[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5215-5216]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     CONTINUING EXTENSION ACT, 2010

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I have listened to the debate in 
the last few hours, yesterday, and today. I have heard these debates 
for years about unemployment compensation, unemployment insurance. In 
the end, some of my colleagues vote for extension of unemployment 
benefits for hard-working Americans, Americans who have had jobs and 
are trying to find jobs but have lost their jobs.
  When I saw what happened a month ago when Senator Bunning, time and 
time again, single-handedly for a period of time--because of the 
peculiar rules of this institution, one Senator representing a State 
that has less than 1 percent of the population, one Senator 
representing a State which makes up less than 1 percent of the 
country--granted the minority leader is in that State too--one Senator 
can block the extension of unemployment compensation to millions of 
Americans, to people in Youngstown, Lima, Mansfield, or Chillicothe and 
Toledo. Now we have a handful of his colleagues doing the same thing.
  Sometimes I think they don't understand unemployment compensation. 
They believe unemployment is welfare. It is called unemployment 
insurance. That doesn't mean people are looking for a handout. It means 
workers, as virtually everyone does who is working, pay into an 
insurance fund when they are working. The whole point is, if they lose 
their job they collect unemployment insurance.
  It is like you buy car insurance, hoping you don't have to use it. 
But if you get in a car accident, you use the insurance to pay for it. 
Many people don't ever have to collect unemployment insurance. They are 
the lucky ones. It is the same with health insurance. You buy health 
insurance and you hope to not use it, but if you get sick, then you use 
your health insurance. Whether you are a worker in Boulder or Pueblo or 
Trinidad or Columbus or Dayton, you need that unemployment insurance as 
a backup.
  So many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, so many 
conservatives think it is a welfare program: I got laid off. I can draw 
unemployment and stay on it, and I don't have to work. I can enjoy my 
time off.
  It is not vacation. The New York Times had some articles the other 
day about the number of people who can't find jobs and how it affects 
their health. It affects their mental health, their relationships with 
their children and spouses. It affects their views of themselves and 
their self-worth. It is not a welfare program. It is not enough money 
to get by comfortably. It is enough to keep them going with the hopes 
that they will find a job pretty soon.
  There are, of course, requirements too. They don't just sit home and 
draw unemployment. They are required to actively seek work in most 
States. I know of people in my State, as does the Presiding Officer, in 
Colorado, who have sent out 20, 30, 50 resumes a week. Most of them are 
not even answered or the answers are curt and negative over and over.
  My colleagues, all of whom dress up, men and women both, wear decent 
clothes, are paid $170,000 a year. Many more come from great wealth. 
They probably don't experience what unemployment compensation is like. 
I will not be personal, and I will not mention any names, but for them 
to stand on the Senate floor--I know what they really think sometimes--
for them to come up with all kinds of reasons to block the extension of 
unemployment benefits--not to mention COBRA, the program, the 
government helps people continue to get health insurance after they 
have lost their job, when they have almost no money to spend on it--
don't know how important that is to people's lives. I hear some of my 
colleagues say: I am voting against an unemployment extension because 
we are not paying for it.
  First, unemployment insurance is considered emergency spending. This 
is a little bit too much beltway talk, but it has always been 
considered emergency spending. We don't have to find a way to 
compensate for it, to pay for it, any more than when there is a flood 
in North Dakota or there is a hurricane in Louisiana or, unfortunately, 
there is a war in Iraq which had always historically been paid for. 
Senator Simpson, a former Republican Senator from Wyoming, said the 
Iraq war is the first time he ever knew about in American history when 
we didn't pay for a war. I hear these lectures--and that is what they 
are--from our conservative colleagues, preaching to us, talking to us 
like we are children because we are not paying for an unemployment 
extension.
  In the last 10 years, they voted for a war that they refused to pay 
for. Only $1 trillion it has cost. They voted for the giveaway for drug 
companies and insurance companies, all in the name of Medicare 
privatization. That was $100 billion or more. They didn't pay for it. 
Then they voted for tax cuts that went to the richest Americans. They 
just forgot to pay for that too.
  We do tax cuts for the rich; we do giveaways to the drug companies 
and insurance companies. Tax cuts for the rich, not paid for; giveaway 
to the insurance companies and the drug companies, not paid for; a war 
in Iraq, not paid for. Yet they are all of a sudden shrinking it down 
to: We are not going to let workers in this country who are laid off 
get their sustenance--just a few dollars for rent, for food, kids' 
school supplies--we are going to block that. That is, frankly, why 
people around the country are angry at Congress.
  They say: Why can't you just do the right thing here instead of 
making it political? They have made it political by saying: This is 
where we are drawing the line. We are not paying for unemployment 
insurance extension. If you are not going to pay for it, we are not 
going to do it.
  It is the same over and over. Offer another drug company giveaway or 
tax cuts for the rich, they will say: Where do I sign up? That will 
help the country. Their way of thinking is a bit peculiar.
  Senator Kaufman, who has such insight on preventing another disaster 
on Wall Street--if people would have listened to him a few years 
earlier, we would be in a better situation. He is waiting to speak. I 
will read a few letters I have received.
  Marianne from Lorain County, the county I live in, says: I am a 
single mom of a 4-year-old. I have been unemployed for over a year. I 
have never been unemployed before. I have worked since I was 15. It is 
a terribly difficult situation. I am at the end of my rope, not knowing 
what do I have to give up next. Do I have to give up my home, my car, 
my son's preschool. I am writing to ask you to push another 
unemployment extension, please.
  How can that not be an emergency. How can they stand on this floor 
and say: Sorry, can't do it, just can't do the unemployment extension? 
This is exactly the kind of person who is so often afflicted by this 
situation. She works and she has worked since she was 15. She has a 4-
year-old. She is making a choice: Do I give up my home? Do I give up my 
car?
  I live in Lorain County. Unless you are lucky and you live in exactly 
the right place, you have a lot of trouble getting to work if you don't 
have a car. So we are going to say: You get rid of your car, but we 
want you to find work. Or if she gives up preschool, we know, by any 
measurement, if we are going to get this country competitive 
economically, internationally, and do what we need to do, we need to do 
better with education. The Presiding Officer understands that preschool 
education is such an important component for children for preparing for 
the future.
  Let me read a second letter from Stephen from Tuscarawas County, a 
county south of Canton, west of Youngstown, a fairly small county.

[[Page 5216]]

  Stephen writes:

       I am a union electrician who started my apprenticeship in 
     1992. I have been an electrician ever since. I have never 
     been at a loss for work until September 2009. As much as I 
     wish I didn't have to collect unemployment, I am terrified it 
     will run out. I will have no means to take care of my family 
     of five. I will have no idea what to do if that happens. I am 
     the sole breadwinner for my family. My wife has had to have 
     surgery twice in the past year and a half. She broke her knee 
     and currently can't walk.

  She is a mother of five and busy doing what she is doing taking care 
of this family. For many families, there are two breadwinners. In 
Stephen's case, with electrician's wages, he has had enough income for 
a wife and three children.
  He continues:

       I just ask that you take into consideration our situation. 
     We need this extension.

  I will not share other letters. I wanted to share those two from a 
single mother who has worked all her life, and an electrician in 
Tuscarawas County who has, for more than 20 years, been a well-paid 
union electrician. We know those are good jobs with good benefits and 
contribute a lot to our country.
  I will close with this: Again, I plead with my colleagues, my 
conservative colleagues, put aside your ideology for a minute. Put 
aside your ideology that says that unemployment is welfare because it 
is not; it is insurance. People have paid into it. They should collect 
when they have paid into it and when they have done well; they collect 
from it when they have done badly. It is an American concept of 
insurance, social insurance, private insurance, whatever. Put aside 
your ideology, put aside your politics that you want to score points by 
saying: We will not do this because we have to ``pay for it.''
  If they had shown us they cared a little more about the budget 
deficit 10 years ago, when we had a huge budget surplus, soon after the 
Presiding Officer came to the House--he was part of the effort that put 
a budget together and we had economic growth and we had a budget 
surplus. They took that surplus and put all that money to their 
contractor friends in Iraq and put all that money into drug companies 
and insurance company subsidies, put all that money into tax cuts for 
the richest Americans. Now they want to take it out on those people who 
have lost their jobs. It is unconscionable. It is not what the American 
people stand for. It is not American values.
  I ask them to reconsider what they are doing.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KAUFMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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