[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Page 5253]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    EXTENDING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, the American people are asking: 
Why can't those guys get together up there and get something done? They 
are asking: Whatever happened to common sense? They say: People are out 
of work. Why can't you extend their unemployment benefits? All of this 
is what the vast majority of the American people are saying. Yet we 
allowed, over 2 weeks ago, unemployment compensation to cease for 
certain people hurting in this country. It is important for us now to 
temporarily extend unemployment benefits, as well as the ability for 
someone who is out of work to continue their health insurance coverage 
through what is known as the COBRA program. These important programs 
expired. We are going to have a procedural vote later today.
  As is typical in the Senate, we don't get to the actual, substantive 
vote today. We vote on a motion to proceed, and we have to cut off 
debate with a motion to cut off debate, called a motion for cloture, 
just to get to the motion to proceed to get to the bill. But that is 
what has taken place today. We will get it done. We will use the better 
part of this week going through all of this parliamentary falderal. 
When they call the final roll, we will get it extended.
  But why can't we get together? Why did one Senator, over 2 weeks ago, 
hold up the whole works on something so obvious? Folks are hurting in 
most of the country. They certainly are in my State. Over 40 percent of 
Florida homeowners are under water on their mortgage. The banks are 
pulling back on credit to small businesses. When you get right down to 
it, the blame for failing to temporarily extend this eleemosynary help, 
this commonsense help to people who are hurting, falls solely at the 
feet of the Congress because we couldn't get it together, through our 
parliamentary rules.
  Our people are hurting. It is our responsibility to extend these 
programs to provide some little pittance for people who can't get work 
and financially have a desperate need. Unfortunately, for many 
Americans these benefits are the only thing keeping food on the table 
as they struggle to find a job and make financial ends meet.
  I certainly hope we are not going to let these programs lapse again. 
There are encouraging signs in the economy, but unemployment always 
lags the recovery of other parts of the economy. Therefore, we need to 
give some little measure of stability to these people, these poor 
families out of work, instead of us continuing to have partisan 
gamesmanship that we have seen so often over the course of the last 
couple months.

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