[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 62 (Thursday, May 6, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4982-S4986]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    EXTENSION OF EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the unemployment 
trust fund issue that has us basically stalled on Senate business; the 
fact that several weeks ago we had an unemployment benefit amendment 
that was part of the UC request for amendments to the FSC/ETI bill 
done, and yesterday it was in the queue to be considered; then after it 
was actually offered on the floor, after 10 minutes of debate and 
discussion, basically the amendment was pulled. Somebody objected to 
scheduling a vote on it.
  For weeks we have been assuming there was a finite list of amendments 
and it was agreed that this amendment was going to be voted on. I don't 
even

[[Page S4983]]

know that we need to have more time to discuss it.
  I know now that there are those on the other side of the aisle who 
don't want to have a vote on it. Maybe leadership will be able to work 
out an agreement to have a vote. But when we have moved toward giving 
the American people some hope that we were going to discuss 
unemployment benefits in support of those millions of workers who have 
lost their jobs, they find out now there may not be a vote at all.
  I don't think it is surprising that the Dayton Daily News last month 
basically said the GOP leaders were still dodging the jobless. That 
newspaper, in a State with high unemployment, thought we were not doing 
our job here, that those on the other side of the aisle were still 
trying to dodge the issue. I can tell you we are not getting a vote. It 
certainly feels at this point in time as if somebody is dodging the 
issue.
  I wonder if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, or my 
colleagues in general, have thought about the circumstances of the 
individuals in this country and the tough times they are facing. I know 
we see the face of the Iraqi people every night on television. Maybe it 
is too hard to put 1.5 million Americans who are unemployed on the 6 
o'clock news. But they still exist. They, too, are still struggling. 
They, too, are looking for our support and help.
  I want to share with you a letter I got from a constituent. It is 
posted to our Web site because we have had so many people responding 
and telling their stories. This one individual from my State said:

       I am a 41 year old, recently divorced, with a 5-year old 
     daughter. I had worked for Nordstrom for over 22 years, when 
     I was suddenly without a job last August, and my unemployment 
     benefits just ran out, which put me into a bankruptcy 
     position. I only have minimal child support and no other 
     income at the moment.
       I was earning $47,000 annually prior to my job elimination, 
     and had existing responsibilities based on that income, which 
     I can no longer pay since my benefits have been eliminated. 
     Being a single parent with a home and a 5-year-old to take 
     care of, I have never been in a more desperate position in my 
     life.
       I want to work very badly. However, I have not been 
     successful in getting hired back at Nordstrom or any other 
     company. The IT market has declined, and my job was 
     eliminated due to 7-year restructuring of the IT Department, 
     which included the company's initiatives and achievements in 
     job elimination and head count reduction. Their objective was 
     to bring in contractors from India and use offshore 
     outsourcing IT services as well. In fact, for the last 3 
     years, I have had to work with the offshore folks from India 
     that took the place of hundreds of my fellow employees who 
     were laid off over the last 7 years.
       I don't understand how a company or a Government can say 
     that they are compassionate for the climate, but create it by 
     having Americans eliminated and replaced by foreign workers 
     in the U.S. workplace.

  My constituent says:

       If the benefits are not reinstated, then I will have to 
     seek getting other assistance until something comes up. All 
     the jobs I have applied for, I have either not been called 
     back, am under qualified, or over qualified.

  This shows the humor of my constituent:

       Most of the time, there are no numbers to follow up on, 
     since they are handled via an automatic online HR recruiter. 
     So I am not even sure if there are real people out there 
     really looking for someone to fill a position. I have between 
     2 and 3 viable job opportunities per week that I apply for. 
     So far, I have been interviewed only 5 times. At the time of 
     my unemployment, I thought it would only be a temporary 
     position. However, the jobs are just not out there and I am 
     required to make at least $30,000 annually, even after my 
     bankruptcy, to maintain my home and my daughter's day care 
     responsibilities.
       I live in a small house that was built in 1947 and pay 
     roughly $1,100 in monthly payments on the mortgage. My car is 
     15 years old and in need of repair. My average bills are 
     $2,000 a month, which are hard to keep up with, health care 
     being so expensive. I don't want to lose my home, since that 
     would not be in the best interest of my daughter. Besides, I 
     don't think I could get much cheaper rent than what my 
     current mortgage is. My property is my retirement.
       I am scared to death that I won't have anything to fall 
     back on after working this hard for the last 26 years of my 
     life. I don't quite understand why I can't get the extended 
     benefits until there are more jobs available, or at least 
     until the Government puts an end to the outsourcing of jobs 
     to foreign countries. I have even pursued reeducation to a 
     different field, but was told that I made too much income 
     last year, and it would take a cost of $10,000 for retraining 
     in the health care field.
       Now, without unemployment benefits, because my benefits 
     have been exhausted, a student loan would not be funded. Do 
     you have any suggestions how I can get food stamps or aid or, 
     in the meantime, how I can find any kind of time line when we 
     might actually get a vote? I don't understand why the 
     President would not want to help his own first, before those 
     suffering in other parts of the world.

  I think that letter sums it up. This is not somebody who hasn't been 
in the workforce. She was in the workforce 20 some years. This is not a 
person who didn't have skills and didn't help her company actually try 
to modernize and improve productivity. She did that. It is not somebody 
who is sitting around not trying to find a job. She is doing that, too. 
As she clearly stated, she cannot find a job. So now she has been 
forced into a bankruptcy situation, is being threatened with losing her 
house, all because we are sitting on the Federal unemployment benefit 
account of $13.3 billion and basically saying, even though this is a 
fund paid into by employers for this very purpose, in strong times of 
economic downturn, we are not going to give her the assistance.
  We are going to pass a FSC/ETI bill instead and give other tax breaks 
to a whole bunch of things--$2 billion for a green bond initiative that 
I say still probably will end up getting used for a Hooters Restaurant. 
There is over $2.8 billion in here for another incentive program, a 
credit for synthesized coal, which is a tax credit that is under 
investigation by another Senate committee--$2.8 billion. That is 
roughly the cost of what it could take to extend the unemployment 
benefit program for another 6 months--a little more than $5 billion. 
Yet we are very comfortable today in making a decision to give all 
these tax cuts and tax breaks away, but we are not going to help the 
American workers with a fund they have paid into. We are going to hold 
that hostage as some sort of mark against our deficit, when it is a 
trust fund they have paid into and, instead, we are going to pass a 
bill called a ``jobs'' bill without actually taking care of people that 
have not gotten the support.

  I am amazed we are in this situation. I think the Dayton paper had it 
right. People are dodging the jobless. They are dodging this issue.
  Let's talk about the specifics. There are 1.5 million Americans who 
are certainly without help and assistance. This is 1.5 million 
Americans who, as of December 31, exhausted their benefits such as the 
constituent I just mentioned. They are going through the same situation 
she is going through. They are trying to figure out, now that the State 
benefits have expired, and there are very few jobs created--certainly 
not in a fast enough time period--that they are going to have to be 
like my constituent; they are making very tough choices. Because we 
don't see those choices on the 6 o'clock news doesn't mean they are not 
happening.
  Let's look at some of the toughest parts of the country that have had 
to deal with this issue. You can say maybe not every State is in this 
situation. Certainly different regions have been hard hit. Certainly 
the Midwest has.
  This chart shows the number of people in these States that have 
exhausted State benefits. They are still unemployed and they would be 
helped by our Federal program. They would be helped by the $13 billion 
that exists in a Federal account--if only this body and the other body 
would say, yes, you can have access to it.
  Illinois has almost 70,000 people, who are like the constituent I 
read a letter about, who need help and support. In other parts of the 
Midwest, Michigan has 66,000; Ohio, 42,000; Pennsylvania, 69,000, 
almost 70,000 workers who qualify for health and assistance.

  I do not even know that these people understand that the debate on 
this proposal is being considered. I know many of my constituents do 
because they write to me all the time. These are not invisible people, 
and their problems are not invisible. In fact, the Presiding Officer's 
State of Texas has 95,000 exhaustees. That is the number of people in 
that region of the country. In my part of the country, the Northwest, 
we have one of the hardest hit economies, the highest unemployment 
rates for the last several years. We have 33,000 people who would 
qualify right now for this program if this body would just say yes.

[[Page S4984]]

  What we really want to say is we know that job growth is going to 
happen. In fact, last month there were 300,000 jobs created. The bottom 
line is, we have lost over 2 million jobs, and it takes a while to 
recreate them. By that I mean it takes a while for the economy to 
recover.
  The Center on Budget and Policy Analysis says it will take several 
months more of robust growth to whittle down the number of unemployed 
to a more typical size. The truth is, I think a lot of people are 
saying: Oh, well, gosh, Friday we will have new numbers. Maybe we will 
have another 300,000 jobs. Maybe we will have another 500,000 jobs, 
maybe another 600,000 jobs created. To me, it does not matter if there 
are 600,000 jobs created in the month of April. It simply does not 
matter if we have 1.1 million people who have already exhausted their 
benefits.
  Even if we have 600,000 jobs created in April, we will still have a 
million people who will not have access to the benefits they deserve. 
To me, it is an issue of what are we going to do to sustain the economy 
while we are waiting for the job creation engine to restart.
  A lot of people say: Oh, gee, the economy is actually getting better; 
productivity has gotten better. My constituent helped her company be 
more productive. Guess what. That, I am sure, added to the bottom line 
of that company. It probably added to the bottom line that got passed 
on to shareholders. But did it help my constituent actually get a job 
or get a new career? No, it did not. She is not asking for us to give 
her a job. She is only asking for what she and her employer already 
paid into, an account that was created for these tough economic times 
only to get some of those funds in the interim until new job growth and 
new job availabilities are out there. I do not think it is an 
unreasonable request.
  Some people have said: If you have 1.5 million people, and they have 
exhausted their benefits, what is the rate by which those people will 
actually find jobs? The Joint Economic Committee and the Center on 
Budget and Policy Analysis came up with a formula. Basically, they said 
about 3 percent of those 1.5 million people would find a job each week.
  Some people say: Maybe we will think about unemployment benefits for 
7 weeks. Maybe we will say let's give people 7 weeks of benefits for 
another 60 days, and let's figure out how that helps. We did the 
calculation. After 7 weeks, using this 3 percent of people finding a 
job each week, which is the number that is used in both good and bad 
economic times, it is an average, after 7 weeks of benefits, 458,000 
people would find jobs. So after 7 weeks, those 1.5 million 
exhaustees--those are people who have already exhausted their State 
support but are still jobless--how many of these people would have a 
job? Basically, 450,000 of them would have a job.

  The issue is, after 450,000 of them would get employed after 7 weeks, 
we still would be looking at 1.1 million people without a job, without 
support, being in the same situation as my constituent of bankruptcy, 
potentially losing her home and in a desperate situation.
  Let's be realistic. We are not going to solve this by saying here is 
7 weeks of unemployment. It is not going to happen. This economy will 
get better. It will. But it is going to take a while. You cannot 
recreate 2 million jobs overnight. You cannot.
  The good news is, when you have a Federal program, which the UI trust 
fund is, at $13 billion, you can use a little bit of those funds to 
help those people in the meantime and actually generate stimulus in the 
economy. For every dollar we give these unemployed workers, it 
generates $2 of stimulus. Who is helped by my constituent basically 
having to declare bankruptcy and maybe not able to make mortgage 
payments? Who is helped by that? She is not, but neither is the bank 
and not the businesses with which she does business. Certainly her 5-
year-old daughter who would rather have a home is not receiving any 
benefits.
  If we adopted my proposal, a 6-month extension with 13 weeks of 
benefits, after that 6 months, the account, which was $13.3 billion, 
would still have $9 billion in it. So the account will be a very 
healthy account at the end of that period. Yes, we would pay money out 
to those individuals, but the account is continually paid into by other 
employers. That is the way it works. That is why it is a healthy 
account today, and it will remain healthy under the Cantwell-Voinovich 
proposal.
  This is a bothersome debate to me in the sense of why are we having 
this discussion when we have a healthy account? We know what the 
individual problems are. We know people need to have support and 
assistance. We know even after a short plan, 1.1 million people will 
still be unemployed. Why don't we just do this? Is it because we are 
using the money for something else, and we do not have it available to 
us? Is it that we believe the economy is so much better that even a few 
trickling of jobs at 300,000 or another 300,000 announced on Friday is 
somehow going to solve our problem?
  I do not think that is what other people have said. In fact, Alan 
Greenspan said recently before two different committee hearings that 
the unemployment extension benefit is a good idea largely because of 
the size of the exhaustees, the number of people who exhausted the 
benefits, those 1.5 million people. We have the chief economist for our 
country basically saying this is a good idea based on the fact we have 
1.5 million people, and they are not going to be back in the workforce 
tomorrow. They are not going to be back in the workforce from the April 
numbers or the May numbers or the June numbers. So who are we kidding? 
The economy is not going to be that red hot to take care of 1.5 million 
people tomorrow.
  The question is, What do we want to do about it? I think BusinessWeek 
said it best. They basically said the Senate must act. The Senate must 
bridge the gap that will help the economy cross over this extended 
valley of almost nonexistent hiring. They just said that on March 22--
nonexistent hiring. Let's not fool ourselves. Americans know it; that 
is, if you poll them and ask them the question, Is the country going in 
the right direction or the wrong direction, they say the wrong 
direction because they know that we do not have job creation happening.
  So it is up to us to make a decision. I know my colleagues are saying 
we do not want to have a vote. Somebody, in one of the afternoon 
journals, basically said, on the GOP side, that even having a 
standalone vote on my amendment is a nonstarter.
  I am hoping wiser heads will prevail and that people will come to 
their senses and say: Let's have a vote on this issue. Let's find out 
where the Members of the Senate stand on getting their constituents' 
support in tough economic times.
  Let us see where the Members of the Senate stand on following the 
advice of Alan Greenspan who says doing unemployment benefits would be 
a smart idea given the number of exhaustees. Let us find out where the 
Senate stands on having a solution to the issue of whether individuals 
should have access to the money they have paid into a $13.3 billion 
account through their employers.
  Let us find out where the Senate stands on giving a solution on 
whether they think the economy is recovering fast enough or whether 
they want to help people in the times when economic recovery is still 
slow.
  I hope we come to some resolution of this issue. I hope my colleagues 
will listen to their constituents and heed the words they are saying 
about the tough economic times we are seeing. It may not be on the 6 
o'clock news, it may not be on the front page with four or five other 
stories as is the situation in Iraq and the Middle East, but there is 
still a struggle for Americans and their struggle deserves the help and 
support of the Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). Who yields time? The Senator from 
Nevada.
  Mr. REID. We are not under any controlled time now, are we? Is that 
right?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I rise to address some of the comments 
that

[[Page S4985]]

were made by the Senator from Washington State. The proposal to extend 
unemployment insurance benefits is something the Senator from 
Washington has been attempting to have passed for some time now. The 
arguments have been that there are a lot of people unemployed in the 
country who have been unemployed for long periods of time and therefore 
we need to have not just normal unemployment benefits but we need to 
have extended unemployment benefits.
  For the last several months, I have gotten up on the Senate floor to 
refute some of the arguments that have been made by the Senator from 
Washington, and I want to not only reiterate some of those points but I 
want to go a little bit further today.
  One of the points I have been making is that back when the Democrats 
controlled the House, the Senate and the White House, the unemployment 
rate in the country was almost a full percentage point higher than it 
is today. At that time, the three bodies working together, in control, 
once again, by the Democrats, thought that the economy had come out of 
the recession and had recovered to the point where the extension of the 
unemployment benefits was not necessary. So they terminated the 
program.
  Well, the unemployment rate in the country is almost a full 
percentage point less today--now when Republicans control the House, 
the Senate, and the White House. We have recovered from a recession and 
today, enjoy an unemployment rate that is almost a full percentage 
point lower than what it was back in the 1990s when the Democrats were 
in control, when they stopped the temporary extension program. That is 
the situation we are facing today.
  Nationwide, unemployment is 5.7 percent. Economists used to argue 
that this kind of an unemployment rate was full employment. I am one of 
those people who believe we can do better than we are doing today. In 
fact, in my State we are at about 4.4 percent. In some of our counties 
in our State we are at about 3-percent unemployment. So I think we can 
do better. In fact, in the JOBS bill that we have before us today, we 
have provisions in the bill that would create a couple of million jobs.
  The one I authored, called the Invest in the USA Act, according to 
independent economists, will increase the GDP of this country by 1 
percent and will produce 660,000 jobs. This is a conservative estimate. 
So I believe in creating jobs. It is not that people do not feel bad 
that people are unemployed, but instead of giving them a check for 
being unemployed we want to give them a job so they are no longer 
unemployed.
  The Senator from Washington has an amendment that she has been trying 
to get enacted, and she changed her amendment slightly. Her State was 
one of the highest unemployment States in the country. So my colleagues 
could understand why she was pushing for this. In the last couple of 
months, her State's economy has improved. Her State's unemployment rate 
has been dropping precipitously, so much so that to qualify as a high 
unemployment State for some of the extra funds under her amendment, she 
had to redraft her amendment to adjust the figures in such a way that 
her State would qualify. Under her previous amendments, the State of 
Washington would not qualify because the economy is improving in her 
State.
  When President Bush was elected, he inherited an economy that was in 
recession. There is no argument about that. We had three straight 
quarters of negative growth. By anybody's definition, that is a 
recession. It takes time to come out of that. We have had economic 
policies put into place, including two rounds of tax cuts, that have 
helped spur our economy onward to where we are creating jobs and to 
where the economy is starting to fire on all cylinders.

  We still have work to do, and I think all of us in this body would 
agree that. But let's look at some of the employment figures.
  This chart shows what I was talking about earlier in the State of 
Washington. Starting in April of 2001, their unemployment rate was a 
little above 6 percent. We can see, over the last couple of years, it 
has gone up fairly significantly. It plateaued in October 2003, and 
since then it has fallen drastically. This is the home State of the 
author of the amendment, and that is why her State, under her old 
amendment, would basically no longer qualify as a high unemployment 
State.
  I want to address the issue of the two surveys that measure 
unemployment. One is called the household survey and the other is 
called the payroll survey. The household survey measures not only 
people on payrolls but it is a better measure of the economy because it 
also measures those who are self-employed.
  For instance, in the last 2 years we have seen this incredible 
phenomenon known as eBay. I think most people are familiar with eBay. 
There are 430,000 people who now make a full-time living on eBay. Try 
to conceptualize that. Ten years ago, we could not even have imagined 
it. The payroll survey, the most common one that people quote about 
jobs being produced or eliminated, does not reflect a single one of 
those people who are now supporting themselves full time by doing 
business on eBay. The household survey does count them.
  Anybody who goes out and starts their own business, once they hire 
somebody that individual is counted in the payroll survey. Well, even a 
lot of the small businesses are not counted for some time under payroll 
but they are counted in the household survey. It is a more accurate 
reflection of the current employment situation in our country.
  In the past, the payroll survey and the household survey, the reason 
we did not worry about really talking about the differences between 
them is because they paralleled each other. For the last 20, 30 years 
they literally went up and down at about the same rate. Over the last 2 
to 3 years, though, our economy has been changing. Today we are living 
in a high-tech information age. Things such as eBay didn't exist 
before. Thus, over the last 12 to 24 months the payroll survey has 
showed a loss of jobs while, according to the household survey, a 
couple of million jobs have been produced.

  We hear the other side saying under President Bush a couple of 
million jobs have been lost. Well, that is if you include only the 
payroll survey. If you include the household survey, we are at the 
highest level of employment in the history of the United States--the 
highest level of employment in the history of the United States. We 
have the most people actually employed, self-employed or employed by 
somebody else, that we have ever had in the United States.
  Unemployment insurance was set up to be a hand up. The longer and the 
more generous the benefits are, the less incentive there is for 
somebody to go out and get a job. We know that and can prove that.
  During times of high unemployment, during times of recession, we 
extend the Federal program so those who have fallen on hard times in a 
tough economy, can get assistance. Those jobs may not be out there, so 
we extend the program an extra 13 weeks, sometimes 26 weeks, and we 
allow the States to extend it even further.
  But when the economy is growing, is it really necessary to extend 
those Federal unemployment benefits? Not only is it not necessary, does 
it, in fact, inhibit somebody from taking the initiative, No. 1, to 
either create their own job, to become that entrepreneur on eBay or 
wherever else they are going to create the job, or, No. 2, to do what 
it takes to go out and find a job?
  By the way, sometimes that requires moving. We have a very fluid 
economy today. Sometimes it requires changing careers. Today, the 
average American changes careers--not jobs, careers--three times. 
Again, a reflection of our changing economy. That is one of the 
reasons, if the other side of the aisle is so interested, as they say 
they are, in helping people, let's make sure the Workforce Investment 
Act that was passed unanimously in the Senate actually is finalized 
into law instead of using procedural maneuvers to block it. That would 
train an additional 900,000 people in the United States to help find 
those new jobs that are being created.
  In most places that you travel around the United States, if you would 
ask how the economy is, a year ago there was a lot of pessimism. People 
were really unsure. You go out there now and there is a lot of 
optimism.

[[Page S4986]]

People are hiring and manufacturing orders are up. All the economic 
indexes we see in virtually every category are up, including the 
payroll survey for the last 3 months, and we expect to have fairly good 
employment numbers coming out tomorrow. The jobless claims that came 
out today were the lowest level we have seen since the year 2000, 
again, another good piece of economic news.
  That is why I think it is the right thing to do, to not further 
extend the temporary extended unemployment benefits program. It already 
expired in March.
  We have heard a lot from the other side of the aisle about deficits 
and how much of a threat deficits are to the current economy and the 
future economy of the United States. I agree with that. In fact I, by 
the National Taxpayers Union, was rated No. 1 as the biggest deficit 
hawk in the Senate. I am very concerned with deficits. My votes match 
my rhetoric.
  Extending the unemployment insurance benefits cost $1 billion a 
month, which is added to the deficit. That is deficit spending. A few 
of the proposals we have heard from the other side would make it a $2 
billion-a-month program. So if people care about the deficit, if they 
believe that it is something we should not be adding on to, as the 
Senator from Washington is trying to do by adding back in the extension 
of the unemployment benefits, then they should not support her 
amendment.

  To sum this up, the facts are, the economy is growing, and growing 
strongly. Yes, we can do better. I will admit that. I want to see us do 
more. Pass the JOBS bill that is in front of the Senate today that the 
Senator from Montana, the ranking member on the Finance Committee, and 
the Senator from Iowa, the chairman of the committee, have put 
together. They put together a bill that will create jobs in America. 
That is part of doing better. There are many other things we can do.
  I believe it would actually do harm to the economy, by adding $1 
billion a month to the deficit and discouraging those people who are 
currently on unemployment, if we were to continue extending the TEUC 
program for weeks and weeks, and months, instead of giving people the 
incentive to go out and find the jobs that are being created in 
America.
  I yield the floor and yield the remainder of my time.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________