Mr. President, in about 50 minutes the Senate will be called upon to vote on a motion to invoke cloture on a very important piece of legislation extending unemployment benefits for American workers. Another 7,000 jobless Americans will…
Mr. President, in about 50 minutes the Senate will be called upon to vote on a motion to invoke cloture on a very important piece of legislation extending unemployment benefits for American workers.
Another 7,000 jobless Americans will lose their unemployment insurance today, just as 7,000 did yesterday and 7,000 more will tomorrow. The Republicans have held up this matter for approximately 3 weeks. What does that mean? It means that the first week, 49,000 Americans were people whose unemployment insurance ran out, and they had nowhere to turn. In 2 weeks--the math is simple--it was 98,000 Americans from all over America, including the State of Delaware and the State of Nevada. In 3 weeks, it was 147,000 people, just the same. These are people who are desperate. To say I am disappointed in the way Republicans have shown a complete lack of regard for the people behind those staggering numbers is an understatement. Approximately 150,000 people have been hurt as a result of the intransigence of the Republicans in the past weeks.
The Presiding Officer and the Senator speaking are from States that have small towns and cities; 150,000 is a huge city by Nevada standards. A city of 150,000--that is what has happened these last 3 weeks. That is 150,000 people without anywhere to turn. Their government is not helping them. They have likely begged and borrowed from family as much as they could. Their savings are gone.
We know that when the economy recovers, the unemployment rate is one of the last numbers to rebound. That is what economists call a lagging indicator. That is just the way it is and has always been. So even as the economy begins to turn around, jobs will turn around slower.
That fact, incidentally, is all the more reason for us to fix our economy faster, to stop putting off reforming a broken health insurance system that bankrupts so many families. In America today, people are at the courthouse filing bankruptcy. Last year in America, 750,000 people filed bankruptcy because of medical costs.
How many people do you think filed for bankruptcy in France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, England, Canada? How many filed for bankruptcy as a result of health care costs? Zero. People say: Oh, socialized medicine. France, Germany, and Japan have private insurance.
Our health care system bankrupts many families. We need to do a lot of things to get us out of this hole we are in. The sooner we do these things, the sooner jobs will come back. But they are not back yet. The people of Nevada and others across the Nation are hurting. Unemployment is at a 26-year high in our country and at an alltime high in Nevada. We became a State in 1864. It is the highest unemployment rate we have ever had.
These good, hard-working people lost their jobs most of the time through no fault of their own, and many lost their health care along with it. They are having trouble finding new jobs, and so they are burning through whatever savings they have, if they have any, if they put away for their old age or children.
Some of these unemployed Americans are beginning their careers, some were at the prime of their careers, and some are scrambling to finish, with dignity, what they earned over decades of hard, honest work.
This is the Democrats' simple proposal. It is not very complicated at all: Let's support those families who have been the victims of this recession. They need to put food on the table, send their children to school, and pay the ever-rising medical bills.
If you want to do something that will help jump-start the economy, that will stimulate the economy, how about giving these people who are out of work and have been out of work for an extended period of time a check? What are they going to do with it? They are going to spend it. Why? Because they have to.
We are not asking for much, and we have the money to help them. Over the years, workers have contributed a little bit each paycheck to fund a safety net in the event they lost their jobs. It was insurance against unemployment. That is what it is called--unemployment insurance. That is exactly what has happened. Now they want to take that money--money set aside for this purpose--to keep them afloat until they land the next job.
We have a proposal--a paid-for proposal, one that does not add a dime to the deficit--to extend to workers their unemployment insurance by up to 14 weeks and up to 20 weeks in States such as Nevada that have been hit the hardest. We have the power and the ability to do it. That is what we should do. It is the right thing to do.
The Republican response to that idea might sound familiar. It is a word we have heard from them more and more in recent days. The Republican response in helping the unemployed is two letters: No. Republican Senators from Louisiana, Alabama, Arizona, and Kentucky are among those saying no to helping unemployed citizens in Louisiana, Alabama, Arizona, and Kentucky. I doubt that is the kind of legislating their constituents had in mind when they sent them to the U.S. Capitol and asked them to be their voice in Congress.
When we first brought up this bill 3 weeks ago, Republicans decided they would rather fight a partisan fight, as they have been doing now, than help unemployed men and women in their own States. This unemployment is not targeted to just a few States. The Republicans decided to make a political statement by demanding completely irrelevant amendments, amendments not germane, amendments that have little, if anything, to do with unemployment or even the economy, generally, and they decided the political statement was more important than helping constituents afford to pay bills. That is wrong. It is an outrage.
That day when we started this legislation, when we first brought it to the Senate floor to help unemployed Americans, Republicans said no. The sad part about it, they are still saying no. I hope, after all we have been through and when that vote comes at 6 o'clock, we will have some brave souls step across the aisle and help us get this done.
When we started this process 3 weeks ago, they said no. The next morning, 7,000 people woke up without the unemployment insurance on which they had been counting. The next week we tried again. By now, we have 49,000 people who have lost their unemployment benefits. Once again, Republicans said no. Again, 7,000 Americans lost the help they needed to get by. Then, last week, we tried again. Once again, the Republicans said no. Again, we had a week of 7,000 people losing their work benefits.
In the days since Republicans first said no to helping unemployed Americans, we have about 150,000 who have lost the relief they desperately need. Today, while Republicans continue to waste time, to stall so we cannot get things done here, another 7,000 will be added to the approximately 150,000 who have already lost their unemployment insurance. If we do not act, that number, by the end of the year, will be 2 million. I wonder how much higher does that number have to climb before Republicans put people ahead of their partisan excuses.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.