Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. President, last April a German clothing company, Hugo Boss, announced it was planning to close down its only North American manufacturing plant located in Brooklyn, OH, outside of Cleveland. Hugo Boss told us they were going to expand their American sales force but shut down all U.S. production. Despite the Cleveland plant being profitable--a plant that had been in existence for decades and decades prior to Hugo Boss purchasing it--Hugo Boss planned to move its Cleveland production to the country of Turkey.

I recognize Hugo Boss's desire to expand their sales force by eliminating production in the United States and shipping it to Turkey-- a sad but all too common story in our Nation today--but it was a devastating announcement for the workers and for the community in Brooklyn, OH. Cleveland has a long and storied history of manufacturing clothes and apparel, in addition to chemicals and steel and autos and so much else. In Brooklyn, a suburb of Cleveland, a factory is a source of pride and economic prosperity. Yet despite the shock and disappointment of the announcement, the community rallied behind the workers.

In the ensuing months, Governor Strickland and I met Hugo Boss executives and workers. I talked to the Hugo Boss people in Germany by phone. I went to the plant and talked to workers, heard their stories-- often workers who had been there 10, 20, 30 years, husbands and wives working together at the plant making no more than $15 an hour. So these were not jobs that paid a lot of money or made a lot of people rich, but they were jobs that gave particularly immigrant workers a real opportunity in this country to work. They had decent health benefits, and they made a wage that they could at least make a go of it.

Earlier this year, in February, when I traveled to meet with some of those 400 workers, I began to hear these stories. As I said, the workers make no more than $15 an hour, and many make less than that. They are paid decent benefits but barely enough to keep these working families in the middle class. These workers did everything they could to keep this plant profitable. Their work meant everything to the community.

When the decision to close the factory was made, Joe Costigan, Sue Brown, Mark Milko, and Dallas Sells--all of Workers United--fought tirelessly on behalf of these workers. Mayor Richard Balbier rallied the community to help keep the plant open, recognizing a healthy manufacturing sector means a healthy and prosperous community. In the meantime, management, workers, elected officials, and community leaders all continued to work together to find a way to keep the factory open.

Exactly a year later, in April 2010, an agreement was made that would keep workers in their jobs and would sustain that community's economy. These workers agreed to absorb wage cuts. Many of them went from $12 or $13 an hour down to $10 or $11 an hour.

Yesterday, we celebrated what happens when we work together to save a plant and a community. Yesterday, Governor Strickland and I joined 200 workers and Hugo Boss executives to celebrate the first suit off the line of this restarted manufacturing plant. Wanda Navarro and Sheila McVay were among those who spoke. Sheila McVay introduced the Governor, and Ms. Navarro introduced me. But before they did so, they spoke eloquently of what being back to work means. I am proud to have stood by Wanda and Sheila and those who fought for the classic American success story.

I wear a suit. The suit I have on today was union made in Cleveland, OH, by these workers. One of these workers came up to me as I was standing there and she pointed to the vest pocket of the suit, saying: I make those vest pockets; I probably sewed that one. It makes me proud to have worked with Workers United and Hugo Boss to ensure that a premier global company continues to invest in this town, in this State, in American manufacturing.

Yesterday marked a new chapter for this company's global competitiveness and for our community's economic prosperity. But that celebration yesterday must be viewed in the context of what is happening all too often in our country. The closing of a plant too often means moving it offshore. It looks like a good deal for the company's quarterly financial statement. That is initially what Hugo Boss thought when they were going to close this plant--a profitable plant--and move to it Turkey: manufacture more clothes, sell more clothes in Turkey, increase their U.S. sales force, and sell more of them back into the United States. We know that story can be told again and again, when U.S. trade law, U.S. tax laws, and companies think about the next quarter more than they do the next year or the next decade and outsource those jobs, then sell the products back into the United States.

As an example, I was meeting with someone today who is working to push the Commerce Department to simply enforce U.S. trade law and enforce or stop some of the currency manipulation by the People's Republic of China. He told me that only 10 years ago we had 19 million manufacturing jobs in the United States. Today, we are down to about 11 million. Yet China has some 100 million people working in manufacturing.

For the last two decades, manufacturing has steadily declined, as financial services expanded. The Presiding Officer from Delaware has worked on and has talked about this. He understands this in terms of what has happened with manufacturing versus what has happened with financial services. Only 30 years ago, manufacturing made up more than a quarter of our Nation's GDP, our Nation's gross domestic product. Financial services was only 11 percent of our gross domestic product. Today, those numbers are almost reversed, where manufacturing is only about half of what it was as a percentage of GDP and financial services is double what it was. Look where that brought us as a nation. Look what happened to our jobs. Look what happened to the middle class.

People at Hugo Boss and these other companies make things. People in this country who make things can provide a middle-class lifestyle for their loved ones and their families. If we stop relying on manufacturing as something that is important to us as a nation--not everything but something important to us as a nation--we will see the middle class continue to atrophy and decline.

We need a national manufacturing strategy that ensures that trade agreements and tax laws come down on the side of workers and communities, not encourages investors to go overseas, make things in China and then send them back to the United States. We need a national manufacturing strategy that once again invests in American workers and incentivizes companies to promote manufacturing innovation. We need a national manufacturing strategy that recognizes manufacturing has been and always will be a ticket to the middle class for millions of Americans. That is what manufacturing means to workers at the Hugo Boss plant in Brooklyn, OH, a suburb of Cleveland. That is what it means to workers in communities in Toledo and Dayton and Cincinnati and Lima and Mansfield, OH, and that is what it means to the middle class all over this great country.

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

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

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

Madam President, it is, I believe, day 42 since 41 Members of the Senate have blocked us through filibuster, through obstructionism, through threat of tying up the Senate and shutting it down basically so that we have not been able to extend unemployment benefits to workers in Charlotte, in Ashville, NC, and Columbus and Cleveland, OH. It is unconscionable. It is unfair to those workers who have worked for 20 years and lost their jobs through no doing of their own. It is bad economics.

Presidential candidate McCain's economic adviser, Mark Zandi, during the Presidential campaign said every dollar of unemployment benefits generates $1.60 in economic growth. He examined various kinds of expenditures--everything from tax cuts to a whole bunch of other government programs--and what would stimulate the economy best, from road construction to small business tax breaks, all the kinds of things that we could do for job growth.

He said--this is Republican John McCain who voted against unemployment extension--his economic adviser in the Presidential race said the best stimulus for the economy is unemployment benefits because every dollar that goes into the pocket of an unemployed worker in Lima, Gallipolis, Steubenville, or Miamisburg, OH, generates $1.60 in economic activity. That means they spend that dollar quickly because they need that money to pay their rent, to pay for utilities, to buy groceries, to go to the drugstore--to do all the things that are necessities of life that are obviously so important.

As the Akron Beacon Journal analyzed, Summit County emergency cash assistance cases rose 27 percent from May 2009 to May 2010. Food stamp cases climbed 22 percent over the same period.

It is an economic equation, to be sure, that extending unemployment benefits is the best thing for our economy. It is also a human equation, for all the problems people face in our country of not being able to simply provide for their families.

We can talk about the statistics; 90,000 Ohioans have seen their unemployment benefits expire. Forty-one Members of this body--40 of them Republicans--have said no to extending these benefits. We know these numbers. We see them all the time. We are blinded sometimes by all the statistics.

I would like to, as I do many days, put a human face on this issue and share what people in my State write to me telling me what these unemployment benefits mean to them.

Lisa from Cuyahoga County, the Cleveland area:

Please do not strand us here on the sea of uncertainty and

washed up on the shore of ruin. That statement may be

dramatic, but that is how it feels out here.

In my case, if I was guaranteed a 40 hour a week job

working at a fast food restaurant, I would take it in a

heartbeat.

I am currently taking care of my elderly mother college age

daughter on $213 a week after taxes. Do you know how far that

goes? I have to pay rent, electric bills, and put food on the

table. I am a single mother. How am I supposed to live?

I sit in a bedroom away from my mother and daughter and cry

because I feel I have failed by family and we are headed for

ruin. We already lost the family home due to unscrupulous

lenders. Now I am one rent check away from being homeless.

Please, I am begging you to be my voice and the voice of

the unemployed in Washington.

Again, these are people who want to work. Some of my colleagues, some of the 41 who vote no consistently--we have tried week after week to bring this legislation to a vote--seem to think unemployment is welfare. It is not welfare. Many of the letters I get are from people who worked in the same job 20 and 30 years and lost that job and are trying to find work, as they are required to under the law. If you draw unemployment benefits, you are required to continue to look for work. You send out resumes, make visits to the plant, the office, or restaurant to try to get a job.

Every one of these workers paid in. This is not welfare; this is insurance. Every one of these workers paid into the unemployment insurance fund, and now when they are unemployed, they are deserving of collecting on their insurance, if you will.

Rebecca from Lorain County--that is the county in which I live in west Cleveland--works for Catholic Charities helping the unemployed:

My job is trying to find resources for the people in need.

Every day I am deluged with requests for rental and mortgage

assistance by many who have exhausted their unemployment

benefits and have not been able to find other employment.

One gentleman in particular is an unemployed steelworker of

over 25 years who is raising a 2-year-old son by himself. His

home is about to be foreclosed on and his employment benefits

have run out. What else can he do? What can I do to assist

him?

I look across the aisle when we are all in this Chamber and I think: 41 people voted against the extension of unemployment benefits. I think all of us are a bit too isolated in this job. We are paid well. We get a lot of attention. We all have good staffs, fairly large staffs of 40, 50, 60 people both in Washington and our States, in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Lorain. I don't know that we talk with enough people who have been in a situation that she writes about the steelworker--25 years and raising a 2-year-old son by himself.

Lisa from Cuyahoga County is taking care of her elderly mother and college-age daughter and already lost her home. I know empathy is in short supply in this world and particularly in the Senate. I wish each of us would read these letters and sit down and talk with somebody such as Lisa who first lost her job. Then she lost her health care. Then she has to explain to her daughter: Honey, we are not going to be able to stay in this house much longer because we cannot afford the rent--or got foreclosed.

Mom, where are we going to live?

I don't know yet.

Am I going to be able to go to the same grade school I go to now?

I don't know yet, honey, if that is going to happen.

How are we going to move? How are we going to move our stuff?

I don't know. We have to figure that out.

These are questions people such as us do not have to answer very often, are not faced with. If my 41 colleagues would sit down and listen to people who deal with these problems, who experience these problems, it might be a different situation.

The last letter I will read is from Marjorie from Summit County. That is in the Akron area:

I have been unemployed since January. My husband lost his

job shortly before that. We are both college graduates. My

husband has a master's degree.

Since we are both 61 years of age, employers are not hiring

us because we are not the right fit for the position because

we are either overqualified and/or too old.

Our house is on the market because we are reaching a point

where we will be unable to make mortgage payments.

We have always done the right thing raising our children

and being responsible citizens. But now we can't even keep a

roof over our heads.

Something is not right when people make generalizations--as

they are doing now--about people like us who want to work,

who want to take care of themselves, and who are tired of

being shunned because we are ``one of those people.''

We do not like the deficit growth, but we paid our taxes,

and we did not create this recession.

Please share our story with those who are in a position to,

at least, help us with something.

I don't know Marjorie, but I received this letter from her. I know from every indication that she and her husband have worked their whole lives. They are highly educated. Both have college degrees. One has a master's degree. They are not people who are unmotivated. They have lived in this house a long time. They do not want to sell their house, but they do not have much choice.

Why can't 60 of us, with these sometimes dysfunctional Senate rules, with just one person from the other side of the aisle, one Republican, join in voting, or a couple of them come over here and vote for this extension so we can get the 60 votes we need? They are only going to get $300 a week in unemployment benefits. Most of these people have paid into these funds for 10, 20, 30 years, never collecting anything. But they are only going to get $300 a week.

They are not going to be rich. It is not so much money that they will think: I don't want to bother going to work. I don't want to keep looking for a job. They have to keep looking for a job.

It is the right thing to do morally. It is the right thing to do because of the values we hold dear in this country. It is the right thing to do for economic reasons. As Senator McCain's chief economic adviser in his Presidential race said: Nothing stimulates the economy more than putting this money into the community in Ravenna or Mansfield or Warren or Findlay and getting this generation of economic activity which will help to create more jobs and help to get us out of this recession.

I implore again my colleagues to support the extension of unemployment benefits.

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak about the extension of unemployment benefits, something we talked about 2 weeks ago before we left town. It is something we talked about the week before that and the week before that. There has been a lot of talk, and there has been continued opposition from Senate Republicans.

I am incredulous that we have seen week after week after week--it has been 41 days since the Congress let unemployment insurance lapse. It was on June 4, 41 days ago. It is not because a lot of us didn't want to see it happen. It is because of an obscure--less obscure to the public than it was--60-vote rule. The Republicans did not just oppose the unemployment benefits extension--there are a couple of Republicans who voted for it, but of the 41 Republicans there was overwhelming opposition, virtually 90 percent of them--it is not just that they voted no. Let them vote no. They actually filibustered. They actually blocked us from even voting on the extension of unemployment benefits.

It is unfair to the unemployed who face a difficult job market through no fault of their own, and it is bad economics. We know Senator McCain, Presidential candidate McCain's economic adviser, among others, pointed out that money going out for the extension of unemployment benefits actually stimulates the economy better than any other dollars going into the economy. The money that goes to an unemployed teacher or an unemployed steelworker or an unemployed clerk or an unemployed computer programmer is money that is spent almost immediately because they have bills they have to pay. That money goes right into the community. We see a multiplier effect.

When the humanitarian response is to extend unemployment benefits, and the best economic policy response is to extend unemployment benefits, most of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--39 out of 41 of them, I believe--have voted no.

June unemployment was 9.5 percent. We know a year and a half ago 700,000 Americans lost their jobs; 700,000 Americans lost their jobs the month that Barack Obama became President. Things are better now. We are seeing job increases. In April, in Ohio, we had the biggest job increase of any State in the country: 37,000 new jobs. But that is not close to dealing with the unemployment brought on by the economic policies of deregulating Wall Street, cutting taxes for the rich, and not paying for anything--the war, the tax cuts, the bailouts to the drug and insurance companies in the name of privatizing Medicare.

Never before has Congress cut off benefits when unemployment was so high. Until recently, it has always been a bipartisan extension of unemployment benefits. Overwhelming numbers of Republicans and Democrats voted to extend unemployment benefits. I just keep trying to explain to my colleagues who vote no on the unemployment benefits extension that this is not welfare, this is insurance. People pay into the unemployment insurance fund and get benefits when they lose their jobs. At the same time, nobody gets these benefits unless they actively seek work; unless they are sending out resumes, doing interviews, going and visiting businesses, employers, whatever they can do to try to find jobs. Yet the Republicans continue to deny the extension for unemployment benefits.

Our workers deserve more than this crass political gamesmanship that an overwhelming number of Republican Senators are playing. July 1 was one of the busiest days ever at the Summit County Department of Jobs and Family Services. It was the first of the month, and because of Republican obstructionism--because they voted not just against extending unemployment benefits, they voted to filibuster our even considering these extension of benefits--because it was the first of the month and because of Republican obstructionism, this body failed to extend unemployment benefits. Staff members at the Summit County Department of Jobs and Family Services typically assist 300 to 400 clients a day. On July 1 twice that number were served by midday, and four times that number were seen by the close of business.

So a typical day of 300 or 400, 300-plus clients at the Summit County Jobs and Family Services turned into 600 before midday, and 1,200 by the close of business. The staff at the Department of Jobs and Family Services in Akron, led by Ms. Pat Divokey and County Executive Russ Pry, is doing everything they can to help working middle-class Ohioans. But when 90,000 Ohioans across the State are in need of an extension of unemployment benefits--90,000 people--it is time for this body to step up. Ninety thousand is a lot of people. It is almost hard to imagine.

I think what is important is to think about these 90,000 as individual human beings. I wish to share a handful of letters I received from Ohioans--just three of them--to put a human face on this issue. It is incredible to me to think about this many people who are so unsure whether they are going to have any money to feed their kids, to pay their mortgage and their utility bills in the weeks ahead because of the 60-vote rule, and this body has not been able to extend unemployment benefits because of a Republican filibuster.

Let me read a letter from Judith of Franklin County. It is the county where Columbus is located, the State capital.

I am very disappointed that the unemployment extension has

not passed. I was laid off after working in my job for 20

years. I have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree and I

have worked for 35 years since I graduated. I have never been

without a job until now.

I understand the growing budget deficit, but what are

working people supposed to do when we can't find a job?

These are not people who don't want to work. Whether they are in Albuquerque or Santa Fe or whether they are in Truth or Consequences, these are people who want to go to work. They are people who have worked their whole lives and are used to showing up to work. They can't find jobs. I hear this prattle from the other side of the aisle that this is some kind of welfare scheme. It is not. These people want to work. Most people who are filing for unemployment are people who, No. 1, have worked for years and, No. 2, continue to search for a job; they cannot get an unemployment extension unless they do.

The second letter is from Pat from the Mahoning Valley, in the Youngstown area:

I am a 25-year veteran of the accounting industry, but I

was recently laid off.

My employers have paid into the federal and state

unemployment funds for me for those 25 years that I worked.

And now for the first time I need to collect those benefits

until I secure new employment.

While Congress plays political games, I have bills to pay

and work to find.

Mr. President, he points out exactly this. He works in the accounting industry. He understands it. He understands that it is good economics to extend these unemployment benefits to people who lost their jobs, and he understands fundamentally that for the 25 years he worked for this accounting firm or for a number of accounting firms--I don't know whether Pat is a man or a woman, so he or she was paying--Pat's employer was paying into this insurance fund. So it is not welfare, in spite of what my Republican colleagues say.

You know, the other thing that is absolutely amazing in what Pat said and what Judith said about the growing budget deficit--the Presiding Officer was in the House of Representatives for several years representing a district in northern New Mexico. He saw year

after year when the Republicans didn't care about the budget deficit. They voted for hundreds of billions of dollars in spending for a war that I know the Presiding Officer and I both voted against that was not paid for. They voted for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that were not paid for. They voted for a giveaway to the drug and insurance companies--a bailout--in the name of Medicare privatization that was not paid for. Again, they voted for these huge government expenditures and charged it to our grandchildren and said it was OK. But now that it is the unemployed middle-class, working Americans who are laid off, they think we cannot do this because of the budget deficit.

What are their priorities of the Republican Senators who voted against the unemployment extension? They were willing to charge it to our grandchildren to fight the war in Iraq, they are willing to bail out the drug and insurance companies, and they were willing to charge it to our grandchildren when it came to tax cuts for the richest Americans. When it came to workers losing their jobs, they are not willing to move forward and help them. It is amazing.

The last letter comes from Jeff from Butler County, a conservative county north of Cincinnati in southwest Ohio, one of the most conservative counties in Ohio.

I worked at my job for 36 years till my employer shut down

our plant recently.

All those years I paid into unemployment.

While I'd prefer to have a job and earn a decent wage, I

now need unemployment benefits until that happens.

Think of the big picture. The people paying into the system

should be the first to receive benefits.

Jeff is right. He understands that he paid into unemployment for 36 years, and now Republican Senators won't let him draw from that fund. I just don't get it when I think of what this does to people.

I guess I will close with this: I wish the Senators who voted no--and there are 41--on the extension of unemployment--we have had several votes and continue to fall 1 or 2 votes short--I wish they would sit down with a family and listen to them, not respond but listen to a family where workers lost their jobs; listen to the woman talking about losing health care, when she talks about telling her children that they are going to have their home foreclosed on and what are they going to do; explain to their children--they have teenage children, say--explain to them that Mom and Dad lost their jobs and their insurance, and now they have to move out of their house because they cannot afford it.

The children may ask: Where are we going to move?

They would say: We don't know that yet.

What school are we going to go to?

We don't know that yet.

That is why I come to the floor and read letters from people in Ohio. I wish Senators would listen to people in their States. We get a lot of mail. We come across a lot of numbers and statistics. I wish they would pick up some of the letters they get. I know Senators all over this country are getting letters like this. There are very few States--maybe energy States or heavy agricultural States--that haven't been afflicted with unemployment the way California, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Florida, and so many States have. Maybe they don't understand. But those Senators from States that have high unemployment--and that is most of the country--I wish they would read their letters and hear what people are saying.

We are going to try again this week. I ask my colleagues to vote to extend unemployment benefits. It is morally the right thing to do in terms of economic policy. It is the right policy, and we should not wait any longer.

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

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 438, S. 2872.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendments be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read the third time and passed; that the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate; that any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 289, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the

table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 13; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; and that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

Mr. President, tomorrow, the majority leader wishes to resume consideration of H.R. 5297, the small business jobs bill.

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

Mr. President, it is unfortunate to watch what just happened again in this institution. The chair of the Small Business Committee, who is serving her State, is an incredible advocate for her State, is serving this country well, wants this government to be able to govern. And you see one after another after another where the President of the United States has dozens and dozens and dozens of appointees, noncontroversial. My guess is, when this nominee finally comes to a vote--I don't know this for sure, but my guess is there will be very few ``no'' votes. We have seen this with Federal judges, we have seen it with U.S. attorneys, we have seen it with U.S. marshals, and we have seen it with Under Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries and all kinds of commission nominees.

We have never seen anything like this in this country where one party has consistently and persistently blocked nominee after nominee after nominee. I mean, if your goal in government--if you come to the Senate and your goal is to block anything from happening, the Senate rules serve you pretty well. But if you want to move this country forward and put party aside, we would not see this kind of thing happen over and over.

So I commend Senator Landrieu for her work on the floor today, her passionate advocacy for small business, and her work generally in fighting for her State. But I was disturbed to watch what just happened. If it were the only time, I guess I wouldn't be judging of it much, but it is not.

I come to the floor to talk about the unemployment insurance bill. I know Senator Landrieu, in her State, and the Presiding Officer, Senator Merkley, in his State of Oregon, have people all over who have seen their unemployment run out. I just don't get it.

I know some of the opponents, some of the people who have voted no on unemployment compensation extension think it is welfare. I have heard some of them say: Well, these people don't really want to work. Why should we give them something for nothing?

Well, these are people who deserve unemployment. They have earned the unemployment. They deserve the unemployment insurance. They have earned it. Again, it is not called unemployment welfare; it is called unemployment insurance. You pay in when you are working; you get out when you are not. So it is a lot like car insurance and health insurance. I don't want to collect on my car insurance premium. I don't want to collect on it. I don't want to ever have an accident that hurts somebody or damages a car. I have been in an accident like that. I don't want that to happen again. I don't want to have to cash in any of my health insurance. I don't want to be sick. I don't want my children to be sick. I don't want to be unemployed so I have to draw unemployment compensation. Most Americans don't want to be.

I just wonder about some of my friends on the other side of the aisle who think about this--they really think it is welfare. I just ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to put themselves in another place. I know virtually all of us get out enough that we meet people who are unemployed occasionally, and I know we are pretty isolated here too often. But, you know, a lot of us meet people who are unemployed, people who have lost their insurance. These people sometimes have lost their homes. But I think it is important that we think about what that means and try to personalize it, try to think about a husband and wife--one is working part time, not making much money, the other one lost their job, and then they lost their insurance because they can't afford the payment for COBRA.

COBRA is a bit of a cruel hoax. COBRA is the program where you can keep your insurance after you lose your job, but you have to pay your part as the employee and then you have to pay the employer premium. And if you lost your job, how could you? Well, we have subsidized that. We have actually under the Recovery Act, as the Presiding Officer knows in his work on this bill in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, helped people to pay that COBRA so they can keep their insurance.

But put yourself in the place--since we can't seem to get the Republicans to go along with that, either, now--put yourself in the place of that family. The husband has lost his job. The wife, who was making only a little bit of money, is struggling. They lost their insurance. Someone gets a little sick. They have these bills run up. They are getting 2 or 3 months behind on their mortgage. They have to sit down with their family. They have to sit down with their teenage kids and say: You know dad lost his job. You know mom cannot find more than part-time work. You know we do not have insurance anymore. You know Jimmy got sick. Well, we are behind on our house payments. We are going to have to move. We are going to have to sell our house. We are going to get foreclosed on.

You have to explain to your kids that they are not going to have a room to sleep in--separate rooms--anymore. They are going to have to give away some of the stuff they have around the house or try to sell it. They are going to have to go to a new school.

What new school, dad?

Well, I don't know what school district we are going to move to.

I just wish my colleagues, when they cast these ``no'' votes on unemployment insurance and cast these ``no'' votes on the extension of COBRA to help people keep health care, that they would think about what it means to an individual family.

I mean, these are all numbers. I can give you some great numbers here. I can give you these numbers: The number of Americans who will lose their unemployment benefits: 1.3 million by the end of this week; 1.7 million by the end of next week; 2.1 million by the end of our congressional recess next week; 3.2 million by the end of July. These are pretty troubling numbers, but forget the numbers. I am going to read from some letters of people in Ohio that will explain better than I can what this means to individual Ohioans or individual Oregonians or individual Floridians or Louisianians or Kentuckians.

And if you want to make it an economic argument, make it an economic argument. Forget about the human faces for a minute. Make it an economic argument. If people are not getting their unemployment insurance, it means they are not spending money in

the community. You know what has happened when people receive unemployment benefits. The first 6 months following the passage of the Recovery Act, unemployment insurance pumped $19 billion into the local economy. If we hadn't done that in this recession President Obama inherited a year and a half ago when we were losing 700,000 jobs a month, we would have been losing 800,000 or 900,000 because this $19 billion wouldn't have been pumped into the economy--grocery stores, going in and buying clothes for the kids, getting medicine, stopping at the drugstore--all of the things that keep economic activity generating in a community and provide jobs.

The first half of this year, $6 billion went in benefits to the States. It would have meant layoffs of librarians and mental health counselors and teachers and police officers and firefighters and people who are cleaning the streets and picking up garbage. There would have been more layoffs, more unemployment, less economic activity.

So it is pretty clear, if you want to look at the economics of this and listen to one of Senator McCain's chief economic advisers who said that nothing more than a dollar in unemployment has a greater multiplying effect than that. That means for every dollar in unemployment compensation, it generates a lot of economic activity. That dollar isn't pocketed. That dollar is spent by the unemployed worker to take care of his or her family's needs. It is the best thing for the economy to pump unemployment compensation into the economy.

Yet time after time over the last several weeks Republicans have opposed extending unemployment benefits. Of all things to draw the line on. I hear the arguments over and over. They say we can't keep adding to the national debt. I was in the House of Representatives when they ran up the budget deficit, when George Bush and the Republicans ran up the debt. In 2000, when President Clinton left the White House, we had a budget surplus projected to be trillions of dollars in the years ahead.

What happened? War with Iraq, hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for the war charged to our grandchildren; tax cuts for the rich, hundreds of billions of dollars, charged to the grandchildren; a giveaway to the drug and insurance industries in the name of Medicare privatization, charged to the grandchildren. They don't mind spending us into deficit for two wars, for tax cuts for the rich, and for a giveaway to the drug and insurance companies. But now that it is time to give about $300 a week to workers who have lost jobs and to help them keep their insurance, they say we can't afford it. They don't want to run up the budget deficit. What does that say about values and about us as a country?

I don't get it. No matter how irrational or how much they want to play to the crowd and say: I am standing up against big government, they didn't stand up for taxpayers to pay for the wars, tax cuts for the rich, and bailouts for drug companies and insurance companies. All of a sudden they are standing up for taxpayers when it comes to funding unemployment benefits and health care benefits for those workers who lost their jobs and lost health insurance.

I will close with reading four letters from people around my State. I get hundreds of these. I know the Senator from Oregon gets them from Portland and all over his State. I get them from all over my State. I will start with Mark from Wood County, just south of Toledo, home of one of the great universities in our country, Bowling Green.

Mark writes:

I send out on average 5 resumes a week, yet I almost never

hear back from employers. I have had only one interview,

though I didn't get the job.

I am not lazy. I want to work and I am trying to find work.

I didn't quit my job, my employer quit on me and everyone

else they laid off.

We need unemployment benefits extended, please don't turn

your back on us.

These are millions of people around the country. What Mark says is what most of them would say: Please don't turn your back on us.

Jennifer from Geauga County, southeast of Cleveland, writes:

I am a single mother of three beautiful girls. I am also an

experienced architect. But late last year, I was laid off

from a large engineering firm in Northeast Ohio.

I have been desperately seeking a job for the last six

months, but my industry has still not recovered.

What do I do now? I have been working 20 years in my field.

I am already four months behind on my mortgage.

Where do I even get the money to pay for it and the other

expenses to care for my family?

What do I do?

These are not people who don't want to work. I am sickened by some of my colleagues who think this is welfare, who think these people really don't want to work. Jennifer is a woman with three children, a professional, an architect. She has been working 20 years in her field.

All of these people are required to send out resumes week after week. They are required to make calls and try to find jobs. They can't find them because of the economy President Obama inherited a year and a half ago--again, 700,000 jobs we were losing a month when the President took office. My State was lucky enough in April to have a bigger job gain than any State in the country, 37,000 jobs. But that is not nearly enough to make up for the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost because of this economy, because of bad trade policy, because of outsourcing of jobs, because of all that has happened with the financial crisis.

Jill from Franklin County writes:

I am very disappointed the Senate has not passed an

extension for those of us still facing unemployment.

I have been out of work for six months, even though I have

a Master's Degree.

I have never lived beyond my means, but without the small

check I get from unemployment, I will be losing my home at

the end of July.

Please find a way to pass this bill. Please help us.

I was not making it up when I said if somebody loses their job, they lose their insurance. Then they too often lose their home because a bunch of Republicans want to vote no on the extension of unemployment benefits, crying: We have to cut spending.

I am sorry to say it over and over, but when I hear them say we can't afford it, when they didn't say that when it was tax cuts for the rich, paying for the war, or bailing out the drug companies and the insurance companies in the name of Medicare privatization--they only want to do it when it is unemployed workers. That is wrong.

The last letter I will read is from Amy from Perry County, a small rural county southeast of Columbus:

My husband is trying very hard to find a job. For the

government not to pass extensions is beyond me.

I am a nurse and work two jobs to help make up the

difference of my husband's lost wages.

Our hard working American citizens who helped build this

country are now in need of this country's help.

Please urge other Senators to vote this bill through.

I couldn't say it better than Jennifer and Mark and Amy and Jill. They are all typical, hard-working Americans who have done the right thing. Some are very well educated, all are hardworking. Many have gone back to school to improve themselves. This is the economy they have inherited because of a whole bunch of bad policy decisions in the last 10 years. They are the ones paying for it. That is just not right.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, over the last few days, we have watched President Obama's Cabinet Members and leaders of the G20 nations in Toronto for an economic summit.

Our trade relationship with China has been one of the most important among many issues the world's leaders have addressed.

We know Ohio's workers and manufacturers can compete with anyone in the world, but China's currency manipulation imposes an enormous and an unfair competitive disadvantage to our workers and our manufacturers.

While last week's announcement that China will allow a gradual appreciation of the value of the yuan is encouraging, we have all too often seen China revert to its old tricks when the spotlight fades. In fact, China made its announcement on a Saturday--a minimalist announcement at that--and the next day backpedaled even on that announcement.

China's systemic intervention in the currency market, where they continue to buy Western currency, has led to the undervaluation of the yuan by up to 40 percent--some economists say even more than that. That means China has a distinct advantage for its exporters and puts our exporters at a distinct disadvantage when they try to get into the Chinese market. That is why we asked the Commerce Department to make the important decision to investigate China's currency manipulation on behalf of paper manufacturers in Ohio and several other States. These companies and their workers in West Carlton, OH, and in Miamisburg, OH, are holding on for their lives, and, like manufacturers and workers around the United States, they understand why our trade law's enforcement and remedies are so vital. They know firsthand why our trade laws must combat currency manipulation.

If we fail to act, China's currency manipulation will continue to contribute to our country's staggering trade deficit with China. Our trade deficit with China in the last 3 years, particularly prior to our terrible financial situation, approached $1 billion a day. That means we bought from China $1 billion more than we sold to them, day-in and day-out, 365 days a year.

Senators Graham, Schumer, Stabenow, and I are calling for a vote on our legislation that addresses this blatant currency manipulation to ensure that we take action on Chinese imports until the yuan rises to its fair market value.

It is clear that our manufacturers are backed into a corner. It is also clear that it did not have to be this way. Ten years ago this summer, Congress passed permanent normal trade relations with China as our Nation entered the 21st century facing great economic opportunities and confronting gathering national security threats. You remember 10 years ago we had a balanced budget, until the Bush years with tax cuts for the rich, the giveaway for the drug and insurance companies in the name of Medicare privatization, and two wars, all of which were charged to our grandchildren, none of which were paid for. We had an economic situation where we were beginning to lose manufacturing jobs.

I remember those days, serving in the House, and recall that every Member of Congress--literally probably every single Member of Congress--was told, even those of us who were outspokenly against this PNTR with China--we were told repeatedly in newspaper ads and editorials, told in hundreds of individual visits by CEOs of Americas largest companies--they walked into our office and said: We want access to 1.2 billion Chinese consumers. Really, they didn't; they wanted access to 1.2 billion Chinese workers.

Free-trade advocates in Washington and Wall Street and nearly every editorial board lauded the economic opportunities yet to come from U.S. workers and businesses. These pundits, these CEOs, these Ivy League economists, these newspaper editors heralded passage of PNTR with China as the best way to promote reform and stability in China and the region. None hesitated for a minute calling those of us who opposed the PNTR protectionists, saying that we have our heads in the sand, we are backward-looking Luddites and whatever adjective they chose. Today, just 10 years later, those proponents have been shown dreadfully wrong. The problem is that those people who pushed PNTR--the CEOs, the Harvard economist, the newspaper editors--few of them have lost their jobs. It has been workers in Galion, OH, and Zanesville and Toledo and Mansfield and Chillicothe who have paid the price because of that terrible decision to extend those trade preferences to the People's Republic of China.

Since receiving PNTR status and the benefits of membership in the World Trade Organization, the WTO, China has taken money from American consumers and investors without fully opening its markets to American businesses and workers. The results are record trade deficits. The results are millions of jobs lost. Three million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the last several years--not all because of China trade but a significant number.

Chinese workers continue to face low wages and substandard labor conditions. This has not worked particularly well for Chinese workers. It sure has not worked well for American workers. It has worked well for those American companies that outsourced their jobs, hired Chinese workers at very low wages, with very few environmental or worker safety safeguards, and then exported those goods back into the United States.

Even the most ardent proponents of China PNTR are likely to feel a bit of buyer's remorse, unable to do business in China because of China's aggressive protection of its industries.

We must do more to strengthen a multilateral, rules-based system that holds trading partners accountable. A critical way to hold them accountable and advance our economic interests is strong and aggressive trade enforcement.

President Obama, on two occasions, did something President Bush never did, even though he was presented with recommendations from the International Trading Commission. President Obama twice already showed a willingness to enforce trade rules--the first President to invoke the section 421 safeguards, which he did when he granted relief to the U.S. consumer tire industry. This single action saved at least 100 jobs in Findlay, OH, at Cooper Tire, after President Obama said China is cheating, China is not playing fair, and invoked these sanctions against them.

The Commerce Department then found that steel pipe and tube manufacturers, so-called ``oil country tubular goods'' manufacturers, are being dramatically undercut by China. As a result, the International Trade Commission granted immediate relief for these oil country tubular goods, which is helping V&M Star expand operations in Youngstown.

I was in Youngstown at V&M Star. I saw what they were doing. We did a groundbreaking today with Governor Strickland, who has played a roll in assembling the package for Star Steel's expansion--some recovery dollars to help with infrastructure leading in and out of the plant, a $6 million investment in V&M, a very productive workforce for the last several years at V&M Star, and this trade decision President Obama made to simply say the Chinese have not played fair--and the ITC has granted immediate relief. Those factors show that when you enforce trade law, it creates jobs.

There will be 1,000 building trades jobs for the next 18 months in Mahoning Valley because of these direct jobs. Then there will be another 400 or so and maybe more jobs in the future as this company expands.

These are good developments, obviously, but there is more we can do to show America is serious about trade enforcement. There is more we can do to show we are serious about rebalancing our trade relationship with China in defending our national economic interests. And we know there is more we can do in defending a strong national manufacturing base that leads the United States in the global clean energy economy.

Right now, China is working every day to win the race by any cost and any means necessary. Beijing invested $35 billion in renewable energy last year, more or less double the $18 billion we invested as a country. Every day we delay investments in clean energy, China spends $51 million a day to further that unacceptable gap.

China is not only using its abundance of capital to monopolize clean energy manufacturing, it is also elbowing competition out of the way by discriminating against U.S. companies.

China cries foul at our ``Buy American'' policies but has its own ``Buy

China'' policies, without signing onto the WTO agreement on procurement. They promised in 2000, with the passage of PNTR, they promised they would join the agreement on procurement, which meant fair play on contracts between and among governments. Yet China has not only refused to sign on, they also had a strong ``Buy China'' arrangement in their economy, what would have violated WTO rules. Yet several major opinion leaders--Ivy League economists, pundits on television, newspaper editors, and too many elected officials--pushed back and said we should not do ``Buy American'' in this country.

China's so-called ``indigenous innovation'' policies provide preferences to products containing Chinese-developed intellectual property for government procurement purposes. That is why I encourage the Obama administration to launch a section 301 case against the Chinese package of policies that limit market access to U.S. companies in the clean energy sector.

If China leads the clean energy revolution, we will trade dependance on foreign oil with dependence on Chinese or foreign clean energy technologies. With the right investments and with strong trade enforcement, we can make sure that does not happen.

Consider, as you know in Oregon, what is at stake. Five of the top ten solar panel makers in the world are from China. But the No. 1 is First Solar, a U.S. company which has factories around the world that can produce as much energy as any coal or nuclear plant but, of course, much cleaner and more efficient.

One of First Solar's factories is in Perrysburg, OH, and the entrepreneurs behind the company's success started at the University of Toledo. If we want to keep First Solar at the top in the world, and if we want our entrepreneurs to continue to lead the world in innovation, they should have access to all of the world's markets. That is why we need the President of the United States to lead the crusade for vigorous trade enforcement.

Just the launch of a 301 case by this administration will show China we are serious about competing in this emerging market. We cannot enter the next decade of the 21st century further behind, facing the same hurdles that faced our Nation just 10 years ago.

As the G20 summit convenes this weekend and beyond, we must take the buyer's remorse of those who supported China PNTR and make sure we begin the next decade with a rules-based trading system that works for American workers and works for American manufacturers.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 572, submitted earlier today.