[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 57 (Monday, April 20, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4406-S4407]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, our economic troubles can be tallied in 
statistics but numbers alone cannot tell their toll. Every American 
knows this. The people in Nevada know this especially well. They have 
felt the full force of this recession as intensely as anyone in 
America.
  I received a letter this month from Bobby Mockbee. Bobby, his wife 
Julia, and their two children live in North Las Vegas, NV. Bobby is a 
stay-at-home dad, and a little over a year ago Julia was laid off from 
her job. Finding themselves near the end of tens of thousands of 
dollars they had saved and put away, Bobby and Julia recently tried to 
get a loan. Similar to many families who are hurting now, the Mockbees 
played by the rules. They had never been late on any bill at any time. 
They had excellent credit. Their credit score was terrific. They were 
no strangers to the ins and outs of the housing market--the job Mrs. 
Mockbee lost was as vice president of a large title and escrow company. 
But they were turned down for that loan. Now that the Mockbees are so 
stretched, they fear that before long they will be the latest in a long 
line of Nevada families to have lost their homes.
  Unemployment in Nevada is now in the double digits--the highest it 
has been in a quarter of a century. To a worker such as Julia Mockbee, 
who can no longer collect a paycheck, job loss is more than an economic 
indicator. Families in my State lose their homes at the worst rate in 
the Nation. But to someone who has lost a share of the American dream, 
foreclosure is more than a cause and effect of the Wall Street 
collapse.
  I am confident the steps we have taken this year to address this 
crisis will ultimately anchor our recovery, but it has not done so yet. 
As I visited with Nevadans over the past couple weeks, one message 
became very clear: We as legislators must keep going. We must do more. 
The hole we have inherited from George Bush is deep, and our long climb 
back has just begun.
  We have seen promising progress and are beginning to see a return on 
the investments we made in our economic recovery plan, but we are still 
far closer to the starting line than the finish line. In that 
legislation, we indicated we would create or save at least 3\1/2\ 
million jobs. In States such as Texas, Florida, and Ohio, thousands of 
new construction jobs are already on their way. Students are getting 
better schools and a better education in Illinois and Tennessee. 
Veterans, children, and low-income families in New Mexico and Maryland 
are getting better health care. In Nevada, investment in green 
technology is leading us not only to economic recovery but energy 
independence.
  This Congress faced monumental challenges when we convened a few 
short months ago. Our response has been swift and strong. We cut taxes 
for the middle class so they can keep more of their paychecks at a time 
when they need it most. We made sure more children get the health care 
they need to stay healthy with the Children's Health Insurance 
Program--4 million more. We outlawed pay discrimination, to be sure 
women will be treated as equals in the workplace and ensure that hard 
work is rewarded fairly no matter who you are. That is the Ledbetter 
legislation. We passed a responsible budget that, when put into action, 
will make investments in health care, clean energy, and education to 
help us not only recover but to prosper. We passed one of the most 
important conservation bills in a quarter of a century. That 
legislation will protect our environment and natural resources for 
generations to come, and it created more than 2 million acres of 
wilderness. We also passed national service legislation--legislation 
that will allow 750,000 Americans to become involved in public service 
and, in the process, better their education.

  I wish I could say we did these things with broad support from 
Republicans, our colleagues in the Senate. It would have been good for 
the country if we had. Unfortunately, we only had the help of a few 
courageous Republican Senators and basically no help in the House. 
Nevertheless, our progress so far is a healthy downpayment.
  There is much more to do to address this crisis. That is why, in the 
coming weeks, we will keep going. We will attempt to give bankruptcy 
judges the chance to modify existing mortgages so responsible families 
who played by the rules can make their payments and stay in their 
homes.
  It is so unusual that the law in our great country says that if 
someone has a home on the beach, in addition to their primary 
residence, or near a ski area in the mountains, and they have financial 
problems, they can go to bankruptcy court and readjust those loans on 
their second homes but they can't do that on their primary residence. 
If a person has lost their job, such as Julia Mockbee, or may lose 
their job, they can't go to bankruptcy court and get a readjustment of 
their loan. We have to change that.
  We also wish to fight financial fraud in the mortgage business--there 
is a lot of that going on now--and hold accountable those who game the 
system on the backs of those who make an honest living. We will fix the 
criminal code to punish leaders who betray the public trust, take 
advantage of American families, and further endanger our economy. We 
will finish work on the budget we passed earlier this month so we can 
begin to correct the mistakes of the past and invest in our future. We 
will ensure our troops will have the resources they need to fight 
effectively the extremists in the Middle East and make Americans safer.
  These are not small ambitions, but they are not luxuries. They are 
priorities we must pass because American families are still suffering. 
They are still worried about losing their jobs and losing their homes. 
No effort to recover can succeed unless Democrats and Republicans work 
together. I had hoped this year for change would have inaugurated a new 
era of common purpose. Instead, Democrats have met an all-too-familiar 
wall that reflects Republican opposition. I still hold the hope that we 
will see the bipartisan cooperation necessary to fulfill the rest of 
our obligations to the American people. I still believe we can put 
aside our political differences and move forward.
  The last time America looked up from an economic hole so deep, it 
resoundingly elected a new leader--Franklin Roosevelt--not with a 
mandate for reticence or for repeating the mistakes of the past but 
with an urgent instruction--in 1932--to lift our Nation, reject fear, 
and recover from financial turmoil. Just weeks before the election--
again, in 1932--Americans would soon swarm to the polls, but they would 
also pack theaters to see a Marx Brothers blockbuster called ``Horse 
Feathers.'' The film starts with a song that could just as easily have 
been written by today's Republican Senators. Groucho Marx sang the 
following in that movie:

       I don't know what they have to say. It makes no difference 
     anyway. Whatever it is, I'm against it.

  That was Groucho Marx. The lyrics were a hit in Hollywood, and that 
is where the song should stay. As a legislative strategy, it is nothing 
short of reckless. The American people expect more from their leaders, 
and their serious problems deserve better than a vaudeville act, but 
that is what the Americans have gotten from the Republicans in the 
Senate: Whatever you want, we are against it.
  Nearly eight decades after this song sung by Groucho Marx and this 
movie with the Marx Brothers, in the face of familiar troubles, we 
cannot afford to say no because it is easier than doing the hard work 
to make life better for struggling families. We cannot afford to work 
against each other because it is more politically convenient than 
working together. We cannot afford to bet against America's resilience 
and recovery, as the Republicans are doing. The American people did not 
send anyone here to simply be against everything. They still want to 
hear what Republicans support, not just what they oppose.
  One of the Republican leaders in the House said: We are going to be 
like a thousand mosquitoes. That is the effort

[[Page S4407]]

of the Republican leadership in the House--a thousand mosquitoes--just 
biting, not accomplishing anything.
  Families are too busy trying to make this week's paycheck last until 
the next to keep track of who is scoring political points. They worry 
about paying the electric bill, the mortgage bill or the tuition bill--
not about games and gimmicks. In the history of American Government, 
partisan bickering has never saved a single job or kept one family from 
losing their home.
  I hope Republicans will join us to confront the crises in our 
communities and around the world, and I hope they will start this 
afternoon when we vote on moving forward with the nomination of 
Christopher Hill.
  To this point--this few short weeks we have been in session--we have 
had to file cloture on five of the President's nominees. The Secretary 
of Labor, a very important job--Hilda Solis--was held up. We had to 
invoke cloture. The Deputy Attorney General, a man by the name of 
Ogden, we had to invoke cloture on the Republicans' filibuster of him. 
In his job, second in command, he is in charge of all the criminal 
prosecutions in this country. He is also the chief administrator of the 
attorney general's office. We had to invoke cloture on that.

  Two members of the Council of Economic Advisers--we had to invoke 
cloture. Who are these people? They are the primary economists on whom 
the President depends. We had to waste valuable time invoking cloture 
on two filibusters there.
  Incredibly, now, tonight, we are going to invoke cloture on the 
Ambassador to Iraq. I talked to Secretary Gates just a couple of days 
ago about a number of issues. One of the things he brought up was--
Gates said that every time he talks to General Odierno, he asks: When 
can I get my civilian commander, my civilian counterpart in Iraq? That 
is what this is all about. We did everything we could prior to the 2-
week recess to let us have a vote. No; cloture. We have to file cloture 
on the Ambassador to Iraq. What a shame.
  Christopher Hill is a strong and skilled negotiator who has tackled 
some of the most complex diplomatic challenges in the world. After he 
graduated from Bowdoin College, he joined the Peace Corps and served in 
Africa. He joined the Foreign Service immediately after that and served 
tours in half a dozen countries. He has been an ambassador in any 
number of countries and served so well. He earned a graduate degree 
from the Naval War College.
  The man we will send to Iraq is no stranger to dealing with difficult 
governments. He has worked hard on ethnic civil wars. He successfully 
coordinated multilateral negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program 
and was a key player in the peace talks that ended the conflicts in 
both Kosovo and Bosnia.
  General Petraeus has always said that the cure of Iraq's troubles 
will be prescribed politically, not militarily. General Odierno has 
called for civilian help to secure what his brave troops have 
accomplished. Experts from the left and the right alike have warned 
against taking our eye off the ball in Iraq. Yet our top diplomat in 
that country where more than 4,000 Americans have given their lives--
and each day, 143,000 more risk their own--sits and waits. When is this 
man going to be able to come and go to work? It is a shame we have to 
go through this process on the Ambassador to Iraq.
  Each of our three Ambassadors to Iraq since the beginning of the war 
has called on us to urgently fill this gaping hole in our diplomatic 
lineup and to fill it with Ambassador Hill. He has spent his entire 
career in the Foreign Service, and he is ready to answer his country's 
call once again. It is simply wrong that we have to wait for this man 
to get over there.
  I didn't bring the subject up with Secretary Gates; he brought it up.
  I hope Republicans will not make us use all of the 30 hours of 
procedural time. What do I mean by this? For those who are watching, 
after we invoke cloture there is 30 hours of time. I say to everyone, 
we are going to vote on this when the 30 hours expires. If it is 
midnight tomorrow night or 1 a.m. Wednesday morning, we are going to 
vote. We are not going to hold this up 1 minute. It is absolutely wrong 
that we have to do this. We cannot wait any longer for civilian 
leadership in Iraq. Those who stand in the way should stand down so 
Ambassador Hill can get to work making America more secure and so the 
Senate can move to the important work of getting our economy back on 
track. Democrats and Republicans alike have an interest in stabilizing 
the Middle East. Democrats and Republicans alike have an interest in 
stabilizing our economy. But neither security abroad nor prosperity at 
home can happen unless both Democrats and Republicans work together 
toward those common goals.
  As we begin our common work here after a 2-week recess, I hope my 
colleagues keep in mind what they saw and heard across the country in 
the last few weeks. It was what I heard, that hard-working people in 
their communities are struggling against conditions they did not 
create, that the earliest signs of recovery are beginning to bloom in 
the spring, and with much more to be done, they hope their leaders will 
be up to the task.
  I urge my Republican friends to think twice before they return to the 
refrain: Whatever Democrats are for, we are against. I remind them what 
we are for is the success and security of the American people. If we 
are going to turn the tide, if we are going to change the tone, it is 
time to sing a different tune and not a song sung by Groucho Marx.

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