[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 10144-10147]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 NOMINATION OF PETER JOSEPH KADZIK TO BE AN ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
  The assistant bill clerk read the nomination of Peter Joseph Kadzik, 
of

[[Page 10145]]

New York, to be an Assistant Attorney General.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, following my remarks and those of 
Senator Thune, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess until 
2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings and that the time 
during the recess count postcloture on the Kadzik nomination, with the 
time during the recess equally divided.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Washington.


                        Family Friendly Policies

  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, Senate Democrats have been focused on a 
lot of ways to expand opportunity and economic security for women and 
mothers in today's workforce. We have talked about the need to ensure 
equal pay for equal work, to make childcare more affordable, and to 
encourage profamily workplace policies that help workers be good 
parents and good employees.
  We have explained how each of those policies and others would give 
working women and mothers a better shot at success. It is important to 
keep in mind that times have changed in the last few decades. Today 
two-thirds of families with children have two working parents. Dads are 
taking a more hands-on role in raising their children. This means in 
many working families fathers are increasingly facing a lot of the same 
challenges that mothers do. In fact, more and more fathers report they 
are struggling to balance work and family.
  At a time when so many families need both parents to be at work in 
order to make ends meet, we clearly need to update our policies so that 
both mothers and fathers can succeed at work and at home. So today, 
since it was just Father's Day, I asked a few dads to come in and speak 
with my colleagues and me about how many of the policies often thought 
of as especially important to working women, such as affordable 
childcare, paid sick leave, would also do a lot for dads. I want to 
thank them for taking the time to share their stories and their 
experiences with all of us, because what we heard was really powerful. 
We heard fathers speak about how family-friendly policies helped them 
raise their kids and meet their responsibilities at work.
  We heard from a dad who decided to stay home with his twins rather 
than pay for childcare because it was simply too expensive. We heard 
from a father and a small business owner who has made fair pay a 
priority at his business because he knows how fast those lost wages add 
up and how much equal pay can mean for a working family with a mortgage 
or student loans or car payments or all three of those.
  What these fathers made clear is the economic barriers we often see 
as impacting women, such as inflexible workplace policies or the high 
cost of childcare or unequal pay, are not just holding women back, they 
are holding 21st century families back. There is no question in my mind 
they are a drag on our economy. That is why Democrats are fighting for 
policies that would help hard-working mothers and fathers across the 
country.
  We are fighting to make sure women get equal pay for equal work, just 
as we made sure women do not get charged more for health insurance 
because of their gender. We have legislation to expand access to 
affordable quality childcare and early education so that mothers and 
fathers can go to work knowing their children are safe and thriving 
while they are away.
  We have also proposed raising the minimum wage so parents are not 
working full time but still stuck in poverty and struggling to make 
ends meet. Democrats are also fighting to help our workers compete for 
good jobs by bringing down tuition costs and ensuring workers can get 
the training and education they need.
  There is much more we can do as well. But any of those policies would 
go an enormously long way toward helping working families get the fair 
shot they deserve. This is why it has been so disappointing to see that 
when it comes to everything from the Paycheck Fairness Act to the 
raising of minimum wage for millions of our workers, to helping ease 
the burden of student loans, our Republican colleagues have so far said 
no, even though these policies are policies that would help millions of 
our working families and even though we know Americans across the 
country strongly support these kinds of changes. I know they would 
certainly mean a lot to many of the fathers I spoke with today.
  I came here today to say I hope our Republican colleagues rethink the 
approach they have taken on all of those issues so far, because I 
believe if we take steps to break down the barriers working mothers and 
fathers are facing in today's economy, families across our country will 
have more opportunity and our country will be stronger now and over the 
long term.
  There is no reason for us not to get to work on these.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.


                         South Dakota Flooding

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, before I begin my prepared remarks, I 
wish to acknowledge my constituents in South Dakota who are dealing 
with unprecedented flooding. We have seen historic amounts of rainfall 
already in the month of June that dwarf anything we can compare to 
throughout our State's history. Hail and winds are causing widespread 
damage across the State.
  It is not just confined to our State. There are States in the region 
as well that are experiencing some of these same circumstances and 
tremendous damage to property. So I wanted to express my thoughts and 
prayers to the people I represent as well as to those in other States 
who are dealing with some of these circumstances, and to say thank you 
and express my appreciation to our first responders who have been very 
much in demand and on call the last few days.


                              The Economy

  The American people are very tired. They are very weary. They are 
arguably fed up. The Washington Post headline from last Friday summed 
it up, ``Obama's image hits record lows in trio of polls.'' Gallup, 
CNN/ORC, and Bloomberg polls all found that the President's favorable 
rating had fallen to new lows. It is no wonder. Five years after the 
recession supposedly ended, most Americans still feel as though they 
are in the midst of it.
  It is not just me saying that. The President's own Federal Reserve 
Chair Janet Yellen stated as recently as March, ``The recovery still 
feels like a recession to many Americans, and it also looks that way in 
some economic statistics.''
  Let's talk about some of those statistics. Unemployment has spent the 
past 5\1/2\ years at recession level highs. Currently nearly 10 million 
Americans are unemployed, more than one-third of them for 6 months or 
longer. The labor force participation rate is at a 36-year low. A USA 
Today editorial from last week noted that the ``decline in the `labor 
force participation rate' is one of the most troubling trends of our 
time.'' Of course, the labor participation rate being the fraction of 
the available workforce that is actually working or at least looking 
for work.
  What is driving that trend, Americans so discouraged by their failure 
to find a job that they have literally given up looking altogether? 
That is what is driving the trend in the labor participation rate.
  Even after accounting for baby-boomers retiring and more people going 
to college--and this is again from the USA Today piece I mentioned 
earlier--this translates to 6 million people who could be working or 
looking for work. As the paper points out, the lack of these workers in 
the workforce means a weaker economy, lower tax revenue, as well as 
greater governmental expense.
  Young people just getting out of college face a bleak job market. The 
unemployment rate for young adults is a staggering 13.2 percent or more 
than

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twice the national average. The director of Outreach for Generation 
Opportunity, a nonprofit advocacy organization for millennials, 
recently stated that more than four out of five recent graduates do not 
have jobs. Currently, 36 percent of young adults are living at home 
with their parents.
  It is no wonder that CNNmoney reports that young adults, aged 18 to 
34, are most likely to feel the American dream is unattainable, with 63 
percent saying it is not only unattainable, it is impossible.
  Everywhere Americans look, prices are rising. The price of everything 
from milk to the refrigerator to hold it has increased over the past 
several years. Gas prices have almost doubled since President Obama 
took office. College costs are soaring.
  Then there is ObamaCare, which has meant soaring premiums and huge 
deductibles for way too many American families. Being in the middle 
class was once associated with financial security. With a little 
prudence, middle-class families could be expected to see their kids 
through college and to retire comfortably. No more.
  In the Obama economy, the future is less secure. Household income not 
only failed to rise over the past 5\1/2\ years, it has actually dropped 
by $3,500 under the President's watch. Wages have remained flat and 
economic growth has been tepid at best. Middle-class families are no 
longer looking forward to a future of economic security. Instead, they 
are praying they do not get hit with any unexpected bills. They are 
worrying that they will not be able to send their kids to college, and 
they are wondering how long they will have to work past retirement to 
the economic security they need.
  In a previous America, low-income families could confidently expect 
that effort and hard work could bring them into the ranks of the middle 
class. How many of our parents started out living on a shoestring but 
ended up sending their kids to college and retiring comfortably?
  Today, though, opportunities to reach the middle class are few and 
far between. Fourteen million more Americans are on food stamps today 
than when the President took office. Democratic policies such as the 
ObamaCare 30-hour workweek are hitting low-income Americans the 
hardest. Many of the better paying jobs lost during the recession are 
not being replaced. Seventy-eight percent of the jobs lost during the 
recession were high- or mid-wage jobs, but just 56 percent of the jobs 
recovered have been high or mid-wage jobs. That means almost half of 
the new jobs that have been created are low-wage jobs. That is not the 
kind of climate that enables upward mobility.
  The worst part is it does not look as though things are going to get 
better anytime soon. This week the International Monetary Fund 
announced it now predicts the United States economic growth rate will 
not exceed 2 percent this year. That is not anywhere close to the kind 
of growth we need for a real recovery.
  The New York Times reported last week, ``The Federal Reserve, 
persistently optimistic in its previous forecasts, said in March that 
it no longer expected a full recovery in the foreseeable future.'' Let 
me repeat that. The Federal Reserve said it no longer expected a full 
recovery in the foreseeable future.
  Four years ago President Obama and his administration proclaimed the 
advent of the summer of economic recovery. President Obama claimed the 
economy is headed in the right direction. Vice President Biden 
confidently predicted in April of 2010 that sometime in the next couple 
of months we are going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 
500,000 jobs a month. In August of that year, Treasury Secretary 
Timothy Geithner published an op-ed in the New York Times entitled, 
``Welcome to the Recovery.''
  Well, as the American people know, recovery summer never 
materialized. Four years later the American people are still waiting. 
According to the Federal Reserve, they are going to have to wait 
longer. In 2009, the President's economic advisors predicted that 
unemployment would fall below 6 percent in 2012. Two years later, 
unemployment is still firmly stuck above 6 percent. The Federal Reserve 
Bank in San Francisco has suggested that 6-percent unemployment should 
be considered the ``new normal.''
  I do not accept that. Republicans do not accept that. We do not 
accept 6.3 percent unemployment, sluggish economic growth, and 
struggling middle-class families as the new normal, because it does not 
have to be that way. We can get our economy going again. But it is 
going to take something a lot different than the policies of the past 
5\1/2\ years. It is going to take the kind of policies that remove 
families' burdens, instead of increasing them. It is going to take 
policies that encourage businesses to create jobs, not to cut jobs. 
Republicans have a lot of ideas about how to get started, ideas such as 
repealing the ObamaCare medical device tax that has already killed tens 
of thousands of jobs and will kill thousands more if it is not stopped 
or restoring the 40-hour workweek so businesses will no longer be 
forced to cut employees' hours under ObamaCare's mandates or stopping 
the President's national energy tax which would make it more difficult 
for American families, particularly low-income families, to afford gas, 
heating, and electricity or enacting trade promotion authority to open 
new markets to American farmers, workers, and businesses, and to create 
new good-paying jobs for American workers.
  The list goes on. These are just a few of the ideas Republicans have 
to get our economy going again.
  If Democrats were serious about wanting to help American families, 
they would be working with Republicans to help us get legislation 
passed. We don't have to accept the President's economy as the new 
normal: chronic high unemployment, sluggish growth, massive amounts of 
debt. That shouldn't be the norm, and we shouldn't be satisfied with 
it.
  Republicans are going to be working every day to ensure it isn't the 
new normal, and we will continue working until our economy is 
flourishing again and every American has the opportunity for a good job 
and a prosperous and secure future. We hope Democrats will work with us 
toward that end. It means opening this floor of the Senate to 
legislation that will grow our economy, create jobs, and allow us to 
openly debate, allow us to offer amendments, something that hasn't 
happened for the past year.
  Since July of last year, there have been only nine Republican 
amendments voted on on the floor of the Senate--nine--nine amendments 
in almost a year. The ironic thing about that is the same procedures 
that are being used to block Republican amendments are also blocking 
Democratic amendments. So in that same timeframe Democrats have only 
had seven amendments voted on in the past year.
  In the world's greatest deliberative body, the place where we are 
supposed to have open debate and an open amendment process, Republicans 
had nine amendments voted on. We could take that as a personal affront, 
but that is not what it is about. It is about the people whom we 
represent because they elect us here to come out, represent them, and 
to make sure their voices are heard in the political processes in the 
debates we have in Washington on the big issues that are important to 
them and their families. So when amendments are blocked and this 
process is shut down on the floor of the Senate, it is the people's 
voices who don't get heard and don't get represented. That has to 
change, and it needs to change soon, because the issues are big, and 
the problems and the challenges that face middle-income families are 
consequential.
  Many of us in this Chamber come here every single day hoping to offer 
legislation and amendments that we believe will be solutions to getting 
the economy growing again and to create jobs. Every single day for the 
last year, at least, we have been shut down.
  We can do better by the American people. They deserve better. I hope 
we will do better, and we can start now.
  I yield the floor.

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