[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 11869-11870]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I know an issue that was always 
important to Robert Byrd was the working men and women of West 
Virginia. If there was one thing that innervated him and inspired him, 
it was the memory of his youth and growing up in the most impoverished 
circumstances where he could not attend college and had to go to work 
straight out of high school. It was not until many years later that he 
completed college and law degrees as a Member of the Congress. It was 
an extraordinary feat to be able to achieve that.
  I think of him when I think of the bill we considered last week 
because it was a bill that tried to help struggling families across 
America in the midst of this recession. We tried to extend unemployment 
benefits for those who are out of work across America. The estimates 
range from 8 million to 14 million Americans--people who had a job and 
are now out of a job through no fault of their own. There are an 
estimated five unemployed people for every available job. So it is not 
a situation, which some have said, where there is a lack of effort on 
their part. It is a very hard thing to find a job.
  I have visited unemployment offices in Chicago, in Springfield, and 
all over my State and met with these people, many of whom are 
desperate. They put out their resumes online in an effort to try to get 
an opportunity for a job and just cannot get any response whatsoever. 
They spend day after weary day going through the want ads and going 
through the Internet postings in the hope of finding something.
  What we have tried to do is to say to families in this distress: We 
are going to give you a helping hand so you can survive. That was a 
major part of this bill. We were going to extend unemployment benefits 
across America for an additional 6 months, until the end of the year. I 
wish I could say the economy was turning around more quickly, and it is 
not necessary, but I think we know better. We know many families 
without these unemployment benefits just cannot make it.
  We had a vote last week on unemployment benefits for unemployed 
Americans, out of work through no fault of their own, and could not get 
a single Republican to vote for it--not one. Not one Republican would 
vote for cloture so we could move to passage of that bill.
  There were many things in the bill, but that one hit home this 
weekend when a friend of mine, a woman whom I have known for a number 
of years now, called me. I respect her so much. I met her at a drug 
rehab facility far away from my home in a corner of our State. She had 
been addicted to crack, but for the last 8 years she has been drug-
free. She is a single mom, and she has three children living in her 
home. One of her daughters has a little boy who is 4 months old.
  She called me over the weekend and said: I can't find a job. I keep 
looking, and I can't find a job. Now they are going to cut off the 
utilities to my home.
  That is the reality of what a vote on the Senate floor means in the 
real world. I wonder sometimes how some of my colleagues can 
consistently decide they are not going to vote to support these 
American families. I struggle to understand how we can be spending 
billions of dollars in an effort to rebuild Afghanistan, to try to put 
these people back on their feet and give them a future, and turn our 
backs on our own. That is what happened.
  This bill had many provisions in it, but that one hit home. There was 
another one. There was a provision in this bill to send money to the 
States to help them pay for Medicaid. Medicaid is health insurance for 
poor and unemployed people. Of course, there are more demands for 
Medicaid because so many people are out of work. The States are 
struggling to provide the medical assistance these families need, and 
many of us believed it was only fair that we in Washington try to help 
these States through these difficult times by sending this money back 
to the States.
  Not a single Republican--not one--would vote to help us help the 
Governors in States that are struggling to pay these medical bills for 
the unemployed and poor in their State. It just strikes me that we have 
an obligation to our own--to our American family--and that obligation 
is being ignored by those who vote against it.
  During the course of the day and this week Senators from the 
Republican side of the aisle are likely to come to the floor and ask 
that specific provisions in that bill pass. They do not want to help 
the unemployed, they do not want to help provide medical care for the 
poor and unemployed, but they have tax provisions they want to pass. 
Some of them I agree with; some of them are very important and valuable 
to us. But it seems to me only fair that if we are going to consider 
these provisions, we consider the whole bill.
  So as they are making unanimous consent requests to pick out the 
piece they like in the bill, I will be making a unanimous consent 
request to pass the bill in its entirety--not just the tax provisions 
that help families but also help businesses and corporations, but also 
to make sure we help those who need a helping hand.
  I often wonder why the Republicans would oppose helping the 
unemployed. Traditionally, it has been a bipartisan issue. We have said 
if a disaster hits some part of our country, we will rally behind that 
part of our country. It has happened in Illinois. I have come to the 
floor of the Senate and the House when we have faced a natural 
disaster, whether it was a flood or a tornado or whatever it happened 
to be. Colleagues of mine from far-flung places across the United 
States have said: We will be there to help you because tomorrow may be 
a day when we need help too. We pitch in together to help one another. 
Yet when it comes to this bill to help those who are unemployed across 
America, they resist it. I try to get into the bill to try to 
understand why the Republicans oppose helping those who have lost their 
jobs through no fault of their own, why the Republicans oppose basic 
health care for people who are in the most dire circumstances.
  It turns out that some of it has to do with the tax policy that is in 
this bill. You see, one of the things we are doing is closing the 
loophole that allows American businesses to ship jobs overseas. Yes, 
there are rewards in America's Tax Code for corporations that decide to 
close down their plants in Galesburg, IL, or in the State of New 
Hampshire, and move them overseas. It makes no sense. Why would we 
create tax incentives, financial incentives for American corporations 
to shut down in the United States and build overseas?
  This bill closes those loopholes, and I can tell you, some of the 
biggest corporations in America are angry about it. They want to have a 
helping hand to move good-paying jobs overseas. Well, they are not 
going to get a helping hand from this Senator and a lot of others. Yet 
there are some on the other side of the aisle who happen to agree with 
that position.
  This bill also has tax incentives to help small businesses. For 
goodness' sake, if we will ever get out of that recession, it will be 
because small businesses get back on their feet and hire more people. 
This is a good bill which the Republicans refuse to support. I do not 
know how we can go home for the Fourth of July weekend, take a week off 
afterwards, and ignore the obvious: that while we are at home with our 
families, other families will be asking themselves basic questions 
about whether they will have their gas or electricity cut off in their 
homes.
  That is the reality of what we are facing.
  I take a look at the estimated number of people who will lose their 
unemployment compensation because of this vote by the Republicans 
against extending unemployment compensation, and throughout the month 
of June it

[[Page 11870]]

will mean some 80,000 people in my State of Illinois will be losing 
this kind of help. It is also a fact in States such as California, 
255,000 people; Florida, 115,000 unemployed will have their benefits 
cut off; 40,000 in Indiana; 107,000 in Pennsylvania; 95,000 in New 
York; 65,000 in Texas; 33,000 in Wisconsin. The numbers are huge in 
these States. Yet the Republicans refuse to give us one vote in support 
of moving this forward--this bill to help those who are out of work and 
create a better environment to create jobs in America.
  I often wonder if this is part of some campaign strategy to try to 
slow down the economic recovery in the hopes that it has some political 
advantage, but that is a very cynical analysis and I believe most 
Senators on both sides of the aisle pray that our recovery comes sooner 
rather than later.
  But we need their votes to show it. We need for them to step up and 
give us the support on the Senate floor to pass this jobs bill, a bill 
which they defeated last week, without a single Republican supporting 
it--not one.
  Well, many of them have said publicly they want to have another 
chance to vote on some parts of it, and I am open to the suggestion. 
But when I look at this bill in its entirety--the tax cuts, the help to 
small businesses, the closing of these tax loopholes, the help to the 
States--I think all of these things are an important and timely package 
of things we need to do across America.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority's time has expired.
  Mr. DURBIN. Then I yield the floor.
  Since I see no Republican seeking time in morning business, I ask 
unanimous consent to speak for 3 additional minutes, and to extend the 
same 3 minutes on the Republican side, if they care to use it.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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