[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 165 (Friday, November 6, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11250-S11252]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          JOBS AND THE ECONOMY

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to comment this morning about 
the information that was released this morning on unemployment. The 
unemployment level has now gone to 10.2 percent. That is an antiseptic 
number. It doesn't mean so much as a number, but it sure means a whole 
lot to the folks who have lost their jobs.
  We are now at a point where we have had a massive number of job 
losses since this economic decline began. This is the steepest economic 
decline since the Great Depression.
  In the same couple of weeks where we have learned that the economy 
has once again begun to grow--that is good news--we also know that 
people are still losing their jobs, and that is bad news. An economic 
recovery that is a jobless recovery, in my judgment, is not a real 
economic recovery.
  We are working on a lot of things here in the Senate, all very 
important--health care, climate change--but in my judgment, the most 
important thing for this Congress and this government to do is to try 
to restart this economic engine in a way that creates real jobs, puts 
our economy back on track, produces real, significant jobs that pay 
well, and that puts the American people to work in order to make a 
living and to care for their families. When that happens, we will have 
achieved something significant.
  Let me say quickly, as I have said before, this President has been in 
office less than 10 months. He inherited an unbelievable economic 
mess--the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression. So I 
understand that. I

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know he understood this was not an optimal time, perhaps, to assume the 
reins, but he understands and we understand that we have to do 
everything we can to get this economy started once again.
  To hear a report on a Friday that we are at 10.2 percent 
unemployment--that is tough news, and we have a lot to do here in the 
Congress and in our government to try to find a way to put this back on 
track. There is some evidence that maybe this is beginning, but, again, 
a jobless economic recovery is not a real economic recovery. We need to 
focus like a laser on the question of how do you create new jobs in 
this country.
  Clearly, small-to-medium-sized businesses are the job generators in 
this country, and we need to find ways and we need to focus all our 
attention to finding ways to incentivize the creation of jobs once 
again in the private sector. I think public policies that can 
incentivize the creation of those jobs is what is expected of us. There 
is a lot of urgency for a lot of things. In my judgment, the most 
significant urgent priority at the moment is the focus on jobs and 
getting people back to work.
  I am going to have a meeting next Tuesday morning with a good many of 
my colleagues to talk about putting together the set of policies on an 
urgent basis that will try to push that result. We just cannot decide 
that, well, this is the long tail of a serious long-term economic 
downturn that has now reached bottom and is now coming back up with an 
economic growth of, I believe 3.6 percent this quarter. We cannot 
believe that somehow that is going to do the job because growth without 
jobs is not real economic recovery. So we have a lot of work to do.
  While saying what I have just said, we also have two different 
economies working in this country. A lot of folks lost their jobs last 
month, last year, and the last few years--somewhere over 7.6 million 
Americans--and they had to tell their loved ones that they weren't 
employed anymore, that their jobs were gone, not because they were bad 
workers, not because they did a bad job, but because of cutbacks, 
because of this steep economic decline. And now we see day after day 
that there is another economy working out there.
  I just brought a few of these to the floor of the Senate to describe 
the difficulty of people who are looking for work, who lost their jobs 
last month. When they read these papers, it explains the difficulty 
they see in this, and probably the anger--more likely the anger.
  October 17: The headline from the New York Times reads ``Bailout 
Helps Fuel a New Era of Wall Street Wealth.'' Quoting from the article:

       Titans like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are making 
     fortunes in hot areas like trading stocks and bonds, rather 
     than in the ho-hum business of lending people money. They are 
     also profiting by taking risks that weaker rivals are unable 
     or unwilling to shoulder--a benefit of less competition after 
     the failure of some investment firms last year.

  October 26, Bloomberg. Quoting from this article:

       Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. paid top 
     executives an average of $18.2 million each last year as the 
     banks accepted a total of $90 billion in taxpayer funds to 
     survive the financial crisis. Citigroup . . . paid $390 
     million to 21 people, an average of $18.6 million each . . . 
     Bank of America paid $227.8 million to 13 executives, or 
     $17.5 million apiece.

  Again, these payments in some cases are from companies that might not 
have been around were it not for the Federal Government providing some 
funds for them. These are payments and bonuses that are unbelievable. 
And we are told now that in the next 30 days or so Wall Street is going 
to pay itself somewhere around $140 billion in bonuses.
  Let me just describe again what was done in the last year and a half 
for some of the biggest financial firms in this country that steered 
this country's economy into the ditch. So far, it has been between $12 
billion and $15--excuse me, trillion. It is hard to get the b's and t's 
straight. Between $12 trillion and $15 trillion has been lent, spent, 
committed, pledged, subsidized, or guaranteed. Let me say that again. 
Somewhere between $12 trillion and $15 trillion of the taxpayers' 
money, through the Congress--mostly through the Federal Reserve Board 
and other devices--has been lent, spent, committed, pledged, 
subsidized, or guaranteed. And because of that, presumably, some of 
these firms that are now paying these bonuses are firms that would 
otherwise not have been around. But for those taxpayer funds, they 
wouldn't have been around.
  So what we are doing is picking up the paper every single day and 
seeing articles such as this: October 20, the New York Times, Bob 
Herbert writes:

       The lead headline, in the upper right-hand corners, said: 
     ``U.S. Deficit Rises to $1.4 Trillion; Biggest Since '45.'' 
     The headline next to it said: ``Bailout Helps Revive Banks, 
     And Bonuses.''

  And this is Allan Sloan, September 8:

       A Year After Lehman, Wall Street's Acting Like Wall Street 
     Again. It's been 12 months since Lehman Brothers failed, 
     setting off a chain reaction that came horrifyingly close to 
     destroying the world's financial system. That anniversary 
     makes this a convenient time to take a deep breath, look back 
     . . . and see what we can learn from the past turbulent year 
     . . . What are the lessons? How has Wall Street changed since 
     Lehman went broke last September 15?

  That is a year ago. The fact is, Wall Street is back doing the same 
things they did prior to the collapse.
  Here is another article:

       What Red Ink? Wall Street Paid Hefty Bonuses. Despite 
     crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the 
     passing of some of the most prominent names and businesses, 
     employees at financial companies in New York, the now 
     diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated 
     $178.4 billion in bonuses for the year.

  And they are speaking of the year 2008.
  Continuing with this article:

       That was the sixth-largest haul on record, according to a 
     report by the New York State comptroller.

  Again, that was in the New York Times.
  Here is one from the Washington Post dated July 30, 2009. The 
headline read: ``Report Outlines Big Bonuses at Rescued Banks.'' 
Quoting from the article:

       Two firms, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, suffered losses of 
     more than $27 billion each but paid out $5.3 billion and $3.6 
     billion in bonuses, respectively, the report noted. At 
     Citigroup, 738 employees got bonuses of at least $1 million, 
     the report said, while 11 executives received a combined $77 
     million in cash, deferred cash and stock awards.

  The point is, we have a couple of different economies working here. 
We have an economy in which we read of some companies making very large 
profits and paying very large bonuses--and some of them, by the way, 
wouldn't exist were it not for the American taxpayer backstopping the 
reckless behavior and the losses they incurred as they steered this 
economy into the ditch; then, today, 10.2 percent unemployment at the 
same time we see the economy, we are told, is growing at a 3.6-percent 
rate in the third quarter.
  The point I want to make this morning is simple. The American people 
will not stand long for two economies. The fact is, 10.2 percent 
unemployment is not acceptable, not acceptable to anybody. Those who 
are losing their jobs and losing hope and losing their homes, in some 
cases, should expect that the urgent priority, among all of us in 
government, is to decide that jobs are No. 1. Restarting this economic 
engine, putting this economy back on track, and putting people back to 
work has to be the urgent priority of this Congress. I hope the work I 
and others can do will make some small contribution to that in the 
coming days.
  I think the American people, if you look at the history of this 
country, have always been a resilient bunch. We have been through tough 
times and been through good times. But it is time now, as I said the 
other day, for us to stop thinking of ourselves as two different teams 
in places like the Senate. There ought to be only one team that works 
together to find ways to put people back to work in this country and 
get this country's economy started again.
  If you take a look over the economic history of this country and see 
what made America great, it is lifting people out of poverty, putting 
people to work, on payrolls, making a good wage to be able to take care 
of their families. That expansion of the middle class is what has made 
this country great. It is not the capability of the people at the very 
top to make even more and to pay even bigger bonuses, it is the 
expansion of the middle class that has made this country a great 
country, and what we

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have seen now is a shrinking of the middle class. We have seen more 
unemployment in what used to be the middle class. Day after day, even 
as people are losing their jobs in this country, we still see companies 
shipping American jobs overseas and getting a tax break for doing it.
  We have a lot of things on our plate to do to try to fix what is 
wrong. I am convinced we can. I have an effervescent spirit of hope 
that we can do these things, but we have to start now. Of those this 
morning who read in the paper that the unemployment rate is 10.2 
percent, those who have lost their jobs fully understand what that 
number means. I hope all of us in this Chamber do as well. It requires 
from us an urgent priority to get to work and fix this problem.
  I yield the floor.

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