[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 147 (Thursday, November 14, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10997-S11000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--S. 3009

  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I intend to offer a unanimous consent 
request that the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of the 
extension of unemployment insurance. As the dialog between the 
distinguished Senators from Pennsylvania and Michigan just illustrated, 
this is an issue that had bipartisan support--really, nonpartisan 
support.
  There are 2.2 million workers who have exhausted or are about to 
exhaust their benefits without finding a job. Ignoring these people, 
especially as we are about to enter into the Thanksgiving-Christmas 
holiday season, will not make them go away. It is not going to help 
them automatically find a job because they have been out there 
diligently looking.
  The fact is, we don't have enough jobs right now. All of us hope that 
is going to turn around. But if you look at the statistics available, 
there are 1.7 million workers who have been unemployed for longer than 
6 months as of October. That is an increase of 70,000 over September 
and over 180,000 over August. One out of every five of these unemployed 
has been out of work for more than 6 months. That is a proportion 
larger than at any time in the previous 8 years.
  I believe that extending these benefits now sends a message to those 
who lost their jobs through no fault of their own in States such as 
mine and that of Senator Cantwell of Washington. The provision we are 
asking unanimous consent on would provide 13 more weeks of unemployment 
insurance for everyone who lost their job, were laid off, cannot find a 
job. The bill would not provide a single additional benefit, if you 
look at what the Republicans are proposing. So our bill is a much 
better one because the Republicans would permit those who are about to 
crash into the brick wall of December 31 no relief.
  I believe it is imperative that we take action before we leave.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mrs. CLINTON. Certainly.
  Mr. NICKLES. I wish to ask her a question before she asks unanimous 
consent. Just to clarify the record, to be correct, I believe she 
stated her proposal is a 13-week extension. Is her proposal S. 3009?

[[Page S10998]]

  Mrs. CLINTON. Yes, it is.
  Mr. NICKLES. Just to clarify, I believe that is not a 13-week 
extension; it is a 26-week extension.
  Also, just for your information, the House may soon try to pass 
legislation that would eliminate this cliff as of December 31. So I 
want the Senator to know that efforts are being made by some in the 
House to pass legislation that would address the unemployment 
compensation issue, and extend welfare authorization, among other 
things.
  I wanted to make sure you are aware that the bill you are trying to 
pass by unanimous consent, S. 3009, is not a 13-week extension, but it 
is a 26-week extension and costs $17.1 billion. A simple 13-week 
extension costs less than half of that. I wanted to make those few 
facts known before I object to the Senator's request.
  Mrs. CLINTON. I appreciate the Senator's factual intervention. It is 
the same proposal that was used in the early 1990s to extend 
unemployment insurance under the first President Bush. It is what has 
historically been done. Now, some people benefit more because of the 
circumstances in which they find themselves. Indeed, when we passed the 
only extension of unemployment insurance back in, I think, March, there 
were a couple of States that had been very hard hit that were given 
additional benefits.
  As the Senator points out, what the House is about to send over is 
not just an unemployment insurance extension; it changes welfare law, 
it provides Medicare benefits to a certain category of Medicare 
recipients and not to others. So I think that it would be far better 
for us to ensure that an unemployment insurance benefit was going to be 
extended.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Will the Senator yield?
  Mrs. CLINTON. Yes.
  Ms. CANTWELL. I am joining the Senator in support of bringing this up 
under a unanimous consent. The issue the House is looking at is simply 
another 5-week extension. So, yes, maybe more for the holidays people 
will think they have 5 more weeks. But the issue is that expansion of 
this unemployment program is about helping people through a tough 
economic time. We don't expect that it is going to get any better 
January 1 or January 31.
  Frankly, I think if you listen to Alan Greenspan and everybody else 
in the administration, they don't expect it is going to get any better 
in the next 5 months. So the point is that we want to have a stimulus 
for those local economies.
  My State of Washington, with nearly 80,000 people impacted, has been 
putting something into the economy. But starting December 31, they 
won't be because they won't be able to make mortgage payments or take 
care of health care or do a lot of things. So this is about making a 
statement and expanding the program beyond another 5-week Band-Aid. If 
we had a commitment that we were going to be here on January 1 when the 
next 5 weeks runs out, and we were going to take a look at the next 6 
months--but we are not doing that. We are saying we expect no economic 
improvement. We are not willing to step up, as the Bush 1 
administration was willing to do in the 1990s, and say, yes, an 
extension of unemployment is a good stimulus, a safeguard, while the 
economy is needed to improve. That is what we are talking about here. 
So the Band-Aid approach that the House is sending over is simply 5 
weeks, basically taking care of the worse case scenario. We need to 
make a positive statement. I have talked to many business people in my 
State who are supportive from that perspective of not taking out this 
income from the local economies that are being crunched.

  I wanted to add to my colleague from New York, the numbers are 
staggering. New York has over 300,000 people who will be impacted as of 
December. Other States: Illinois with almost 170,000 people; Georgia, 
125,000 people; Pennsylvania, 125,000 people; Texas, 215,000 people.
  So there are States throughout this country that are feeling this 
impact. I think the previous Bush administration was very wise to say a 
good stimulus and a good support for unemployed workers who have lost 
jobs through no fault of their own, who cannot find employment, let's 
keep the basic income going and give a stimulus to the economy. I don't 
know that the Senator from New York is opposed to negotiating any kind 
of proposal that would get us past just a Band-Aid. I think we are 
willing to look at what the proposal is, but this is about the sixth or 
seventh unanimous consent request and negotiation proposal this side of 
the aisle has put forward.
  We are saying that the time has run out and that these individuals 
are going to get very minimal--if next to nothing--good news about 
their economic opportunity for the next year or year and a half.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mrs. CLINTON. I yield to the Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. SARBANES. I commend the Senator for offering this unanimous 
consent request. Secondly, in response to the points raised by the 
Senator from Oklahoma, as I understand it, the bill provides for an 
additional 13 weeks. If you have exhausted your benefits, having drawn 
the basic 26 weeks, and the additional 13 weeks that we have provided 
for in March of this year, you could then draw another 13 weeks. So for 
that limited group would, in fact, get 52 weeks. I point out that that 
limited group is unemployed. They have not been able to get a job in a 
labor market that is not working.
  In fact, Chairman Greenspan, yesterday, testifying before the Joint 
Economic Committee, when asked about extending unemployment insurance 
benefits, testified that the extended unemployment insurance provides a 
timely boost of disposable income. He acknowledged that we are 
currently in a period where jobs are falling. He stated:

       I have always argued that in periods like this that the 
     economic restraints on the unemployment insurance system 
     almost surely ought to be eased.

  That is exactly what this legislation seeks to do.
  Secondly, there is $27 billion in the trust fund to pay unemployment 
insurance benefits, specifically designed to meet this kind of 
situation. Those moneys have been paid into the trust fund over a 
period of time. The whole system was structured to have this trust fund 
build up in good times, and then to utilize it in bad times.
  We certainly are facing bad times now. In fact, we have 2.2 million 
who have lost, or will lose, their unemployment benefits by the end of 
the year. The long-term unemployed--those more than 26 weeks--rose 
71,000 last month alone. There are now more than 1.6 million long-term 
unemployed--a million more than when President Bush took office.
  What the Senator is seeking to do was done, I must point out, under 
President Bush the first. For the life of me, I don't understand why 
President Bush the second won't agree to and support this measure.
  What are these people to do who have lost their jobs? The premise of 
the system is you get some short-term support, the labor market picks 
up, and you can go back and find a job. They cannot find these jobs. In 
fact, not only can they not find them, more people are losing their 
jobs. So the labor market is constraining, not expanding. These people 
need help. There is $27 billion that has been paid into the trust fund 
for the very purpose of providing unextended employment insurance 
benefits.
  Now, the Senator in this legislation has not, as I understand it, 
sought to do some of the other proposals that have been floating around 
here in terms of providing a more extended coverage of the system, 
upping the benefits and other proposals.
  There are many who think the existing system is inadequate. She is 
not seeking to correct that, as I understand it. We are only seeking to 
do this 13-week extension. I certainly think we ought to do that before 
this Congress leaves.
  I thank the Senator.
  Mrs. CLINTON. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?
  Mrs. CLINTON. Yes, I yield to the Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. I want to make a statement. Too many times it happens--
the Senator yields to me to ask a question, not to make a speech--many 
times in the debate people have yielded the floor as if they control 
the floor. The Presiding Officer controls

[[Page S10999]]

the floor. The Senator can yield for a question but not yield for a 
speech. I did not hear a question the last time. I do not want to get 
too technical, but we ought to adhere to normal Senate rules.
  Now my question: The Senator is trying to pass a bill. I stated that 
the bill is a 26-week extension, not a 13-week extension. I keep 
hearing people say it is a 13-week extension. That is not factually 
correct. It is a 26-week extension. If you just entered into the 
program, am I not correct, you can exhaust your 26 weeks of State 
benefits and qualify for 26 weeks of 100 percent Federal benefits? It 
is a 26-week extension which doubles the cost of the program. It is a 
$17 billion program. Am I not correct--I want to be factually correct. 
If I am wrong, I am happy to be corrected. But am I not correct it is 
really a 26-week extension for anybody entering into the program? So 
people could qualify for 26 weeks of State benefits and 26 weeks of 
Federal benefits if the Senator's bill should pass?
  Mrs. CLINTON. With all due respect to my friend from Oklahoma, that 
is not what the bill says. The bill provides 13 weeks for those first 
coming into the system, but for people who have already exhausted their 
13 weeks, it does provide an additional 13 weeks, which adds up to 26 
weeks.
  Maybe it is not artfully enough drafted. I certainly have the 
greatest respect for my colleague from Oklahoma, who is one of the 
premier legislators in this body, but if it is not clear, then I will 
be more than happy to write it so it is absolutely clear.
  The intention is, as I have stated, to provide an additional 13 weeks 
to people who have exhausted their benefits. To echo the eloquent 
comments of my colleagues from Washington and Maryland, there are lots 
of people out there. The Senator from Washington read the numbers. Let 
me give you one quick example.
  Mr. NICKLES. I want an answer to my question.
  Mrs. CLINTON. The answer is the bill does not provide for those first 
coming into the system 26 weeks. It does provide an additional 13 weeks 
so that those who have exhausted their first 13 weeks can have 26 
weeks.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield further for a question?
  Mrs. CLINTON. Yes.
  Mr. NICKLES. I believe the bill offers 26 additional weeks for 
anybody who just came into the system.
  Mrs. CLINTON. We would be more than happy to clarify that. That is 
not the way the bill was intended. It certainly is not the way it was 
meant to be drafted. If there is any--
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield for an additional question?
  Mrs. CLINTON. Let me finish my answer. You get to ask, I get to 
answer. My answer is, it is intended to be a 13-week extension. If 
there needs to be a cutoff point so it is absolutely clear that this is 
the intention, we stand ready to do that.

  In contrast, the bill the House is working on is a 5-week extension 
for those who already are in the system, and then it is over. No more 
help. From my perspective, representing 300,000 unemployed New Yorkers, 
120,000 of whom lost their jobs directly as a result of September 11, 
it is very hard to go back to New York and look at people such as Felix 
Batista who worked for 22 years at Windows on the World, with four 
children--luckily was not there that day when the terrorist attack 
occurred--and has not been able to find work, even though we have all 
been trying to help him. He is a man of limited skills, but a good, 
hard-working person, a father of four. He has no help. What is he 
supposed to do? Let me ask that question of the Senator from Oklahoma. 
Where is my office supposed to send literally thousands of people who 
have no work because the economy is not producing jobs?
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield for an additional question?
  Mrs. CLINTON. Yes, I will be more than happy to yield.
  Mr. NICKLES. The proposal before us still has the adjusted insured 
unemployment rate to where it includes the following paragraph:

       Except that individuals exhausting their right to regular 
     compensation during the most recent three calendar months for 
     which data is available before the close of the period for 
     which such rate is being determined shall be taken into 
     account as if they were individuals filing claims for regular 
     compensation for each week during the period for which the 
     rate is being determined.

  Basically that means if someone even completes the system and gets a 
job, they still are counted as unemployed; is that still in this 
legislation?
  Mrs. CLINTON. What we did, in response to the Senator from Oklahoma--
and maybe we were misinformed about this--we went back to our last 
recession under the previous President Bush. We thought that would be a 
good model as to what was done five times to extend unemployment 
insurance benefits. We took the language the first Bush administration 
and the bipartisan body here at that time decided was the appropriate 
legislative language to bring about the result that people agreed was 
needed.
  If it was in some way misguided to rely upon the first Bush 
administration's extension of unemployment insurance, then we are going 
to say we did the best we could to look at what had been effective and 
worked in the past.
  In direct response, the people who are still being counted in the 
unemployment insurance is a relatively small number because, obviously, 
to get them on and off does take some bureaucratic and technical 
adjustments. There are certainly some--I am sure I could find a few in 
Oklahoma and a few in New York. But the fact is the overwhelming number 
of people who will be eligible and will receive benefits are people who 
deserve it, and that is, I think, the goal we should be addressing.
  Mr. NICKLES. So the answer to my question is that language is still 
in the bill?
  Mrs. CLINTON. We have the same language that was used in the first 
Bush recession. Now we are in the second Bush recession. We are using 
the same language. It worked then.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield again? So that language is still 
in there. I will tell my colleague, I will never agree to this language 
passing. I will also tell my colleague, if she is politicizing this, 
talking about the first Bush recession and the second Bush recession, 
the first compensation package did not have the same triggers. I did 
not agree with the first. I do not like the language that somebody who 
gets a job is still counted as unemployed for these rates. I would 
never agree to it. I did not know it was in the first program ten or so 
years ago, and it will not be in the next one if I am still standing 
around here.
  I also ask my colleague, are not the triggers different under this 
proposal than the compensation packages that passed in the early 
nineties?
  Mrs. CLINTON. It is the same kind of trigger, I am advised.
  Mr. NICKLES. There are different triggers. More States would qualify 
for greater benefits; is that not correct?
  Mrs. CLINTON. It includes States with concentrated high unemployment. 
That is true, there is a slightly different trigger. Again, I was not 
around in 1991 and 1992, so I cannot speak to what the Senator would or 
would not have done. The fact is, we have a problem. We have tried 
repeatedly--eight separate times--to work out some way to provide some 
additional benefits for people who deserve them. If there is a way to 
work out a better approach, to do something that will clearly meet the 
objections of the Senator from Oklahoma, I stand ready to do that.
  I am just worried about all of these decent people who are running 
out of unemployment benefits. There is nowhere for them to go. I do not 
know what else to bring to the floor other than those stories. We can 
argue about triggers. I am sure between the two of us, we can fix a 
trigger if there was a willingness to act on that. What is coming over 
from the House, larded with other controversial provisions, is not a 
good-faith effort to extend unemployment benefits to people in need. It 
is an effort to basically try to say something was done which will not 
have any lasting benefit for those who are most in need.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?
  (Ms. CANTWELL assumed the chair.)
  Mrs. CLINTON. Clearly, if the Senator from Oklahoma is going to 
object to our following the precedent of the triggers of the President 
Bush 1 package, then obviously we are going to have to go back to the 
drawing board.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to 
the immediate consideration of Calendar

[[Page S11000]]

No. 619, S. 3009, a bill to provide for a 13-week extension of 
unemployment compensation; that the bill be read three times, passed, 
and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, without 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, reserving the right to object, the UC 
request, as I read it, says it is a 13-week extension. The bill before 
us is a 26-week extension. A 13-week extension, I believe, costs $7.3 
billion; a 26-week extension cost--by CBO--is $17.1 billion. That is 
the proposal before us, and, therefore, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The Senator from Nevada.

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