[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 10, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1336-S1338]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       RESPONDING TO THE ECONOMY

  Mr. CASEY. Madam President, thank you very much. I appreciate the 
many times Senator Kaufman comes to the floor to celebrate what is 
working in Washington and the good work that is done by so many public 
officials, but also public employees in our Federal Government.
  I rise this afternoon to talk about the recession, unemployment, job 
loss--all of those related topics--and in a very particular way to 
focus on the trauma, the suffering that a lot of Pennsylvanians and a 
lot of Americans are living through right now.
  This has been and continues to be a horrific recession for the 
American people. When we are confronted with that kind of economic 
difficulty, we need to respond to it in very bold ways. I think we have 
over the last couple of years and even the last couple of weeks. I will 
talk about that today. But we do need bold action to put people back to 
work and to keep our economy moving in the right direction, as I think 
it is now, more than a year after the recovery bill was enacted.
  In Pennsylvania, the unemployment situation is as follows: Our rate 
is at about 8.8 percent as of January. That is lower than a number of 
States of comparable size. But, unfortunately, the rate doesn't tell us 
much. It doesn't often reflect the true meaning or the true impact of 
unemployment. We have 560,000 people in Pennsylvania out of work 
through no fault of their own. I think it is also important to put this 
in the context of where we have been and where we are now, not only in 
Pennsylvania but across the country.
  In late December of 2008, Congress took action to stave off the 
impending collapse of our Nation's financial system. Months later, the 
downturn required Congress to pass, as I mentioned before, the recovery 
bill known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known by the 
acronym ARRA. I tend to refer to it as the recovery bill.
  These actions were at the time--meaning the legislative actions--
unpopular but absolutely necessary. I said we have worked on job 
creation strategies and legislation more recently within the last 
couple of weeks. Our majority leader Senator Reid has led us in that, 
and we are making progress. We have more to do.
  First, let me go back in time a little bit to the fall of 2008. At 
that time I happened to be a member of the Banking Committee. We were 
given briefings at that time on how perilous our financial system was; 
that we were on the edge of a cliff in terms of the collapse of our 
financial system and, therefore, the collapse of our economy. We passed 
legislation which included the Troubled Asset Relief Program, known by 
the acronym TARP.
  I know as soon as I say it, it doesn't bring back positive 
recollections for people. It was not popular. Even the bill itself was 
not that popular--the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act--and part of 
that was the so called Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP. But I 
think it is important to put the facts on the table about what has 
happened since that time.
  The Troubled Asset Relief Program was, indeed, unpopular, but we 
should note that to date the Treasury Department has spent, invested, 
or loaned $500 billion through TARP. To date, almost $190 billion of 
the $500 billion has been returned or paid to the Treasury Department. 
These actions helped steer the economy back from the brink and, by the 
program's conclusion, we expect all but $100 billion of that $500 
billion to be repaid, which makes the Troubled Asset Relief Program 
significantly less expensive to taxpayers than earlier estimates. It 
met some of the predictions at the time by some of us that the money 
would be paid back. So that is good news. It is not enough, though, to 
report on good news.
  We had to take other action. We took action when we passed the 
recovery bill in the early part of 2009. Just by way of example, 
Pennsylvania is on track to receive more than $26 billion through the 
recovery bill, including billions in direct tax relief. We had 4.9 
million Pennsylvanians who got tax relief as part of the recovery bill. 
Among, or part of, I should say, that more than $26 billion, $13.15 
billion was in so-called formula-driven funding for health, education, 
infrastructure, job training, and other aid. It was a tremendous boost 
to the economy in Pennsylvania, not only creating jobs but preventing 
the erosion of our job creation strategies and preventing people from 
being laid off, including teachers in school districts, law enforcement 
officials, as well as in jump-starting the economy of Pennsylvania. We 
still have a ways to go. We still have basically another year of a 
jump-starting effect for the recovery bill.
  Across the country, when we measure the impact of the recovery bill, 
the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which is known by the 
acronym CBO--we hear about it all the time, but they are a referee in a 
sense in Washington, an arbiter of what the numbers mean. The CBO 
reported a few weeks ago that the Recovery Act added between 1 million 
and 2.1 million jobs by the fourth quarter of 2009. Again, impressive, 
halfway basically--or almost, I should say, halfway through the 
recovery bill's implementation at the end of 2009, 1 million to 2 
million jobs. The CBO also said the Recovery Act raised economic growth 
by 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent over that same period. So it has 
contributed to growth.
  The CBO Director, Doug Elmendorf, said during a recent Joint Economic 
hearing:

       [T]he policies that were enacted in the bill are increasing 
     GDP and employment relative to what it otherwise would be.

  So that is the CBO talking about the recovery bill as another way to 
measure. There are lots of ways to measure the impact and, I would 
argue, the success of it.
  In January of 2009 the country lost 1.2 million jobs. Job loss, as of 
the most recent report for February, was a little more than 60,000 
jobs, just about 62,000 jobs. So that reduction or diminution in the 
number of jobs lost from 1.5 million jobs to 62,000 jobs is, indeed, 
substantial progress but, again, it is not enough. We have to keep 
going. We have to keep putting in place strategies to create many more 
jobs.
  The facts speak for themselves. More people are currently employed 
and more goods and services are being produced as a result of the 
Recovery Act. Put another way, if the Recovery Act had not been 
enacted, the economic situation would be much worse than it is today. 
That is an understatement, if we did not pass that legislation.
  But we need to do more and move forward. We need to pass legislation 
to continue to create jobs. That is why I am standing today in support 
of passage of the American Workers, State, and Business Relief Act, the 
legislation we are now considering. This legislation contains vital 
policies that will support our workers and our businesses as we recover 
from the recent economic recession. The most important part of the 
legislation is the extension of unemployment insurance and COBRA health 
insurance through December 31 of this year.
  The national unemployment rate is 9.7 percent. It is expected to 
remain at this level, unfortunately, through most of 2010. I mentioned 
earlier that in Pennsylvania it is about a point lower, 8.8 percent. 
There are 560,000 Pennsylvanians who are out of work. These numbers are 
far too high for us to in any way be satisfied with the positive impact 
the recovery bill has had and other measures we have taken.
  We are about to pass and enact into law the HIRE Act--four provisions 
agreed to in a bipartisan way. We have to do more than that as well. 
Congress must continue to provide for comprehensive unemployment 
benefits and a subsidy to pay for COBRA health insurance for those who 
have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. The eligibility for 
emergency unemployment compensation and COBRA premium assistance will 
expire at the end of March. According to our State's department of 
labor and industry, hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania workers could 
lose unemployment benefits over the next several months without an 
extension.
  An extension of federally funded unemployment compensation and the

[[Page S1337]]

COBRA health insurance subsidy through the end of this year, December 
31, is necessary for several reasons. First, State labor departments--
and this is true across the board--will now be under pressure to 
constantly update their systems and inform constituents of the changes 
in Federal law. Why should we keep passing an extension of a month or 
two or three when we could pass legislation to give certainty, most 
importantly to that unemployed worker and his or her family--they are 
the most important part of this story--but also to State labor 
departments and other officials in departments so they do not have to 
continue to make changes to their system. People who were recently laid 
off will constantly be reminded that their unemployment benefits may 
run out sooner than expected, especially at a time when there are six 
applicants for every one job.
  Second, our State labor department makes a point that at a time when 
millions of people do not have health care coverage, failure to provide 
an adequate safety net to ensure people maintain adequate and 
affordable health coverage will only add to the rolls of the uninsured 
in the country.
  During my travels throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I have 
met and I will continue to meet or hear from numerous people who are in 
desperate need of help.
  Recently, the Hanlon family of Pleasantville, PA, contacted my office 
to share their story. Here is but one story, but it is very telling 
about what families are up against.
  Lisa and Jeff Hanlon have four young children. Until recently, Jeff 
and Lisa were both employed by the same company and, in their words, 
``the family lived a solid middle-class experience.'' Jeff worked at 
the company for nearly 8 years. Over time, he began to experience 
severe health problems, including suffering three heart attacks. When 
the economic downturn hit, Jeff was downsized by the company and the 
family lost their health insurance. The blow of losing health insurance 
could not have come at a worse time. Just one of Jeff's hospital bills 
was $398,000.
  Due to his medical condition, Jeff was unable to work. Too sick to 
work, it took a long time for Jeff to apply for and receive Social 
Security. During this time, the family experienced severe hardship and 
sold everything of value to keep their home and stay afloat. Mrs. 
Hanlon told our office that their children went without medical help 
for a year--young children going without medical help for a year 
because their father or mother loses a job. That is unacceptable. We 
should act on the statement ``that is unacceptable in America today.'' 
What the Hanlons had to do was choose what bills to pay to feed their 
children. Without means, the children were not able to participate in 
sports or any school activities. Even now, the family's current income 
is a fraction of what it was.
  Another example, in addition to the Hanlons, is Janet Lee Smith, a 
single mother of two girls. Her difficulties began back in 2003 when 
she was laid off from a 26-year career. As Janet tells the story, the 
company began outsourcing to Mexico, which made her position obsolete.
  Faced with the tremendous responsibility of raising two young girls, 
she decided to go back to school while still working. In 2005, she 
graduated from a Penn State extension campus with an associate's degree 
in human development and family studies. Unfortunately, additional 
education was not enough to get her a job in this tough economic 
climate. So once again, Janet turned to odd jobs and part-time jobs 
until 2008, when she was finally blessed with a full-time job as an 
administrative assistant. Nine months later, once again she was told 
that business was slow and she would, in her words, ``once again become 
a statistic as a `dislocated worker.'''
  Today, unable to find full-time work, Janet is back in school and 
working part time. She says she feels she has to do whatever she can 
``to get her girls through school healthy and strong.'' In Janet's 
words:

       It is not a good feeling at all being told that you are 
     going to be laid off, especially when you are the only income 
     that your family depends on. It has been a struggle keeping 
     up my spirits and trying not to let my girls see that I am 
     stressed.

  That is what Janet tells us, and that is what the Hanlon family tells 
us. Despite these challenges--and I have seen this across our State--
despite these challenges, Janet is still optimistic. She says:

       I am confident that this time I will be able to find that 
     one job. I know that they are out there. I had a good job 
     before and I will have a good job again.

  I heard this in many instances across our State. I was at a job 
center in south central Pennsylvania, just outside Gettysburg. I met 
with 8 of those 560,000 people who are out of work. I heard the same 
thing there. Eight Pennsylvanians--at least six were over the age of 50 
and the others were over the age of 60--had never been out of work in 
their lives, never had to rely on food stamps, and almost in every case 
never had to rely on unemployment insurance. And they find themselves 
in this predicament. Despite that, there is a burning flame of optimism 
inside them. Despite their setbacks, they are willing to keep filling 
out forms, keep applying, keeping their heads up, and keep moving 
forward.
  Debbie, a woman, who was one of those eight I spoke to that day, 
probably said it best--simply: All I want to do is get back to work. We 
see that across the board.
  What are we going to do in Congress? Are we going to preach? We will 
only have unemployment for another couple weeks or a few months. We are 
only going to have COBRA insurance for a couple of weeks, a couple of 
months. It is easy for us to say when we have health care, Federal 
employees that we are, and we have job security.
  For those who say we should not do it, we should not extend these 
safety net programs, before they make a speech about it, they should 
tell their constituents about why they do not want to support it. Tell 
Janet Smith and tell the Hanlon family why it is not a good idea to 
support unemployment insurance and COBRA health insurance. The security 
of Washington allows a lot of people to avoid that conversation. The 
security of being a Federal employee, of being a Senator or a House 
Member and having health coverage and job security allows us the luxury 
of not having to look those families in the eye and tell them. I think 
if people were more honest about it around here, they would.
  In addition to aiding families who are desperately in need of putting 
food on the table and a roof over their heads, an extension of the 
unemployment insurance has a direct impact on our Nation's economy. We 
know, for example, that again the Congressional Budget Office says that 
for every $1 spent in unemployment insurance benefits, upwards of $1.90 
is contributed to the gross domestic product.
  Mark Zandi, an economist I have quoted often, a Pennsylvanian--a 
little bias there, but he also worked on Senator McCain's Presidential 
campaign, so he is not someone coming from a purely Democratic point of 
view--Mark Zandi has stated that for every $1 spent in unemployment 
insurance benefits, upwards of $1.63 is contributed to the gross 
domestic product. If you spend a buck on unemployment insurance, the 
taxpayers get $1.63 back in return.
  In addition to unemployment insurance and COBRA health insurance, the 
American Workers, State, and Business Relief Act provides a range of 
tax credits that will help businesses and State governments to create 
and retain jobs. For example, the bill contains an extension of the 
biodiesel fuel credit, which will put a number of Pennsylvanians back 
to work across the country.
  The bill contains a research and development tax credit that will 
provide businesses with financial resources to compete in a global 
marketplace.
  Finally, the bill will assist our teachers by providing a tax 
deduction for those teachers who spend their own money to buy supplies 
for their classrooms and students--something I have seen in 
Pennsylvania for many years, teachers constantly reaching into their 
own pockets to buy supplies and equipment they need for them to teach 
our children.
  I say in conclusion, I and I know many others strongly support 
passage of the American Workers, State, and Business Relief Act. This 
legislation is necessary to continue to spur economic growth and create 
jobs in Pennsylvania and across our country.
  Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a 
quorum.

[[Page S1338]]

  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 the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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