fault of their own. They are simply asking that something called unemployment insurance--and, by the way, it is insurance. You pay into it when you are working, you receive assistance when you are not, But they are asking that we do what every other Congress has done, Democratic President, Republican President. Anytime we have seen unemployment numbers such as we are seeing today, the Congress of the United States has understood and stepped up to extend unemployment benefits--except now. In the midst of every other initiative being stalled, the folks on the other side of the aisle who have been dubbed the party of no have, in fact, been saying no to everything, including no to families who are in situations now where it is literally about whether they will have a home, whether they can pay their bills and put food on the table, whether they can go to school-- as we have all said, we will go back to school and get retraining. People are doing that.

But they are taking that small amount, that $250 or $300 a week, that is the difference between their being able to stay in school with a roof over their head or having to drop out and not be able to start a new career.

I wish to share a few letters of thousands of letters I have received. I am sure the Presiding Officer receives them as well. But they represent people who are asking us to stop the politics for 5 minutes and understand what is happening to people in this country, and step up and do the right thing.

Kim from Bellmont, MI, wrote me:

Thank you for trying your best to extend unemployment

benefits. My husband worked 24 years in a factory and then he

was laid off. I have a hair salon I run from my home. We were

a happy middle-class family. But now life has been turned

upside down, to put it mildly. I now work three jobs. Two are

very low paying. I never see my kids or my husband. So darn

tired. But I knew with the help of unemployment and my

husband applying for a job, and his going to back to school,

we could sustain ourselves until something came along.

Only 6 months have gone by. Now along with his job loss, we

will lose our home, which means my business also. I do know

you have tried. Please keep trying.

I will. But what needs to happen is, we need to find at least one more Member who will join with us to get beyond this roadblock of a filibuster so that Kim doesn't have to lose her home. She can keep her business she runs out of her home, her hair salon, and keep things going while her husband goes back to school so he can get another job.

Judith from Taylor wrote me:

We did not do anything to have this horrible circumstance

come our way. Both my husband and I appreciate the work you

are doing but please don't give up on us. This week we

received notice that our mortgage bank has started

foreclosure proceedings on our home. The frustrating thing

about this is, we have been trying to sell our house since

February of 2009. We have had buyers who were interested [but

the] bank stopped proceedings saying they wanted more money

out of us. We have been waiting since April for the bank's

decision on the present purchase agreement. And the only

thing we have gotten from this bank is a letter of

foreclosure proceedings this week. Not like we didn't have

enough to contend with, our youngest son left from Ft.

Campbell, KY to the war in Afghanistan on June 9th. This is a

very scary and emotional time for our family. We are

definitely on overload but we are just one family of millions

who are experiencing how life has changed in this world. We

have strong faith in the Lord and a strong belief that life

will get better. I love this country but grow weary as to the

direction the country is heading. Politics should not play

games with the American people's lives.

That is what is happening right now. I should mention that one of the leaders in the Republican caucus has indicated that when it comes to extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, we should not worry about the debt. We should not worry about paying for those. But when it comes to helping people who are out of work, then the rules ought to be different. When it comes to helping people out of work, then we should change the rules that have been in place calling it emergency spending and require something different. If 15 million people out of work isn't an emergency, I don't know.

Dawn from Hudsonville writes:

I listen daily to the radio and I have heard the lack of

progress regarding unemployment. I am blessed to have a

loving and generous family so my son and I won't be homeless

but there will be significant upheaval. My son will graduate

from high school next year (if I'm not forced to move) . . .

I have done everything I can think of to continue living

here; cut expenses to the bone, free lunches for my son,

visits to the food pantry--so many things I never thought I

would have to do. I realize the scarcity of jobs, my age (51)

is a definite factor, but I honestly never imagined the depth

of this recession.

Melvin from Auburn Hills:

I urge you to please encourage your peers to reconsider

their vote. Personally, I am 41 years old, had a job since I

was 16, and have never collected unemployment until 2009.

During the past 16 months, I returned to school and I am

about to take another course. I have taken any opportunity

possible to work which has included three jobs that were low

paying, part time, or short term, and I don't know what I

will do if these extensions stop. I have already moved to

Michigan to live with family because I couldn't afford rent

in Illinois anymore. However, I will be forced to live under

an overpass if I can't even contribute to household expenses

during this difficult time in my life. It saddens me that a

hardworking person like myself is lumped into a category of

``losers and mooches'' by the attitude of some elected

officials, when my lifetime of hard work without ever

receiving any unemployment (or any other government

assistance) should clearly identify me as a victim of what is

the worst economic time in my entire adult life. I want to

work and return to a job, and that is why I am doing

additional schooling to make myself stand out to potential

employers. In the meantime, please help folks like me sustain

our modest existence. Please encourage another vote in the

Senate to extend unemployment insurance benefits.

I thank Melvin for working hard and for hanging in there. That is what we do in Michigan, we work hard. If we are knocked down, we get back up, and we go back to work. The people whose letters I have shared this evening are people who are working one or two or three part-time jobs trying to hold it together. But mom and dad may have both lost their jobs. They are trying to hold it together for their families. As Melvin said:

I don't like being lumped into a category of ``losers and

mooches'' by the attitude of some elected officials.

People in Michigan are not losers. They are not mooches. They are people who have been caught in the middle of an economic tsunami. They didn't cause it. They weren't the ones who were reckless on Wall Street who caused us to lose jobs and lose credit availability and home mortgages and pensions and 401(k)s. They were not the ones who made the decisions that got us to this point. It is critically important they not continue to pay the price.

I see our distinguished leader on the Senate floor. I thank him for his passion and commitment for people who have lost their jobs and his commitment as soon as possible to bring this up for a vote one more time. But it is very sad that we have had to get to this point where over 1 million people have already been hurt losing their unemployment benefits and others are just holding their breath about what is going to happen. We are committed to continuing to do everything we can until we can get this done--extending unemployment benefits and remaining laser focused on jobs for the American people. We will continue to do that.

But it would be very nice if somehow one more person from the other side of the aisle would step up tonight or tomorrow and we could end what has been a nightmare for millions of Americans wondering what is going to happen to themselves and their families.

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

Mr. President, tomorrow evening, I think at about 5:30, we are going to have a vote that is going to immediately impact over 1 million people across the country, and millions more after that, if we do not extend unemployment benefits as we have done in every recession, Democratic or Republican President, throughout our history.

Anytime we have seen the unemployment rate, I believe at about 7.5 percent, above 7.5 percent or so, we have extended unemployment insurance benefits--insurance benefits--because you pay in and then when you are not working, you receive benefits. We have done that throughout our history for two reasons: No. 1, because we acknowledge what happens to a family when someone in the family loses their job, when the breadwinner can't bring home any bread; and No. 2, because we know it stimulates the economy. Every economist, from the right to the left, has agreed that the best way to stimulate the economy is to provide dollars to people who are forced to spend it, because they don't have a job. So someone who receives that $250 or $300 a week--it is not enough to do much on, but it is enough to pay the rent, enough to buy some food, enough to pay the electric bill; maybe get the kids some clothes, maybe put some gas in the car so they can continue to look for work. So we know it not only stimulates the economy, but it is the right thing to do from the standpoint of ethics, morals, values.

Tomorrow, we are going to have an opportunity to see whether there are 60 colleagues in the Senate who are willing to vote to stop a filibuster that has now gone on--I believe this is the ninth week-- actually, 8 weeks on a jobs bill that included unemployment benefits extension--and then this week, the ninth week on the bill that we are focusing on, including unemployment benefits. It will also do something important for people who have used the first-time home buyer tax credit that runs out at the end of this month, which has been a great stimulus, another part of the Recovery Act that has been very important to the economy. It runs out, and we want people who haven't yet closed on their homes not to lose the ability to have a credit, so the bill will also include extending the home buyers credit implementation until October.

I understand there is a willingness and strong bipartisan support to help first-time home buyers but not to help the people who are out of work and probably are going to lose their houses, which I continue to not understand. I am grateful because I know we have at least one, maybe two Republican colleagues who will join with us to stop the filibuster. I am grateful for that. But we need at least three Republican colleagues to join with us in order to get this done tomorrow night.

We hear a lot of debate, a lot of discussion, a lot of arguments from the people who say: We are happy to extend unemployment benefits; we just want to pay for it.

That sounds great on the surface, unless you know the full history of how unemployment insurance works and the other kinds of decisions we make as a body. We have always funded unemployment benefit extensions through something called emergency spending. As I have said before, if 15 million people being out of work in America isn't an emergency, I don't know what is. That is more people than are affected by a hurricane or a flood or a tornado or an agricultural disaster. We have traditionally done this because it was the right thing to do as an emergency, but also because, again, we lose the economic stimulus, the economic benefit, if we don't do it that way.

For two reasons we have always done it this way. It is interesting that folks who argue passionately that we should not worry about the deficit if we are expanding the estate tax cut for the top 200 or 300 families in America, then deficits don't matter--or the top tax bracket, with the tax cuts under President Bush. Deficits don't matter to them. But, boy, they matter if we are talking about people who are out of work.

I talk to people every day in my State, people who have never been without a job in their lives. They are horrified they can't find a job. They are looking for a job every day. They want to work, but they are in an economy they didn't create, where right now there are five people looking for every one job. That is better than last year when it was six people looking for every one job. We know that because of what we have done with the Recovery Act, we are slowly coming out of the hole, but we have a long way to go yet.

Certainly, this isn't the time to filibuster jobs bills, whether it be small business or the jobs bill that we have been trying to pass in the last 8 weeks. It certainly isn't the time to say we are just tired of hearing about those people who are out of work; it is tiresome. Some people say that. They are tired of hearing about the unemployed.

Well, people in Michigan are tired of being unemployed. They want to work. They know how to work. They have worked their whole lives. It is not their fault that the crisis happened on Wall Street that dried up credit, that stopped manufacturers and small businesses from getting loans to be able to continue to do business. It is not their fault that they lost their savings or their 401(k)s or their pensions. It is not their fault we didn't enforce the trade laws in this country and lost 6 million manufacturing jobs under the previous administration because the focus was on cheap products rather than American jobs. That is not their fault.

It was not their fault that we continue to have tax incentives that promote jobs going overseas, which we want to do away with in the jobs bill. It is not their fault.

Mr. President, I want to read one e-mail out of the thousands I receive. I received it today. It is from Serena in Dearborn, MI. It says:

Senator Stabenow, the argument by the Republicans seems to

be that they don't want to strap ``our children and

grandchildren'' with the debts of their parents; however, I

believe they are talking about their children and not mine. I

say this because my children will be homeless and hungry in

the next week or so.

A lot more damage is going to be done in the here and now

than anyone realizes. If they are talking about the numbers

of people being taken off unemployment insurance benefits,

they are talking about families, not just adults. Families. I

have two sons; where are we going to live, and how are we

going to survive?

I wonder how many of these ``intelligent'' people went to

college and paid for it all as they went and did not incur

any debt? I am attending college currently and I am incurring

debt because I plan, in the future, to be able to pay back

the money with my new, better paying job. That is how most

people have to do it, invest in the future and know that you

are doing something not just for yourself but also for the

country, become a positive influence on the society.

I don't know what I am going to do with my children, how I

am going to pay my rent and utilities, have food to eat and

gas to put into my car, so I can continue going to school and

looking for work. I have never been without a job before.

Mr. President, that is a story that is repeated hundreds of thousands, in fact, unfortunately, millions of times across this country right now. People who are doing what we have asked them to do; they are caring for their children, many going back to school and trying to do a different career or upgrade their skills to give them something that gives them an edge in the job market to be able to get a job. But they are using unemployment benefits to keep them between being on the street and having a roof over their heads.

That is not some political rhetoric. That is what is happening to people. It doesn't have to happen to people. Serena, in Dearborn, MI, doesn't have to become homeless in a week or so. She doesn't have to, if we can come together and override this filibuster on unemployment benefits. We just need 60 people to support it in order to be able to get this done. I fear for Serena and for the tens of thousands of people in my State if we don't do this--and the millions who find themselves in a situation across the country.

We will never get out of deficit with over 15 million people out of work. This idea that suddenly now nothing matters but deficits ignores how we are going to get out of deficit. Back in the 1990s, when we actually balanced the budget, I was proud to do so. I think it was in 1997, when I was in the House under President Clinton. Part of what we did was focus on work, jobs, and education, and 22 million people got new jobs--22 million new jobs were created, and we came out of deficit. That is what we believe. That is what our Democratic majority believes, that you focus on work, you focus on small businesses getting capital, and manufacturers getting back to hiring people, and you focus on jobs. Then you lift us up out of deficit because people are working and buying things and paying their taxes, and they are part of the economy. It can't just be about a few people in our country.

We will not have a strong country if somehow the policies are only set for a privileged few. We have been different from other countries because we have had this strong middle class, which we are losing as a result of the policies, yes, in the last administration, and the deficits that were created, and we are losing it because we cannot get past filibusters now to move forward on a jobs agenda and help people who are out of work to be able to continue to live.

The Recovery Act that was put in place last year has worked, but there is much more to do. It stopped us from going over the cliff and began to turn things around. But there is much more to do. Somehow, just saying that, well, Wall Street is doing better--despite the ups and downs on Wall Street--and things are kind of doing OK now for those folks, so we are done ignores what is going on for way too many people in this country.

Mr. President, I think the latest poll I saw was that 47 percent of the people in my State have someone in their immediate family who has lost their job, and their family is impacted by that. That is astounding. We don't have the highest unemployment rate anymore; we have the second highest rate. I am sure that can be said of Nevada, Rhode Island, California, and around the country.

I strongly urge my colleagues to set aside the election politics, set aside whatever it is that has been getting in the way of getting this done, and be willing to look at what is happening for real families right now and how we can make sure that Serena isn't homeless with her two children in a couple of weeks and how millions of other Americans can be able to continue to care for their families while they look for work.

Then the most important thing we can do is partner with business, create the atmosphere and incentives to create that work. That is our job. I am laser-focused on that as well.

I see my distinguished friend from New Jersey. I will yield the floor to him and thank him for his passionate support for the people in this country who just want a fair shake. I thank the Presiding Officer, as well, for his passion and commitment to jobs and making sure we move our country forward by paying attention to the great middle class of this country, who need us to fight for them. That is what we are doing in the Senate.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, when I think of Senator Byrd and all of our great memories of him, it reminds me of how important it was to him to understand what people are going through in their lives--in this economy, certainly. I know if he were here, he would be on the floor, speaking about the importance of helping people who have lost their jobs--people who, through no fault of their own, have gotten caught in this economic tsunami, who find themselves maybe one step away from losing their house after they lost their job, probably lost their health insurance. Maybe they are in the midst of foreclosure right now because they lost their job and cannot pay their house payment.

These are families who are counting on us to understand, as Senator Byrd always did, what it is like to be a middle-class family, a working family, where the breadwinner has lost their job or the breadwinner can no longer bring home the bread--the food, gas for the car, pay the electric bill--because they have lost a job.

We know there are five people today looking for every one job that is available. That used to be worse. It used to be six people looking for every one job. We are beginning to see things turn. When President Obama took office, as we know, we were losing about 750,000 jobs every month. By focusing on the recovery, by investing in people, by investing in making things in this country, by focusing on job training as well as helping people without jobs, we have been able to turn that around. There were zero jobs lost at the end of the year and now we are gaining jobs.

But even though it is turning around, we are still in a situation where we have five people, five Americans who are looking for every one available job. The e-mails and the phone calls I get truly are heartbreaking. They are from people who have worked all their lives. These are not people who, as some have said, are lazy. These are people who have worked hard all their lives and they have done nothing but play by the rules--take care of their families, followed the law, put a little bit aside to send their kids to college. They want to have a good American life, what they have worked hard for as their American dream.

Unfortunately, because of a lot of factors in the global economy--too much, in the last decade, of folks paying attention to cheap prices and not American jobs and losing jobs overseas, not enforcing our trade laws or not focusing on making things here in this country--we have a situation where people have lost their jobs. Then, when you add to that what happened on Wall Street--where people lost savings, pensions, 401(k)s, and maybe their job; when credit dried up and small businesses could not get loans or manufacturers couldn't get the help they needed--people found themselves in a disastrous situation through no fault of their own.

They did not create the Wall Street crisis. They were not the ones who decided whether to enforce our trade laws. They weren't the ones to decide whether we as a country were going to invest in American manufacturing. But they are taking the brunt of it.

We have talked for 8 weeks now, 8 weeks to pass a bill that is a jobs bill, to invest in jobs in the economy and to continue help for people who are out of work through no fault of their own. Boy, they hope it is temporary. They surely hope it is temporary and we hope it is temporary.

Despite 8 weeks and a tremendous amount of negotiation, we have not been able to get the votes to stop a filibuster. We have come up short every time. I am hopeful this week we will be able to get beyond that. The people in Michigan are desperately hopeful. They are also desperate. They are also angry that we have not been able to get beyond this partisan wrangling to be able to actually help them keep a roof over their head and keep food on the table for their families. We will have another opportunity, I hope this week, to change that. It is absolutely critical that we do.

There are a lot of people who are not down in the weeds about what is going on legislatively; are not following closely what is happening here--but they know this: They know they need help. They want to know who is on their side and who is willing to understand and come forward and appreciate what families across this country are going through. I hope this week we are going to be able to say to them that finally this Senate gets what is happening to families and we are going to extend the temporary assistance that has been needed for so many families through unemployment insurance.

Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a great Senator and a friend and mentor of mine, Senator Robert C. Byrd. When I look at his desk, a place from which he spoke such powerful words so many times, it is hard to believe he will not be on the floor of the Senate speaking powerfully about what he believed in--the people of West Virginia and the great issues of our day. He will be sorely missed.

He was orphaned as a child and grew up poor. He often told us about his foster father, who was a coal miner, who had to work hard to scrape together food and shelter for their family. He always spoke of working men and women and those who were working hard and having a hard time making ends meet. I know his heart was always with them.

From a young age, Senator Byrd learned the importance of hard work, dedication, and perseverance--skills that would serve him well throughout his long and very distinguished life.

After graduating from high school at the top of his class in 1934, he married his high school sweetheart Erma. Many of us knew her, and those who didn't knew of her because he would speak continually about the love of his life, his sweetheart Erma. After school, he went on to work at a number of odd jobs. He worked as a butcher during the Great Depression, earning less than $15 a week. He worked as a gas station attendant. During World War II, he was a welder in a shipyard in Baltimore. But he never forgot his childhood and where he came from. He knew how education had transformed his own life, and he never stopped trying to give every American that same opportunity.

After high school he couldn't afford to go to college. But after he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1953, he put himself through law school--the only Member of Congress ever to do that while in office. He joked that Erma put three children through school, himself and their two daughters.

His wife was the most important person in the world to him, and I know he was deeply saddened when Erma died in 2006, as were all of us who served in the Senate with him at that time.

He was a great mentor, a great friend, a great advocate for working families of Michigan and of America. I was proud to join with him many times as we fought for American workers, whether they were mine workers in West Virginia or auto workers in Michigan.

He loved West Virginia, the people and the landscape. One of his favorite Bible verses was from the Psalms:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh

my help.

In my office I proudly display a painting that Senator Byrd gave to me, which he painted himself while working in Baltimore so he could remember those hills and mountains of his childhood. Today, when I see that painting, I remember that Senator who gave so much for the people of West Virginia and the people of America. I was proud to stand with him as one of the 23--as he reminded me frequently--the 23 who opposed the original war in Iraq and stood up for our men and women who have bravely served us around the world as well.

Senator Robert C. Byrd--the Senate is a better place because of him and he will be sorely missed.

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

Madam President, with all due respect to our Republican leader, I have to express concern on a couple of points. He was just talking about court decisions, a court decision that said BP is a person; that said all big corporations have the same rights as individuals. What we are trying to do, both in the House and the Senate, is to make sure that, in fact, the democratic process can work and that huge corporate interests that have controlled too much of this country are not allowed to do even more in terms of overriding elections and putting money into elections.

I also have to disagree with our distinguished Republican colleague when he says this is all about the deficit. As we would say in Michigan, that is a bunch of bunk. This is about who we care about and how we think we should move forward as a country in terms of what is best for the majority of the American people. Very different views. Very different beliefs.

Our Republican colleagues have believed if we give tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and wait for it to trickle down, things will get better. If we back up and let corporations police themselves, everything will be OK.

Well, we saw that for 8 years, 6 years of which they had control of the whole system. I tell you what, it did not trickle down to the people in Michigan. After the Wall Street collapse and what we saw with BP in the gulf and what we have seen with miners' loss of life, I would suggest that view, that belief, has not worked for the majority of people.

So we have a different view. We have a different view. It is one that actually worked in the 1990s under President Clinton when 22 million jobs were created. Yes, we believe this is about jobs. This is about how we get out of deficit.

I also find it amazing that the people who dug the hole, the deepest hole we have ever had in the history of the country, when they were handed a surplus--they dug the hole--now want us to give the shovels back. They want more shovels to dig even deeper.

So this is a difference of opinion on how we believe we should move the country forward and who we are trying to move it for--not the large corporate interests that the Republican leader just talked about who want to be able to give millions of dollars for elections and have no rules and regulations and be able to control the democratic process of elections in this country.

It is not about the folks who are concerned about paying their fair share in this jobs bill, with the tax loopholes we want to close so they cannot take jobs overseas and requiring people to pay their fair share. That is not what we are about. What we are about is creating jobs for the American people. The bill in front of us, the bill we are going to have a chance to vote on one more time, is all about jobs and who we are fighting for. That is what it is about. It is about whether we believe we should only invest in what the wealthy and powerful of this country care about or should we invest in the majority of Americans and create good-paying, middle-class jobs.

It really is a philosophy right now about how we get out of debt. They say more tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. We will have an estate tax fight where they say: Oh, we ought to be more and more for the top few hundred families, billionaires in the country. Give them more tax relief.

We say, in this bill, what we ought to be doing is focusing on creating jobs to grow out of debt. We are all opposed to debt. I was opposed to the debt when I voted to balance the budget. I was opposed to debt when they got us into debt in the last 8 years, 10 years, when they were focusing on racking up debt. I was opposed then.

Now the question is, How do we get out of debt? We say we have to create jobs, and we have to help the people who are out of work be able to get some help to be able to get some training to be able to keep a roof over their heads and food on their tables while they look for a job.

That is what we believe. That is what this is about. We believe we will never get out of deficit with over 15 million out of work, having to ask for temporary assistance. We will never get out of debt unless we are creating jobs. We have begun to do that. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say: We want to stop that.

Let's look at what happened. I talk about the previous administration not only to focus on the past, but these are the same ideas that are on the floor today. They are promoting the ideas that got us into these job losses. When President Obama came into office, we were losing about 750,000 jobs a month. That is what he inherited. We said: This hasn't been working for the majority of people. It didn't work for the majority of people in Michigan. We want to go back to investing in people and communities, helping businesses get the capital to grow, supporting small businesses, focusing on manufacturing, making things in this country. Let's take away the incentives to take jobs overseas. We are in a global economy, but we want to export our products, not our jobs.

This bill takes away incentives to go offshore, overseas, keeps the jobs here. It creates more capital for manufacturers. I was pleased to craft a provision that will create the ability to buy more equipment and facilities to create jobs. It helps small businesses keep jobs. That is what we believe. We have put in place the Recovery Act. We have begun to climb out. We are not out. But these guys are going: Stop. Oh, my gosh, it is beginning to work. This may affect the elections. Let's do everything we can to stop the recovery. Let's take the resources that have been used to invest in a battery manufacturing plant, private sector, in Midland, MI, where I attended a groundbreaking on Monday, Dow Kokam. Let's take that money away now. We will say: We have too big deficits. We can't invest in jobs. We can't invest in jobs.

They want to take that away and come over and say: We will take the money that is creating jobs and we will give it to people who don't have a job.

Wait a minute. So you want to use the Recovery Act money that is beginning to create jobs and put it over here to help people who don't have a job, and then we will create more people who don't have jobs?

We say that is a bunch of hooey, that is a bunch of bunk. In Michigan, we have stronger words for that, but I won't say them on the Senate floor. My people in Michigan are sick and tired of this.

It is pretty bad when we have one side in this Chamber rooting for failure

every day. I have people in my State, Republicans who are out of work, small businesses that are Republican. They don't have capital, manufacturers that are Republicans who want us to pass legislation to give them more capital. This is not a partisan issue. This is about whose side we are on in this country. It is about whether we embrace a philosophy that will work for the majority of Americans or work for only a few. That is what this is about.

What we have from the other side is a litany of no, no, no. We will be yes, if you take away the money for the recovery, which they all voted against--most, excuse me, not all but most--we will take away those dollars because that will slow us down, that will make sure this President is not successful. God help us if this President is successful and this majority is successful. Let's keep people hurting as long as possible, because maybe that will help us pick up some seats.

No wonder people are angry. No wonder people are cynical. I am pretty angry myself.

There are real people's lives at stake in all of this. All we get is no, no, no--cynical, political games on the other side. Even though things are moving up slowly but surely--way too slow from my perspective but, thank God, they are not continuing to go down, it is beginning to work. Instead of letting it work--and it certainly is not everything we want, but it is beginning, it is turning--instead, they want to stop it. The election is coming up. Let's make sure people are as mad as possible, and then we will blame the people who were in the majority, even though we are stopping them every day. We are stopping them from doing things. We filibuster. The cynical view is that the public won't understand that so we will keep making sure that nothing happens so people are hurting. That is what is happening here.

Let's talk about unemployment benefits and the fact that we do have people hurting. We do, in fact, have 3 million jobs available and 15 million people looking for work. Some say: Those folks are just lazy. Go get a job. I would like to show them the real world and what is happening for too many families. The numbers are changing. When I first started coming to the floor, we were talking about six people out of work for every one job opening. Now it is five. I don't celebrate that because I want to make it one for one. It is getting better. It is creeping around. It is turning around. It is turning around because the Recovery Act incentivized people to buy a new home which, in this bill, we want to extend for people, to get as many people who have benefited from that $8,000 tax credit as possible, or the $6,500. But our colleagues on the other side say no.

Realtors tell me in Michigan things are turning around because of support from the Recovery Act. The stimulus has helped begin to turn things. But, oh, my gosh, no, we cannot possibly continue to support something that is actually working, because it might have bad political effects. People might not be hurting as much or as mad, and that may not help us in the election.

We have today people who are looking for work, have been looking for work for months, some longer than a year--in some cases, 2 years. People did what we told them to do. They went back to school. They are living off of unemployment for their family while they are going to school. They are trying to do everything they can. These are people who have done nothing but work hard and take care of their families and love this country. They assume, just as in every other economic downturn in the country, that we will understand, we will get it. The Congress will get it and support them to turn their lives around without losing their homes and the ability to care for their families.

I want to read a few letters from people in Michigan. We have thousands of e-mails and letters. It breaks our heart. People cannot believe what in the world is going on around here that we are not doing everything conceivable to create jobs. These artificial debates about deficits--again, it is a very big issue, these deficits, but it is pretty hard for us to be lectured by the people who created the deficits who are now saying: We can't help people caught in this economic recession because of deficits. It is pretty hard to accept their view, the way they would get us out, which didn't get us out, which created more deficit, that somehow we should go back to that rather than what has worked in the past which is putting people to work, having people work so they can pay into the system and contribute and buy things. They become part of the economy. Then deficits begin to go away. We begin to come out of the hole. That is what we believe, focusing on people.

Kim from Flint says:

I am writing today to beseech you to urge Congress to act

quickly to extend federal unemployment benefits. In this

unprecedented economy, especially where I live in Michigan,

extra time is much needed to find employment. Many of my

family, friends and neighbors are in the same situation I am.

I personally was laid off from what I thought was a stable

position back in July and despite having experience and a

BBA, I have not been able to find comparable work. Our no

worker left behind program in Michigan is out of funding. My

college career services department has not been helpful.

While I'm trying to keep hope in pursuing job leads and even

looking at going back to school for an entirely different

field, I fear what will happen to me if these benefits are

not extended. I will lose everything. I am indeed writing

from my own self-interest but not only for my own interests.

With so many people in the same situation as I am, what will

happen to them? Will you have a large segment of your

constituent population suffer so, or will you have the

economic situation in Michigan worsen as many become unable

to even provide the bare necessities for themselves and

their families? Or will you act quickly to extend much

needed unemployment benefits?

Kim, we are trying to act as quickly as we can. We have been trying to. I know it is no consolation. It feels so frustrating and empty to talk about differences between Republicans and Democrats when people are hurting. But the reality is, we don't have one Republican right now willing to step forward, as one, and stop this filibuster that has been going on for weeks. We have been dealing with this now every time we bring up the extension. We don't have one colleague, people with whom we work in good faith on so many different issues, not one has been willing up to this point to step up and join us based on the larger good, not the political pressure, not the partisanship but the larger good of making sure somebody who is out of work knows that they have at least the bare minimum so they can continue and not lose a house and be homeless on top of job loss and then try to figure out what to do to take care of the kids. We don't have one colleague who has been willing to do that, to step up and have the courage to join us in stopping this incredibly irresponsible filibuster that has been going on.

We will have an opportunity later today. We fully expect the same result, unfortunately. The politics of the moment seem to be overwhelming. It is amazing to me. But I guess if it works, people will keep doing it. That is the question, whether it will work with the American people. With all of the mumbo-jumbo going on, numbers and so on, the bottom line in the world in which I live and the world in which my family lives in Michigan and the people I represent is a world that is very different from here. We in Michigan, Democrats and Republicans, are rooting for success as Americans. We want things to get better. We want our country to be safe. We want it to get better for everybody. We will go on, have another day to fight about differences, ideological differences on issues. But we are at least rooting for the country to succeed, for the President, for the government to be working together to do the right thing so we can get out of this hole.

When we look at what is happening around the world, when we look at the brink of disaster last year when President Obama came in and we were on the edge of the cliff--some would say over the cliff--holding on with our fingers, losing 750,000 jobs a month, we began to walk it back through some very bold things that had to be done at the time, such as investing in people and jobs.

In the previous administration, when they stepped up and did what was called the Wall Street bailout, a lot of folks in Michigan said: What about us? Who is going to bail out us working people? Well, the Recovery Act, in my judgment, was that. It was the people's bail out. It was focusing on people, jobs, and job training, and helping those who are temporarily out of work while they get their lives together and find another job, and investing in the future.

That is what that was about. And that is what it is still about. It is a 2-year effort, and it is beginning to work. We can go back and look at the numbers again. We are certainly not where we want to be, but it is turning around. We are coming out of the hole. Step by step, we are coming out of the hole. Now the folks who created the hole say: Oh, give us more shovels so we can dig some more. We are saying: No, let's keep it going. Let's give it a try. We can tinker with it. We can change some things that we need to, but let's keep it going, let's give it a try here so we can keep this thing moving in the right direction. These folks are saying no. In order to do the bill in front of us on jobs, we want to take money away from jobs, slow this down in order to be able to ``pay'' for the bill in front of us.

Well, what is in front of us? We have a bill today that provides tax cuts to businesses, tax relief to State and local governments to help them invest and create jobs. The other side of the aisle has said no.

We have a bill in front of us to provide tax cuts that are going to put dollars back into the pockets of working families trying to make it. The other side has said no.

We have a bill that is going to help restore credit to small businesses. It is the one thing I hear over and over, and I want to thank our leader for keeping small businesses at the forefront, and we are working on additional legislation to help small businesses. We have to free up capital. Too many cannot get their line of credit or get the loan they need to operate or to be able to expand. That is certainly true in Michigan. But this bill has provisions to help small businesses expand, hire new workers. The other side has said no.

It would expand career training so the people we want to be able to get off unemployment benefits and to be able to get into jobs will have an opportunity to focus on new careers. This bill includes provisions to help people get career training to get new jobs. The other side has said no.

It would extend help for people who are out of work right now, people who have had the dignity of working their whole lives, breadwinners who are no longer bringing home the bread. It would help them keep a roof over their head and food on the table and maybe a little gas in the car so they can go look for a job while they are moving through this difficult time and while we are focusing on job creation. The other side has said no.

This bill would ensure that senior citizens, military servicemembers, and Americans with disabilities would continue to have access to their doctors. We did get agreement to pull out that one provision to be able to extend it for 6 months, which I hope will get done very quickly. But the rest of this, frankly, is being held up, in my judgment, because-- even though it is all paid for. None of this I have just talked about-- other than unemployment benefits, which are always funded differently as an emergency because it is an emergency--the rest of this is entirely paid for, does not add a penny to the deficit. But I do think it then brings up the question: Why would they be objecting?

Well, we are paying for jobs and job training by closing some tax loopholes. You will no longer get tax benefits if you take the jobs overseas. We want the jobs in America. We want to stop that. The other side says no.

We want to make sure people who are very wealthy but whose income comes in in a different way are paying their fair share, contributing just like middle-class people, low-income people. We close some loopholes to pay for this. They say no.

We also have in this bill a provision that would increase the dollars, by pennies--49 cents--on every barrel of oil to be able to clean up the spill in the gulf, to be able to add money to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. In the past, oil companies only had to kick in 8 cents a barrel. Well, given what has happened in the gulf, that is not enough. So we have said 49 cents for every barrel. A barrel of oil--I do not know the price now but $70, $80 a barrel, whatever it is: 49 cents.

The oil companies probably do not like that. So the other side said no. In fact, the day the distinguished Republican Congressman in committee was apologizing to BP on the House side--that same day-- Republican colleagues here were doing the bidding of the oil companies by voting ``no'' on increasing their contributions by 41 cents a barrel into the liability trust fund to clean up the oilspills.

I think it is pretty clear whose side we are on, whose side they are on, what is happening right now. We have a stalemate going on. We have tried and tried, and our leader and the chairman of the Finance Committee, who has worked and worked and worked and worked, as he always does, in good faith to find some compromise, to be able to move this jobs bill forward and help people who are out of work. It appears right now we do not have one Republican colleague willing to join us in that effort. There have been discussions, but there has been no agreement.

So we have the votes. That is the darnedest thing about this place. We have the votes. We just cannot stop a filibuster. Somehow in our democracy, with men and women fighting around the world for our democratic process of majority rule--when you win an election, you have to get one more than the other guy, one more vote than the other guy to win the election. And here, instead of having majority rule, they are using the political processes and tricks in a way so as to tie us up in a pretzel like I have never seen before, unprecedented, using rules in a way that is absolutely unprecedented so that the public shakes their head and says: What is going on here? What are these people doing?

But they are doing this in a way so that instead of majority rule, you have to get a supermajority. That is what we are talking about: Trying to get 60 votes, not 51, which is majority rule in every town and city and State and every Federal election; you have to get one more than the other guy. But because of a gross misuse of the rules in the last year and a half, we have to now get 60 for everything. And we cannot--up to this point--get even one Republican colleague to join us. So that is where we are.

I would ask, Madam President, how much time is remaining on the majority side?

I am sorry?

Thank you.

Let me indicate again, there is a huge difference in view as to how to get us out of the deficit hole. One side, with a set of policies--I am sure they were sincere--a set of policies that said: We will give it to the wealthiest Americans--tax cuts--and then it will trickle down, coupled with 8 years of not paying for things--two wars and a whole series of other things--created red lines down, job loss, so that President Obama came in at losing about 750,000 jobs a month.

We have tried a different view. We have said the only way to get out of deficit is to focus on jobs, putting money in the pocket of middle- class families, and growing our way out by focusing on the middle class, working people, the majority of people, small businesses, with manufacturers making things again in this country.

We both care about deficits. We have different views about how we got to those deficits, and certainly different views about how to get out of deficit. What we will not support is taking money away from efforts that have begun to get us on a road to recovery. We have a long way to go, but it has begun to get us out of the ditch. We no longer are losing 750,000 jobs every month. We are now gaining jobs. It is not as even as we would like, but we are gaining jobs. The question is, do we allow this to continue, while helping people who are out of work right now, and grow our way out of this deficit by creating jobs, or do we go back to the old philosophy, the old beliefs that got us into the hole in the first place?

That is the basic debate on the floor of the Senate. That is the debate. We have one view that worked in the 1990s, creating 22 million jobs over the course of 8 years in the Clinton Presidency, and one view that has lost us jobs. Now we are back again to that philosophy to create jobs, and that is what this is about.

Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. President, would my friend be willing to yield for a question?

First, if I might, I wish to take a moment to say thank you to the senior Senator from Louisiana for her leadership on small business. Her efforts in terms of job creation and availability of capital and so on is right on point.

My question would be, is it the Senator's desire to have this done by the end of next week so we can move this forward and hopefully have these benefits take place as quickly as possible for our small businesses?

Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from Louisiana again because she is focusing on jobs. That is what we are focusing on every day here, with every bill: jobs, putting people to work, supporting small businesses, supporting manufacturers, and getting this economy going. So I thank her for her leadership.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the majority leader be authorized to sign any duly enrolled bills and joint resolutions on today, June 24.

Mr. President, this evening we had a vote that I find to be extremely concerning. Once again, after 8 weeks of trying to work out some kind of an agreement with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to overcome a Republican filibuster--changing our jobs bill over and over and over again, and every time there was a change, then there was something else and something else--we finally hit a brick wall tonight, when we didn't know what else to do. Once again, we did not have one Republican colleague willing to vote with us to overcome a filibuster. We have the votes on the floor to pass this jobs bill, which includes incredibly important benefits for people who are currently out of work, to extend unemployment benefits.

People who have worked hard all of their lives, through no fault of their own, find themselves in this situation, and they are asking us to simply help them be able to keep a roof over their head and food on the table for their families and maybe a little bit of gas in the car so they can go look for work, while we can continue to focus on creating jobs in what has been a terrible economic crisis for our country.

We have the votes. If we were doing a majority vote, we would have the votes. We have more than enough votes, but what we don't have is enough votes to overcome a filibuster. That takes at least one Republican colleague, and we don't have that. We don't have any at this point. So, therefore, it is estimated that by the end of this month, over 87,000 people in my great State of Michigan will lose their unemployment benefits, the little bit of help they get to be able to help them keep going. A lot of people are going back to school, but unemployment benefits are paying for the rent or food. People are trying desperately not to lose their houses on top of losing their jobs. This is a desperate situation for almost 1 million people across this country.

All we get over and over again is, no. We are creating jobs in this bill, putting money and partnerships in with manufacturers to create capital for manufacturers, and all we hear is no; capital for small businesses to be able to invest and grow their businesses and hire people, and all we are getting is no; the ability for States and local governments to keep police officers and

teachers and firefighters on the job, and all we hear is no.

The resounding no has been to help anyone who currently finds themselves out of work because of no fault of their own and needs to count on the ability for us to have unemployment benefits. This is an outrageous situation.

Before turning it over to my colleague from Ohio, who I know shares my deep concern about what has been happening, let me remind people that despite the fact that we are beginning to grow the economy, we have turned the corner. When President Obama came into office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. With the Recovery Act, we got that down to zero. We are turning the corner, but we still have five people out of work for every one job opening. What happens to them, while we are working as hard as possible to turn this economy around? What happens to them? Those are the people we are fighting for every single day. They are the people we care about here on the floor of the Senate, and we are going to keep coming back and fighting because they deserve to know there are people here who understand what they are going through.

I will now turn it over to my colleague from Ohio for a few moments. Then I will make a few more comments.

Mr. President, I thank my friend from Ohio. There are many things we share in common: a love of the Great Lakes, and we have a rivalry in football and baseball and our great universities, and so on. But we also share a tremendous passion for what is happening to our people. I thank Senator Brown for his fight on behalf of manufacturers and the people who, in fact, need a voice. I thank him very much for that.

It is so hard to know what to say when you read these letters or e- mails or take phone calls. Most people cannot understand what in the world is going on around here. But what is going on? Don't we get it? What is going on here?

Unfortunately, I think the Senator from Ohio, when he says that maybe it is that folks have never met someone who lost their job or had it happen in their families--it has happened in my family. About half of the families in Michigan have somebody who has lost their job. We certainly get it, and we understand what is going on now. We know people are lining up for work. Whenever there is an announcement for jobs, 50 jobs are hiring at a business or 100 jobs, literally I have seen people lined up around the block--hundreds and thousands of people--because people want to work.

The people who are out of work now are people who have worked all their lives. They have played by the rules. They are now trying to figure out what happens and how they can turn it around for their families and keep going.

The bill in front of us, like many things we have put forward in the Senate this year, has been all about jobs. That is where we are. It is not a slogan to say jobs, jobs, jobs. That is what we are focused on. Next week, we are going to focus on small business jobs. We will see what happens in the Senate.

The jobs bill that we have been focused on for 8 weeks has major provisions to help manufacturers. I was pleased to include provisions that helped manufacturers be able to get some refunds on their taxes if they put it back into equipment and hiring people, and there are other provisions in the bill. It is about jobs.

Frankly, we have two different views of the world, two different beliefs that I think are reflected in what has happened to our country. I look back only because we are debating the same values, the same choices that got us where we were and where we are today. Those are the same kinds of choices that our friends on the other side of the aisle are suggesting we make for the future.

It is important to look at what has worked and what has not worked. Under the previous administration, they looked at the world very differently. They said: All right, we are going to stimulate the economy and keep things going by focusing on the wealthiest Americans. We are going to give them big tax cuts and it will trickle down and everyone will benefit and there will be jobs.

Well, it didn't work. It didn't work. If it had worked, I would be celebrating because an awful lot of people in my State would be doing much better than they are today. What we saw was an economic policy that said we are going to focus on the privileged few, and then it will help everybody else; it is going to trickle down.

What we saw was--these are job loss numbers--down, down, down under that policy.

I will also say those job numbers come from the fact that the same people said: You know what. We believe corporations, corporate interests can police themselves. So we are going to back up. We are going to let Wall Street go to town. They are going to make a lot of money, and it is going to be good for the economy.

They backed up. They let Wall Street police itself. They let mining firms police themselves and oil companies police themselves. We lost lives. We lost 8 million jobs because of what happened on Wall Street. People lost their savings, 401(k)s, their pensions because of a set of ideas, because of what they believed. They believed that by backing up, corporate America would police itself and everything would be OK: Let's give to those at the top. It will trickle down, and we will get jobs.

Those two things combined to create the largest number of crises that I certainly have seen in my lifetime that have brought down the middle class of this country. We saw jobs go down, down, more and more job loss. When President Obama came into office, about 750,000 jobs a month were being lost. It was an economic tsunami. If that is not a crisis and an emergency, I don't know what is. If over 15 million people being out of work right now is not an emergency, I don't know what is.

We went to work and we focused on a different set of ideas, a different approach. Where they were focusing on the privileged few, we said we are going to focus on middle-class Americans, on working people, on investing in manufacturing jobs.

I am very pleased to say we are beginning to feel that in Michigan. Sixteen companies have benefited from the battery manufacturing money we put into the Recovery Act, the stimulus. I was at an opening on Monday in Midland, MI, a new manufacturing facility, that is going to put 1,000 people to work in construction and 800 people to work at the facility. That is a different approach. We said: We are going to invest in America, invest in the American people. We are going to invest in opportunity, and we are going to help the people who are out of work because we know we are not talking about people who are lazy. We are talking about people who lost their jobs, a lot of them because of either lack of accountability and oversight of what was going on on Wall Street or people not paying attention when our jobs were going overseas.

Through no fault of their own, people were caught in this economy. We decided on a different approach. President Obama came in and the numbers began to change. I would prefer they were much faster, but they are moving in the right direction. We have gone to zero job loss into the positive column. We are gaining jobs every month.

Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are saying: Wait, stop, stop. I know if things are going to turn around, maybe in an election year people do not like that and they want to be sure things continue to be bad, that somehow it benefits them. That is a pretty cynical view.

These folks who are gaining jobs, as well as the people who lost jobs, are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. This is not a partisan issue. We ought to be rooting for America and rooting for what is getting people back to work instead of fighting along partisan lines. The policies we put in place are beginning to do that. They are not done. They are beginning to do that. We are putting back the oversight and the accountability and commonsense regulation on Wall Street and on the oil companies and the miners. We are putting back in place middle-class tax cuts instead of just the privileged few. We are focusing on jobs, investing in private sector jobs, partnering with the private sector, with businesses to help create investment in innovation, and we are beginning to turn things around.

The problem we have is, we still have too many people caught because the changes we have been able to make have not caught up to them, and there is much more to do.

The bill that was on the Senate floor, the bill we are going to continue, we are going to put it aside. We are going to be ready if one or two Republican colleagues say: Yes, we want to stop a Republican filibuster. We can come back to it and get this done.

But what we have seen is a continual effort for 8 weeks to block us from the

next step in the recovery, from investing in jobs, from keeping people employed--police officers, firefighters, teachers--and from focusing on those who have lost their jobs, to be able to help them keep a roof over their heads and food on their tables until they can get that next job.

I see my friend from Rhode Island on the Senate floor, and I will turn to him in a moment. He has been a real champion and fighter on this issue. We should also know that in this bill there are some important provisions that have been opposed by the other side of the aisle to make sure wealthy investors actually pay their fair share--not somebody who is middle class but wealthy investors pay their fair share.

We also put in place provisions to take away incentives for shipping our jobs overseas. I could go on for an awful long time about why we have lost a lot of jobs in Michigan because of unfair trade practices and losing our jobs overseas. This bill takes away incentives to ship our jobs overseas.

This bill also added a few more cents to an oilspill trust fund to make sure the oil companies are actually paying for the cleanup in the gulf.

On one side we have jobs, investing in jobs and partnering with manufacturers and small businesses and helping people who are out of work to keep things going. That is our side. On the other side we have wealthy investors who do not like this, and oil companies that do not like another 41 cents on every barrel of oil to be put toward the cleanup. We have people who ship jobs overseas who do not want us to close those loopholes. That is on the other side.

Which side did our Republican colleagues pick? They picked the wealthy investors, the oil companies, and the people who ship jobs overseas.

The American people are counting on us to understand what is going on in their lives, to get it, to be willing, as in any other time in our history--Republican or Democratic President, any other time in our history when unemployment has been this high; this Congress has stepped forward to extend unemployment benefits for people who were temporarily out of work, Democratic or Republican Presidents. Now we have a situation where after 8 weeks, we cannot get even one of our colleagues from the other side of the aisle to come forward and help us break this filibuster.

I don't know what to say beyond the fact that we are going to keep fighting. We are going to keep doing everything we can to get through this logjam. We are going to keep doing everything we can to keep this economy recovering and keep creating jobs. But there is something wrong with the system right now that has gotten so divided, so warped, so partisan that we cannot come together on behalf of almost 1 million people in this country who are counting on us right now because they may have no other option for themselves and their families.

There is one job for every five people who are unemployed. Prior to the Recovery Act, that number was six people. It is a little bit better. There is a lot more to do, but we cannot just say to somebody: Why don't you get a job, when there are five people out there for every one job opening.

I see my friends on the floor. I see my partner from Michigan on the floor. I will turn to him if he wishes to say a few words because he and I understand what we have been through in Michigan. We have been hit harder, longer, and deeper than anyplace else in this country. When we look at the fact that over 87,000 people in Michigan will lose their unemployment insurance benefits by the end of this month because of what has happened--inaction, the constant naysayers blocking, obstructing, saying no--it is more than I can tolerate.

I yield to my friend from Michigan.

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

In closing, I wish to take a few more minutes to stress again how disappointing and, frankly, outrageous I find what happened tonight to be as it relates to the continual 8 weeks of blocking the jobs bill in front of us, for the ability for people who are out of work to be able to get some temporary help just to be able to keep things going for their family while they are looking for that next job. There are almost 1 million people who find themselves in a situation now where they have lost their jobs and have lost their insurance benefits, insurance benefits paid in when they were working to then be able to get help when they are not working, as any of us would want for ourselves and our families.

We are in a situation where we cannot get beyond--we cannot get even beyond one, and we need two Republican colleagues--we cannot even get one to be able to join with us to overturn this filibuster. We have a bill, a jobs bill in front of us that would provide tax cuts to businesses, provide help to State and local and municipal governments to keep police officers, firefighters, and teachers on the job in our communities for our children, and the other side has said no.

Time after time, no. We are putting much needed tax cuts, money back into the pockets of middle-class families. The other side has said no. We wanted to help small businesses be able to restore credit to create jobs. They said no. We want to help people who are going back to school to start a new career, people who have been looking for work, and they have said no. And we want to make sure we are investing in the kinds of jobs that are going to rebuild America--roads and bridges, other kinds of construction efforts, good-paying jobs for engineers, construction workers. Those provisions were in this bill, and they have said no. For people who are out of work, they have gotten a great big no, no way, time and time again from colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

We know that for every $1 we put into unemployment insurance benefits, we get, according to Mark Zandi, an economist, and certainly many other economists, at least $1.40 back in investment. Why? Because somebody goes to the store and buys some food with that $200 or $300 a month in unemployment benefits. They go buy some shoes for the kids. They put gas in the car. They keep the lights on. They are able to pay their rent or the mortgage or do other things we all want to be able to do for our families, for our children. So when you give unemployment insurance benefits to someone who is out of work, they, unfortunately for themselves, have to turn right around and spend it. But from an economic standpoint, that is stimulus, which is why that is viewed as one of the best economic stimuli you can have, to be able to provide assistance for people who are going to turn around and spend it in the economy.

We are struggling now. Even though we have the majority in the Senate, we do not have a supermajority, enough to stop filibusters. And we are struggling with a perversion of the Senate rules that has taken place. I think, frankly, our forefathers would be rolling over in their graves to see the perversion that has gone on here. Instead of using a majority vote like any of us would use if we were in an election--one more vote than the other guy wins the election--here one more vote than the other guy does not get us moving forward because of the efforts to block, obstruct, and filibuster that go on every single day and require 60 votes in order to overcome.

So what are they saying no to? Why are they blocking and stopping? Why do we see this continual effort to go back to the way it was, to go back to the policies that got us where we are today? We are in a situation now where we want to go forward. We want to change things. We want to go forward. And all we get are efforts to take us back.

Well, what was happening then? What was happening at the place they want to go? Well, in the last Presidency, when they were in charge, we saw us lose jobs, more and more jobs throughout the 8 years of this former President. And there were a number of reasons: wrong economic policies; wrong investments; investing in people who were very wealthy hoping that it would trickle down; not enforcing our trade laws; not stopping the incentives to ship our jobs overseas; not paying attention to manufacturing and making things in this country; and, frankly, not paying for things; two wars, not paid for; Medicare prescription drug benefit, not paid for--nothing was paid for. Everything was put on the credit card. And now the people who got us into this ditch, amazingly, are arguing for policies to take us back into the ditch. They dug the ditch, and now they want us to give them back the shovel and get more shovels to dig a bigger one.

We have a very different view and, frankly, a different set of priorities on whom we are fighting for. We are losing the middle class of this country. We are losing the middle class of this country because of the policies that have focused not on jobs, not on things that matter to middle-class families, working-class families, but on what the privileged few care about.

The philosophy that got us where we are, which this President inherited, President Obama, was a philosophy that said that a tax cut to the wealthy solves every problem and, by the way, step back and let corporate America regulate themselves, police themselves, and everything will be OK.

Well, we saw what happened on Wall Street--millions of jobs lost, 401(k)s gone, pensions gone, savings gone. We have seen what happened in the gulf when the oil companies policed themselves. We saw what happened in West Virginia, where the miners lost their lives because the mines were policing themselves. And we saw what happened economically in terms of job loss.

This really is a bigger fight than just the jobs bill in front of us. It is about whose side you are on. It is about what your values and priorities are. And I can tell you, just as a practical matter, I am going to support whatever works for the people I represent, whatever works for the people in Michigan.

This did not work, this red ink getting longer and longer and longer. President Obama comes in; 750,000 jobs lost a month. We put in a jobs bill, a Recovery Act to focus on manufacturing and small businesses, job training, to help the people who lost their jobs. It has been slow because the hole was so deep, but we have begun to turn it around. By the end of the year, we got it to zero jobs lost, and now we are gaining jobs. Now we have to keep gaining jobs. We are returning accountability and commonsense regulation to Wall Street, to the oil industry, and to other areas where lives could be lost and there is a public interest.

So we are in the middle of a major debate in this country. And what I find most disturbing is that too many on the other side of the aisle are rooting for failure. They want the President to fail. They want our majority to fail. But in the process of that, we all will fail. The country will fail if we do not have a set of economic policies and investments and partnerships that work, if we do not focus on the people who need temporary help and support right now while they hold their family together and look for a job.

When I think about the men and women fighting overseas, fighting in two wars around the world for our great democracy, they want to know that they are coming home to a job; that their family has a house; that the kids are going to be able to go to college; that they are going to be able to breathe fresh air and drink clean water; and that somehow that they were fighting not for some craziness, some crazy political battlefield here, but for a sense of love and thought about our country and the people in our country.

Patriotism really is, when it comes to our country, against other countries in the world, it is fighting for our side--not our side of the aisle but our country, not rooting for people to fail just so you can get a short-term political advantage. I hope that does not work. Obviously, you could say for personal reasons, we do not want it to work, but I hope it does not work for our country because we have to get beyond this and be able to work together because too many people are counting on us.

In closing this evening, I want to express an apology to everyone who is caught in this economic tsunami. I am not going to stand here and apologize to BP, but I am going to apologize to the people who are out of work in this country for what has happened today because it is shameful. And over 87,000 people in my State are going to be directly affected by this by the end of next week. I apologize to them for what has happened because it is wrong. It is wrong. And we are going to do everything we can to turn this around because people are counting on us to do that.