[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 29 (Tuesday, March 9, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H878-H879]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   EXTENDING OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 20, 2004, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, my friend, the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Pallone), just talked about the new economic statistics, 
that some 21,000 jobs were created last month in this country. The 
President had predicted 250,000 jobs. The Wall Street Journal had 
predicted 150,000, something like that; 21,000 were actually created. 
Of those 21,000, actually every one of those jobs was a government job, 
many of them in education, productive, important jobs; but actually 
there was no private sector job creation, period. There was actually a 
loss of private sector jobs.
  This is where it really matters to people. There were 760,000 
American workers whose unemployment benefits have expired in December, 
January,

[[Page H879]]

and February. That is 760,000 workers whose unemployment has expired 
who cannot find jobs. That is 760,000 families, many of whom have 
children, who have lost their unemployment compensation, have no 
income, cannot find jobs.
  My friend on the other side of the aisle, the President and the 
Republican leadership, even though a lot of Republicans want to support 
it but the President and the Republican leadership will not bring it 
up, have said no to extending unemployment compensation for those 
760,000 workers, those 760,000 families.
  Last week, I visited a group of about 50 or 60 machine-shop operators 
in Akron in my district, in the city of Akron, Ohio. Right before I 
spoke, a man walked forward and put just a plastic bag full of 
brochures like this in front of me, and what they are is a bag of about 
five times this size.

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