Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, we have the highest number of long-term unemployed Americans ever on record, so you'd think we'd be overwhelmed by bipartisan cooperation to help us with these 7 million people who have been out of work for more than 6 months. Instead, every single House Republican but one voted against the legislation 3 weeks ago to continue emergency Federal unemployment benefits. And now, in the other body, every Republican has refused to support an extension of unemployment benefits. So a growing number of jobless workers are now losing their benefits.

By the end of this week, more than 900,000 Americans will lose their unemployment benefits unless the other body acts. We hear their rumblings over there, but I'll believe it when I see it. By the end of the month, the number will grow to 1.2 million. My colleagues from Florida should know an estimated 80,000 Floridians will lose their benefits; California, 180,000; Ohio, 66,000; Georgia, 57,000. And the list goes on and on.

The last lifeline for these workers and their families is being severed, leaving them adrift with no job, no savings, and no support. Even some from my own party seem to be saying now is the time to start cutting back on help for the unemployed. In fact, it will take about 5 years of consistent, month-after-month job growth to make up for all the ground we have lost in this recession. That's how big the jobs hole is that unemployed workers are trying to climb out of.

You only have to hear from a few unemployed workers to know how hard they're looking for work and to feel their sheer sense of desperation. They're losing their homes, their health, and their faith in the American Dream. Are we really prepared to just stand by and watch them sink into abject poverty?

Opponents of helping the unemployed like to talk about budget deficits. Of course, they don't seem to care about deficits when it comes to two wars that have cost a trillion dollars and two tax cuts, mainly for the wealthy, which cost $1.7 trillion. None of that seems to matter. But now the stingy other body says we might pass this if we can take away $25 a week from all the unemployed. Of course, we couldn't take the money from the hedge fund people. That would be too tough on them. When it comes to helping the unemployed, they just say, We can't afford it. But I wonder if they have truly considered the real cost of abandoning these families.

Ending assistance to the unemployed will reduce consumer demand right at the point when the economy is struggling to rebound after the worst recession in 70 years. It would surely increase the number of homes that would go into foreclosure. And it would drive some individuals permanently out of the labor force if we don't do something. All these outcomes will increase our Nation's budget deficit. But even worse, they'll bring about a crippling deficit of hope--hope for the future.

Helping those who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own is the right thing to do for families, for the economy, and, ultimately, for the Federal budget.

Our failure to get this bill passed has very real and very immediate consequences. Tonight, thousands of people in every corner of this country will suffer because we have chosen to quibble and stonewall instead of act. These benefits help millions of people put bread on the table while they look for work. I sincerely hope the other body will take pity on the unemployed of this country and pass a bill today.

Mr. Speaker, we have a huge problem in our country that we haven't come to terms with, long-term unemployment. The number of Americans who have been jobless for over 6 months has hit the highest level ever recorded. I recently read an article that highlighted one of the long-term unemployed Americans. Her name is Cindy Paoletti. For 23 years she worked in the corporate accounting division of J.P. Morgan Chase in upstate New York. In December 2007, Ms. Paoletti was let go in a wave of layoffs that eventually shuttered the entire Syracuse operations center. Her job went to India.

She started collecting unemployment benefits and severance while searching for a job. In her own words, Cindy says, ``I apply for everything out there.'' Now that she's about to run out of benefits, she has started taking money out of her IRA. She doesn't have health insurance, and she faces the daily fear of losing her home. I hear similar stories from all over the country. Jobless Americans are desperately looking for work, but there just aren't enough jobs to go around yet.

Last week, I conducted a hearing in my subcommittee to discuss long- term unemployment problems. Here are a few of the facts highlighted at the hearing: nearly 50 percent of the unemployed haven't been able to find a job for more than 6 months, the highest number ever recorded, which goes back to 1948. More than 10 million jobs must be created to restore the labor market to its pre-recession level.

This huge jobs hole, created by 8 years of gross economic mismanagement under the Bush administration, has left five unemployed workers competing for every available job. In responding to these record rates of long-term unemployment, our first priority must be to maintain the current emergency Federal unemployment programs that have lapsed 2 weeks ago. People have been waiting for 2 weeks.

The House passed an extension on these programs a long time ago, but the Senate has yet to clear the legislation. If the Senate fails to continue Federal unemployment program, 5 million long-term unemployed Americans will lose their extended benefits before the end of this year, with 1.2 million of them losing their benefits by the end of this month, June. We need to face the fact that even with an extension of these Federal unemployment programs, more than 3 million people are projected to exhaust all benefits available before the end of the year.

We need to provide more help for these long-term displaced workers, which could range from additional extended unemployment benefits in high unemployment States, to federally funded jobs programs, to better training employment services.

A few months of employment gains, as welcome as they have been recently, have not suddenly eliminated the problem of long-term unemployment. We simply cannot abandon millions of Americans who have worked hard, played by the rules, and now find themselves with no jobs, no savings, and no support. We cannot let a huge section of the middle class go with nothing but food stamps.

At the end of the article, I mentioned earlier Cindy Paoletti said, ``Out of all the people I know that got laid off the same time as me, I think only three have found jobs. The rest . . . have exhausted unemployment or they're getting close to the end of it. Someone's got to do something.''

The Congress is faced with this. The Senate is dawdling. It is time, Mr. Speaker, that they act and we then move on to the next level while we deal with long-term unemployment in this country. We cannot close our eyes and believe it's going to go away. It will not go away. We have to help the process.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 337, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, you have just heard the Republicans say to unemployed workers whose benefits are expiring: We don't care.

Forty billion dollars, the biggest unpaid part of this bill, is for unemployment benefits to the 1.2 million people whose benefits are going to expire by the end of June.

Now, you just heard a Member of the other side say: We don't care what happens to them.

Well, they also don't care about the small businesses because, for those of you who have never been unemployed, when you get that check and when you have no money, you take it out and spend it. You pay for rent. You go to stores and buy things. There are all of those store owners, and nobody is coming in to buy because nobody has any money. If you think starving the children of unemployed people by saying, We're not going to give you money to go to the store and get food for your kids, is going to somehow make them go out and find work in a time when we have six people looking for every job in this country, you simply don't understand the human condition.

Now, The Wall Street Journal can't understand. They said, We can't understand why unemployment benefits have anything to do with jobs.

If you don't have money in people's pockets while they're looking for jobs, you'll have more businesses collapsing. You can go through strip malls all over this country where little businesses have closed because nobody has any money to buy anything.

There is no reason for us to be inhumane. If we can spend billions and billions of dollars on a war in Iraq, worrying about their bridges and all of their infrastructure, and if we can't worry about people in Ohio and in Pennsylvania and in Michigan and in New York and in California, there is something really wrong in this body. Unemployment insurance is the essence of being human and of being American.

Mr. Speaker, this morning I read an editorial in the Wall Street Journal that criticizes the unemployment program, saying, ``let's lay off everybody, pay them for not working, and watch the economy really boom.''

To criticize the system that's keeping millions of Americans afloat during this recession is appalling. Cutting benefits will drastically reduce their ability to buy goods and pay their mortgage. Does anybody really think that would be good for the economy?

When those workers' unemployment insurance benefits run out, they have no other support. We can't just tell millions of Americans that we don't care what happens to them. Maybe the Wall Street Journal thinks that only tax breaks for the superrich can help the economy, but most of you will remember the previous administration tried that, and the only thing it brought us was the worst economy since the Great Depression.

If we don't pass this jobs bill tomorrow, 1.2 million Americans will lose their benefits by June. Is that good for anybody? I say not. Vote ``yes'' tomorrow.

Madam Speaker, as we approach the passage of the Jobs for America Bill in the next few days, we need to talk about a subject that is at the heart of the debate, hypocrisy.

The definition of a hypocrite is someone who acts in contradiction to his stated belief. In other words, he says one thing and does another.

For example, a hypocrite would deplore our Nation's deficit in a floor speech today, even after helping President Bush turn the biggest budget surplus in our Nation's history into the biggest deficit ever.

A hypocrite would vote for two wars with a price tag of over $1 trillion, two tax cuts for the wealthy, and a new entitlement program, all without ever thinking about how to pay one thin dime of their cost, and then turn around and say they voted to cut off unemployment benefits out of concern for the budget deficit. That's what people will argue in the next couple of days.

A hypocrite would complain that there are not enough budget offsets, that is, pay-fors, in the jobs bill before us while, at the very same time, try to eliminate the over $50 billion in offsets that are contained in the legislation. Closing loopholes is against the philosophy of a hypocrite.

I think it's safe to say that all of us have not lived up to every pronouncement that we've made in our lives. No one is perfect, but rarely has hypocrisy been as constantly and blatantly displayed as it has been by the opponents of this bill.

The same people, the same people who spent like drunken sailors when they were in charge, now say we cannot afford to help our fellow citizens who've lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

Here is the bottom line: if we don't pass this bill, 1.2 million Americans who were following the rules and working and paying their taxes will lose their unemployment benefits by the end of June. Moving forward, a total of 2 million will be off by mid-July and 5 million Americans will lose their benefits by the end of this year.

Thanks to the hypocrites who say, oh, I can't, I'm worried about the deficit; I can't worry about these people who have no way to pay for their home or their food or their mortgage or their children, Americans will face these cuts of their unemployment benefits because people will not follow what they say they believe.

They were unable to deal with the spending on wars and tax cuts and all the rest; but when it comes time to pay the benefits to somebody who lost their job, their message to them is, well, you know, tell your children that they're just going to have to tighten their belts a little, and we're not going to have three meals today. We're only going to have two because your dad or your mom or both haven't been able to find work.

There are six people in this country looking for every job that's out there. The chances of people getting a job today are very low, and people are giving up because, with 8 million jobs lost in the last 2 years, they are simply unable to find work to take care of their families.

Now, to take away their last lifeline because you're saying you're being a budget hawk and you're against deficits, when you spent like that in the last 8 years, is pure and unadulterated hypocrisy.

Madam Speaker, our Nation recently lost one of the great champions of the unemployment insurance system.

Jerry Hildebrand was the Chief of Legislation for Unemployment Insurance at the Department of Labor, and he was intricately involved in every major UI reform over the past several decades.

Most recently, Jerry had been instrumental in ensuring the delivery of extended unemployment benefits and in helping States navigate reforms to their unemployment systems with the help of UI Modernization Grants.

His advice about the possible impact of policy before enactment and his skillful work on implementation after the passage of legislation will be sorely missed.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jerry's family, as well as to his colleagues at the Department of Labor. Jerry Hildebrand made our government work for the people, and that contribution will surely live on.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 1339) expressing support for designation of May as National Foster Care Month and acknowledging the responsibility that Congress has to promote safety, well-being, improved outcomes, and permanency for the Nation's collective children.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, the month of May marks National Foster Care Month, which provides us with an opportunity to recognize the unsung heroes, that is, the frontline workers and the foster parents who work tirelessly to improve the lives of our most vulnerable children, and to reaffirm Congress' commitment to foster care. We have a responsibility to work with State officials to ensure that they have the resources they need to care for these children and to help them move to a permanent home as quickly as possible.

Today, there are 463,000 children in the foster care system. While the number of children placed in care has recently declined, far too many children must wait far too long to safely reunify with their parents or find a new family to call their own. Right now, the average length of stay for a child in foster care is nearly 16 months. That is a significant amount of time in the life of any child, much less those who have been maltreated or separated from their parents, their siblings, their friends, and their community.

More than 120,000 children are currently waiting to find a new family to call their own through adoption. Children who are waiting to be adopted spend an average of nearly 2\1/2\ years in foster care as they await a new family.

Sadly, nearly 30,000 children left foster care or emancipated from the system in fiscal year 2008 without finding a permanent home, leaving these young people on their own as they transition from foster care to adulthood.

While we clearly have, still, lots of work to do, Congress made great progress in the last 2 years to improve the outcomes of vulnerable children in care. In 2008, Congress passed, with Jerry Weller on the Republican side and myself, bipartisan legislation called the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act.

This bill provided additional services and support to children in foster care, promoting the connection of children in care with their relatives and communities, and providing additional support for caseworker training. It also allowed States to extend foster care services to older youth, up to the age of 21, so that these young people can receive critical support services as they transition to adulthood, as they age out, so to speak.

And, as States began to grapple with fiscal restraints, severe fiscal restraints as a result of the recession, Congress stepped in to provide nearly $1 billion in targeted State relief for foster care programs as part of the Recovery Act.

While progress has been made over the last few years to support our national foster care system, there is plenty of additional work that still needs to be done. More focus must be placed on providing additional Federal support for prevention services to at-risk children and their families. By providing more resources that are targeted at preventing the incidents of child maltreatment and safely serving children and families in their own homes, we can ultimately reduce the number of children who are placed in foster care.

Foster kids, like all children, can and do grow up to make lasting positive impacts in their community and in the world. Many of you probably have read a recent article in The Washington Post that profiled Jelani Freeman, a foster child who completed a master's degree in history at American University, worked for 3 years in youth-related positions in the District, and graduated from Howard University Law School earlier this month.

I urge my colleagues to pay tribute to these remarkable young men and women in May, and every month of the year, by joining me and my colleague, Representative John Linder, and President Obama in recognizing May 2010 as National Foster Care Month and supporting this bipartisan resolution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Madam Speaker, today I rise to offer special recognition to the Greater Seattle Business Association (GSBA) as it celebrates the 20th anniversary of its Scholarship Fund for undergraduate students. For two decades, these scholarships have provided promise and support for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) and Allied students with strong commitment to civil rights.

In 1990, two teachers witnessed the challenges that confronted LGBT students as they pursued a college education, including discrimination from professors, harassment by other students, and unsupportive families. These teachers took matters into their own hands and created the GSBA Scholarship Fund, the first scholarship fund for LGBT students in the United States. That year, the GSBA gave two scholarships of $1,500 each. Since then, the Fund has grown significantly, and now grants a total of $135,000 in scholarships each year, with the individual scholarships ranging in size from $3,000 to $10,000.

One thing that makes the Scholarship Fund so special is the diversity of the students it supports. GSBA scholars come from every corner of Washington State, from cities and from rural communities. They are people of color, male, female, and transgender. But no matter where they come from, these talented students have the drive and the passion to achieve great things in their lives. Indeed, former GSBA scholars have gone on to become doctors, social workers, teachers and public servants. And these scholars have continued to fight for social justice and equality for all, regardless of the careers they chose.

This 20th anniversary marks a particularly special milestone for the GSBA Scholarship Fund--the awarding of its one millionth dollar to support the education of LGBT and Allied students. The unfailing dedication of time, money, and talent by GSBA leadership, members, and volunteers have made this achievement possible. I extend my thanks and best wishes to the GSBA and its outstanding scholars on their twenty years of changing lives and creating hope.

Madam Speaker, over this past weekend our Nation lost one of the great champions of the unemployment insurance system.

Jerry Hildebrand was the Chief of Legislation for Unemployment Insurance at the Department of Labor, and he was intricately involved in every major UI reform over the past several decades.

Most recently, Jerry had been instrumental in ensuring the delivery of extended unemployment benefits and in helping States navigate reforms to their unemployment systems with the help of UI Modernization Grants. His advice about the possible impact of policy before enactment and his skillful work on implementation after the passage of legislation will be sorely missed.

He took his daughter to college this weekend, and then dropped dead. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jerry's family, as well as to his colleagues at the Department of Labor. Jerry Hildebrand made our government work for the people, and that contribution will surely live on.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor my longtime friend and respected colleague, Iwao Matsuda. Matsuda-san is arriving in Washington today for a meeting of the United States-Japan Legislative Exchange Program, a project he founded to encourage meaningful dialogue between our two countries. He has a long and honorable history of service to Japan as an elected official, first in the House of Representatives and later in the House of Councilors in the Diet. Matsuda-san has always been interested in resolving tensions and improving the relationship between the United States and Japan, and it was this drive that led to the creation and continuing success of the Legislative Exchange Program.

Members of the Diet and the Congress have grown to understand the importance of the United States-Japan Legislative Exchange Program. The two delegations have had the privilege of getting to know each other, and if there is ever a problem, we know who to call to find out more about it. These personal connections are vital to creating understanding between our legislatures and our nations. But I would like to point out another facet of Matsuda-san's contribution. Not only has he helped us to know each other and to create personal relationships, but his work has transcended his own personal relationships and left us all with an enduring legacy.

I honor my friend Matsuda-san's life and work, and I wish him a peaceful retirement. My colleagues and I will never forget his kind hospitality, both in official and personal settings, and I look forward to continuing our friendship in the years to come.

Madam Speaker, I rise today, on the occasion of the honoring of Stephen Wadsworth's lifetime achievement by one of Seattle's historic organizations and keeper of the arts, the Rainier Club. The people of the State of Washington hold up as a national inspiration the work of Stephen Wadsworth, stage director and writer.

Associated with Seattle Opera for more than 25 years, Stephen Wadsworth is a renowned director whose work has included acclaimed productions at the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Vienna Staatsoper, Nederlandse Opera, and Edinburgh Festival, and in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Santa Fe. He made his Seattle Opera debut with Jancek's Jenufa and has returned for Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris (a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera) and Orphee et Eurydice; Handel's Xerxes; and Wagner's Lohengrin, Fliegende Hollander, and Ring.

Highlights of his operatic work include the Seattle Orphee (1988), on which he collaborated with Mark Morris. Of that production, The New Yorker magazine wrote ``Inspired productions touch the heart of a listener's being, reveal music's power to sound every string of a psyche; make the theater what it should be, a place of, at once, ecstasy, entertainment, and moral and political enlightenment. The Seattle Orphee was such a production. It made the absurd extravagances of opera, all that it costs in public and private money and personal, hardworking devotion, seem worthwhile.''

Wadsworth has staged much-traveled productions of plays by Shakespeare, Moliere, Marivaux, Goldoni, Shaw, Wilde, and Coward. Wadsworth wrote the opera A Quiet Place with Leonard Bernstein, and directed the world premieres of Daron Aric Hagen's Shining Brow and Peter Lieberson's Ashoka's Dream, as well as new plays by Beth Henley and Anna Deavere Smith. He has translated a number of works for the stage, including works by Monteverdi, Handel, and Mozart.

The French government named Stephen Wadsworth a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his work on Moliere and Marivaux. He is the Head of Dramatic Studies at the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and the James S. Marcus Faculty Fellow and Director of Opera Studies at the Juilliard School, where he has launched the first intensive acting program for opera singers.

Stephen Wadsworth's influence is international and broad in scope, but it is our honor that his presence is local to Washington State's 7th Congressional District. His work has brought a rich luminosity to the Seattle arts community for many years, and I am privileged now to note his profound contribution to our cultural life.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of 2010 World Malaria Day, an issue of great importance to me. I witnessed the widespread devastation malaria can cause both times I lived in Africa, first in Ghana with a program called Operation Crossroads and then when I worked in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) as a Foreign Service Medical Officer. While the disease affects people in every corner of the globe, it is particularly destructive to sub-Saharan Africa. There are 250 million malaria cases worldwide and nearly one million deaths are caused by malaria every year, ninety percent of which occur in sub-Saharan Africa. About 3.3 billion people--about one- half of the world's population--are at risk of contracting the disease. It is important to recognize the

damage that this disease afflicts on the generation of the future: seventy percent of the deaths caused by malaria happen to children under the age of five, and one in every five childhood deaths in Africa is due to malaria.

Though the statistics are staggering, it is important to recognize the progress that we've made in treating the disease. We are farther along than ever in developing a successful vaccine to combat malaria and more and more people have access to anti-malarial drugs. And because of an increased focus on outreach, people are being educated about the importance of taking preventive steps like utilizing netting to prevent mosquito bites which spread the disease.

Yet with all of the progress, we must continue to press forward with attempts to develop new tools and technologies to combat the spread of malaria. With the work and dedication of many nongovernmental organizations, including PATH, a nongovernmental organization located in my district that is leading the way in developing global health technology, I am confident that we will have made even greater progress when we observe World Malaria Day next year.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend the critical medical work that was recently performed in Gujarat, India by Dr. Aseem Shukla and Dr. Richard Grady. Dr. Shukla is a pediatric urologist, Director of Pediatric Urology at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children's Hospital and is the co-founder of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF). Dr. Grady is a pediatric urologist and a world- renowned expert in pediatric bladder reconstruction at Seattle Children's Hospital. Joining Dr. Shukla and Dr. Grady in India were Dr. Anjana Kundu, a Pediatric Anesthesiologist from Seattle Children's Hospital and Dr. Kenneth Smith, a Chief Resident in Urology at the University of Minnesota. I am especially proud of the fact that both Dr. Grady and Dr. Kundu are my constituents and that the Seattle Children's Hospital is in my district.

Dr. Shukla and Dr. Grady assembled their team of physicians and medical staff in the city of Ahmedabad and conducted 20 major reconstructive surgeries on children over an eight-day period, with each surgery lasting over twelve hours in duration. These children had serious urinary tract and genital abnormalities, which are the third most common congenital abnormality in the developing world. These abnormalities leave these children and young adults shunned and at the risk of further severe medical conditions. By performing these surgeries, these physicians have not only saved lives, they have transformed them.

While Dr. Shukla has been traveling to India twice a year for several years, with a commitment to build the much needed specialty of pediatric urology there with the support of the Hindu American Foundation. This latest medical mission could not have happened without the generous support of International Volunteers in Urology, a non- profit education and membership organization founded in 1995 by Dr. Catherine R. deVries. IVUmed's primary mission is to make quality urological care available to people around the world. The organization does so by organizing workshops where both physicians and nurses are trained and teams perform clinical evaluations, lectures, patient consultations and dozens of hands-on surgeries within a one to two-week period. In this way, IVUmed has provided treatment to thousands of men, women and children in nearly 30 countries in the areas of women's health, urology and tropical diseases.

IVUmed is unique because it is the only global nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching urology in developing countries. Their motto is ``Teach One--Reach Many.'' Many physicians in developing nations do not have the resources to travel and acquire the necessary training to improve their skills. By training local medical professionals who then train residents and other doctors, IVUmed transforms urologic care for entire regions in the developing world on a permanent basis. The organization has an over 6,000 volunteers and supporters around the world. In addition to treating thousands of patients, providing medical and surgical education to hundreds of physicians and nurses, IVUmed has also donated over half a million dollars worth of supplies and equipment to doctors around the world.

I would also like to recognize the numerous Indian physicians who contributed to the success of this medical mission: Dr. Balagopal Nair and Dr. Mohan Abraham with the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Center; Dr. P.K. Dave, Dr. Rakesh Joshi and Dr. Sudhir Chandna of the B.J. Medical College in Ahmedabad; Dr. Mahesh Desai with the Muljibhai Patel Urological Hospital; and Dr. D.K. Gupta and Minu Bajpai with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

Hindu philosophy teaches that Seva, or Service, if carried out selflessly, is the highest devotion. The compassion shown by this team of American and Indian physicians exemplifies this spirit. Their dedication in bettering the lives of so many children should serve as an insipration to us all. As a physician and the co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, I would like to commend the joint efforts of the talented physicians and individuals who made this medical mission such a success.

Mr. Speaker, my good friend from Texas, I couldn't have asked for a better setup man for a straight man because, I dare say, there are many Members at one time or another who had something to say hypocritical either on the floor or on the campaign trail. But I don't ever recall the blatant hypocrisy behind the cornerstone of an argument to deny benefits to hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, that is, until the recent debate about extending unemployment benefits.

The Senate Republicans, and now my House Republican colleagues, have cut off unemployment benefits for hundreds of thousands of jobless Americans for the last 2 weeks because they say they're upset about the budget deficit. Isn't that something. They claim we can't afford to help the unemployed unless the cost of these benefits is offset, even though Congress has routinely considered such benefits to be emergency spending which doesn't require offsets.

Maybe my mind is failing, I don't know, but I don't remember these concerns coming up from our Republican colleagues when there was discussion about the $1 trillion cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, not a penny of which was offset. President Bush never asked for any sacrifice from the American people. He said, We can just go out and fight a war and it will be paid for sometime when I'm not here. I also don't recall any Republicans expressing concern about the nearly $2 billion spent on two successive tax cuts that went mainly to the wealthy. That is why you will have to forgive me if I seem a little frustrated that Republicans have miraculously discovered fiscal responsibility. I don't know. They must have turned over a rock somewhere.

When they're talking about unemployment benefits, they suddenly worry about paying for it. A measly $18 billion. President Bush put us $3 trillion in debt, and now they're worrying about $18 billion. They were happy to help their President turn the biggest surplus in our Nation's history into the biggest deficit in our Nation's history, but now when it comes to help the unemployed workers and their families, Senate Republicans say we just can't afford to do it. So they delayed and obstructed the bill for weeks until the Senate finally cleared the Republican filibuster earlier this evening.

We're here tonight to pass that bill to provide an extension through May for a number of programs that are expiring at the end of the month, including Federal unemployment insurance. We're going to take another one of these votes in June.

We will be back here on June 1 going through this same charade all over again. We will hear about the terrible budget deficits. But the people who are unemployed and can't buy food to put it on the table, they're not listening to you people.

The benefits under this bill will be retroactive, so unemployed workers who were cut off during the last 2 weeks will receive compensation. That is the least we can do for those who have lost their job through no fault of their own.

Six weeks from now, as I say, we will be back to continue this again. We will be pushing for a much longer extension of Federal unemployment programs to ensure that jobless Americans are not continually held hostage every month to the Republicans and their hypocrisy.

I was recently reading an article about a man who was laid off. He had an MBA. He played by the rules, made a good living, but it was taking him many months to find work. He said, For someone that is unemployed right now, you need to turn off the news. It will affect the positive attitude you need to have. You've got to be positive, because it's not easy.''

Americans can't stomach this Republican hypocrisy anymore. And I sincerely hope that when the unemployed go to vote in this election, they remember the attitude of the Republicans toward them when they were in need, because maybe then the Republicans will get the message.