[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11582-11584]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

  Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, with all due respect to our Republican 
leader, I have to express concern on a couple of points. He was just 
talking about court decisions, a court decision that said BP is a 
person; that said all big corporations have the same rights as 
individuals. What we are trying to do, both in the House and the 
Senate, is to make sure that, in fact, the democratic process can work 
and that huge corporate interests that have controlled too much of this 
country are not allowed to do even more in terms of overriding 
elections and putting money into elections.
  I also have to disagree with our distinguished Republican colleague 
when he says this is all about the deficit. As we would say in 
Michigan, that is a bunch of bunk. This is about who we care about and 
how we think we should move forward as a country in terms of what is 
best for the majority of the American people. Very different views. 
Very different beliefs.
  Our Republican colleagues have believed if we give tax breaks to the 
wealthiest Americans and wait for it to trickle down, things will get 
better. If we back up and let corporations police themselves, 
everything will be OK.
  Well, we saw that for 8 years, 6 years of which they had control of 
the whole system. I tell you what, it did not trickle down to the 
people in Michigan. After the Wall Street collapse and what we saw with 
BP in the gulf and what we have seen with miners' loss of life, I would 
suggest that view, that belief, has not worked for the majority of 
people.
  So we have a different view. We have a different view. It is one that 
actually worked in the 1990s under President Clinton when 22 million 
jobs were created. Yes, we believe this is about jobs. This is about 
how we get out of deficit.
  I also find it amazing that the people who dug the hole, the deepest 
hole we have ever had in the history of the country, when they were 
handed a surplus--they dug the hole--now want us to give the shovels 
back. They want more shovels to dig even deeper.
  So this is a difference of opinion on how we believe we should move 
the country forward and who we are trying to move it for--not the large 
corporate interests that the Republican leader just talked about who 
want to be able to give millions of dollars for elections and have no 
rules and regulations and be able to control the democratic process of 
elections in this country.
  It is not about the folks who are concerned about paying their fair 
share in this jobs bill, with the tax loopholes we want to close so 
they cannot take jobs overseas and requiring people to pay their fair 
share. That is not what we are about. What we are about is creating 
jobs for the American people. The bill in front of us, the bill we are 
going to have a chance to vote on one more time, is all about jobs and 
who we are fighting for. That is what it is about. It is about whether 
we believe we should only invest in what the wealthy and powerful of 
this country care about or should we invest in the majority of 
Americans and create good-paying, middle-class jobs.
  It really is a philosophy right now about how we get out of debt. 
They say more tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. We will have an 
estate tax fight where they say: Oh, we ought to be more and more for 
the top few hundred families, billionaires in the country. Give them 
more tax relief.
  We say, in this bill, what we ought to be doing is focusing on 
creating jobs to grow out of debt. We are all opposed to debt. I was 
opposed to the debt when I voted to balance the budget. I was opposed 
to debt when they got us into debt in the last 8 years, 10 years, when 
they were focusing on racking up debt. I was opposed then.
  Now the question is, How do we get out of debt? We say we have to 
create jobs, and we have to help the people who are out of work be able 
to get some help to be able to get some training to be able to keep a 
roof over their heads and food on their tables while they look for a 
job.
  That is what we believe. That is what this is about. We believe we 
will never get out of deficit with over 15 million out of work, having 
to ask for temporary assistance. We will never get out of debt unless 
we are creating jobs. We have begun to do that. Our colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle say: We want to stop that.
  Let's look at what happened. I talk about the previous administration 
not only to focus on the past, but these are the same ideas that are on 
the floor today. They are promoting the ideas that got us into these 
job losses. When President Obama came into office, we were losing about 
750,000 jobs a month. That is what he inherited. We said: This hasn't 
been working for the majority of people. It didn't work for the 
majority of people in Michigan. We want to go back to investing in 
people and communities, helping businesses get the capital to grow, 
supporting small businesses, focusing on manufacturing, making things 
in this country. Let's take away the incentives to take jobs overseas. 
We are in a global economy, but we want to export our products, not our 
jobs.
  This bill takes away incentives to go offshore, overseas, keeps the 
jobs here. It creates more capital for manufacturers. I was pleased to 
craft a provision that will create the ability to buy more equipment 
and facilities to create jobs. It helps small businesses keep jobs. 
That is what we believe. We have put in place the Recovery Act. We have 
begun to climb out. We are not out. But these guys are going: Stop. Oh, 
my gosh, it is beginning to work. This may affect the elections. Let's 
do everything we can to stop the recovery. Let's take the resources 
that have been used to invest in a battery manufacturing plant, private 
sector, in Midland, MI, where I attended a groundbreaking on Monday, 
Dow Kokam. Let's take that money away now. We will say: We have too big 
deficits. We can't invest in jobs. We can't invest in jobs.
  They want to take that away and come over and say: We will take the 
money that is creating jobs and we will give it to people who don't 
have a job.
  Wait a minute. So you want to use the Recovery Act money that is 
beginning to create jobs and put it over here to help people who don't 
have a job, and then we will create more people who don't have jobs?
  We say that is a bunch of hooey, that is a bunch of bunk. In 
Michigan, we have stronger words for that, but I won't say them on the 
Senate floor. My people in Michigan are sick and tired of this.
  It is pretty bad when we have one side in this Chamber rooting for 
failure every day. I have people in my State, Republicans who are out 
of work, small businesses that are Republican. They don't have capital, 
manufacturers that are Republicans who want us to pass legislation to 
give them more capital. This is not a partisan issue. This is about 
whose side we are on in this country. It is about whether we embrace a 
philosophy that will work for the majority of Americans or work for 
only a few. That is what this is about.
  What we have from the other side is a litany of no, no, no. We will 
be yes, if you take away the money for the recovery, which they all 
voted against--most, excuse me, not all but most--we will take away 
those dollars because that will slow us down, that will make sure this 
President is not successful. God help us if this President is 
successful and this majority is successful. Let's keep people hurting 
as long as possible, because maybe that will help us pick up some 
seats.

[[Page 11583]]

  No wonder people are angry. No wonder people are cynical. I am pretty 
angry myself.
  There are real people's lives at stake in all of this. All we get is 
no, no, no--cynical, political games on the other side. Even though 
things are moving up slowly but surely--way too slow from my 
perspective but, thank God, they are not continuing to go down, it is 
beginning to work. Instead of letting it work--and it certainly is not 
everything we want, but it is beginning, it is turning--instead, they 
want to stop it. The election is coming up. Let's make sure people are 
as mad as possible, and then we will blame the people who were in the 
majority, even though we are stopping them every day. We are stopping 
them from doing things. We filibuster. The cynical view is that the 
public won't understand that so we will keep making sure that nothing 
happens so people are hurting. That is what is happening here.
  Let's talk about unemployment benefits and the fact that we do have 
people hurting. We do, in fact, have 3 million jobs available and 15 
million people looking for work. Some say: Those folks are just lazy. 
Go get a job. I would like to show them the real world and what is 
happening for too many families. The numbers are changing. When I first 
started coming to the floor, we were talking about six people out of 
work for every one job opening. Now it is five. I don't celebrate that 
because I want to make it one for one. It is getting better. It is 
creeping around. It is turning around. It is turning around because the 
Recovery Act incentivized people to buy a new home which, in this bill, 
we want to extend for people, to get as many people who have benefited 
from that $8,000 tax credit as possible, or the $6,500. But our 
colleagues on the other side say no.
  Realtors tell me in Michigan things are turning around because of 
support from the Recovery Act. The stimulus has helped begin to turn 
things. But, oh, my gosh, no, we cannot possibly continue to support 
something that is actually working, because it might have bad political 
effects. People might not be hurting as much or as mad, and that may 
not help us in the election.
  We have today people who are looking for work, have been looking for 
work for months, some longer than a year--in some cases, 2 years. 
People did what we told them to do. They went back to school. They are 
living off of unemployment for their family while they are going to 
school. They are trying to do everything they can. These are people who 
have done nothing but work hard and take care of their families and 
love this country. They assume, just as in every other economic 
downturn in the country, that we will understand, we will get it. The 
Congress will get it and support them to turn their lives around 
without losing their homes and the ability to care for their families.
  I want to read a few letters from people in Michigan. We have 
thousands of e-mails and letters. It breaks our heart. People cannot 
believe what in the world is going on around here that we are not doing 
everything conceivable to create jobs. These artificial debates about 
deficits--again, it is a very big issue, these deficits, but it is 
pretty hard for us to be lectured by the people who created the 
deficits who are now saying: We can't help people caught in this 
economic recession because of deficits. It is pretty hard to accept 
their view, the way they would get us out, which didn't get us out, 
which created more deficit, that somehow we should go back to that 
rather than what has worked in the past which is putting people to 
work, having people work so they can pay into the system and contribute 
and buy things. They become part of the economy. Then deficits begin to 
go away. We begin to come out of the hole. That is what we believe, 
focusing on people.
  Kim from Flint says:

       I am writing today to beseech you to urge Congress to act 
     quickly to extend federal unemployment benefits. In this 
     unprecedented economy, especially where I live in Michigan, 
     extra time is much needed to find employment. Many of my 
     family, friends and neighbors are in the same situation I am. 
     I personally was laid off from what I thought was a stable 
     position back in July and despite having experience and a 
     BBA, I have not been able to find comparable work. Our no 
     worker left behind program in Michigan is out of funding. My 
     college career services department has not been helpful. 
     While I'm trying to keep hope in pursuing job leads and even 
     looking at going back to school for an entirely different 
     field, I fear what will happen to me if these benefits are 
     not extended. I will lose everything. I am indeed writing 
     from my own self-interest but not only for my own interests. 
     With so many people in the same situation as I am, what will 
     happen to them? Will you have a large segment of your 
     constituent population suffer so, or will you have the 
     economic situation in Michigan worsen as many become unable 
     to even provide the bare necessities for themselves and their 
     families? Or will you act quickly to extend much needed 
     unemployment benefits?

  Kim, we are trying to act as quickly as we can. We have been trying 
to. I know it is no consolation. It feels so frustrating and empty to 
talk about differences between Republicans and Democrats when people 
are hurting. But the reality is, we don't have one Republican right now 
willing to step forward, as one, and stop this filibuster that has been 
going on for weeks. We have been dealing with this now every time we 
bring up the extension. We don't have one colleague, people with whom 
we work in good faith on so many different issues, not one has been 
willing up to this point to step up and join us based on the larger 
good, not the political pressure, not the partisanship but the larger 
good of making sure somebody who is out of work knows that they have at 
least the bare minimum so they can continue and not lose a house and be 
homeless on top of job loss and then try to figure out what to do to 
take care of the kids. We don't have one colleague who has been willing 
to do that, to step up and have the courage to join us in stopping this 
incredibly irresponsible filibuster that has been going on.
  We will have an opportunity later today. We fully expect the same 
result, unfortunately. The politics of the moment seem to be 
overwhelming. It is amazing to me. But I guess if it works, people will 
keep doing it. That is the question, whether it will work with the 
American people. With all of the mumbo-jumbo going on, numbers and so 
on, the bottom line in the world in which I live and the world in which 
my family lives in Michigan and the people I represent is a world that 
is very different from here. We in Michigan, Democrats and Republicans, 
are rooting for success as Americans. We want things to get better. We 
want our country to be safe. We want it to get better for everybody. We 
will go on, have another day to fight about differences, ideological 
differences on issues. But we are at least rooting for the country to 
succeed, for the President, for the government to be working together 
to do the right thing so we can get out of this hole.
  When we look at what is happening around the world, when we look at 
the brink of disaster last year when President Obama came in and we 
were on the edge of the cliff--some would say over the cliff--holding 
on with our fingers, losing 750,000 jobs a month, we began to walk it 
back through some very bold things that had to be done at the time, 
such as investing in people and jobs.
  In the previous administration, when they stepped up and did what was 
called the Wall Street bailout, a lot of folks in Michigan said: What 
about us? Who is going to bail out us working people? Well, the 
Recovery Act, in my judgment, was that. It was the people's bail out. 
It was focusing on people, jobs, and job training, and helping those 
who are temporarily out of work while they get their lives together and 
find another job, and investing in the future.
  That is what that was about. And that is what it is still about. It 
is a 2-year effort, and it is beginning to work. We can go back and 
look at the numbers again. We are certainly not where we want to be, 
but it is turning around. We are coming out of the hole. Step by step, 
we are coming out of the hole. Now the folks who created the hole say: 
Oh, give us more shovels so we can dig some more. We are saying: No, 
let's keep it going. Let's give it a try. We can tinker with it. We can 
change some things that we need to, but let's keep it going, let's give 
it a try here so we can

[[Page 11584]]

keep this thing moving in the right direction. These folks are saying 
no. In order to do the bill in front of us on jobs, we want to take 
money away from jobs, slow this down in order to be able to ``pay'' for 
the bill in front of us.
  Well, what is in front of us? We have a bill today that provides tax 
cuts to businesses, tax relief to State and local governments to help 
them invest and create jobs. The other side of the aisle has said no.
  We have a bill in front of us to provide tax cuts that are going to 
put dollars back into the pockets of working families trying to make 
it. The other side has said no.
  We have a bill that is going to help restore credit to small 
businesses. It is the one thing I hear over and over, and I want to 
thank our leader for keeping small businesses at the forefront, and we 
are working on additional legislation to help small businesses. We have 
to free up capital. Too many cannot get their line of credit or get the 
loan they need to operate or to be able to expand. That is certainly 
true in Michigan. But this bill has provisions to help small businesses 
expand, hire new workers. The other side has said no.
  It would expand career training so the people we want to be able to 
get off unemployment benefits and to be able to get into jobs will have 
an opportunity to focus on new careers. This bill includes provisions 
to help people get career training to get new jobs. The other side has 
said no.
  It would extend help for people who are out of work right now, people 
who have had the dignity of working their whole lives, breadwinners who 
are no longer bringing home the bread. It would help them keep a roof 
over their head and food on the table and maybe a little gas in the car 
so they can go look for a job while they are moving through this 
difficult time and while we are focusing on job creation. The other 
side has said no.
  This bill would ensure that senior citizens, military servicemembers, 
and Americans with disabilities would continue to have access to their 
doctors. We did get agreement to pull out that one provision to be able 
to extend it for 6 months, which I hope will get done very quickly. But 
the rest of this, frankly, is being held up, in my judgment, because--
even though it is all paid for. None of this I have just talked about--
other than unemployment benefits, which are always funded differently 
as an emergency because it is an emergency--the rest of this is 
entirely paid for, does not add a penny to the deficit. But I do think 
it then brings up the question: Why would they be objecting?
  Well, we are paying for jobs and job training by closing some tax 
loopholes. You will no longer get tax benefits if you take the jobs 
overseas. We want the jobs in America. We want to stop that. The other 
side says no.
  We want to make sure people who are very wealthy but whose income 
comes in in a different way are paying their fair share, contributing 
just like middle-class people, low-income people. We close some 
loopholes to pay for this. They say no.
  We also have in this bill a provision that would increase the 
dollars, by pennies--49 cents--on every barrel of oil to be able to 
clean up the spill in the gulf, to be able to add money to the Oil 
Spill Liability Trust Fund. In the past, oil companies only had to kick 
in 8 cents a barrel. Well, given what has happened in the gulf, that is 
not enough. So we have said 49 cents for every barrel. A barrel of 
oil--I do not know the price now but $70, $80 a barrel, whatever it is: 
49 cents.
  The oil companies probably do not like that. So the other side said 
no. In fact, the day the distinguished Republican Congressman in 
committee was apologizing to BP on the House side--that same day--
Republican colleagues here were doing the bidding of the oil companies 
by voting ``no'' on increasing their contributions by 41 cents a barrel 
into the liability trust fund to clean up the oilspills.
  I think it is pretty clear whose side we are on, whose side they are 
on, what is happening right now. We have a stalemate going on. We have 
tried and tried, and our leader and the chairman of the Finance 
Committee, who has worked and worked and worked and worked, as he 
always does, in good faith to find some compromise, to be able to move 
this jobs bill forward and help people who are out of work. It appears 
right now we do not have one Republican colleague willing to join us in 
that effort. There have been discussions, but there has been no 
agreement.
  So we have the votes. That is the darnedest thing about this place. 
We have the votes. We just cannot stop a filibuster. Somehow in our 
democracy, with men and women fighting around the world for our 
democratic process of majority rule--when you win an election, you have 
to get one more than the other guy, one more vote than the other guy to 
win the election. And here, instead of having majority rule, they are 
using the political processes and tricks in a way so as to tie us up in 
a pretzel like I have never seen before, unprecedented, using rules in 
a way that is absolutely unprecedented so that the public shakes their 
head and says: What is going on here? What are these people doing?
  But they are doing this in a way so that instead of majority rule, 
you have to get a supermajority. That is what we are talking about: 
Trying to get 60 votes, not 51, which is majority rule in every town 
and city and State and every Federal election; you have to get one more 
than the other guy. But because of a gross misuse of the rules in the 
last year and a half, we have to now get 60 for everything. And we 
cannot--up to this point--get even one Republican colleague to join us. 
So that is where we are.
  I would ask, Madam President, how much time is remaining on the 
majority side?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. One minute forty-five seconds.
  Ms. STABENOW. I am sorry?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. One minute forty-five seconds.
  Ms. STABENOW. Thank you.
  Let me indicate again, there is a huge difference in view as to how 
to get us out of the deficit hole. One side, with a set of policies--I 
am sure they were sincere--a set of policies that said: We will give it 
to the wealthiest Americans--tax cuts--and then it will trickle down, 
coupled with 8 years of not paying for things--two wars and a whole 
series of other things--created red lines down, job loss, so that 
President Obama came in at losing about 750,000 jobs a month.
  We have tried a different view. We have said the only way to get out 
of deficit is to focus on jobs, putting money in the pocket of middle-
class families, and growing our way out by focusing on the middle 
class, working people, the majority of people, small businesses, with 
manufacturers making things again in this country.
  We both care about deficits. We have different views about how we got 
to those deficits, and certainly different views about how to get out 
of deficit. What we will not support is taking money away from efforts 
that have begun to get us on a road to recovery. We have a long way to 
go, but it has begun to get us out of the ditch. We no longer are 
losing 750,000 jobs every month. We are now gaining jobs. It is not as 
even as we would like, but we are gaining jobs. The question is, do we 
allow this to continue, while helping people who are out of work right 
now, and grow our way out of this deficit by creating jobs, or do we go 
back to the old philosophy, the old beliefs that got us into the hole 
in the first place?
  That is the basic debate on the floor of the Senate. That is the 
debate. We have one view that worked in the 1990s, creating 22 million 
jobs over the course of 8 years in the Clinton Presidency, and one view 
that has lost us jobs. Now we are back again to that philosophy to 
create jobs, and that is what this is about.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. STABENOW. Thank you, Madam President.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Utah.

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