[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 21001]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    EXTENDING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is really an understatement to say that 
the current economic downturn is the worst the country has experienced 
in several generations. The reality is that the crisis President Obama 
inherited when he was elected President was severe--worse than anything 
the country has seen since the Great Depression. When he took office, 
the country was losing 700,000 jobs a month. Banks were in crisis and 
had stopped lending, and a number of them were teetering on bankruptcy 
and some went out of business. The President and the Congress acted 
swiftly and passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which 
has stopped the bleeding and avoided economic catastrophe.
  People complain: Look at all the deficit spending. In December, I was 
at a meeting with a small number of people. We had Mark Zandi, John 
McCain's economic adviser during the campaign, and we had economic 
advisers to Democratic and Republican Presidents in years past. Every 
one of them said: The only money in the world is in Washington, and 
unless you spend some of it, there will be a worldwide depression. We 
listened, and that is why we did what we did.
  Today, the July unemployment numbers have been reported. They paint a 
much better picture than was anticipated. It was anticipated that 
340,000 jobs would be lost, and that is not the case. The case is that 
over 200,000 jobs have been lost--a terribly large number but certainly 
much better than anyone ever anticipated. It is the lowest number since 
the spring of 2008. It is now late summer 2009. The national 
unemployment rate actually fell last month by one-tenth of 1 percent. 
It is welcome news and further proof that the economic recovery plan we 
enacted is producing positive results. I repeat, what would it have 
been had we not done that?
  So that is the good news. But many Americans still continue to 
struggle. Many in Nevada continue to struggle as a result of the 
economic crisis. Over the next several weeks, long-term unemployed 
workers will begin exhausting their unemployment benefits. Some 
estimates put the number of unemployed workers who will have used up 
their benefits by the end of September at 500,000. By the end of the 
year, the number of unemployed workers who will have exhausted their 
benefits will be 1.5 million. With the job market as depressed as it 
is, most of these workers will not be able to find work and will then 
have no means to survive and take care of their families.
  Soon after Congress returns to Washington, we will need to address 
this matter. We must do so with the understanding that most experts 
believe job growth will be one of the last things to recover in this 
economic crisis. It always lags behind economic recovery.
  There is an economic case to be made for extending unemployment 
benefits. Last year, when analyzing the effectiveness of various 
stimulus proposals, Mark Zandi found that extended unemployment 
benefits generated $1.64 for every dollar it cost the American people. 
That means unemployment benefits are a sound investment.
  There should be no disagreement that we must help those who are 
suffering as a result of the economic crisis they didn't create. We 
will keep fighting until unemployed workers in Nevada and across the 
Nation find employment.

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