Floor Statements

Mr. President, the Senate will recess tomorrow in order to accommodate Senators attending the September 11 Congressional Remembrance Ceremony on the east front center steps of the Capitol.

Tomorrow, we will continue to work on an agreement that will allow us to complete business on the small business jobs bill. Senators will be notified when any agreement is reached and votes are scheduled.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent it adjourn under the previous order.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Madam President, last Wednesday, September 8, was a great day for Youngstown, OH, for my State, and for our country. On that day, the Chevy Cruze, a new car by General Motors--a high-mileage, medium-priced, lower priced car from Chevrolet--came off the line at the General Motors plant in Lordstown, OH.

To understand the significance of that and to understand how the news is so good, in spite of what the naysayers have said, let's turn the calendar back a little more than a year. Auto sales were down, about a year and a half ago, 40 percent. One million jobs were at risk of being lost on top of the 8 million jobs that had already been lost before President Obama took office. We remember that we were losing 800,000 jobs a month when President Obama took office. The auto industry was similar to the financial industry--about to collapse, including GM, Chrysler especially, and Ford was in some trouble. General Motors and Chrysler were especially in trouble.

Conservative politicians--many in this body and many in the House-- said: Let the market work. Let the free marketplace work. If General Motors and Chrysler declare bankruptcy and go under, so be it--so be it for the car dealerships in North Dakota, Louisiana, Washington, Nevada, and Ohio; so be it for all the supply chain that feeds into the auto industry throughout the Midwest and the South and all over the country; and so be it for GM, Ford, and Chrysler and the hundreds of thousands of people who work for those companies--not to mention the retirees who depended on the viability of these companies.

In spite of the naysayers, the conservative politicians who said just let it collapse, let the market work, and let the auto industry collapse, President Obama and the Democrats in the House and Senate stood firm and invested billions of dollars in Chrysler and General Motors and some into the tier 1, the top suppliers--the level 1 suppliers that supply these industries.

Look what happened last Tuesday. Last Wednesday, on September 8, in Lordstown, OH, some 1,300 people were hired for the third shift. They are now working three shifts. Auto plants and the component manufacturers all over the Midwest are now beginning to hire and beginning to put people back to work.

If we were to let this industry collapse, if we didn't do the right thing and help and invest in these companies, we would have been in a depression. I don't think any serious economist would dispute that. Because we did the right thing--the government--GM is starting to pay back the government for the investment so taxpayers will get most or all of their money back. People are going back to work, retirees are getting mostly what they are entitled to, and the suppliers at tier 1, 2, and others are being made whole.

The week before I was at the Chrysler plant in Toledo. Jeep Wranglers were coming off the line. Jeep Wranglers, 2 years ago, were only 65 percent domestic content. That meant only 65 percent of the components in the Jeep Wrangler were American made. Today, 79 percent--almost four-fifths--of Jeep Wranglers assembled in Toledo are coming from U.S.-made auto parts. That is what our recommitment to manufacturing means.

Thirty years ago, 30 percent of our GDP was in manufacturing, and only 11 percent in financial services. Today, that is almost flipped. We know what that led to--the financial collapse. Senator Dorgan has been on the Senate floor warning us about it for 10 years. It meant a decline in the middle class and in wages because manufacturing creates wealth, and manufacturing pays better wages. When we make the contrast on policies where we care about manufacturing and policies where we care about the middle class versus policies where we simply give tax cuts to the wealthy, we know what happens.

In the 8 years of President Clinton's Presidency, 22 million jobs were created--new jobs--and incomes went up. We had the largest surplus in the history of our country at the end of the Clinton Presidency.

President Bush left us, in 2009, with the largest budget deficit in American history. Some in this body say let the auto industry die and let the market work. Let's give more tax cuts to the wealthy and go back to the Bush philosophy, which got us into this situation.

In closing, I will read two letters from people in that part of Ohio. Brandon, from Poland, OH, wrote:

I am one of hundreds of thousands of autoworkers. But there

are millions more Americans among suppliers, dealers,

retirees and communities that depend on my industry for their

livelihood and well-being.

Our industry is the real economy that runs through Main

Street. When we emerged stronger and more competitive, we

will have a stronger economy and a more competitive America.

We stood up for Randall, from Warren, OH, who wrote when Congress and the administration were first considering how to save the auto industry:

I have been employed at General Motors Lordstown for over

31 years. My father, brothers, brother in law and father in

law have all been employed by General Motors. My son is

pursuing a degree in engineering partly financed by GM.

So many lost jobs would be a huge drain on the resources of

government agencies, not to mention how bad it will make our

country look in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Randall wrote this while the naysayers were saying let the market work and let GM and Ford collapse. He said:

My father said 30 years ago that ``if GM ever goes under,

America goes under.'' My greatest fear is that I will see

this come true. Please support the auto industry. Our future

[the future of our workers] is in your hands.

It is easy to say no, let the market work and don't do anything. When the cost of inaction is even more job losses than was brought on by the years of deregulation of Wall Street and cutting taxes for the rich and not paying for any of this--a political strategy built on saying no is more than just unproductive, it is unconscionable and simply wrong.

Yes.

There is no question if the auto industry had failed and gone under--and it was close to that happening, as we all know--and if the conservative politicians in this body and down the hall had their way, it would have collapsed and it would have meant disaster to our future way of life in terms of manufacturing.

Manufacturing creates wealth more than any other segment of our economy. It is the $20- and $30-an-hour jobs. It is the supply component, the suppliers and all the people who serve the industries, including the restaurants and the hardware stores around these companies. It is the truckers bringing

materials in and taking materials out. It is the building trade--the carpenters, pipe fitters, plumbers, and sheet metal workers who modernize the plant and get it ready for a new line of production. It is all of those things. All of that would have suffered job loss if we had followed the naysayers who said just let the market work.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota.

I will close. I wish Senator Dorgan had said there would have been more attention to the fact that the Lordstown plant, which has been there for 30 years, has added a shift of more than 1,000 workers and all that means for the supply chain and all the other jobs created.

But I wish more than that they could have heard the stories of individual workers and what it meant to be called back to work, what it meant to get this new job, what it meant so their house would not be foreclosed on, that they now have health insurance, that they now are able to send their kid to college. Those are the stories that matter-- 1,100 people in good-paying industrial jobs, plus thousands of other supporting jobs, and those peoples' lives are a whole lot better because people in this body had courage to stand up to the naysayers and say: We need to invest in this industry, invest in American manufacturing and make this country strong.

I thank the Presiding Officer. I thank especially Senator Landrieu, who will take the floor in a moment, for her leadership on this small business bill. We know that two out of three jobs are created by small business. No one has worked harder on that than the senior Senator from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, I rise to express strong support and to echo the comments of the previous speaker before Senator Landrieu, Senator Casey, for the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.

Chairwoman Lincoln has led the reauthorization efforts--chairing hearings of the Agriculture Committee, on which I sit, and speaking eloquently in this Chamber about what is at stake in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

The health and well-being of our Nation's children, it goes without saying, has a direct effect on the health and well-being of our Nation. Our economic security depends on a strong and capable workforce. Our national security depends on a highly skilled and physically fit military. In fact, when President Truman signed the National School Lunch Act--laying the foundation for President Johnson to sign the Child Nutrition Act of 1966--he did so at the request of our military leaders, who saw firsthand the malnutrition plaguing so many of our soldiers--especially rural soldiers, White and Black alike--in World War II.

When Congress passed the National School Lunch Act in 1946, it said:

It is hereby declared to be the policy of the Congress, as

a measure of national security, to safeguard the health and

well-being of the Nation's children.

Today, our military leaders once again support the Child Nutrition Act and have joined with hunger and nutrition advocates to urge Congress to pass this critical legislation.

So, too, are educators and business leaders and health care providers, who are worried about the costs of poor nutrition to our economy and our health care systems and the educational development of our children.

As Senator Casey said so well, hungry children simply cannot learn. And my guess is, there are few, if any, in this Chamber who went to school so hungry as kids that they could not learn. But it certainly is proven, and we know that from observing kids, from talking to children, from watching their performance.

Study after study indicates that access to healthy, nutritious foods is critical, obviously, to our children's health and their ability to learn. Yet the stories behind these studies put a real face on the issue of childhood hunger.

Twenty percent of Ohio children under 18 years of age--570,000 children--think of that, 1 out of 5 children in a State, in a generally wealthy State, in a very wealthy country; 20 percent, 1 out of 5 children in my State under 18 years of age, more than 500,000 children--live in food-insecure homes. Those numbers are comparable in the Presiding Officer's State, in cities such as Huntington and Charleston and Morgantown and Beckley and all over his State.

Too many students nationwide--more than 1 million children--slip through the cracks and do not receive free or reduced-priced lunches for which they are eligible. In Ohio, about 700,000 children are eligible for reduced-priced or free breakfast or lunch. Every day, that number is significantly fewer as to those children who actually receive lunch and breakfast.

Understand, too, on weekends in the summer months, those numbers shrink dramatically. There are feeding programs in the summers, but only about 1 out of 10 children who are eligible actually gets those free breakfasts, free lunches, free snacks in those summer months. So the effects of poor nutrition reach beyond the boundaries of hunger. It also fuels childhood obesity, ironically. So it plagues communities across the Nation.

That is why this reauthorization is so important. Every 5 years, we have a chance to make the programs and resources available to our children better and more effective. This year we did that, and the Senate passed it today.

The bill will improve the quality of food in the National School Lunch Program and make sure children who need the help most are actually getting it. Each day, some 30 million schoolchildren across the country participate in the National School Lunch Program, from cities as large as Cleveland and Cincinnati and Columbus to rural towns such as Gallipolis and Galion and Grafton.

Each school day, the number of schoolchildren receiving free or reduced-price meals increases as more families struggle with high unemployment and increased poverty. We know that during the extension of unemployment benefits, the number of families who lost their jobs, then lost their unemployment insurance, then lost their health care, then lost their cars in some cases and in far too many cases then lost their homes to foreclosure--that those families even more relied on the school breakfast and lunch program.

The reauthorization includes provisions from the Hunger Free Schools Act that Senator Casey from Pennsylvania and Senator Bennet from Colorado and I introduced earlier this year.

This legislation would auto-enroll eligible children and eliminate duplicative paperwork that costs schools and families valuable time and, in too many kids' cases, access to healthy school meals. It would allow eligible schools in high-poverty areas to serve universal free school lunches and breakfasts. In Ohio, an estimated 432 schools enrolling more than 150,000 students could opt into this program. So making this part of the reauthorization absolutely matters to embrace more children in these programs.

This bill is about reaching the very children--the neediest and most vulnerable--we should have been reaching in the first place.

The reauthorization would also expand the Afterschool Meal Program and the Summer Food Service Program, which play critical roles in childhood development outside of the classroom. We know that for particularly young children, if they are not eating right, their development as sentient, strong, healthy, intelligent human beings is significantly arrested.

Less than 10 percent of Ohio's eligible schoolchildren receive summer nutrition assistance. As I said, in rural Appalachia, across the river from the Presiding Officer's State, the numbers are bleaker as meal locations are fewer and farther between. The numbers are not good enough in Cleveland. They are not good enough in Youngstown. They are even worse in Malta and McConnelsville, in Pomeroy, in Piketon, and especially in the even more rural areas such as Colton in Jackson County, Coolville in Athens County, and those small remote areas where meal locations are even harder to reach. By strengthening these summer programs, we ensure more children have a nutritious breakfast, lunch, or snack during the summer months. It is a key ingredient in keeping children healthy, educated, and active.

Steve Garland of the E.L. Hardy Center--a summer feeding site outside of Columbus--tells a story of a single father with three sons who relies on the center for meals and mentoring. The father says that without the center, his young sons are at risk of falling behind in school and getting in trouble in the community.

It is not just keeping children fed. It also matters for their school work. It

matters for keeping them out of trouble. It matters for their intellectual development.

Fifty children per day in past summers would show up for a healthy meal and recreational activities at the Hardy Center. This summer, because of enthusiastic and dedicated VISTA volunteers, attendance at the Hardy Center has ballooned to 300 children per day.

Now, get this: Typically, only about 1 out of 10 eligible children across the country--Ohio is actually slightly above the national average--only about 1 out of 10 children across the country who are eligible for free breakfast and free lunch is getting it during the school year. Only 1 out of 10 gets these breakfasts, lunches, or snacks in the summer--1 out of 10.

That is why what we did when Senator Dorgan and Senator Kaufman and all of us worked together in expanding national service--VISTA; Peace Corps; City Year, which two of my daughters have been part of as volunteers; AmeriCorps; all of those programs--more of those kids, more of those volunteers are now helping these summer feeding programs.

So instead of feeding 50 people at the Hardy Center, thanks to the VISTA volunteers, 300 children--all those 300 were eligible last summer; they just were not there because they did not know about it, they could not get there, whatever--now, because of these VISTA volunteers, 300 children are getting fed almost every day this summer. That is the good news. The bad news is that Steve Garland of the Hardy Center says there are still some 5,000 children in the surrounding communities who do not have a site in their area.

I said 5,000, and that is just Columbus. That is not the whole State. That is not the whole country. That is 5,000 children in Columbus who aren't getting fed who are eligible, who won't do as well in this life probably because they are not getting adequate nutrition as children.

When the President signs this bill into law, we will help countless other community leaders such as Steve provide more meals and activities to keep our children healthy.

The reauthorization dramatically reshapes and updates nutrition standards to help us reduce childhood obesity rates ands put healthier food in school cafeterias.

Steve Grundy, director of Nutrition Services for Dayton Public Schools, faces the choice between doing what is right--feeding our children healthy foods--and what is cost-effective--serving cheaper, less healthy foods.

Craig Hokenberry of Cincinnati Public Schools sees children with stunted growth because they have too little to eat. Without access to healthier fresh foods, families and schools look to the local food bank for afterschool or weekend meals. Because they are just getting these programs during the week, they are getting breakfast and lunch. Weekends, not so good; summers, not so good.

As Nora Nees of Ohio's Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks can attest to, these programs are in demand now more than ever.

Ginny Black in Columbus teaches children about healthy eating habits. Ms. Black has been a school nurse in Columbus for more than 20 years. She has seen firsthand how good nutrition contributes to higher academic achievement and better classroom behavior. According to her, reauthorizing the Child Nutrition Act means no more vending machines with junk food, no more having to rely on outside vendors for pizzas and burgers.

I was recently in Mansfield, my home town, about 50,000 people, visiting with community health workers at CHAP--women who travel across the country to provide prenatal care for underserved communities. CHAP is a facet of the social service safety net that is working to improve outcomes and reduce costs, but it is stretched thin.

By authorizing the Child Nutrition Act, we can help these workers and educators and parents do much more for our Nation's children. The more children who are healthy, the more we can lower rates of childhood obesity and diabetes. The more children who are not going hungry during school, the greater their chance to learn and succeed.

It is important we took this step today. This legislation means not just a lot for hungry children today; it means a lot for the future of this country, because children who in the past have not been so well served will have the opportunity to eat better, will have the opportunity to grow better, will have the opportunity to intellectually develop better, and will have the opportunity to be healthier. We owe that to our children. We took an important step.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, Columbus, OH, the State's capital city, is home to more than 710,000 Ohioans who trace their heritage from a mix of races, religions, and ethnicities. Many Columbus residents can trace their heritage back to Germany, Italy, and England. Neighborhoods like German Village, Italian Village and Victorian Village are examples of places these new Americans created in the early 20th century.

Recent waves of immigration have brought men and women from Somalia, Vietnam, and Mexico to the city and our State.

Throughout the demographic changes to Columbus, there remains one small community that continues to draw from the strength of their shared experiences.

Mr. President, 217 Holocaust survivors reside in the city of Columbus and its suburbs from Bexley to New Albany. Among the unforgettable stories told by these heroic men and women is 97-year-old Abraham Weinrib, of the Berwick neighborhood, southeast of Columbus.

Mr. Weinrib's journey from hardship to hope began in 1939 when he and his family were forced from their home in Lodz, Poland. After being forcefully removed from his home in Lodz, he fled

to Warsaw, Poland, where on September 6, 1939 at the age of 25 Mr. Weinrib was arrested by the Nazi's.

For the next 5\1/2\ years, he was sent to a total of nine concentration camps.

In Hanover, Germany, he was a slave laborer at the Continental rubber factory, where he made tires for Nazis to use against the Allied troops.

At Bergen-Belsen, he was forced to drag dead prisoners to a ditch to be buried in mass graves.

On April 14, 1945, Mr. Weinrib, weak with typhus, fell asleep on top of one of these mass graves. That night, he woke up from the open grave and stumbled into nearby barracks. There he found English troops liberating the camp.

Unfortunately, Mr. Weinrib's parents, two older brothers, and most of his extended family were among the more than 6 million Jews who perished during the war.

Mr. Weinrib spent the next year in a Swedish hospital recovering from years of starvation, beatings, and a gunshot to his forehead.

After regaining his strength, Mr. Weinrib began to attend events through a Holocaust survivor's club in Sweden. There he met a young woman named Anna who was freed from Auschwitz in 1945. Together, they spent more than a year recovering in the hospital and several more years recovering at home in Sweden. By 1950, Anna and Abraham Weinrib married and had their first child, Ruth, in 1952.

In 1954, after living with his sister Hela who also survived the war Mr. and Mrs. Weinrib left Stockholm and moved to Columbus where Mr. Weinrib's brother's Morrui and Chaim lived. In Columbus, Mr. Weinrib was hired by Sam Melton to work at a Capitol Supply factory. Mr. Weinrib quickly rose through the ranks from line-worker to manager. Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Weinrib raised three children, sending them to school and working hard to ensure they had every opportunity that was robbed from their own youth.

Prior to Anna's passing in 1979, Mr. Weinrib rarely spoke of his experiences during the war. But since then, he uses his own experience to ensure that future generations never forget the tragedy of the Holocaust.

Abraham Weinrib has become a fixture at the Jewish Community Center in Columbus and frequently speaks to students throughout the community. At one recent speaking engagement, a student asked Mr. Weinrib what his experiences during the Holocaust can teach younger generations. Without hesitation, he responded with his thick polish accent, that ``life is short; you have to be nice to each other.''

Then, Mr. Weinrib referred to a heartbreaking experience he remembers during his time at Auschwitz. The Nazi's were separating prisoners into two lines, those who were old enough and healthy enough to work, and those who were not. One young mother was unwilling to be separated from her young daughter. Both were sent to the crematorium.

Abraham Weinrib has seen firsthand what intolerance, prejudice, and hate can do to undermine our basic humanity. He talks about how unfair and challenging life can be but does not attribute his survival or the survival of three of his siblings to any sort of miracle. Instead, he attributes his survival to the ability to persevere.

His own children have also used the strength of their father to succeed. The three Weinrib children--Bruce, Ruth, and Irene--overcame many of the hardships often faced by first-generation children: parents with a limited understanding of English, low paying jobs, and the feeling of being an outsider. By any measure, all three children have succeeded. Ruth and Bruce are both graduates of the Ohio State University. All three children have postsecondary degrees, and all have made Abe a proud grandfather of seven grandchildren.

The impact Abraham Weinrib has had on his family and community is clear and the message he shares is powerful. Elie Wiesel said ``Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.'' Abraham Weinrib is helping to ensure that generations to come will learn his enduring lessons.

Thank you, Abraham Weinrib, for all that you do to make our State and Nation live up to our highest ideals.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor some 30 members of the Armed Forces who were killed in action serving our country. Five years ago this week, 19 marines from the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment lost their lives while serving in Iraq. It was one of the most catastrophic IED attacks on our forces up until that time in the war. Eleven of those marines were from the Lima Company, an Infantry Reserve company with marines from Cincinnati, Chillicothe, Tallmage, Willoughby, Delaware, and Grove City, OH.

Headquartered in Brook Part, OH, the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, known as the 3/25, deployed to Iraq on February 28, 2005. Upon arriving in Iraq, they were indispensable. They trained Iraqi security forces. They conducted critical stability and security operations in and around the cities of Iraq's Al Anbar Province.

From May to August of that year, 5 years ago, they tracked down insurgents, disrupted enemy transportation routes, and seized weapons caches.

They participated in Operation Matador to eliminate an insurgent sanctuary north of the Euphrates River. In doing so, they disrupted a major insurgent smuggling route and gained valuable intelligence.

During Operation New Market, the Lima Company of 3/25 swept a hostile area near Haditha, Iraq.

In June of 2005, during Operation Spear, they helped clear the city of Karabila and recovered Iraqi hostages and destroyed several weapons caches.

From August 1 to 3, 2005, the Lima Company participated in the Battle of Haditha, a code-named Operation Quick Strike. This operation was launched after a marine unit of the 3/25 was attacked and killed by a large group of insurgents on August 1, 2005.

On August 3, 2005, the 3/25 were en route to the initial attack when their amphibious assault vehicle hit a pair of double-stacked antitank mines. The vehicle was completely destroyed in the explosion, and 15 of the 16 marines inside the vehicle died. All of the marines killed were assigned to the 3/25; 11 belonged to the Lima Company. At the time, the Lima Company was one of the hardest hit marine units in the war. In the span of 72 hours--from August 1 to August 3, 2005--19 marines with the 3/25 were killed by insurgents or insurgent-made IEDs.

Yet in the wake of losing their fellow marines, the Lima Company continued to carry out their mission to disrupt the militant presence in the surrounding areas.

Returning from Iraq, the Lima Company was welcomed by family members, friends, and communities. Many families, however, tragically were unable to welcome home their son, husband, father, or loved one.

Over the course of their 7-month deployment, the marines of the 3/25 participated in 15 regimental and battalion operations; 33 of them were killed in action.

We should again honor these heroes. I have met the families of many of these men--they were all men--many of these marines who were killed in action. I spent time talking with many of them about their sons or their husbands or their fathers or their loved ones.

Five years after the Lima Company's single greatest loss, we remember the marines who lost their lives early in those days of August 2005. I wish to share the names with my colleagues in the Senate:

Cpl Jeffrey A. Boskovitch, 25, of Seven Hills, OH;

Sgt David Coullard, 32, of Glastonbury, CT;

LCpl Daniel Deyarmin, Jr. 22, of Tallmadge, OH;

LCpl Brian Montgomery, 26, of Willoughby, OH;

Sgt Nathaniel Rock, 26, of Toronto, OH;

LCpl Christopher Jenkins Dyer, 19, of Cincinnati, OH;

LCpl William Brett Wightman, 22, of Sabina, OH;

LCpl Edward August ``Augie'' Schroeder II, 23, of Columbus, OH. His parents live in Cleveland.

LCpl Aaron Reed, 21, of Chillicothe, OH;

Cpl David Stewart, 24, of Bogalusa, LA;

Cpl David Kenneth Kreuter, 26, of Cincinnati, OH;

Sgt Justin Hoffman, 27, of Delaware, OH;

LCpl Eric Bernholtz, 23, of Grove City, OH;

LCpl Timothy Bell, Jr., 22, of West Chester, OH;

LCpl Michael Cifuentes, 25, of Fairfield, OH.

The families and communities of the Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Corps Regiment have since banded together to immortalize the lives of their fallen heroes.

Two years ago, a set of eight life-size paintings was unveiled at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, with each marine's boots and an eternal flame placed below his likeness. The memorial is currently on display at the Museum of the Marine Corps just outside Washington, DC, in Quantico, VA. These men are remembered and they are honored through a standing granite memorial at Lima Company's headquarters at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base just outside of Columbus.

Most notably, these fallen men are immortalized in the hearts, minds, and lives of their families and fellow marines.

When I talk still with family members, they are so interested in our continuing to memorialize and remember in our hearts and our minds and in public displays, such as this when possible, the sacrifice of their relatives.

Today we remember and we honor these courageous men. Their sacrifice has not gone unnoticed by the people of a proud State and a grateful nation.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Thank you, Madam President.

Madam President, today is a historic day, in some sense. Five years ago today, President Bush signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement, on August 2, 2005.

A month earlier--I was a Member of the House of Representatives then--the majority leader, Tom DeLay, a Republican from Texas, held the 15-minute typical vote--a rollcall vote in the House of Representatives is normally held open for 15, 20 minutes, at the most--he held the 15- minute vote open for more than an hour while last-minute deals were made. The U.S. Trade Representative was camped just off the House floor. He was a former Member of Congress.

According to news reports, after this hour delay, arms were ``twisted into a thousand pieces.'' Republicans who were opposed or undecided were courted during hurried meetings in Capitol hallways, on the House floor, and at the White House. Republican leaders told rank-and-file, reluctant Republicans, who really did not want to vote for this deal, that now is time to ask, that deals could be cut.

Members took advantage of the opportunity by requesting such things as fundraising appearances by the Vice President and the restoration of money the White House had tried to cut from agricultural programs. That is how they passed it.

People, even Republican House Members, who were generally enthralled to corporate interests, who normally would go with the drug companies, the insurance companies, the large financial institutions, who would almost always vote for them, even many of them wanted to vote no, but because of this, as the paper said, arm twisting ``into a thousand pieces'' on the House floor, enough of them voted for it to pass the bill.

When the 15-minutes had expired, the vote was 175 ``yes,'' 180 ``no.'' So in order to pass it, they had to keep the rollcall open for about another hour to twist these arms and finally pass the legislation, if I recall, by 1 vote.

We know what has happened. The Central American Free Trade Agreement has not worked any better than other trade agreements. We know that job loss in the last 10 years--because of PNTR with China, passed by the Senate 10 years ago this fall--we know, in Ohio alone, we have seen job loss to the Dominican Republic from the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the CAFTA. We have seen job loss from a company in Marysville, a company in Miamisburg, a company in Hudson, OH. We have seen job loss all over the country. We have seen it with the North American Free Trade Agreement. We have seen it with the PNTR with China. And we have seen it with the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

I was at a plant today in Parma, OH, a suburb of Cleveland, the corporate headquarters of GraphTech. It is a company that used to be part of Union Carbide and is actually the plant where the Eveready battery originated. They specialize in graphite for major industrial concerns such as the steel industry. They also make graphite for solar, for all kinds of things, for flat screen TVs, for electronic equipment. They, as so many other companies, are doing well. They have actually hired 60 people in the last year. They are looking to hire more. I spoke to about 150 workers today. Most of them do not do production in this facility. But they have production in Lakewood, right nearby, a few miles away in another suburb of Cleveland.

But this company is always under threat from China gaming the system. When I was talking to workers and management, I was talking about how China, because of its currency--this competition from China has been so difficult for American companies because they do not play fair.

I was speaking to an expert who deals a lot with China. I said: Because of this huge trade deficit we have with China--we buy a lot more from China than we export to them--do they laugh at us?

He said: No, they don't laugh at us. They just think we are a declining power.

It breaks my heart to think China thinks that, but it breaks my heart even more when I see what is happening to our manufacturing base.

This company, GraphTech, is so important for our economic future, but so is getting these trade agreements right.

The Obama administration, fortunately, has just this week launched an action to announce that the United States will file a case against Guatemala under the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement--the CAFTA--for apparent violations of obligations on labor rights. It is the first time a President has done that. That is good news. That salvages some of the damage done by the Central American Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA, because for decades our government has negotiated trade agreements which give lipservice to protecting workers while looking the other way when there were clear violations of labor rights. We are willing to protect intellectual property in Hollywood films, but we are not so willing to protect workers in the environment.

This action by the Obama administration, again, is a good thing, but we need to do much, much more. We have all kinds of petitions filed, and requests, from industries and workers in this country who have been wronged, cheated, gamed by the trade agreements that have passed, and we clearly need the Obama administration on our side fighting for American workers, fighting for American jobs. It did not happen in the previous administration, to the tune of millions of jobs lost, millions of manufacturing jobs lost in the 8 years of the Bush administration, with their Trade Representative who always seemed to side with large corporations in this country that outsourced jobs to China but did not side with American workers and small manufacturers in places such as Lima and Zanesville and Mansfield, OH.

So as we commemorate today, the 5-year anniversary of President Bush's

signing of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, I hope we have learned some lessons. I hope, as we observe this 5-year anniversary, as we observe the 10-year anniversary of allowing China, under permanent normal trade relations, into the World Trade Organization--and how they do not play fair as a member of that body, and how we are not willing to stand up to them as a country and force them to play fair--I hope we are learning these lessons, as we have lost too many manufacturing jobs. We were losing manufacturing jobs when our economy was going much better 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago, in part because the Bush administration did not enforce any of the trade laws that could benefit us. But we are, obviously, doing even worse now with this economy. That is why President Obama's actions on some of the CAFTA enforcement of labor rights is so very important. But it does not obviate the need for us to look at these trade laws again to figure out what works and what does not work.

We know what does not work. We know more trade agreements only dig us deeper into a hole. That does not serve American workers. It does not serve those American companies that cannot compete when China games the system on currency and other things, and it does not serve those communities where these businesses are located.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after addressing the Senate for 5 minutes, Senator Inhofe be next in line.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma, and I thank Senator Udall from Colorado for his words.

Each day in towns and cities across my State of Ohio, small business owners and manufacturers will walk into a bank and apply for a loan to expand their business. They have workers, they have the capacity to grow, and they have orders for sales. They want to hire more workers. Too often, though, a creditworthy bakery shop owner, an auto supply manufacturer, or a clean energy entrepreneur will be turned away, snuffing out their dream and our economic recovery.

The strength of our economy depends on the strength of our small businesses. We know that about half of all employees in my State of Ohio and in most places across the country work in small businesses. We know that about two-thirds of jobs created in this country come from small business. Whether it is to create these jobs or supply services to other businesses or export products to new markets, small businesses, of course, rely on access to credit. Yet bank lending dropped by $578 billion last year--the largest decline since the 1940s. That means 60 percent of small businesses in America reported they didn't have the credit they needed to meet their business needs.

It is unacceptable that the same banks taxpayers helped save when the economy faltered are refusing to lend to responsible small businesses with good credit histories and good business plans. Many of these banks are building massive reservoirs of cash rather than making simple loans or extending lines of credit to small businesses. As a result, small businesses are denied the capital they desperately need to expand operations and hire more workers. That need is especially acute for Ohio manufacturers that have higher operating expenses, large upfront costs, and complex machinery to maintain. The issue of easing access to credit for manufacturers has been simmering for more than a year.

For the past year, I have chaired several hearings in the Banking Subcommittee on Economic Policy on how to restore credit to Main Street. We examined how to fix the problems to small business borrowing and lending programs, having heard directly from small manufacturers and other small businesses and small and big banks.

Chairwoman Landrieu of the Small Business Committee has assembled a powerful small business bill that strengthens our economic recovery by partnering business and government. Senator Snowe has made significant contributions to this bill. There are few stronger advocates for small business and small manufacturers than she is.

This bill has several provisions that will help small business owners access new credit, refinance existing debt, and open cash flow as the economy continues to recover.

Last week, we took a big step toward helping small businesses in this country by ending debate on the amendment to add a $30 billion lending fund to the bill. I applaud Senator Voinovich, the senior Senator in my State, and Senator LeMieux for their work and support.

A key feature in the bill is the State Small Business Credit Initiative Program, a program I have worked on with Senators Levin and Warner and Stabenow, along with the Secretary of the Treasury. This program would help small business owners and manufacturers whose collateral--it might be commercial real estate or it might be factory equipment--depreciated during the recession.

It is the same collateral, but it is not worth as much because of what has happened to the economy.

Too many small business owners have been forced to pay higher interest rates on their loans, through no fault of their own, because their underlying collateral lost value due to the weakened real estate market and overall economy.

Almost daily, Governor Ted Strickland and I hear from small business owners who would benefit from the program, along with other State-based small business lending initiatives.

The bill also extends the Recovery Act's Small Business Administration-backed loans, which have already helped create more than 650,000 jobs nationwide.

Because of these loans, small businesses can now create jobs and generate tax revenue for communities across Ohio, at no cost to taxpayers.

By extending these loans, startup small businesses could buy new equipment, or existing small businesses can make long-term investments to expand operations.

My office has held more than a dozen SBA workshops across Ohio--in New Philadelphia, Chillicothe, Toledo, Akron, Youngstown, Cleveland, and Columbus--to connect more than a thousand small businesses with SBA resources. Clearly, there is a demand for these types of loans, which is one of the reasons the bill is so important.

Let's not forget that 2 years ago, our economy was on the brink of another Great Depression. When President Obama took office, we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. Today, we are growing the economy--not fast enough, and there is not enough job creation to hire everybody back who lost their jobs. We know that. And there is not enough job creation to hire high school and college graduates and young men and women returning from service in the military. We are growing, but we are not growing the economy at the speed we need. We need to continue the growth.

From the Recovery Act, to the health care bill, to financial reform, we are helping small business owners achieve the American dream of entrepreneurship, while rebuilding the economy along the way.

Through the Small Business Jobs Act, more small business owners can walk into a bank and receive the loans they need to expand operations, hire new workers, and get our economy back on track.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the senior Senator from New York. How much time remains?

Mr. President, yesterday, in the Rose Garden, President Obama made clear the choice Members of this body face as they vote on the DISCLOSE Act. It is a choice between granting special interests unfettered and secret influence over their elections and the choice of ensuring basic protections to voices of everyday Americans.

Again, these will be ads run by interest groups that do not identify themselves--unfettered, secret, unlimited in the amount of money they can spend to elect their friends to Congress.

We know what happened in 2009 when corporations spent over $3 billion lobbying Congress to influence their agenda. We know with the Wall Street bill and the health care bill, more than $1 million a day was spent to weaken those laws. We know what ultimately happens, what happens when this kind of special interest influence descends on this body. First of all, the money they spend in elections to elect their friends and allies--BP, the drug companies, the insurance industries, the big companies that outsource jobs from the United States to China-- we know what happens when they spend money to elect their friends, and we know what happens when they lobby in the Halls of Congress.

We saw examples of that particularly during the Bush years. I was in the

House of Representatives in those days, as was the Presiding Officer representing a district in New Mexico. We saw in those days the drug companies writing the Medicare legislation. The legislation was a bailout for the drug and insurance companies in the name of Medicare privatization. We saw it on trade issues. We saw the big companies that outsource jobs write trade agreements, such as NAFTA and CAFTA. On health care issues, we saw the big insurance companies writing legislation, assisting President Bush in getting his pro-insurance company legislation through. We know on the energy legislation, something the Presiding Officer worked to try to fix--unfortunately, we were all unsuccessful in the Bush years--with regard to writing energy legislation, we saw the oil companies do that.

If we do not fix this, if we do not pass the Schumer bill, we are going to see a further betrayal of the middle class, further betrayal of democratic ideals--democratic with a small ``d.'' We no longer can brook in this institution, giving the drug companies the authority to write Medicare legislation, the insurance companies the ability to write health care legislation, the big companies that outsource the ability to write trade legislation, the oil industry to write energy legislation. It has happened over and over again. We should have learned this lesson this decade.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are very comfortable with helping their benefactors, with helping the oil industry, the drug companies, the insurance companies, and those big companies that move overseas and outsource our jobs. That is why the DISCLOSE Act is very important. Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, you do not want to see our democratic system become the puppet of corporate America or any other special interest. You do not want to give corporations the ability to drown out the voices of the people--their customers, workers, and, frankly, their shareholders.

The least we can do is empower citizens with information to evaluate the motives behind corporate and special interest spending. I do not want to see these huge dollars spent in these races, to be sure. But at a minimum, we have to make sure the public knows who is spending it, who the executives are who will benefit from these huge expenditures from the drug and insurance companies, from the oil industry, and those big companies that outsource.

It is a pretty clear choice. A vote for the DISCLOSE Act, a vote for cloture is a vote for the public interest. A vote against cloture, a vote against the DISCLOSE Act is getting right in line with giving those special interests--Wall Street, the drug companies, the insurance companies, the big companies that outsource jobs, the oil industry-- what they want.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Harkin.

Before I was in the Senate, for several years in the House I watched from afar the work Senator Harkin did. No one, and I mean no one--we hear a lot of accolades here; not always as genuine, perhaps, as they should be, but this one absolutely is--no one has worked as hard or as effectively as Senator Harkin has on issues affecting people with disabilities. It is personal for him, but Senator Harkin has taken up what was a personal issue for him growing up, about his brother and now about his nephew, and the impact it has had on him and the impact it has had on America is terrific and is unmatched.

I know Senator Kennedy, about whom we still think so often, was a major driver of this and other civil rights issues. But I would say Senator Harkin has been second to none, advocating for his brother, for his nephew, but for Iowans and Ohioans and Californians and North Dakotans--all over this country, New Yorkers--everyone, those Americans with disabilities who typically make less money or are less likely to be employed because of discrimination and because of biases that we all probably too often too much hold.

Senator Harkin has always risen above that and challenged people to do the right thing on this civil rights issue and on so many other civil rights issues. For that I am grateful, as a protege, to Tom Harkin, as a mentor and well beyond that.

We know this coming month marks the 20th anniversary of the passage of one of our Nation's most important civil rights laws. It is always important to reiterate this is a civil rights issue. It does not always get as much attention as a civil rights issue, but it absolutely is a civil rights issue that affects the human right and civil right of all Americans, especially those people with disability. For the last 20 years the Americans With Disabilities Act has helped educate a child with cerebral palsy or multiple sclerosis. It has broken down employment barriers for all kinds of people with disabilities--those who are blind, those who are deaf--so many Americans. Places of work and recreation, from a courthouse to a ball park, because of this Americans With Disabilities Act, are more accessible to the wheelchair bound. So, too, are public accommodations and public transportation.

Those in this body who are as old or older than I can remember how different the world looked in terms of curbs, in terms of stairs, in terms of access, just physical access to all kinds of public facilities, let alone private facilities; how different things were before 1990 when the Americans With Disabilities Act was signed into law by the first President Bush.

Modern conveniences from the telephone to the Internet are not technological barriers but means, now, of social inclusiveness and economic opportunity. The ADA has increased graduation rates for Americans with disabilities, and it has increased public safety on our streets and in our hospitals. Simply put, since the ADA passed 20 years ago, more than 50 million--1 out of 6 of our 300 million citizens in this country--more than 50 million Americans in this country have had a greater opportunity to enjoy basic rights and

privileges afforded to every American. That is due in large part to Senator Harkin's leadership on this bill.

He speaks about the lack of opportunities his deaf brother Frank had in school and in the workplace. At the same time he speaks about his nephew, a quadriplegic veteran, who used the GI Bill to go to school, used a wheelchair and accessible van to live a self-sufficient life. That is the difference when government chooses to assert its responsibility to extend equal opportunity to all its citizens. I understand Senator Harkin's office is currently conducting a tour of 99 counties to collect the stories of Iowans who have benefited from the ADA. In many ways, these stories also honor the activists in the community, advocates in the courtroom, the physicians and nurses' aides and physical therapists and occupational therapists in hospitals, who pushed for change decades before the ADA.

The ADA was not the culmination of our work because it continues. But understand how many people worked so many years, working side by side with the Senator Harkins of this body and others, to bring forward that legislation 20 years ago.

In my State, in Ohio, independent living centers and ability centers across the State have long provided the support services for Ohioans with disabilities that the law had failed to do. Ohio's school for the deaf was established in 1829 in a small house across from what is now the Capitol on Broad and High Streets in downtown Columbus. It provided the education the law did not require, in those days, of all education institutions. Through much of the last century, the 20th century, friends and families of Americans with disabilities were forced, day in and day out, to overcome daily obstacles because there was no law to help.

In the absence of a law remained the incessant bias and the chilling stigma that held back our Nation's progress--as it did with voting, with gender discrimination, as it did with racial discrimination. Passage of the ADA teaches us that wisdom and goodness persist in each of us, despite efforts to marginalize and discriminate by some of us.

Across Ohio on Monday--at the Statehouse in Columbus, independent living centers in Dayton and Cincinnati, and at the Great Lakes ADA Center in Cleveland--Ohioans will celebrate the importance of the ADA with friends and family.

In Toledo, the ability center will celebrate its 90th anniversary with an ADA celebration at the Toledo zoo, bringing together children and families to celebrate a ``Journey Together--Justice, Equality and Community.'' Such demonstrations celebrate how far laws protecting those with disabilities have come and how much work we still need to do.

We know that Americans with disabilities continue to face employment barriers, sometime legal, more often not, but based often on bias and prejudice and stigma and all the mix of human emotions that are not always so admirable in all of us. Americans with disabilities are twice more likely to live in poverty than their fellow citizens, with higher rates of unemployment and, don't forget, higher rates of underemployment. We know like all progress in our Nation the march for justice and equality for the disabled was not easy. Passage of civil rights, voting rights, labor rights is not ever easy. The fight for women's rights and fair pay was not easy. The passage of Medicare and Medicaid, recent health insurance reform was not easy. The fight is always worth it.

I wear in my lapel a pin depicting a canary in a birdcage. It was given to me 10 years ago at a workers Memorial Day rally celebrating those workers who had lost a limb or even their lives on the job. The canary says to me 100 years ago workers in this country who went down in our mines had no union strong enough or government that cared enough to protect them. They were on their own. That is why they took the canary down in the mine. If the canary died from toxic gas or lack of oxygen, the mine worker on his own had to get out of that mine.

We know what has happened in the hundred years since--mine safety laws, although obviously not quite good enough and not enforced often enough and effectively enough. We know what else happened: Medicare/ Medicaid, civil rights, Social Security, ban on child labor, safe drinking water, clean air, seatbelts, airbags--all the kinds of things that have made our lives richer and better and longer in a way that no country on Earth before us had ever achieved.

Add the Americans With Disabilities Act to that long line of success, of a fight for justice in human rights that was not easy. Every one of those whom this canary pin represents, every one of those pieces of progress, whether it is the Food and Drug Administration, safe food, clean air, safe drinking water, Americans With Disabilities Act, civil rights, prohibition on child labor--every one of those victories came at great cost and with great effort. That is the story of the Americans With Disabilities Act. It is part of that lineage of government stepping in to extend equality and opportunity to all Americans, understanding some number of people in this body and in this country think there is not much of a role of government for a lot of things, but they need to think about that canary in the cage.

They need to think that 90 percent of this country thinks there should be strong mine safety laws, there should be strong civil rights laws, there should be strong labor laws, there should be strong pure food laws and safe drinking water and clean air and auto safety and all those things we do.

On April 4, 1864, President Lincoln signed into Federal law the authorization to confer collegiate degrees to the deaf and hard of hearing at a campus here in Washington, DC. To this day, Gallaudet University is the only liberal arts university in the world dedicated to the pursuit of access to higher education for deaf and hard-of- hearing people.

For the past year, I have had the honor to serve on the Board of Trustees at Gallaudet University. I did so at the behest of Senator Harkin, who has reinforced for me the responsibility we all have to serving the public good. A visit to Gallaudet University is a visit to an institution that is a model for what we should be doing in this country in civil rights and rights for Americans with disabilities.

Three years before signing Gallaudet's charter, President Lincoln celebrated our Nation's 85th year of independence, in 1861, by declaring to the Congress:

The principal aim of the US government should be--

These are Lincoln's words--

The principal aim of the US government should be to elevate

the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all

shoulders--to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all--

and to afford all, an unfettered start and a fair chance in

the race of life.

As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the ADA, let's work so each American has that unfettered start and that each American has that fair chance, just a fair chance, not a guaranteed result but a fair chance, to achieve the American dream, that our Nation be free of prejudice and bias and, instead, full of opportunity and access.

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

Madam President, I join with Senator Mikulski from Maryland and her comments about extending unemployment benefits.

We all know these numbers. In my State, 47,000 Ohioans lost their unemployment benefits. At the end of June, that number increased dramatically to more than 90,000. If we don't pass the extension today, or this week, at the end of July more than 80,000 additional Ohioans will lose their benefits. These numbers are incredible. I think it is important to put a human face on these numbers, in large part because 41 Members of the Senate, overwhelmingly Republicans and one Democrat, have consistently voted to filibuster, to block extending unemployment insurance.

I guess the reason for that is they think of these as numbers. They don't think of these as people because I cannot imagine, when they call their names out in the well and they respond and say no over and over and over, as has happened over the last 7 weeks--it is just an amazing thing to me. I think my colleagues who vote no, the 39 or 40 Republicans who vote no, must see this unemployment insurance as welfare. I know some of them think that. But it is insurance. We don't call it unemployment welfare, we call it unemployment insurance.

That means they pay in when they are working, and they get help when they are not. That is done to help individual people, of course. It matters to the community because the dollars they get in their pockets, the $300, $320, roughly, that people get a week on average in unemployment insurance are spending it at the local drugstore. They are spending it at a local grocery store. They are buying clothes for their kids. They are paying rent, paying utilities. They serve as an economic stimulus. It is not just helping those individuals, it is an economic stimulus, as Senator McCain's top aide and his top economic adviser in his Presidential campaign said. This is the best kind of stimulus for the economy. Put a dollar in somebody's pocket for unemployment insurance and they spend it, and it is spent over and over in the community.

President Obama said yesterday that there has been a tradition under both Democratic and Republican Presidents to offer emergency relief to the unemployed. When the economy is bad, that is when we need to do this. For the Republicans to say we need to cut other programs to pay for this--they never said that when we were spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They didn't say pay for that; they said charge that to our grandchildren.

They didn't say pay for it when it was a bailout to the drug and insurance companies in the name of Medicare privatization; they said just bill that to our grandchildren.

When it was tax cuts for the rich--and some of our Republican Senate colleagues said it again this last week--we don't pay for tax cuts for the rich; we just add it to our children's and our grandchildren's credit cards and their tax burden in the future. But when it comes to workers, they look at it differently. Tax cuts for the rich, a bailout for the drug and insurance companies, spending it on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is OK. But it is not OK to spend it on unemployed workers.

So I just am not sure my colleagues ever put a human face on this. They just see these as numbers. I don't know how many of my colleagues sit down and listen to unemployed workers who have lost their jobs--a worker who lost her job, then she lost her health insurance and had to explain to her children that: We are going to have to move because we are going to have our house foreclosed on; we cannot afford the mortgage. They are going to switch school districts, with all of the uncertainties. Can you imagine that--sitting down with your children and doing that? It is happening all too often that people are explaining to their children that they are going to have to move, they are not going to have their own room anymore and they will not go to the same school, and they will not be able to buy the tennis shoes they thought they would get. All those kinds of discussions are happening all over America, in part because people are losing their unemployment insurance.

I will share four brief letters with my colleagues. This is trying to help people understand that real people are losing their unemployment benefits. It is a real hardship.

First is Jillian from Holmes County in Millersburg, OH, one of the smallest, least populous counties. She wrote:

My husband is one of the 83,000 Ohioans who lost

unemployment benefits in June. He was working in the same job

for 14 years until he was recently laid off. Our family has

struggled to keep the bills paid. Our mortgage has been

consistently one month behind. And each month, more late fees

are tacked on. Now that his unemployment benefits have

expired, our utility bills are now one month behind. Please

help to get this extension passed.

This is exactly what I hear from constituent after constituent in Ohio. They work hard. Many have worked the same jobs for years, and many have been in the same line of work for 10 to 20 years. These are not lazy people who don't want to work. They lost their jobs through no doing of their own. They have nowhere to turn, and their unemployment benefits have run out.

I ask my colleagues--today we have another chance to vote to join us in helping Jillian and others.

Larry is from Shelby County, another rural county close to the Indiana border, a town called Sidney, the county seat. He wrote:

The lack of movement on extending unemployment benefits is

causing major system devastation to workers unable to find

employment. Loss of these benefits has become devastating to

me and my family. The extreme added emotional and financial

stress has exacerbated an otherwise manageable physical

condition into a borderline disability. I do not want to lose

my capacity to search for and secure employment due to

physical stress brought on by economic hardship. Please fight

to extend these critical benefits.

So often, what my Republican colleagues seem to think is that people don't have to go out and look for work, but they are out looking for work. These people are not staying home not trying to find a job. To receive unemployment benefits, you have to demonstrate to the local employment office that you are looking for a job.

With all of the economic hardships and the troubles and potential loss of car, house, job, and potentially insurance, there is also an emotional toll taken on people. Larry illustrates that.

Richard is from Summit County, the Akron area. He wrote:

I am a 67-year-old American who has worked for more than 50

years of my life. I got laid off last year and had been

receiving unemployment benefits since then. I was thankful

for it because it helped me make my house payments. But when

I got cut off last month, I went into panic mode. My blood

pressure shot up and I ended up in the ER. I have never felt

so scared and uncertain of the future as I am now. I didn't

plan to stop working. It just happened. I am headed to the

welfare office today.

I just hate what this country has become where Senators

can't relate to us common folk. Is there any hope for us?

The answer is yes. With the appointment of a new Senator from West Virginia, we will likely have the 60th vote. We have 39 Republicans and 1 Democrat who have voted consistently to allow us to filibuster. A majority of us, 59, have voted--the Presiding Officer and I and 57 others have consistently

voted to extend unemployment benefits. Yet, because of a minority of 41, they have been able to stop the debate and this bill from moving forward. Look at the stress it has caused Richard and the anguish it has caused Larry from Shelby County. Look at what Jillian and her husband are facing.

Here is the last letter. This is from Joan from Montgomery County, which is Dayton:

I am an unemployment accountant with a college degree. I

was laid off last year when my small law firm merged with a

larger one. There was no position for me in the new firm. I

decided to go back to school, using up much of my retirement

and my husband's savings. I reduced my hours at school and

went part-time. I was able to collect unemployment benefits,

but since it has run out, my savings are dwindling rapidly.

Given the high level of unemployment in Ohio, extending federal unemployment benefits is imperative. We can't afford further delay. Two weeks is a long time for someone whose only means of support is unemployment benefits. I hope the Senate passes an extension in the next few days.

As I said to her, we hope we will do that today, and the President will sign it quickly and the benefits will go out. I hope more than a couple of Republicans will join us so we can pass this with a significant vote. Some of these are people who have gone back to college, and they work hard. They are people who have been in the workplace for 10, 20, 30 years. They have a good work ethic.

Again, Joan is from Montgomery County--a county that has been hit especially hard, as DHL shut down there and the GM plant shut down, and National Cash Register up and moved to Atlanta. There have been some good things happening but not enough. That is why we need to extend these benefits today, get this done so we can focus on job creation and help people get back to work.

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