[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Page 1737]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   EXTENSION OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the last item of business considered on 
the Senate floor was an effort to extend several provisions of law that 
will expire either late Saturday night or Sunday. One of these 
provisions is the extension of unemployment benefits. It is well known 
across America that we have many people out of work. A lot of them have 
reached the point where their unemployment benefits are about to 
expire. I have met with many of those people in my State--in 
Springfield, in Chicago--and heard their stories, and they are sadly 
very similar. Many of them have exhausted whatever savings they had to 
try to keep their homes and their families together. They are literally 
living on unemployment insurance benefits.
  Come Saturday or Sunday, thousands of people in my State and 
literally more than 1 million Americans will see their unemployment 
benefits stop; 65,000 people in Illinois will lose their unemployment 
insurance benefits if we do not extend this; 1.2 million Americans 
nationwide will lose their unemployment benefits.
  It is all right for us to debate. It is certainly our job to offer 
amendments if we believe something should be amended. But at the end of 
the day I think we have to be sensitive and conscious of the fact that 
a lot of people will start to suffer in ways that most of us cannot 
imagine. When they lose their unemployment benefits and their savings 
are exhausted, they are about to lose their homes. I have seen that 
happen, and it is going to continue to happen.
  Let's do the right thing. Let's find a way through this difficulty. 
Let's try to find a reasonable way to resolve it. Let's not leave here 
and go to the comfort and happiness of our families with these people 
disadvantaged.

                          ____________________