[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5255-5266]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          CONTINUING EXTENSION ACT OF 2010--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 4851, 
which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to H.R. 4851, an act to provide a 
     temporary extension of certain programs, and for other 
     purposes.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, it has been 2 weeks since we last spoke on 
the floor on this issue. There has been a lot written in the press and 
a lot of things that have been said. I will reiterate what I said 
earlier in that debate before we took an inappropriate spring break, 
and that is the fact that everybody thinks those who are unemployed and 
are eligible should be getting unemployment checks. That is not a 
partisan issue. It is a fact we want to support those who need our help 
right now.
  The real question, however, is what will we do to make sure that 
effort is an effort that has some real meaning behind it and that these 
are not hollow words. The debate around here becomes partisan and 
labels get applied, and I admit that I am partisan--but not from a 
party standpoint; I am partisan for our children.
  The question isn't whether we should make sure that unemployment 
benefits are there. The question isn't whether people can get health 
insurance under COBRA. The question isn't whether we ought to do the 
right thing for those who are depending on us. The question is, where 
do we get the money?
  It is simple. We have two options. One option says: Time out; this is 
so important that it doesn't matter where we get the money; we have to 
supply it. The other option is--and by the way, the first option belies 
the fact that we have any waste in the Federal Government. I don't 
think we can do a poll that would come so close to unanimity as a poll 
on which we would ask the American people whether the Federal 
Government is efficient and effective. I doubt that we would get 
anybody on the ``yes'' ledger side on that.
  The real question, then, becomes do we have the goodwill and the 
presence of mind to do this in a way that doesn't jeopardize our 
children? You see, we are not just fighting about unemployment 
benefits. We are not debating the issue of unemployment benefits. We 
are debating the issue of whether we take from those who come after us 
and give to those today.
  Many times I have used this poster of this young lady. Her name is 
Madeline. Madeline was caught in DC wearing this poster. I have gone 
over the numbers. When she wore the poster, her debt was $38,375. Her 
debt today, without us extending this bill after last year, is over 
$45,000. So the question is competing priorities. We have the priority 
of making sure that we help those who need our help in a time of 
economic decline. And then we have the priority of making sure we have 
not mortgaged the opportunity of freedom for children such as Madeline.
  Who will fight for the Madelines? Who will stand up for our 
grandchildren and say we can find $9.2 billion out of an almost $4 
trillion budget and pay for it and not charge it to the Madelines of 
this world? That is what we are doing when we declare something an 
emergency.
  I would also make the point that we passed a 9-month extension for 
many of these programs. It was paid for. In other words, we didn't add 
to the debt when we passed a bill that would extend this for 9 months. 
The Senate did its work. That bill hasn't come back because the House 
is unlikely to pass it with the pay-fors in it and, frankly, several 
were used to pay for the health care bill that passed.
  Who will protect the Madelines of the world? Since the beginning of 
this year and the famed passage of a statute called pay-go, which says 
we will no longer create new spending without cutting the spending 
somewhere else, we have spent $120 billion of Madeline's future, and 
every Madeline who is out there--every 3-year-old and 4-year-old who is 
out there. We have done it by waiving the new statute that says you 
have to pay as you go. Congress--and the Senate specifically--increased 
our budget 5.6 percent this year. In a year where true costs were down 
we increased our own budget. Yet, we refuse to look at the hard choices 
that are necessary for us to make a future for the Madelines of this 
world.
  What happens if we continue this? What happens if we continue to say 
we will borrow from the future instead of making the tough choices now? 
I will tell you what happens. Madeline's future--her opportunity for 
prosperity--is mortgaged. We tend to think in the short run, and the 
vision our Founders had was thinking in the long term.
  So where do we find $9.2 billion? If I get an opportunity, I will 
offer five amendments that will pay for that. I wager that nary a 
person would ever miss the money. We could find $9.2 billion in the 
Defense Department. They have at least $50 billion worth of waste. But, 
no, we won't go there. We have $700 billion in unobligated balances of 
which well over 20 percent has been sitting there for 2 years. That is 
$140 billion. We can pay for this for a year, but we won't go there. We 
have ineffective spending in the stimulus bill that hasn't been rolled 
out yet that I will put forward as a greater priority than the money 
intended left in the stimulus bill is for. But we are not going to go 
there. What we are going to do--and we will pass a motion to proceed 
today to this bill. But what we are going to do is take the easy, the 
soft road of not paid for. We cannot continue to do that.
  Last year--and we will continue this year--out of every dollar the 
Federal Government spent we borrowed 43 percent. So 43 cents out of 
every dollar the Federal Government spent last year we borrowed. We 
ended up with a real deficit of close to $1.6 trillion by the time you 
get out of the accounting gimmicks that Washington uses. That is what 
we added to the Madelines of the world. We are going to do that this 
year again.
  The February deficit was the highest on record ever for the Federal 
Government. So we are going to have an excessive $1.4 billion or $1.5 
billion or probably a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, and we are going 
to add another $9.2 billion with this bill.
  How is it fair? How is it right that in this country we cannot do two 
right things, we can only do one right and one wrong thing? I posit 
that stealing money from our kids' future and mortgaging their future 
is morally wrong. I posit that helping people who need our help on 
unemployment benefits is morally right. Why can we not do both? We 
ought to be able to do both.
  I sent a letter to the minority and majority leaders when the bill 
first came up. I will read it because I think it is important to 
understand the thinking on why we should pay for this--realizing that 
we passed a 9-month extension that was paid for, and because the House 
hasn't acted, we don't feel an obligation to protect the Madelines of 
the world. The letter says this:

       I am writing to notify you that I would like to be 
     consulted on any unanimous consent agreements regarding the 
     consideration of H.R. 4851, the Continuing Extension Act of 
     2010, which would extend the number of federal programs for 
     one month.
       No one is arguing that Americans who are currently 
     unemployed should not have their unemployment insurance 
     payments extended. But once again, Congress is refusing to 
     find a way to offset the $9.15 billion cost of the bill with 
     cuts to less important federal spending.
       Time and time again, Congress intentionally waits until the 
     last minute to consider important legislation and then 
     declares the billions of dollars in foreseeable costs as 
     ``emergency'' spending in order to avoid having to find a way 
     to pay for the bills' price tags.
       In the last 6 months, Congress has passed four major 
     extension bills. H.R. 4851 would be the fifth such bill. The 
     total cost of these bills is almost $30 billion. 
     Additionally, over the last year Congress has increased 
     funding totaling $64.9 billion for the Highway and 
     Unemployment Insurance Trust Funds without offsets.
       This shortsightedness sticks taxpayers with billions of 
     dollars in additional debt and treats the unemployed, doctors 
     and Medicare patients, hard working men and women who help 
     make our roads and bridges safe, and others relying on 
     federal funds as pawns in Congress' borrowing and spending 
     game.

[[Page 5256]]

       When the previous last-minute one month extension (H.R. 
     4692) was brought up days before the funding authority for 
     numerous federal programs, including Unemployment Insurance 
     and the Highway Trust Fund, which expired at the end of 
     February, 2010, a United States Senator was attacked for 
     objecting to passing the bill without any debate or 
     amendments because the bill was unpaid for and added $10 
     billion to our nation's debt.

  In other words, there is something wrong with Senator Bunning raising 
the question of whether we ought to pay for it.

       As always, those who prefer to borrow to avoid making the 
     tough budget decisions won out, and the taxpayers were stuck 
     with another $10 billion in debt.

  The Madelines of the world.

       Congress has continually resisted the need to act like 
     every family in the United States of America and to budget 
     and live within their means. Our debt is now over $12.6 
     trillion. The 2010 deficit is projected to amount to $1.3 
     trillion and we are borrowing 43 cents on every dollar; yet, 
     Congress continues to increase spending without any 
     correlating spending cuts.
       Congress' inability to prioritize and manage national needs 
     results in real consequences for Americans, whether it be 
     furloughs, market uncertainty that leads to lower investment 
     and job losses, or Americans being saddled with higher debt 
     and taxes.
       If Congress keeps approving temporary extension bills 
     throughout the calendar year without finding offsets, 
     Congress will have added almost $120 billion to our national 
     debt. Additionally, the Senate has already approved more than 
     $120 billion in new federal spending not offset, even though 
     it passed Pay-Go legislation just over one month ago claiming 
     to prohibit such activity.
       In the House, Appropriations Chairman David Obey has 
     indicated that some new spending needs to be offset with 
     unused, unobligated funds. Chairman Obey suggested rescinding 
     $362 million in reserve stimulus funds for the Women, Infants 
     and Children nutrition program; $112 million from a Commerce 
     Department program designed to provide coupons to households 
     to help buy analog-to-digital converter boxes; $103 million 
     from USDA rural development programs; and $44 million from 
     the Transportation Department's Consumer Assistance to 
     Recycle and Save Program . . . to offset the cost of a 
     different spending bill. The Senate should likewise find a 
     way to offset this one-month extension bill and create a 
     sustainable precedent.
       The Senate can start with federal unobligated balances. 
     According to the White House, in Fiscal Year 2011, 33 percent 
     of all federal funds were unused and obligated. The total 
     dollar amount of these unobligated balances was estimated at 
     $703 billion. Rescinding only discretionary funding that has 
     been available for more than two years would likely result in 
     roughly $100 billion in offset spending. The Senate could 
     also tap into $228 billion in unobligated stimulus funds as 
     Chairman Obey has suggested.
       At the very least, Congress should reconsider transferring 
     the almost $100 million budget increase it approved for 
     itself for 2010 to offset the cost of additional spending. 
     Congress should not be increasing its budget by 4.5 percent 
     when our economy shrunk by 2.4 percent and inflation was at 
     less than 1 percent.
       I have also detailed through numerous oversight hearings, 
     reports, and legislation how the federal government wastes 
     more than $300 billion every year. I have suggested hundreds 
     of offsets to new spending, including consolidating 
     duplicative programs, and eliminating federal programs that 
     address parochial concerns.
       We all think our Americans in need of financial assistance 
     are worth the $9 billion bill cost, but do we think our 
     children and grandchildren are worth paying for these costs 
     up front, rather than passing the cost to them?. . . .
       Thank you for protecting my rights regarding this 
     legislation.

  I ask unanimous consent to have this letter printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                   March 23, 2010.
     Hon. Mitch McConnell,
     Senate Minority Leader,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator McConnell: I am writing to notify you that I 
     would like to be consulted on any unanimous consent 
     agreements regarding the consideration of H.R. 4851, the 
     Continuing Extension Act of 2010, which would extend a number 
     of federal programs for one month.
       No one is arguing that Americans who are currently 
     unemployed should not have their unemployment insurance 
     payments extended. But once again, Congress is refusing to 
     find a way to offset the $9.15 billion cost of the bill with 
     cuts to less important federal spending.
       Time and time again, Congress intentionally waits until the 
     last minute to consider important legislation and then 
     declares the billions of dollars in foreseeable costs as 
     ``emergency'' spending in order to avoid having to find a way 
     to pay for the bills' price tags.
       In the last 6 months, Congress has passed four major 
     extension bills. H.R. 4851 would be the fifth such bill. The 
     total cost of these bills is almost $30 billion. 
     Additionally, over the last year Congress has increased 
     funding totaling $64.9 billion for the Highway and 
     Unemployment Insurance Trust Funds without offsets.
       This short sightedness sticks taxpayers with billions of 
     dollars in additional debt and treats the unemployed, doctors 
     and Medicare patients, hard working men and women who help 
     make our roads and bridges safe, and others relying on 
     federal funds as pawns in Congress' borrowing and spending 
     game.
       When the previous last-minute one-month extension (H.R. 
     4691) was brought up days before the funding authority for 
     numerous federal programs, including Unemployment Insurance 
     and the Highway Trust Fund, expired at the end of February, 
     2010, a United States Senator was attacked for objecting to 
     passing the bill without any debate or amendments because the 
     bill was unpaid for and added $10 billion to our nation's 
     debt.
       As always, those who prefer to borrow to avoid making tough 
     budget decisions won out, and the taxpayers were stuck with 
     another $10 billion of debt.
       Congress has continually resisted the need to act like 
     every family in the United States of America and to budget 
     and live within their means. Our debt is now over $12.6 
     trillion. The 2010 deficit is projected to amount to $1.3 
     trillion and we are borrowing 43 cents on every dollar; yet, 
     Congress continues to increase spending without any 
     correlating spending cuts.
       Congress' inability to prioritize and manage national needs 
     results in real consequences for Americans, whether it be 
     furloughs, market uncertainty that leads to lower investment 
     and job losses, or Americans being saddled with higher debt 
     and taxes.
       If Congress keeps approving temporary extension bills 
     throughout the calendar year without finding offsets, 
     Congress will have added almost $120 billion to our national 
     debt. Additionally, the Senate has already approved more than 
     $120 billion in new federal spending not offset, even though 
     it passed Pay-Go legislation just over one month ago claiming 
     to prohibit such activity.
       In the House, Appropriations Chairman David Obey has 
     indicated that some new spending needs to be offset with 
     unused, unobligated funds. Chairman Obey suggested rescinding 
     $362 million in reserved stimulus funds for the Women, 
     Infants and Children nutrition program; $112 million from a 
     Commerce Department program designed to provide coupons to 
     households to help buy analog-to-digital converter boxes; 
     $103 million from USDA rural development programs; and $44 
     million from the Transportation Department's Consumer 
     Assistance to Recycle and Save Program (also known as the 
     ``Cash for Clunkers'' program) to offset the cost of a 
     different spending bill. The Senate should likewise find a 
     way to offset this one-month extension bill and create a 
     sustainable precedent.
       The Senate could start with federal unobligated balances. 
     According to the White House, in Fiscal Year 2011, 33 percent 
     of all federal funds were unused and obligated. The total 
     dollar amount of these unobligated balances was estimated at 
     $703 billion. Rescinding only discretionary funding that has 
     been available for more than two years would likely result in 
     roughly $100 billion in offset spending. The Senate could 
     also tap into $228 billion in unobligated stimulus funds as 
     Chairman Obey has suggested.
       At the very least, Congress should reconsider transferring 
     the almost $100 million budget increase it approved for 
     itself for 2010 to offset the cost of additional spending. 
     Congress should not be increasing its budget by 4.5 percent 
     when our economy shrunk by 2.4 percent and inflation was at 
     less than 1 percent.
       I have also detailed through numerous oversight hearings, 
     reports, and legislation how the federal government wastes 
     more than $300 billion every year. I have suggested hundreds 
     of offsets to new spending, including consolidating 
     duplicative programs, and eliminating federal programs that 
     address parochial concerns.
       We all think our Americans in need of financial assistance 
     are worth the $9 billion bill cost, but do we think our 
     children and grandchildren are worth paying for these costs 
     up front, rather than passing the cost to them? I am willing 
     to accept a unanimous consent agreement to pass the bill with 
     my amendment included to offset the full amount. I am open to 
     all other offset suggestions.
       Thank you for protecting my rights regarding this 
     legislation.
           Sincerely,
                                                    Tom A. Coburn.

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, so what are we going to do? We have before 
us a need. It is a good need. It is something we ought to do. We are 
going to borrow 43 cents out of every dollar we spend this year. We are 
going to put

[[Page 5257]]

the Madelines of this world in a position that by 2020, this number is 
not going to be $45,000; it is going to be $95,000. That is where she 
is going to be. That is every man, woman, and child in terms of what 
they owe in terms of the direct national debt.
  Can we continue on this pace? We hear we will fix it later. Later is 
not good enough for the Madelines of this world. Later is today. Now is 
the time for us to do the very hard work. It is not easy to come up 
with spending offsets. It is not easy to not increase the national 
debt. It is very easy to simply put the credit card into the machine 
and say: Because they are out of sight, out of mind--the Madelines of 
the world--we will just charge it to them.
  That is what is being proposed here. If you oppose that, all of a 
sudden you do not care about the people who are unemployed. I cannot 
tell you how many times I have heard that in the last 2 weeks; that it 
is obstruction that you want to pay for it. Should we be working hard 
to secure the future of the children such as Madeline?
  We are told that over the next 9 years, we are going to borrow an 
additional $9.8 trillion, based on the budget projections that are out 
there. Of that $9.8 trillion, almost half of it is money we are going 
to borrow and turn around to pay interest on what we already owe. That 
is eerily close to those of us who get into trouble with credit cards. 
We get another credit card, borrow the max on it to pay off the other 
credit cards. Then we get in trouble with that one and get another one. 
Pretty soon, we cannot pay anything.
  The Chinese own over $900 billion of our bonds, the Russians $800 
billion. Have we considered the fact that our problems, in terms of our 
foreign policy with Iran and our ability to put sharp, tough sanctions 
on somebody who wants to use and develop nuclear weapons could possibly 
be inhibited by the fact that two of the countries opposing those 
strong, tough sanctions own a lot of our bonds and that we are 
dependent on them? Could it also be that the week before last, when the 
Treasury option was very soft because the Chinese did not participate, 
that is a warning shot across our bow? We are in waters this country 
has never seen before. If we pass this bill and we continue to pass 
more bills, not having made the tough choices, we are steaming toward a 
catastrophe.
  What will that look like? It is not that we cannot fix the problem. 
It is not as if we could not go and find $9.2 billion out of a nearly 
$4 trillion budget. It is that we refuse to. It is not that it is 
impossible. We refuse to. We refuse to do the same things families 
across this country do every day; that is, make a choice about 
priorities.
  My office just last week, with the help of the Congressional Research 
Service and the GAO, identified 70 duplicate programs on nutrition 
across three Federal Departments. We now have 70 programs for food and 
nutrition across three departments, with thousands upon thousands of 
Federal employees, thousands upon thousands of pages of bureaucratic 
gobbledygook and regulations. I would propose probably we ought to have 
one good program on food and nutrition. We do not address that. The 
authorizing committees do not. The appropriating committees do not.
  We have 105 programs that encourage people to go into math, science, 
technology, and engineering across six different agencies--105 
programs. There is not one agency that does not have considerable waste 
in it, and there is probably not one American who would not think that 
we could not cut 1 or 2 or 3 percent from every agency and drive 
efficiency. But we will not do that.
  The real question is: Why won't we? We will beat up people because 
they will not agree to spend Madeline's money and her future, but we 
will not agree to trim the waste, the fat, duplication, and fraud out 
of the Federal Government. It is no wonder the public has such a poor 
image of Congress because we are actually not doing what they are 
asking us to do.
  It would be different if there was not waste in the Federal 
Government. If everything was fine-tuned, effective, and efficient, one 
could make an argument for borrowing this money. But nobody I know of 
believes the Federal Government is efficient and effective throughout 
its myriad departments and agencies. If the majority might feel that 
way, that it is not, why would we not do the hard work of paying for 
this bill?
  What does it mean to borrow $9.2 billion this month and $10 billion 
last month and $10 billion before and the $120 billion we passed in the 
first 3 months of the second session of the 111th Congress? What does 
it mean? It means we do not think we have to play by the same rules as 
the rest of the American public. We have a tilted sense of reality. 
There is no obligation on us to eliminate waste to provide a good for 
those people who are depending on us.
  We will go forward this evening on a motion to proceed to this bill 
unpaid for, charged to the Madelines of this world, and all you have to 
do is take $9.2 billion--it is not much in Washington speak; it is 
twice the size of Oklahoma's budget for a year--and we will charge it 
to a credit card to our kids.
  Ultimately, what we are doing is stealing a college education from 
our kids. We are stealing a job opportunity from our kids. We are 
stealing the ability for our kids to own a home and to provide for 
their children what was provided for them. You see, the heritage we 
have that built this country was one of sacrifice, where we make 
decisions that require us to make a sacrifice to create opportunity. 
When you turn that upside down, the American experiment fails. When we 
steal opportunity from the future so we can benefit for today, we 
eliminate the genius that made this country great. It is time we 
reversed that.
  It is not really a partisan issue. I know the press is going to say 
that. It is partisan for our future. It is partisan for our kids. And 
we can do both. We can find $9.2 billion that isn't as effectively 
spent as will be spent on COBRA or unemployment insurance or on flood 
insurance or on fixing the SGR for a short period of time. We can do 
that, but we won't because we are in the habit of not making hard 
choices. We are in the habit of doing the least best thing rather than 
the best thing.
  The best thing for our budget, the best thing for our future, the 
best thing for our children's future is for us to say X, Y, and Z are 
not nearly as important as unemployment insurance benefits, are not as 
important as COBRA benefits, are not as important as fixing the SGR for 
a short period of time. When will we muscle up the courage to start 
making those kinds of decisions?
  We can't continue doing what we are doing. We can't grow to $20 
trillion worth of debt--over 100 percent of our GDP. At the rate we are 
going, in 2010, we will have $24 trillion worth of debt, and $24 
trillion, at 6 percent interest, is $1.5 trillion a year in interest 
payments. We can't make it. We cannot handle that. And the reality will 
only come home when it is too late.
  Senator Reid, when we passed the pay-go bill, said it was a new 
start. He said we are going to open our billfold, and if the money is 
there we will spend it but we are not going to spend money that is not 
in our billfold--to paraphrase his quote. Well, this bill goes to an 
empty billfold. The money is not there. So we can either increase our 
debt, which will make life for the Madelines of this world tougher or 
we can actually take on some tough decisionmaking as a body and 
actually eliminate lower priority programs. Would that have some impact 
on some programs? Yes. I mean, we could actually take a 1-percent 
across-the-board cut and come up with $30 billion easily. Americans 
know we could get 1 percent out of the Federal agencies. But we are not 
going to do that either.
  The question is, When will we start acting in the responsible role 
with which we are charged? When will we start thinking with a long-term 
perspective about what is going to happen to our country if, in fact, 
we don't start making the hard choices now? No matter how much scorn, 
no matter how many derisive statements are made, the Madelines of the 
world are worth it. When we sit and relax and think this is not as big 
a problem as we hear

[[Page 5258]]

described, we fall into the same trap as every other republic in 
history. And they all collapsed. No republic has survived more than 250 
years, and they all collapsed for the same reason. They all collapsed 
ultimately because they lost control of their fiscal policy--taxes, 
spending, priorities.
  So we have a choice in front of us. This isn't the first time we are 
going to have this choice, and it won't be the last. But a question 
that I think the American people ought to be asking is, When is the 
Congress going to start acting in a responsible manner? When are they 
going to start following the guidelines every other prudent financial 
decisionmaker makes, whether it be the head of a household, a wage 
earner, a small business, or a small nonprofit? They all live within a 
budget, and what they do is they say: Here is the most important 
priority and here is the least, and they go down the line. When the 
money runs out, they either generate efficiency to allow that money to 
be more effective and more efficient in how it is spent or they 
eliminate the lower priority items.
  It would be a wonderful search for people to go on thomas.gov to find 
out the number of programs that have been eliminated versus the number 
of programs that have been created in the last 2 years. I guarantee you 
they will outnumber 200 or 300 to 1. In the Judiciary Committee this 
week, we will have two bills up that duplicate existing programs. I 
will have the same fight in the Judiciary Committee, and I will lose. 
We will extend new programs that are doing the same thing other 
programs are doing, and yet I will lose the battle and we will create 
new programs to do the same thing we already have government programs 
doing. Why is that? Because you cannot manage what you do not measure. 
We don't put metrics on hardly anything in the Federal Government 
programs, and conveniently so. Therefore, we can say: Well, we can't 
know whether they are efficient.
  The time for our comfort with where we find ourselves financially is 
over. The American people already understand that because 72 percent of 
them, in a recent poll, said their No. 1 issue is debt and spending. 
They already get it. They are wondering when we are going to catch up 
with them. They are for supporting unemployment insurance benefits but 
not charging them to their children. They are for us making the hard 
choices.
  So as we go forward, the hope would be that we would get out of the 
short-term thinking we find ourselves in and start looking down the 
road of what is coming. I have been quoted as saying that I think we 
have less than 5 years to fix our ship. I think that is probably 
generous. I don't think there is one problem in front of our country 
that we can't fix. However, if we ignore the realities of our financial 
situation, if the elected leaders in this country fail to make priority 
decisions, which means you are going to offend some of the supporters 
of the lower priority programs, then we are not going to solve the 
problems that are in front of us. If our focus is parochial only--in 
other words, only the concerns within our own States--rather than that 
of our Nation as a whole, we are not going to fix the problems in front 
of us.
  I have five grandchildren, and in thinking of the future, I often 
wonder what things will be like for them.
  Thinking backward, when I was 17 and 18 and going to college for the 
first year, there was this tremendous vision on the horizon that I saw 
in front of me. I could go to school because I had parents who could 
afford to pay for my college, and wherever I wanted to go, whatever I 
wanted to do was out there on that horizon. That is a limited 
possibility today for our kids. Is it going to be a possibility for the 
Madelines of the world?
  Thinking forward, if you take everyone who is 25 years of age and 
younger in this country and go out 20 years, here is where they will 
be: That group, 45 and younger, will be responsible for $1,113,000--
each and every one of them will be responsible for $1,113,000 worth of 
debt and unfunded liabilities, every one of them, if we are on the same 
course we are on today. Take 6 percent of that, and you will see they 
are going to have to come up with about $67,000 a year just to pay the 
interest costs on that debt. That is before they pay income taxes. That 
is before they pay rent or pay a mortgage. That is before they pay for 
a car or a car payment. That is before they put food on the table. That 
is before they clothe their kids and themselves. That is before they 
give to a charity or their church.
  We are stealing the American dream every time we fail to be cognizant 
of what the future holds, if we don't change course. So the debate 
really isn't about unemployment insurance; it is about when are we 
going to change course? When are we going to start recognizing the need 
to live within our means?
  We are going to hear that we have always done it this way, that we 
have passed three other short-term extensions and that we call them 
emergencies so we don't have to pay for them. I would say it is time 
that we not always do it the way we have always done it because the way 
we have always done it has gotten us $12.6 trillion in debt and is 
sending us out to sea without a rudder and without enough fuel oil to 
get back to shore.
  My hope is that our debate will focus on what the real problems are 
in this country, the real long-term problems, because you really solve 
short-term problems when you start attacking the long-term problems and 
when you really start making the tough decisions.
  I say to my colleague from Montana, as head of the Finance Committee, 
he knows what would happen if we sent a signal that we were really 
going to start getting tough about our budget. He knows what would 
happen to bond rates. He knows what would happen to our ability to lead 
in the world if we all of a sudden became cognizant and acted in a way 
that was fiscally responsible. Investment would come flowing back into 
this country, bond yields would go down, not up, and the cost of our 
debt would go down. It would be a home run every way we look at it. It 
would be a home run for the Madelines of this country, and it would be 
a home run for those who are unemployed.
  If you read the financial news, you have been seeing what is 
happening to Greece. Greece got rescued just in the last week, partly 
through the IMF, but mainly the money is going to come from Germany and 
France. They are going to get to borrow for a short period of time at 5 
percent instead of the 7\1/2\ percent the market reflects.
  I would say that there is no Germany or France to bail us out. There 
is no one who will come to bail America out. It is highly doubtful that 
Greece has the political will to do what it has to do to solve its own 
problem. The question is, In 2 or 3 years, are they going to be saying 
the same thing about our country? Do we have the political will to dig 
out of the hole we have, in fact, dug for ourselves? When I say ``we,'' 
I am not talking about the American public, I am talking about the 
Congress of the United States. You can't blame it on any President. You 
can't blame it on the courts. The blame for our financial situation 
lies solely with the U.S. Congress. Whether it is lack of oversight of 
financial firms or Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; whether it is the lack 
of oversight of the SEC; whether it is the tremendous amount of waste, 
fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government--$300 billion, at least, per 
year--it lies with us.
  We are going to hear a lot of reasons why we should pass this--just 
pass the charges on to our kids. My hope is that the American people 
will reject that because when they accept that it is OK to just charge 
it to our kids, what they are doing is conditioning us to continue 
doing the same thing--continuing to spend the future opportunities of 
our children and grandchildren. Our heritage is much greater than that. 
Our kids and grandkids are worth much more than that. Let it not be 
said of this Congress that we failed to act in the time when the tough 
get going and that we made the tough decisions about not increasing the 
debt, streamlining the government, eliminating some of the $300 billion 
worth of waste, fraud, abuse, and duplication that is in the Federal 
Government.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaufman). The Senator from Montana.

[[Page 5259]]


  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, we are starting to come out of the worst 
recession since the Great Depression.
  A little more than a year ago, in the fourth quarter of 2008, the 
economy declined at an annual rate of more than 5 percent. A year 
later, in the fourth quarter of 2009, the gross domestic product grew 
at an annual rate of nearly 6 percent.
  Last month, manufacturing activity increased at the fastest rate in 
5\1/2\ years. Last month, the service sector expanded at the fastest 
rate in more than 2 years. And last month, the economy added 162,000 
jobs.
  The economy has taken its first steps toward recovery.
  The economists say that part of the reason why the economy is 
starting to come back is what we did here. One of the first things that 
President Obama did in office was to press for bold action to prevent 
another Great Depression. And one of the first bills that Congress 
enacted in the new administration was the Recovery Act.
  The economists say that it's working. The nonpartisan Congressional 
Budget Office says that in the fourth quarter of 2009, the Recovery Act 
increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by between 1.4 
million and 3 million. And CBO also estimates that real gross domestic 
product was 1\1/2\ percent to 3\1/2\ percent higher in the fourth 
quarter than it would have been without the Recovery Act.
  So there are some encouraging signs.
  But we still face major challenges in the economy. There is still 
work to do creating jobs.
  The unemployment rate stands at 9.7 percent. Almost a tenth of the 
labor force is unemployed. More than 15 million Americans are out of 
work.
  First-time claims for unemployment benefits rose the week before 
last. Businesses are still laying off workers. And companies remain 
tentative in hiring new employees.
  The economists call unemployment ``a lagging indicator.'' Employers 
can be slow to rehire, when business begins to pick up.
  The Congressional Budget Office expects the unemployment rate to 
remain above 8 percent until 2012. CBO does not expect unemployment to 
reach what they call its ``natural state'' of 5 percent until 2016.
  CBO does not expect that the gap between actual output and potential 
output will close until the end of 2014.
  That is why we need to pass a temporary extension of unemployment 
benefits.
  Jobless benefits are a powerful way to bolster demand during times of 
high unemployment.
  Households receiving unemployment benefits spend their additional 
benefits right away. That spurs demand for goods and services. That 
boosts production. And that leads businesses to hire more employees.
  The Congressional Budget Office looked at the different ways that we 
can help the economy to grow, and CBO says that extending additional 
unemployment benefits would have one of the largest effects on economic 
output and employment per dollar spent.
  Because benefits are often spent quickly, extending unemployment 
benefits will provide a timely boost to the economy.
  A temporary extension will also provide immediate assistance to 
millions of Americans struggling to feed their families and pay the 
bills.
  According to officials in my home State of Montana, if we do not pass 
this extension, then thousands of Montanans could lose their 
unemployment benefits and will have significant difficulties. That is a 
significant number when you consider the population of my State.
  An extension of unemployment benefits is essential, but it is not 
enough. We must also consider unemployment insurance reforms that could 
help to create more jobs.
  That is why I plan to hold a hearing in the Finance Committee on 
Wednesday to explore ways to use unemployment insurance to help 
Americans to get back to work.
  States and experts have ideas for how we can improve the unemployment 
insurance system. They have ideas about how it can save and create more 
jobs.
  Wednesday, the Finance Committee will discuss possible commonsense 
innovations with a panel of experts, while also addressing the 
challenge of State solvency.
  But right now, it is essential that we pass a temporary extension of 
unemployment benefits. An extension will help workers to get by as they 
search or retrain for a new job. And an extension will also provide a 
much-needed boost to the economy.
  So, let us help the families who are struggling in this difficult 
economic time. Let us help to spur demand and economic growth. Let us 
vote to invoke cloture on this vital legislation.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we are going to have a cloture vote this 
evening at 5:30. It is about a subject that is very important. Yet I 
have been listening to the floor today and hearing the discussion about 
saving our country, about the issue of large Federal budget deficits, 
and the things that threaten our country's future.
  I wanted to talk a little bit about some of those issues because I 
have been reading a book recently, quite an interesting book, called 
``Too Big to Fail.'' I was listening this afternoon to some of the 
debate and thinking about too big to fail and too small to matter.
  Interesting dichotomy: Too big to fail is talking about the biggest 
institutions in this country, the largest financial institutions in 
America, are too big to fail. So they run themselves into serious 
trouble. They get the benefit of no-fault capitalism. We are told if 
they fail, it will be a disaster for America's economy; therefore, we 
will have the taxpayers pony up $700 billion to make sure they do not 
fail. I am talking about the people at the top.
  The question is, What about the people at the bottom, the people who 
work for a living, who like their jobs, want to have a better future 
for themselves and their children, but who discovered that as we sailed 
into this economic storm, while the people at the top got a big old 
parachute and they were lifted gently to the ground or allowed to get 
gently grounded, the folks at the bottom were just pushed off a cliff.
  We ran into this serious economic trouble, and a whole lot of people 
lost their jobs. We have had millions and millions of people lose their 
jobs. We estimate somewhere around 17 million Americans woke up this 
morning without a job. They went looking today, as they do every day, 
but they have not found a job. They, their spouse, their children, they 
are all victims of this economy.
  So then the question is, the difference between too big to fail--
those institutions, by the way, which for some of our colleagues, they 
could not be quick enough to get the pillow and the aspirin to say: Can 
we help you to bed? Is there any way we can be of help? Here is $700 
billion on the too-big-to-fail side. But on the too-small-to-matter 
side--it is the person who lost their job--we had folks in here saying: 
You are just out of luck. We do not have the ability or willingness to 
deal with you.
  I taught a little economics a couple of years in college. We always 
understood the basic lessons on economics are simple enough when you 
run into a very severe recession or depression. But let's talk about 
recession, a deep recession, and in this case the deepest since the 
Great Depression. The government's revenues dried up; we have lost 
somewhere around $400 billion a year in revenue. The economic 
stabilizers that are required in a recession would be unemployment 
insurance, food stamps, and those kinds of things to try to help people 
out, help them through some difficult periods. I am talking now about 
helping people at the bottom of the economic ladder. Those things 
automatically go up.
  So the revenue goes down, that goes up, and your deficit balloons. 
There is no question about that. Everybody understands that. I 
understand why the

[[Page 5260]]

deficit has gone out of sight. I also understand it is a very serious 
problem for our country. But I think we should all understand we should 
not do the things that would move us right back into a recession. The 
economic stabilizers and the expenditures on them is very important in 
order to get us out of this problem and in order to help those at the 
bottom of the economic ladder who cannot help themselves.
  What bothers me is we have people coming to the floor of the Senate 
saying: I am the champion to try to reduce the Federal budget deficit. 
I am the person who is going to solve this.
  Well, I would say to those folks: Where were you? Where have you 
been? It has been a decade and you were not around. I recall nearly 10 
years ago when President Bush came into office, and he said: We have a 
budget surplus. Yes, they did. The first budget surplus in three 
decades under the last year of President Clinton's Presidency, a budget 
surplus at the Federal level, the first one. By the way, that resulted 
from a series of fiscal policy judgments that were made beginning in 
1993. I voted for it. It passed by one vote in the Senate. It passed by 
one vote in the House. Senators such as--I guess I will name him 
because he was proud of it--Senator Phil Gramm from Texas stood up and 
said: You pass this, you will bankrupt the country. No, it did not 
bankrupt the country. It actually led us out of the problems we were in 
to a budget surplus in the year 2000.
  President George Bush came to town and said: You know what. We have 
this budget surplus. It looks as though we are going to have budget 
surpluses for the next 10 years. Let's give very large tax cuts to 
people, but the largest tax cuts to the highest income people in 
America.
  Well, I stood on this floor and said: I do not support that. What if 
we do not have these surpluses for 10 years. These are just economic 
predictions by economists who cannot remember their phone numbers for 3 
days, and they are telling us what is going to happen in 3, 5, and 10 
years. Let's be a little bit conservative.
  President Bush and his colleagues on the floor of the Senate said: 
Katey, bar the door. We are pushing this. They did, and they had the 
votes. They passed it, and all of a sudden we substantially cut the 
revenue that was coming into the Treasury.
  Then what happened almost immediately? Then we were hit with 9/11, a 
terrorist attack in this country. Then we were at war in Afghanistan. 
Then we went to war in Iraq, and year after year after year the 
President brought to this Congress proposals for emergency spending for 
the war. This President said--I am talking about President George W. 
Bush--we do not intend to pay for a penny of it. Every single penny for 
the war is going to be on an emergency basis, put on top of the Federal 
debt.
  I did not hear those folks who now say they are going to stand 
between us and catastrophe come to the Senate floor then to say that 
did not make any sense. I did. I said: Why don't we pay for some of 
this?
  The President said: If you try to pay for it, I will veto the bill.
  There we were for 8 years spending money we did not have on a war we 
probably should not have fought, borrowing every single penny of it. 
Now the folks who speak the loudest these days about these issues are 
the ones who decided: Oh, that made a lot of sense: cut the 
government's revenue, fight a war without paying for any of it.
  By the way, many of them, 10 years ago when we voted on the floor of 
this Senate to repeal the restrictions that were put in place after the 
Great Depression to protect our country, they were the ones who voted 
for the repeal to say: You know what. Let's let these big financial 
companies create holding companies, and you can put them all together. 
You can put real estate and securities and banks and investment banks, 
FDIC-insured banks, put them all in one big holding company. It will be 
just fine.
  Well, I was on the floor of the Senate saying: This will not be just 
fine. It will be a catastrophe. I said 10 years ago--I did not know for 
sure, but I said: Within 10 years we are going to see big taxpayer 
bailouts if we do this.
  Some of the same people on the floor of the Senate back then were 
saying: Look, let's create these big financial behemoths so we can 
compete. It will be good.
  Then the President, George W. Bush, brought in regulators who boasted 
they were willing to be willfully blind for almost a decade: It does 
not matter what you do, you can do that. We will not watch. They said: 
There is a new sheriff in town. We are business friendly.
  So in all of these agencies where we were supposed to have regulators 
to make sure the free market worked, regulators who were the referees 
with a striped shirt to blow the whistle to call the foul when the free 
market was the victim of a foul, they were not around. They were just 
in a Rip Van Winkle sleep for nearly a decade.
  Meanwhile, Wall Street went out to play, and they created the most 
unbelievable instruments of deception: credit default swaps, synthetic 
credit default swaps, CDOs. I mean it is unbelievable. The 
circumstances that developed, the subprime scandal, the creation of 
these exotic financial instruments, the development of substantially 
more lending approved by regulatory agencies--all of this set us up for 
an unbelievable fall.
  Some of the same people who were cheerleading for these very 
activities are now telling us they are going to protect America. And 
you know where they are going to make their last stand? Their last 
stand on these deficit issues is to deal with the poor people by 
saying: No, you cannot get that unemployment insurance extension.
  By the way, unemployment insurance is something that people pay for 
out of their paychecks. Unemployment insurance is something we pay for 
out of our paychecks. Extending it during a recession is certainly the 
thing to do. It is something we have always done. Yet this is the last 
stand.
  What about making the last stand when it comes to bailing out Wall 
Street? How about making the last stand a couple of weeks from now when 
we have Wall Street reform on the floor of the Senate, when we have a 
real fight about trying to do reform that is necessary on Wall Street?
  In 2008, the financial firms on Wall Street--I am just talking about 
the Wall Street firms now--the biggest financial firms lost $36 billion 
and paid $18 billion in bonuses.
  I have an MBA. I went to graduate business school. There is nowhere 
they teach in graduate school that if you go out and lose $35 or $36 
billion, you ought to expect to be able to pay $17 or $18 billion in 
bonuses to those who helped you do it. Yet that is exactly the kind of 
carnival that existed in this country at the top of the financial food 
chain.
  So we are going to have a big fight about that in a couple of weeks. 
How do we plug the holes? How do we solve this problem of Wall Street 
reform? We are going to have a lot of votes, and it will be interesting 
to see whether those who now speak the loudest about being able to 
protect the American taxpayer, standing up on the issue of debt and 
deficits, whether those are the people who are going to join us in 
taking the action to try to make sure that cannot happen again because, 
when we talk about what has contributed to this country's debt and 
deficit, the largest contribution by far are the supportive votes of 
those who were friends of Wall Street, and in the last 10 years have 
given them every single opportunity to do what they have done--that is, 
to create a casino-like economy and to have FDIC-insured banks trading 
on their own proprietary accounts.
  They may just as well have had a blackjack table in the lobby. I 
mean, it is unbelievable. To fuse together inherently risky investment 
banks with FDIC-insured banks and having both of them, instead of 
providing the kinds of things banks used to provide--that is, doing 
lending--and having both of them trading securities on their own 
proprietary accounts in order to make big fees and big money. It is 
unbelievable.
  The question is, Who will stand up for our economic interests? 
Spending

[[Page 5261]]

on someone who is out of work in a deep recession, is that where you 
want to take your last stand?
  Let me help with a couple other suggestions. How about making a last 
stand in asking people, like one person who made $3.6 billion in one 
year, to pay their fair share of taxes to the government. My 
calculation says that is a $300 million-a-month paycheck. When that 
person comes home and the spouse asks, Honey, how are we doing? Every 
single day he can say: We are doing really well. Ten million we earned 
today. But even better than that, he can now say: And by the way, we 
paid one of the lowest income tax rates in America. We get to pay a 15-
percent income tax. People who work with their hands for a living can't 
do that. People who take a shower in the morning and after work can't 
do that. People who work hard all day pay tax rates far higher than 15 
percent. We have some of the biggest income earners paying just a 15-
percent tax rate on carried interest.
  I say to my friends: If you want to do something about the deficit, 
join me. Let's get rid of that nonsense.
  Or I wish they would have joined me the dozen times I have been here 
talking about the tax dodges that allow people to avoid paying taxes by 
creating shams. I have shown pictures of American banks that buy German 
sewer systems. You can't actually touch them. You wouldn't want to feel 
them. You can't move them. But American banks buy a sewer system in a 
German city and then lease it back to the city so the city keeps using 
the system, and the bank gets to write off a sewer system to reduce its 
American tax obligation. They want all the benefits of being American, 
but they don't want the responsibility of paying taxes. I say to 
somebody who comes to the floor and wants to reduce the Federal budget 
deficit: How about joining me and getting rid of these things?
  Or perhaps you could have joined me on the floor when I have shown 
the picture of the Ugland House, now reasonably famous, a 5-story white 
building on Church Street in the Cayman Islands. When I showed the 
photograph, it was an enterprising piece of reporting by a man named 
David Evans from Bloomberg News who went to the Cayman Islands and 
found a 5-story white building that in 2004 was the official home to 
12,748 corporations. No, they don't all fit in that building. I 
understand that. It was a legal dodge by companies setting up an 
address in order to funnel revenue through that address to avoid paying 
taxes to the United States. By the way, since that time, since 12,748 
corporations used that little 5-story house to avoid paying taxes, it 
has now grown to over 18,000 corporate addresses, as I understand. I 
say to my friends talking about dealing with budget deficits, how about 
helping me on that? How about helping me close those loopholes? Those 
are unbelievably ridiculous loopholes that allow some of the people and 
companies who make a great deal of money to pay almost no income tax.
  That is the tax side. I could talk forever about that, but I won't. 
But if we got a little help on that, we would reduce the budget 
deficit.
  On the spending side, I have held 20 hearings on spending dealing 
with contracting in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a place 
in Iraq. If somebody ever gets there, I suggest they drive by and take 
a look at it. It is American taxpayer dollars sitting in the desert. It 
is called Kahn Bani Sa'ad. We paid for it. We built it. We tried to 
build it. I think we spent $20 to $30 million for the first contractor 
and then fired the contractor and brought in another one. When the 
other one was finished, the money was gone. But there is a prison 
sitting on the sands of Iraq that the Iraqi Government said they didn't 
want and would never use that our Federal Government insisted be built. 
It is now sitting unused, and it doesn't even look like a finished 
building. It is huge. Millions, tens of millions of dollars were spent, 
poured down a hole in the desert. I held 20 hearings on the most 
unbelievable waste, fraud, and abuse on war contracting in Iraq and 
Afghanistan that I think has occurred in the history of the country. 
There is an area of spending we can tackle. We ought to tackle. There 
are so many areas for us to decide to do something about.
  Yet the last stand on the floor of the Senate on a Monday is to say: 
We have ratcheted up all the strength, the muscle, the courage we have 
to say we don't think those at the bottom of the economic ladder, those 
who have lost jobs, those who are out of work, those who feel hopeless 
and helpless, those whose families are victimized, we don't think they 
ought to get unemployment insurance extended or we will put enough 
conditions on it to delay it. The same folks rushed to the altar to 
say: We can give $700 billion to the biggest financial firms in the 
country that ran this country into a ditch.
  My point is not that we don't have a very serious economic problem. 
We do. The budget deficits are unsustainable. We have to fix them. My 
point is, there are some Johnnies-come-lately going on in this Chamber 
by people who have never come to the floor of the Senate on these 
issues in the last decade and now believe this budget deficit problem 
began to emerge on January 1 a year ago. That is not the case. This 
budget deficit problem, which is serious, results, in significant part, 
because this country ran into a very serious economic recession. It was 
not some natural disaster such as a flood, a fire, or tornado we 
couldn't do anything about. This was manmade. I warned about it 10 
years ago. Those warnings were largely ignored.
  Bad choices and bad policies have brought us to this position. Now it 
is required of us to make good choices. One of the good choices would 
be to recognize our responsibility to those at the bottom of the 
economic ladder, the folks who have, millions of them, lost their jobs 
in this recession and didn't do anything wrong. They weren't 
underperformers at work. They just were swept away by a very 
substantial recession. They paid for unemployment insurance in their 
paychecks. We all do.
  My hope is we will get some cooperation on this vote today. It is a 
vote by which an effort to extend unemployment insurance for those who 
are the most vulnerable in the country has been blocked so we have a 
cloture petition. It ripens today at 5:30. My hope is we can do that 
and then move ahead.
  There are plenty of us who are anxious to work on reducing the 
Federal budget deficit. This government needs to tighten its belt in a 
wide range of areas. There is no question about it. The spending side 
is important. We need to tackle the spending side and do it seriously. 
But it is not the only side. There is a whole series of folks who are 
not paying taxes who should pay. There are some of the biggest 
corporations in the country avoiding taxes that they should be paying. 
We ought to bring in the revenue we are required to bring in, ask some 
to pay what everybody else is paying, and we also ought to tighten our 
belt. All of that can help us address this very serious economic 
problem.
  Let me look forward again 2 weeks to say if this is the last stand by 
those who are worried about the Federal budget deficit; that is, trying 
to make those at the bottom of the economic ladder, the most vulnerable 
Americans, wait and wonder whether they will get help from this 
Congress--if that is their last stand, 2 weeks from now, when we take 
on Wall Street reform and decide to do the things that are necessary to 
fix what caused this economic problem, fix what caused a substantial 
portion of the Federal budget deficits and fix what caused this deepest 
recession we have been in since the Great Depression, will we not get 
some help in 2 weeks? By the way, the bill that came out of the Banking 
Committee is a good first step. It needs to be strengthened in a number 
of areas. But even that bill didn't get any Republican support, not one 
vote in the Banking Committee. There are a lot of people here who 
support making sure that we are not too aggressive in trying to deal 
with the Wall Street folks and Wall Street interests. If we are not 
aggressive enough to make sure we have closed the loopholes and make 
sure we have tightened the reins so the American people have some 
confidence

[[Page 5262]]

this will not happen again, we will rue the day if we end with a result 
that doesn't measure up in the minds of the American people.
  Again, my point is to suggest we have a very serious, unsustainable 
budget deficit. It ought not to be surprising to anybody in this 
Chamber, moving along for a decade, fighting wars without paying for 
them, running into a very deep recession with revenues drying up when 
expenditures increase for economic stabilization. That is not 
surprising. But we need to come together and work together to find ways 
to not only get the taxes paid that are owed while at the same time we 
reduce the Federal budget deficit through those means, tighten our 
belts, and do the things that are necessary to move away from a decade 
of irresponsibility. If we are going to fight a war, send men and women 
off to war but don't have the courage to pay for it along the way, that 
is unbelievable to me. I have been to so many sendoffs, and every one 
of my colleagues has.
  We are prepared to take people away from their families and send them 
off. I was just at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo last week visiting the 
troops. They are away from home for a year. They have courage. When the 
country asks, they go. When they are called, they don't ask why. 
Shouldn't this Congress have the same courage to say: If we are going 
to send people to war, we will pay for it; we will have to ask the 
American people to pay the cost of that war? That is another 
significant part of this debate about how to deal with Federal budget 
deficits.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak 
for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Prospective Supreme Court Vacancy

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment 
briefly about the prospective vacancy in the Supreme Court of the 
United States with the resignation of Justice Stevens. I do so to urge 
the President to select a nominee without regard to any threats of a 
filibuster. I urge the President to make his selection of whomever he 
believes to be the best qualified to handle the responsibilities with a 
view to academic excellence, professional experience, and intellect to 
carry on the battle, where we have seen the Supreme Court veer very 
sharply to the right.
  Let's be candid about the Supreme Court being an ideological 
battleground today. That happens to be the fact. When some decry 
judicial activism, what could be more judicial activism than reversing 
the 100-year precedent that corporations may not engage in political 
advertising, as the Supreme Court did in Citizens United, in a 
contortion of procedural maneuverings to take a case with an isolated 
issue with a predetermined obvious purpose of changing the law on that 
very vital subject for the operation of our democracy?
  We had Chief Justice Roberts, in the confirmation proceedings, under 
oath, swear he would not, quote, ``jolt the system.'' Well, there have 
been quite a number of jolts in the system with his key vote. We had a 
very extensive questioning and commentary about Chief Justice Roberts' 
deference to congressional fact-finding. Only Congress has hearings, 
hears witnesses, and makes determinations of fact-finding. When the 
voting rights came up, all of that seemed to have been forgotten.
  We have a situation where it is obvious the Supreme Court makes the 
cutting-edge decisions on the law of the land. The Supreme Court, it 
turns out, decides who will be President in Bush v. Gore--a decision 
strictly along political partisan lines.
  The Supreme Court of the United States decides what will be the law 
with respect to campaign finance reform, as we seek to make a 
determination as to how we can limit the expenditures in political 
campaigns--the very core of the democratic process.
  In Buckley v. Valeo, in 1976, the Supreme Court said that, under the 
First Amendment, speech equals money. It seemed to me at the time that 
was a farfetched decision. Now, with Citizens United, we find that 
corporations are somehow persons, somehow entitled to first amendment 
rights and can advertise in political campaigns.
  The Supreme Court decides who will live and who will die, decides 
what is the extent of the death penalty. The Supreme Court decides the 
extent of a woman's right to choose--Casey v. Planned Parenthood. The 
Supreme Court decides about the power of the State to take private 
property in eminent domain. And so the cases go on and on and on.
  I have sought, for more than a decade now, to have the Supreme Court 
televised, and twice during my tenure as chairman or ranking member of 
the Judiciary Committee the committee reported out favorably 
legislation to require the Supreme Court to be televised, unless there 
was some extraordinary circumstance invoked by the Court. More 
recently, in this Congress, I have modified that effort with 
legislation which recommends that the Supreme Court televise its 
proceedings.
  When Bush v. Gore came up, then-Senator Biden and I wrote to Chief 
Justice Rehnquist urging that the Court allow that monumental case to 
be televised so the public could see it, considering the very limited 
number of people who could gain access.
  When I went over to the Court that day--being one of the few who 
could gain access to the Court--the block was surrounded with 
television cameras because of so much public interest. But the cameras 
could not go inside. That day the Supreme Court, with the Chief 
Justice's order, did change practice and allowed an audio transcript to 
be released immediately thereafter.
  I believe Congress has the authority, should it choose to do so, to 
direct the Supreme Court to permit its proceedings to be televised. The 
Supreme Court, in a series of cases, has said the public has a right to 
know what is going on inside the courtroom, and that was the case which 
involved Richmond Newspapers. Well, in an electronic era, where the 
public gets so much of its information via television or via radio, 
there ought to be that access.
  But the Congress has the authority to determine when the Court starts 
to function each year: the first Monday in October. Congress sets a 
quorum for the Court: six. Congress can set the number of Justices on 
the Court, as evidenced by the effort by President Franklin Roosevelt 
in the mid to late 1930s to increase the number of the Supreme Court to 
some 15.
  Obviously, we cannot tell the Supreme Court what to decide, how to 
decide, but we can tell them about administrative matters. And the 
Congress has the authority to tell the Court which cases to take. So 
there is a broad range of matters where the Congress cannot act.
  I modified the effort I had to have the Supreme Court televised--
instead of ``requiring it'' to ``recommending it''--because in the 
final analysis the Court can make a determination on separation of 
powers if Congress imposes a requirement that can be overruled by the 
Court.
  But if the public had access to what was going on in the Supreme 
Court, it seems to me there would be a clamor to have more openness, 
more transparency, and greater public appreciation of the fact that the 
Supreme Court is a battleground.
  When considerations are made about--as the Sunday talk shows have 
filled the airwaves just yesterday--a number of Senators from the other 
side of the aisle left the filibuster on the table, would not rule it 
out, the question of what is judge-made law. Well, that is very much in 
the eye of the beholder as to what is judge-made law.
  But I would urge the President not to pay any heed to that. When we 
start to

[[Page 5263]]

engage in the subtleties of a nominee who will be among the five 
instead of the four, I suggest that is a stretch beyond making any 
determination. That is, I believe--well, it was candidly said trying to 
persuade Justice Kennedy to be among five, as it is speculated with 
some pretty solid foundation that Justice Stevens succeeded in 
persuading Justice Kennedy to side on the issue of habeas corpus.
  We had Rasul v. Bush, where Justice Stevens--in a very learned 
opinion, tracing the authority of detention from the Magna Carta down 
through habeas corpus--made a determination that habeas corpus was a 
constitutional right. The case then came to the Court of Appeals for 
the District of Columbia, and in a contorted opinion--at least 
contorted in my judgment--the Circuit Court for the District of 
Columbia said it was on statutory grounds and not constitutional 
grounds. But reading Rasul v. Bush, starting with the Magna Carta and 
tracing the constitutional evolution, it certainly, as a fair reading 
would say, was on constitutional grounds.
  Then Boumediene v. Bush came up, and on the petition for cert, only 
three Justices voted to hear the case, and Justice Stevens was not 
among them. Had Justice Stevens voted to hear the case, there would 
have been four Justices to take up the case and it would have been 
docketed and it would have been heard. But Justice Stevens voted not to 
hear the case. It was speculated at that time widely that Justice 
Stevens felt if the Court took the case habeas corpus would be 
rejected.
  We had the long fight on the floor of this body, and I offered an 
amendment to restore habeas corpus, which was defeated 51 to 48 on the 
military commissions act. I predicted at that time the Supreme Court 
would eventually overrule the congressional determination and reinstate 
habeas corpus as a constitutional right.
  Then there came to light information in the military commissions 
about some very questionable practices, and there was a subsequent 
petition for reconsideration for a grant of cert. On a petition for 
reconsideration on a grant of cert, it takes five votes. Four votes are 
insufficient. You have to have five votes to have cert granted and cert 
was granted. Justice Stevens and Justice Kennedy joined the other three 
Justices in the petition for reconsideration to grant cert.
  In Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court said that habeas corpus, in 
fact, was a right. Well, those are speculative and those are 
subtleties. But my own thinking on the subject is the President ought 
to appoint somebody who can be in a sense a warrior in this ideological 
battle which is going on across the green in the Supreme Court. That is 
what is happening.
  If a new nominee is only a fourth, well, there may be an opportunity 
for a fifth. President Obama is not halfway through his second year. 
Who knows what the future will hold on the electoral process or who 
knows what the future may hold with respect to Supreme Court vacancies. 
But there may well be an opportunity for subsequent appointments to the 
Supreme Court.
  It is my hope there will be a nominee whom the President feels 
comfortable with ideologically. Interestingly, when President Obama was 
Senator Obama, as the record shows, he voted against Chief Justice 
Roberts for confirmation. In his statement he pretty much acknowledged 
Chief Justice Roberts'--then Judge Roberts--competency and 
qualifications but disagreed with him on philosophical and ideological 
grounds.
  But what goes on inside that conference room is known only to the 
Justices. It is very small, very simple, situated right behind where 
the Chief Justice sits in court, if you walk right in back of that. I 
think relatively few people have had an opportunity to see that 
conference room. It is written about as a place where only the Justices 
can go. If there is a knock on the door, as is frequently reported, it 
is the junior Justice who answers the door. But what goes on inside 
that conference room decides the cutting-edge questions of the day. It 
is my hope that the replacement will be someone with solid academic 
credentials, solid professional credentials, the intellect and really 
the ability to carry on that battle, which is an ideological 
battleground within that Supreme Court conference room.
  I urge further that the President look beyond certain judges. Today, 
the nine Justices, including Justice Stevens, all come from the courts 
of appeals from the circuits. Well, there is great talent beyond the 
circuits. When Brown v. Board of Education was decided, I believe only 
one had been a circuit judge. Why not look for an ex-Governor like Earl 
Warren? Why not look for an ex-Attorney General like Robert Jackson? 
Why not look for an ex-Senator or a current Senator, like Hugo Black, 
who was a Senator when he was selected for the Court, or perhaps even 
an ex-President? William Howard Taft had been President of the United 
States and later served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States.
  So I believe we ought not to be concerned about it. As divisive as 
the Senate has become and as partisan and as gridlocked as the Senate 
has become, I believe there are 60 votes in this Chamber to reject the 
concept of a filibuster and that the President ought to have a free 
hand in selecting his choice in accordance with the considerations 
which I have outlined.
  I thank the Chair, and in the absence of any Senator seeking 
recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, we are here to move forward on extending 
unemployment benefits, which is long overdue. They expired April 5. We 
have thousands and indeed hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens 
across the Nation who need this assistance.
  In my State of Rhode Island, it has become even more necessary. Not 
only are we seeing unemployment rates ranging around 12 percent, but 
last week we endured the worst flooding in the history of our State. It 
has swept through a large portion of our State. Senator Whitehouse and 
I have been going from town to town and neighborhood to neighborhood. 
People's homes have been engulfed in water, up through the first floor. 
They have lost their utilities. They have lost their appliances. They 
have lost their precious mementoes--everything. We have also had 
commercial operations that have been flooded. Our largest mall in the 
State, Warwick Mall, has been completely inundated. It has been closed 
now for almost 2 weeks. Literally hundreds and hundreds of employees 
have not been able to work. They are now eligible, through no fault of 
their own, for unemployment compensation. So we have to do this. This 
is an example of one State, but it is throughout this whole country.
  What is also adding further necessity to the legislation before us is 
that--what we have found is that our Federal, State, and local 
officials have been extraordinarily prompt in responding to the 
disaster. I thank the President. He very quickly issued a Presidential 
disaster declaration for Rhode Island and parts of Massachusetts, as 
well as other areas of New England. FEMA has been on the ground. They 
are doing a very good job. But for someone who has lost their home and 
all of their possessions, someone who also may have lost their business 
simultaneously, every moment is precious. Despite the extraordinary 
efforts of the men and women of FEMA, the Small Business 
Administration, EPA, the Corps of Engineers, State officials, and local 
officials, we have to do much more for these people.
  One of the ironies is that--one of the benefits of the Small Business 
Administration is essentially providing loans to households and to 
businesses; however, they are limited unless these businesses can get 
flood insurance. Private flood insurance is out of sight financially.
  Public flood insurance has been without authorization. In this 
legislation,

[[Page 5264]]

we will have a temporary extension of the National Flood Insurance 
Program. Let me translate that into practical terms. SBA in Rhode 
Island could go to a business and say: You have had physical damage. We 
can lend up to $2 million to you. Unfortunately, because you can't get 
flood insurance, we are limited to giving you $14,000. When you offer 
that to someone who is desperate, who is seeing hundreds of employees 
without work, who is trying their best--in fact, even the idea of 
taking another loan is a very great leap forward. To say: You need 
$100,000 or $500,000; we can give it to you, but--it is the classic 
catch-22. In this legislation, we can extend this program, even for 
several weeks, but allow individuals in these affected areas to qualify 
for what they need.
  In terms of home loans, the limit is not that high, but it could be 
up around $40,000 for personal property and $200,000 for real estate. I 
have been in homes where the damage is excessive. Yesterday, I walked 
into a home in Cranston, RI, and a father and his two grown sons were 
ripping up the tiles. The whole first floor has to be gutted and 
replaced. They may just try to do it on their own, they may try to seek 
bank lending, but it would be nice if they could get the full support 
of the Federal Government, as we intended when we passed the SBA laws 
and disaster relief laws.
  In terms of economic injury, if there is a business that has lost all 
of its inventory, that has to close, that has just lost business 
because of the flood, they, too, can qualify for loans--and again, the 
total is up to $2 million. However, without flood insurance, the cap is 
$5,000. So going to someone who has lost all of this and saying to 
them: Well, let me explain the intricacies. You can get this, but you 
can't get this. If Congress acts, you can get this. We have to do much 
more for our citizens. If these programs are available, we have to make 
them truly available.
  One of the consequences, frankly, of this political jousting back and 
forth is we lose sight of the effect on our constituents, the effect on 
real people and real problems. As a result, they are looking at us here 
and saying: What is going on? You have authorized the program. You have 
the money to loan me up to $2 million, but you can't because you can't 
authorize another program. We might understand that procedurally. We 
might understand the delays we see here, et cetera. But the American 
public doesn't understand it. They have a problem; they expect their 
government to respond, particularly when the programs are already 
authorized, when the programs are there, and we have done it in the 
past. I would hazard a guess that every Member in this Chamber has 
used--or their constituents have used Federal flood relief programs, 
agriculture relief programs. I supported every one of them because when 
Americans are facing a natural disaster, they need all of us to rally 
behind them and support them.
  Well, now is the time in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. We need that 
support. For people to oppose it--oh, we object to this or that--that 
is not what we are called upon to do. We have people who are desperate 
because of a natural disaster. We need unemployment compensation for 
those people and for the thousands who are still looking without 
success for jobs, and we also need it to assure the people that their 
welfare is our goal. That is what we do. We can sort out the nuances of 
conflicting programs and conditions, et cetera, so that they get the 
help they need.
  So I hope we can move through this motion to proceed and get on to a 
serious debate. I personally believe we have to extend unemployment 
compensation through the end of the year. This ``Perils of Pauline'' 
every 30 days leaves people to wondering what is happening to them.
  I was in a diner yesterday in Rhode Island, and a woman stopped me 
and said: When are you going to extend unemployment insurance? I don't 
know if I am going to get it. I am running out of resources.
  This is a woman who has worked all of her life. In fact, she told me 
she had been laid off once before because she didn't have the training, 
and then she went and got education through a Federal program, moved 
into administration, and was just let go by her company because of the 
downsizing. She played by the rules, she has done everything asked of 
her as a citizen, and she is just waiting there.
  We have to do more. So I hope the logic of our constituents might 
overwhelm the logic of this Chamber at the moment.
  Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 323, H.R. 4851, an act to provide a 
     temporary extension of certain programs, and for other 
     purposes.
         Harry Reid, Richard J. Durbin, Patty Murray, Patrick J. 
           Leahy, Jack Reed, Christopher J. Dodd, Mark Udall, 
           Debbie Stabenow, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse, Max 
           Baucus, Dianne Feinstein, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Kent 
           Conrad, Byron L. Dorgan, John D. Rockefeller, IV, Jeff 
           Bingaman, Robert Menendez.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call is waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate on the 
motion to proceed to H.R. 4851, the Continuing Extension Act of 2010, 
shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Harkin), the 
Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from West 
Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Utah (Mr. Bennett), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), 
and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 60, nays 34, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 109 Leg.]

                                YEAS--60

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Brown (OH)
     Burris
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     McCaskill
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--34

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--6

     Bennett
     Bond
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Menendez
     Rockefeller
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 60, the nays are 
34. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  Mr. BAUCUS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. I now ask unanimous consent that on Tuesday, April 13, 
following a period of morning business,

[[Page 5265]]

the Senate resume postcloture debate on the motion to proceed to H.R. 
4851; that at 2:15 p.m., all postcloture time be yielded back, the 
motion to proceed be agreed to, and the Senate proceed to consideration 
of H.R. 4851.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. I would say I have had a number of conversations with the 
majority leader and Senator Coburn and I think we have a way to move 
forward tomorrow afternoon.
  Madam President, I was talking to the distinguished Senator from Ohio 
and we were saying, he and I, how much Lula Davis knows. She even 
recognized I made a mistake. I don't do it very often. I was referring 
to the Republican leader, not the majority leader. I would like the 
Record to reflect that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I would agree about the part about Lula Davis, for 
sure.
  We have all been back in our State for the last 2 weeks. I have been 
everywhere from Marietta to Cleveland to Toledo to Defiance to 
Youngstown to Columbus to Dayton--all over my State. There are a lot of 
things I hear. Of course there is a lot of pain. There are a lot of 
people who are looking for work, a lot of people who believe they are 
about to lose their health care or they have lost their health care.
  I heard a lot, frankly, of gratitude that Congress moved on this 
health insurance bill so that now, immediately, small business people 
in Ohio, whether they are in Marion or Mansfield, whether they are in 
Warren or Wapakoneta, have a much better chance because of these tax 
breaks that take effect immediately to insure their employees, 
something that most small businesses I know, whether they are in New 
Hampshire or Ohio, want to do.
  Also, we did not hear much of this during this debate, but the number 
of people who came up to me--and the majority leader was talking to me 
and he sees this in Nevada too--the number of people who came up to me 
in Youngstown or Cleveland or Bay Village or different places who have 
22-year-old daughters or 20-year-old sons who might be home from the 
Army or home from college, finished college, finished their time in the 
Army and they do not have insurance and they cannot find a job with 
insurance. As a 23-year-old, it is pretty hard to find a job with 
decent health insurance. They like this new law because it means they 
can stay on their parents' health insurance until the age of 26. I 
heard people all over the State, in the 2 weeks I traveled in Ohio in 
the time since we have been talking here, talking with senior citizens 
in senior centers, talk about closing the doughnut hole. So the bill 
President Bush pushed through more than anything gave huge subsidies 
and giveaways to the drug companies and the insurance industry but now 
we are taking care of the seniors by closing the doughnut hole at the 
same time this health care bill will provide the seniors once a year an 
opportunity to get a physical with no copay.
  In spite of the difficulties people face, there is good news that 
way. There is some light at the end of the tunnel.
  When I was at a GM plant in Defiance, they are beginning to hire 
people to build the engine for the Cruise. The Cruise will be assembled 
in Lorantville, OH. They are hiring 1,100 people on the third shift. 
That was a decision President Obama made at the urging of many of us in 
the Senate--Senator Casey, Governor Strikland in Ohio, many others--to 
enforce U.S. trade laws on oil country tubular steel which we use for 
piping for oil and gas lines--oil and gas drilling. That company in 
Youngstown, V&M Star Steel, is hiring 400 people and probably more in 
the future.
  We are hearing some pieces of good news. That doesn't mean anyone 
thinks this recession is over. It does not mean there is yet that much 
good news. It means people are still struggling and it shows how 
important it is to do what we did today. In spite of 34 Republicans 
opposed to the bill, we were able to get 4 Republican votes. I applaud 
the four of them: the newest Senator here, Senator Brown from 
Massachusetts; Senators Collins and Snowe from Maine, the neighboring 
State of the Presiding Officer; and Senator Voinovich, the senior 
Senator from my State--Senator Voinovich, who is retiring at the end of 
the year. They all voted to move forward on unemployment compensation.
  It is too bad that Senator Coburn and Senator Bunning, day after day, 
tried to block the extension of unemployment. It looks as though we are 
going to be able to move forward now.
  There seems to be some misunderstanding about what unemployment is. 
It is not called unemployment welfare, it is called unemployment 
insurance. That means all of us who are lucky enough, in this economy 
we have been in in the last couple or 3 years, to have jobs, all pay 
into an unemployment fund, we pay into an insurance fund. If we lose 
our jobs, the money we have paid in as insurance, we get assistance. 
Many people never receive unemployment insurance, just as some people 
don't use their health insurance if they are healthy. But those who are 
sick sometimes get more money out of their health insurance than they 
put in. Some people put into unemployment insurance, get more out if 
they lose their jobs and they are unemployed for a long time. That is 
why this bill is so important, because it is unemployment insurance.
  That means if people lose their jobs, they should get some help. It 
is the right thing to do morally. It is also the right thing to do for 
the economy because if people are getting unemployment insurance, they 
are spending that money in Zanesville at the local drugstore, they are 
spending that money in Cambridge at the local grocery store, in 
Springfield and Xenia, OH, to buy books and to buy clothes for their 
kids for school. So unemployment insurance gives the economy a bump and 
some help and some stimulus. It goes back into the economy quicker than 
anything else government can do--unemployment insurance. That is the 
other reason it is important.
  Then I heard my colleagues say we are for unemployment insurance 
extension and we are for helping with COBRA, the health care subsidy, 
so people can stay in their health care plan after they have lost their 
job and get some assistance from the government to do that because it 
is expensive. My colleagues say we want--we are OK with that, we think 
it is all right, but we have to pay for it.
  There are certain emergency situations over the years that government 
has made a decision that you need to respond to quickly. You don't have 
to cut spending somewhere else or increase taxes to pay for it.
  That is what I hear my colleagues say, but they never talk about how, 
when they voted for tax cuts for the richest Americans, that was added 
to the budget deficit. So a few rich people got huge tax cuts and my 
kids and grandchildren pay for it. They don't mention that.
  They don't mention this war in Iraq which they enthusiastically 
supported, costing us $1 trillion in terms of the costs of war and the 
costs of veterans' benefits and the costs of veterans' health care. 
They did not pay for that.
  They don't talk about the Medicare privatization bill, the giveaway 
to the drug companies and the insurance companies and how they did that 
and didn't pay for that.
  It is only unemployment. It is only unemployed workers. Now they get 
some fiscal religion. All of a sudden they are for a balanced budget. 
They are not for a balanced budget in paying for the war, not for a 
balanced budget in paying for tax cuts for the rich, not for a balanced 
budget when they are shoveling subsidies to the insurance companies and 
drug companies, but all of a sudden it is unemployed workers, people 
who are struggling, people who have paid into this insurance fund, 
people who send out--listen to them in your State in Hanover or in 
Mansfield, OH, listen to people say how they are sending out 10 and 20 
and 30 and 50 resumes a week to try to find jobs and they still can't 
find them. We are going

[[Page 5266]]

to penalize them and say we are not going to pay for it, but they will 
not on the cost of war or the cost of veterans' benefits or the cost of 
tax cuts for the rich and the cost of the giveaways to the drug and 
insurance companies.
  Let me close with this. As we were home the last 2 weeks--most of us 
were back in our States. Some were elsewhere. We talked to people more, 
but we also get letters when we get back. We see the kinds of letters 
that I am getting all the time from people at home. Let me read two of 
these letters. James from Franklin County, OH--that is the middle of 
the State where Columbus is, the State capital.

       At this point in my life my future is uncertain. I have 
     been unemployed for almost a year. Along with my other former 
     co-workers from the optical lab, we continue to look for 
     jobs.
       I am an American to the bone. I have worked nearly every 
     day of my life. I am now 55 years old.
       Like many thousands of fellow Ohioans, our current 
     unemployment benefits are about to expire.
       I can make it financially with two or three part-time jobs 
     to make sure I can pay for my daughter's nursing school. I 
     will live in my car if I lose my apartment, but I will make 
     sure my daughter continues her education. Please help the 
     hard-working people of Ohio.

  ``I will live in my car if I lose my apartment, but I will make sure 
my daughter continues her education.'' How can you say those people do 
not matter as much as giving tax cuts to the rich? How can anybody in 
this institution stand and with a good conscience and a straight face 
say that James from Franklin County is not doing everything right in 
order to provide for his family and for the future?
  Do not blame James for this budget deficit that this crowd in this 
body voted for; the war, unpaid for; the tax cuts, unpaid for; the drug 
company subsidies, unpaid for; that James is not trying to do the right 
thing to provide for the future for his daughter to get her through 
nursing school.
  Derek from Cuyahoga County, the State's largest county on Lake Erie, 
the Cleveland area, writes:

       I have just exhausted my unemployment benefits. I have been 
     sending resumes like crazy, but there is just no work in this 
     part of Northeastern Ohio. Pretty soon I won't be able to 
     afford my bills--or anything for that matter. I'm 26 years 
     old, don't have health insurance, and need help while I look 
     for a job. We bailed out large corporations when they were in 
     a financial jam. Why can't we help the American people who 
     are in their own financial struggle?

  Unemployment benefits do not make you comfortable. They do not make 
you rich. They are not what you plan for in the future. They are not 
something anybody wants to live on for very long. But they help people 
while they are trying to find a job. Unemployment insurance gives 
people that helping hand. It may be another week, it may be another 
month or 3 months. At least four of my colleagues today voted to extend 
unemployment for a month. It should have been longer. I wish we could 
do better. I wish we could get some Republican votes to do this right 
and to help get us on the track so people can plan better in their 
lives and can continue to go out and try to get jobs. That is what we 
need to do. It is what this economy needs.
  I urge my colleagues to do the right thing this week with the 
unemployment extension and to do the right thing with the jobs bill to 
begin to put more people in this country back to work.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________