[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Page 26327]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following leader remarks, there will be a 
period of morning business. We have no set time on it this morning, 
although Senators will be allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes each 
during the pendency of that morning business. There will be no rollcall 
votes today. The next rollcall vote will occur at 5 p.m. on Monday, 
November 2. The vote will be on the motion to invoke cloture on the 
substitute to amendment H.R. 3548, the Unemployment Benefits Extension 
Act, which has attached to it the very important extension of the 
first-time home buyers tax credit, which has been modified to allow 
people other than first-time home buyers to now buy homes.
  In addition to that, there is an extremely important provision to 
help the economy, the loss carryback, and we hope to complete that as 
soon as possible. If, in fact, cloture is invoked Monday night, that 
would be done quickly. The House said they would accept that, and that 
could be done as early as Tuesday and signed by the President, which 
would be a great relief to realtors all over the country. It would be 
important for banks, especially community banks, so that they would be 
in a position to start helping small businesses more as a result of the 
legislation that is attached to that, the loss carryback. If, in fact, 
the Republicans are going to keep stalling, then we won't be able to do 
that until probably sometime Tuesday night.
  Each day that goes by is critical. We have a million people--1 
million people--who are eligible for this; 7,000 new people every day, 
49,000 a week. We have been stalled for 3 weeks with this, meaning 
150,000 people have lost their benefits during the time the Republicans 
have stalled this very important piece of legislation. It is 
legislation that is paid for. It doesn't increase the debt. It allows 
people who have been unemployed for long periods of time to continue 
receiving unemployment benefits. It is stunning to me to understand how 
the Republicans can hold this up, but they have. I hope that stops on 
Monday night.

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