[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 548-549]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 HOMEOWNER FLOOD INSURANCE AFFORDABILITY ACT OF 2013--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 266.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 266, S. 1846, a bill to 
     delay the implementation of certain provisions of the 
     Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, and for 
     other purposes.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we will have further discussion on this 
matter today; that is, the matter I moved to. On our side, we have 
cleared the bill. We could complete it quickly. We are waiting to hear 
from the Republicans. This is one of the bills where, if we need to do 
some amendments on it, we can do some amendments on it.
  The point is, I think we should try to get this done. We have been 
waiting for a long time to get this done. This is truly a bipartisan 
bill. As I explained to the Republican leader yesterday, I have had a 
number of Republicans come to me to see if there is a way this bill 
could be moved quickly. It has become a desperate situation, with so 
many problems. Construction has been, in some areas, brought to a halt. 
So hopefully we can work something out on this in the immediate future.


                                Schedule

  Mr. President, following my remarks and those of the Republican 
leader, the Senate will resume consideration of the unemployment 
insurance extension. The time until 12:30 will be equally divided and 
controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the 
majority controlling the first 30 minutes and the Republicans the 
second 30 minutes. The Senate will then recess from 12:30 until 2:15, 
as we do every Tuesday, for our caucus meetings. At 2:30, there will be 
up to two rollcall votes; first, a cloture vote on the Reed of Rhode 
Island substitute amendment. If cloture is not invoked, there will be a 
second cloture vote on the underlying bill.
  We have had some good discussions, and I am going to--as I know the 
Republican leader will--discuss if there is a way to move forward on 
unemployment insurance. I hope there is. At 2:30 today, after our 
caucuses, we will come out and see if there is a consent agreement we 
can present to the Senate to move forward with the legislation. I hope 
that is possible, and we are certainly trying.


                         Unemployment Insurance

  Mr. President, each day Bloomberg releases a list of the 300 richest 
individuals in the world--the Bloomberg Billionaires index. The list 
includes 67 fortunate and really fabulously wealthy Americans. More 
than any other country in the world, we have 67 of the 300. Last year, 
the members of the billionaire index added $524 billion in new wealth 
to their net worth.
  Listen to that, Mr. President: Last year, the billionaire's index--
these 67 people--added $524 billion of new wealth. Not million but 
billion--$2 billion per person last year.
  These are 300 fortunate individuals, flooded with their already flush 
coffers, with another $2 billion each, while millions of American 
families struggle to pay their rent. I don't begrudge these people at 
their making a lot of money. Their good fortune is something that 
speaks well of our country. We are truly a land of opportunity. But I 
do believe it is time for average Americans to share in that 
prosperity, particularly as the economy recovers.
  If this were just a quirk in the indexes of how rich people are, that 
would be one thing, but in the last 30 years this same top 1 percent 
have seen their wealth increase--their incomes triple--while the middle 
class has gone down 10 percent in the same 30 years. It is time for 
average Americans--and I believe this so sincerely--to share in that 
prosperity in some way, especially as the economy is now recovering.
  For most Americans, hard work isn't paying off the way it does for 
the top 1 percent. For many it has been impossible to even find steady 
full-time work since the recession began. That is why we must not 
abandon the 1.4 million Americans who are out there struggling--
unemployed people who have been cut off from these crucial benefits now 
for the last 2 weeks, and they are looking forward to maybe being cut 
off forever.
  This small stipend--an average of $300 per week--is helping them keep 
food on the table and, literally, roofs over their heads while they 
look for work. I read here on the floor a letter from someone in 
Nevada, a woman, who said she doesn't know where she is going to go, 
what she is going to do. She, as have many people, has looked for work 
so very hard. As part of the unemployment compensation, an individual 
has to have been fired or laid off through no fault of their own and 
then they have to look for work every week.
  Americans do want to go back to work. They do not want to set a bad 
example for their kids. They do not want to live off the system--
whatever that means. But there is still only one job for every three 
people searching all over America. Some places are worse off than 
others. In Nevada, a man wrote to me--1 of almost 20,000 Nevadans who 
lost unemployment benefits last month--and he said he had applied for 
700 jobs in the last 10 months--not 70, not 7, but 700. He has been 
able to get a dozen interviews but still can't find work.
  But he hasn't given up hope. He hasn't given up the hope of finding a 
good-paying job, and he hasn't given up hope that Congress will restore 
emergency unemployment benefits until he does find a job. Neither have 
the 200 Nevada veterans who attended a job fair I put on last week. It 
was held at the University of Nevada over the weekend. It is shameful 
that tens of thousands of veterans of this Nation's armed forces lost 
their unemployment benefits last year.
  It is inspiring to hear the stories of hard-working Americans who 
simply won't give up until they find a job. So I hope Senators will 
remember the perseverance of these brave individuals as they continue 
to seek a compromise here in this body that would restore

[[Page 549]]

emergency unemployment benefits to 1.4 million Americans.
  This says it all: 67 of the richest people in the world living in 
America got a $2 billion tip last year. For 1.4 million Americans, they 
lost $300 on average per week. That is not fair. This is America, the 
land of opportunity. People who work hard are supposed to be rewarded--
but not during the last 30 years.
  The middle class has lost 10 percent of their income, and that 
doesn't take into consideration the poor--the poor. There are more poor 
than ever in America. The middle class, we know, is being squeezed out 
of existence. It is time for us to take care of these people who are 
desperate for help. That is what the government is all about.
  Looking back at my home life, I feel government has been good for the 
people who live in my little town of Searchlight. It is a town mostly 
of old people. Many of them are getting pensions from wherever they 
worked. They get Social Security. But the government has done so many 
good things. Let us not denigrate government. This is a time when 
people have no opportunity. They need government help. They are 
desperate. All they want is one job, but they know if there is a 
vacancy over here, there are going to be scores--and we have seen this 
in the news accounts of job opportunities--thousands of people showing 
up for sometimes just a handful of jobs.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader is recognized.


                         Unemployment Insurance

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on the unemployment insurance bill, 
there have been productive conversations between the majority leader 
and several Members on this side. The Republicans have offered numerous 
commonsense proposals to get to a conclusion. Ideally, we would have 
spent the past week voting on those proposals, so there is really no 
good reason for us to be in the position that we are in right now.
  Let me just underscore some of the things on my side that we would 
like to see in the final product. First, the Senate should actually be 
paying for whatever it passes, and not with spending cuts 11 years from 
now that we know aren't going to happen. It is also reasonable to 
expect practical progrowth job creation measures so we can actually get 
people back to work, and for a solution to be reasonable it should also 
respect the right of our constituents to be heard on this issue through 
a more open amendment process.
  We have to get away from an attitude that essentially says the views 
of half the American people don't matter in the Senate. These days it 
has gotten even worse than that; ideas on both sides are often 
completely ignored. That is just not how the Senate is supposed to 
work. So we have an opportunity to begin to start fixing the problem on 
the bill that is before us. It is the right thing to do. I am hopeful 
common sense will prevail.
  (The further remarks of Mr. McConnell pertaining to the introduction 
of S. 1916 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on 
Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield the floor.

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