Extending Unemployment Benefits

Floor Speech

EXTENDING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS -- (Senate - June 17, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I too rise to support extension in unemployment benefits, and express the profound regret I and so many others, not only in this Chamber but throughout America, are having that our minority colleagues blocked the attempt to move this bill forward this morning.

There are two reasons to do this. One is the individual and the humane, to help the people who need help. Of course, that is first and foremost. But the second is to give a real shot in the arm to the economy. There is no better way when an economy is in recession, going slow, to give it a shot in the arm than unemployment benefits. They are better than tax cuts, better than any long-term spending program. The economists have shown that.

Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to say no to just about everything.

The sad status quo is not very good. Look at the number of jobs this economy has lost this year: 324,000. That is probably 1 million people, given that so many of them are family members and breadwinners; 1 million people who had jobs or had loved ones who had jobs last year and don't have them today. We refuse to give them the barest of lifelines, an extension of unemployment insurance? That is disgraceful.

Let me talk about who these people are because each one is an individual. How about Vincent DiRoma, former senior engineer for Kodak? Not only does he have a wife and three children, he also supports his elderly mother who relies on Social Security to get by. Vincent is currently training for a new career. We all know Kodak has laid off thousands and thousands in the Rochester area, highly qualified people, people with tremendous work ethic who don't want to or can't leave the Rochester area. Vincent is now training for a new career. He is the kind of American we all appreciate. He is not sitting down and cursing the darkness. He is trying to make his situation better. His old job doesn't exist. An extension of his unemployment insurance will allow him time to complete the training and find a new job to support his extended family which, including himself, is six people.

Why are we telling Vincent DiRoma no? Why are we telling the other hundreds of thousands like Vincent no? That is so important. Again, we just block it.

Economists, liberal and conservative, will tell us, when an economy is teetering on the edge of a recession, or, as many of us think, in recession, the best way to get money into that economy is unemployment benefits. The people who get them spend it. A tax cut is often saved. That is not a bad thing, but it doesn't mainline money into the economy the way unemployment benefits do. The money is sent out quickly. There is an existing system so we don't have to set up a whole new program.

In the past, there have been bipartisan moves to extend unemployment insurance when the economy heads south. Only in this new Congress--this ``no, no, no'' Congress, where Republicans block everything almost instinctively, atavistically--do we not get this kind of extension.

Obviously, there is an attempt to put this in the supplemental bill. We will try to do that, but it should pass like that. There should not be a single opponent to Vincent DiRoma and the other 323,999 people and families who have lost their jobs.

For the sake of humanity, those who are unemployed such as Vincent and need the help, and for the sake of our economy, I urge colleagues on the other side of the aisle to reconsider. Again, there is no better way--none--to get the economy moving than an extension of unemployment benefits. It is something we should move to quickly, without partisan wrangling, without ideological preconception. We should just move forward.

I yield the floor.

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