[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 28 (Wednesday, February 11, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2167-S2168]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I recently received a letter from a woman 
in Sultan, WA, that I want to share with you today as we work to 
finalize the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. She wrote to me 
because her family is going through some very hard times and she 
doesn't know where else to turn.
  Her husband, who is a veteran who received a Purple Heart, lost his 
job in October. Her own wages have been cut and her daughter and her 3-
year-old granddaughter had to move in with them because they can't 
afford rent and childcare. At the end of this month, they are going to 
lose their home to foreclosure.
  She said her family is living ``both literally and figuratively on 
the edge.'' As she put it:

       We are the textbook middle class . . . sliding into a 
     jobless, homeless, and hopeless future.

  Mr. President, I come this afternoon to share her story with you 
because the pain she is going through is being felt by millions of 
Americans who have lost their jobs and their homes in the last couple 
of years. Families such as hers feel as though their lives are slipping 
out from under them, and they are looking to us for help.
  The House and the Senate have taken a critical step forward by 
passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It is going to give 
our economy the jolt it needs to create jobs and help our country get 
back on track. But we are not done yet. We still need to get that bill 
to the President. Every day we wait, the economy gets worse. Every day, 
more jobs are cut, more small businesses close their doors, more homes 
are lost, and more families are forced to make new sacrifices just to 
make ends meet. That is why I have come to the floor this evening.
  The American people need action now. They need us to set aside our 
differences and put a final bill into President Obama's hands so we can 
start the real work of getting our country moving again. So I urge my 
colleagues in the House and the Senate to finish this job and give this 
bill final approval.
  We know the bill that is coming out of conference is not perfect, but 
it makes tried-and-true investments that will help create jobs and get 
our country back on track. It makes a downpayment on the future by 
rebuilding our roads and bridges, our water and sewer plants--
investments that will put people to work today and strengthen our 
economy for years to come.
  The bill expands our renewable energy options, creating good-paying 
jobs in a growing industry and helping to end our addiction to oil. It 
will also help improve health care and cut costs by computerizing 
health records and boosting research. It invests in education and job 
training that will help our laid-off workers learn new skills and find 
new jobs.
  Mr. President, our economy is not going to recover overnight. We 
still have very hard times ahead. But I am confident this is the urgent 
action we need to begin moving forward again. I want to take a few 
minutes this evening to talk about what it will mean for families in my 
home State of Washington.
  To begin with, this bill offers a helping hand to thousands of 
families in Washington State who are struggling to meet their basic 
needs. In the last couple of months, we have seen a demand for food 
stamps, Medicaid, and other programs rise dramatically. Food stamp 
applications are up 15 percent over last year. State workers have said 
they are having trouble keeping up with the demand. This bill is going 
to help us meet the needs of the most vulnerable families by extending 
unemployment insurance benefits, expanding food stamps, and increasing 
funding to help with Medicaid costs.
  This isn't just the moral thing to do, we would not be able to dig 
ourselves out of this economic crisis until people have money to spend. 
So this is the right decision economically as well. The money we spend 
on unemployment and food stamps will go right back into the economy as 
people use the benefits to pay for things they need. That is the same 
reason we are working to get money into the hands of working families 
and small business owners.
  Like families all across the country, people in my home State are 
scared, they are struggling to make ends meet, and they aren't 
spending. So we include in this bill an income tax cut that will give 
almost 2\1/2\ million Washington workers some extra money in their 
paychecks every week. Because this bill is about stabilizing our 
economy and getting our country back on track, we are also including 
funding to help struggling families pay for critical expenses, such as 
childcare or health care or college tuition.
  I was a working mom. I know that reliable childcare is what makes it 
possible for millions of parents to go to work every day. This bill 
increases the childcare development block grant so more parents can 
afford quality daycare for their kids. It increases Pell grants and 
higher education tax credits to help thousands of our students stay in 
college, get their degree, and then qualify for a good-paying job. 
Importantly, the bill also makes COBRA more affordable so people who 
have lost their jobs can keep their health insurance while they look 
for work.
  So we are helping working families pay for their basic expenses, stay 
in school, and keep their jobs and their health care. That is critical 
to getting our country back on track.
  But the biggest jolt to our economy will come from the millions of 
jobs we are creating in construction, in environmental cleanup, and in 
energy development. In my State, this bill will help put thousands of 
people to work fixing our roads and bridges and upgrading our mass 
transit and ferry systems. These are investments that will also make 
our communities stronger and more attractive to businesses in the long 
run. It will help us take a big step toward energy independence and 
lower energy costs for everyone.
  This bill expands the Bonneville Power Administration's existing 
borrowing authority, and it will help us take advantage of more 
renewable energy sources and hire hundreds of thousands of new 
employees who will be trained to update our energy transmission 
systems. That will allow the new energy we hope to produce, such as 
wind, get to our homes and our businesses and save all of us money in 
the future.
  This bill will also help create and preserve jobs at Hanford, and it 
will keep our legal and moral commitment to cleaning up nuclear waste 
in Washington State and across the country. It will also ensure that we 
can fulfill our responsibility to our Nation's veterans by making 
investments in badly needed construction and repair projects at our VA 
hospitals and medical facilities in Washington State and across the 
country.
  But we are not just creating construction jobs in this bill. We are 
helping our local and State governments keep critical employees on the 
job--our police and our firefighters, our teachers, our university 
employees. This economic crisis has hit State and local governments 
terribly hard. They have had to make cuts across the board, including 
in education and emergency response. Local officials have told me they 
are very worried about what that will mean for their communities. 
Police chiefs and sheriffs have been warning me that I.D. theft, 
burglary, bank robbery, fraud, and gang activity are going to increase 
as jobs vanish and people become more desperate.
  In this bill we provide money for Byrne and COPS grants to help keep

[[Page S2168]]

our police on the beat and our families safe. Just as important, this 
bill will help our schools and our colleges and our universities keep 
their doors open and keep the teachers in the classroom.
  School board members from across my home State of Washington told me 
this week they are struggling to afford everything from salaries to 
their light bills. Several of them have already started laying off, and 
they are worried there is more to come. Universities in my home State 
are looking at hundreds of job cuts.

  Education is critical to our communities, especially when the economy 
is bad. We need strong schools and colleges to train the workforce of 
the future. We need to make sure they are strong so our current 
workforce can get the skills and training they need to qualify for 
better jobs as well. We can't afford to take a step backward. So we are 
sending billions of critically needed dollars to schools and colleges 
across the country to keep the lights on, the doors open, teachers on 
the job, and to make sure we can meet the needs of students who have 
been hurt by this economic crisis.
  Mr. President, let me add one other note. We aren't just helping to 
make up for State budget cuts. We are adding incentives that make sure 
schools keep working to increase standards and improve education for 
all of our students.
  Finally, we are also investing in our greatest resource--our 
workers--so that our communities can stay productive and competitive in 
the global economy. This bill includes $64 million for training and job 
research services that will help our laid-off workers in Washington 
State learn the skills they need so they can begin new careers and stay 
in the middle class. It also provides incentives to encourage 
businesses to hire homeless veterans and disadvantaged teenagers who 
are looking for jobs today.
  Mr. President, this isn't just going to help our teens and our 
veterans find jobs, it is good for the economy too. Teenagers, in 
particular, as we all know, are more likely to spend the money they 
earn in their own communities, and some of them also contribute to 
their families' incomes to help pay rent or put food on the table. So 
this is a smart investment.
  This bill we are going to consider in the next day or so is critical 
for my home State. In Washington alone it will create thousands of jobs 
and make investments that will strengthen our communities for years to 
come. It isn't perfect. It is not a silver bullet that will solve all 
of our problems, but it certainly is the first of many steps that we 
are going to have to take to get our country turned around.
  As President Obama has outlined, getting our economy back on track is 
going to take an aggressive three-pronged approach. The first step is 
to recover and reinvest. We also have to stabilize our financial 
institutions to fix the credit and banking system. We need to address 
the housing crisis. But I want to emphasize, we have to do all three if 
we are going to get this economy moving again. We are starting today 
with a bold recovery bill. While there are no guarantees with any of 
this, we can guarantee that if we do nothing, things are going to get 
worse. As hard as it has been to write and put this bill together, it 
does not even compare to the pain that is being felt by millions of 
Americans who are going to wake up tomorrow without a job.

  They are watching us now, and they are expecting us to make good on 
the promises we have made--to bring change to Washington and restore 
confidence and security in our country. They expect us to work 
together. They expect us to put our differences aside and make the 
difficult decisions that will move our country forward. They cannot 
afford to wait any longer.
  When I was growing up, my father was diagnosed with multiple 
sclerosis and all of a sudden he couldn't work any longer. My family--
all seven kids, my mom--had to survive on food stamps. My brothers and 
sisters and I were able to go to college because of Pell grants and 
student loans. So I want you to know I understand what a lot of our 
families are going through today as they struggle in this economy. That 
is why I am working so hard with so many others to find ways that our 
Government and our country can help today.
  President Obama made it clear Monday night that if we do not act, the 
economic crisis we are in now could become an economic catastrophe. I 
urge my colleagues to help pass this bill out of the conference, 
through the Senate and House, get it signed, get Americans back to 
work, and get our country on the road to recovery.
  I yield the floor.

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