Unanimous Consent Request - H.R. 4691

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. I thank the Senator for yielding. We have talked about the fact that unemployment today and economic suffering is probably greater than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s. But I wonder if the Senator from Illinois is aware that the problem is not just high unemployment but long-term unemployment; that, in fact, I believe we have never seen in modern history a length of time in which people are unemployed as is currently the case. Would the Senator concur that what we are looking at now is a modern tragedy in terms of the length of time people are experiencing unemployment?

Mr. DURBIN. I would agree with the Senator from Vermont. You have to go back 70 or 80 years to the Great Depression to see this long a period of unemployment.

Mr. SANDERS. I want to ask another question. My recollection is that a number of months ago there was a vote here on the floor of the Senate regarding the repeal of the estate tax. My understanding is that vote to repeal a significant part of the estate tax would have benefited, as I recall, the top three-tenths of 1 percent of the population; 99.7 percent of the people would not have benefited. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that if that legislation, that bill, that amendment had passed, it would have cost our government about $1 trillion in a 10-year period, $1 trillion in benefits to the top three-tenths of 1 percent.

Can my friend from Illinois remind me as to how many Republicans voted against giving $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top three-tenths of 1 percent that was not paid for?

Mr. DURBIN. I would say to the Senator from Vermont, I do not recall, but I think he might recall. Does he?

Mr. SANDERS. On my suspicion--I won't swear to it--I don't recall that any Republican did not. I may be wrong on this, but my recollection is that all Republicans voted to repeal the estate tax, voted for that legislation. Some Democrats did as well.

But I find it remarkable, picking up on the point the Senator from Oregon made a moment ago, here we were talking about $1 trillion over a 10-year
period to benefit the top three-tenths of 1 percent. I don't recall hearing anybody saying: Hey, we have a huge national debt. We can't afford another trillion dollars. But somehow, when it comes to desperate people who are hanging on by their fingernails, trying to keep their families afloat in the most serious economic moment since the Great Depression of the 1930s, somehow, right now that has to be paid for. We have to pay for $10 billion, but somehow you don't have to pay for $1 trillion over a 10-year period. I don't quite understand that. Maybe my friend from Illinois can elucidate.

Mr. DURBIN. I would say in response, I do not understand it. It is hard for me to follow the logic that we need to reward those who are the most comfortable in America and punish those who are suffering. That is what this objection does. By denying unemployment benefits and COBRA benefits to those out of work, it literally makes their lives more difficult. Yet many of the same people have argued that these tax breaks for the wealthy should be considered as part of our future, even if they are not paid for. I don't follow the logic behind that position in any way whatsoever.

Mr. SANDERS. For the record, the sum was $350 billion over 10 years, not $1 trillion. The trillion would have been the complete repeal of the estate tax. But nonetheless, $350 billion benefiting the top three-tenths of 1 percent is a sizable chunk of cash. I am somewhat amazed that nobody at that point was terribly worried about how that was going to be paid for.

I thank the Senator from Illinois.

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Mr. SANDERS. I say to my good friend, the Senator from Tennessee, he is a good friend as is the Senator from Kentucky. I like the Senator from Kentucky. I know he is honest. He is sincere. He is not hiding. He is here. I respect that. We disagree very strongly on his position.

The Senator from Tennessee said a moment ago his point of view, this is not the way the Senate functions, that is not what the Senate is about, in so many words.

If you go and ask millions of people and say if the amendment of Senator Bunning came to the floor of the Senate--no one can predict what the vote would be, but my guess is he would probably lose. That is my guess. But he has decided, one person, to say to hundreds and hundreds of thousands of
workers, I, one Senator, am exercising my right, no question about that, and I am going to object. I, one person who does not have the votes to pass my amendment, am saying to people--you have heard the Senator from Illinois describing these stories of the pain, turmoil that families are going through. No one disputes what he is saying. It is going on in Tennessee, it is going on in Vermont, Kentucky, Missouri. We all understand that. I don't think there is a disagreement. People are hurting terribly.

I don't think there is a disagreement. When people Monday morning wake and find they are not getting the safety net of that life-supporting check, do you know what people are going to be feeling? Do you know what panic? They don't know how the bureaucracy works. Suddenly, they wake and somebody says: I am not getting my check. Am I ever going to get a check? Well, they are going to get a check, but it is delayed.

There was an article in the paper just the other day, one of the ramifications of this recession, and we all know it is true, is what it is doing to the emotional health of people. Think about people who want to work, who have worked their whole lives and cannot find a job. Do you know what it is doing to them? To their emotional well-being? Do you think they like unemployment checks? The vast majority don't want it--a thousand times more they would like a job. Suddenly, for no understandable--they don't understand what is going on. I don't understand what is going on half the time in the Senate. Suddenly, because one Senator says: I am sorry, I object, I object, and thousands and thousands of people are wondering whether they are going to survive.

They are going to get their checks. We will eventually pass this.

This is a good debate. We have a $14 trillion national debt. How did we get here? How do we resolve that debt? Who in this room thinks that a $14 trillion debt is sustainable? Nobody does. We have to deal with that issue. Who caused it? We have disagreements. How do you solve it? We have disagreements. Let's argue out those disagreements but not on the backs of people today who are hurting and hurting terribly.

One of the points I would like to ask the Senator about is we are not just looking at record-breaking unemployment in our lifetimes. This unemployment rate takes place after years and years of decline.

There was an interesting piece--I don't have the date, it was a couple months ago--in USA Today; astounding facts. What they said--this is from USA Today, I think going through the census data. Between 2000 and 2008, men between 25 and 34 saw an 11.7-percent drop in their median income; people, then, from 45 to 54, 11.2 percent drop. In other words, all over this country we see people who are furious. They are angry. They are confused. Do you know why? They went through a decade where they worked hard and at the end of that decade they were poorer than when they began the decade and then came the Wall Street collapse and then came massive unemployment. What we are trying to do--no one thinks the extension of unemployment is the solution. We have to rebuild the economy. We have to create jobs. But I hope nobody in this room thinks it is acceptable or moral that we allow desperate people to go over the cliff--not to have money to buy food?

Hunger in the United States of America today is a serious problem. It is not a joke. This is America. Desperate people, for their kids, for their parents, need that unemployment check.

We are going to pass this. I gather we will pass it next week. But all we are doing is disrupting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people for no good reason. Senator Bunning has raised important issues. I disagree with him, but those issues are important. Let's debate them. But you do not have to do it on the backs of the middle class and the working class who have been decimated for years and are now in worse shape than they have been and now we are suddenly pulling out the rug.

I ask my friend from Illinois, my assumption is, we are at some point soon going to pass these unemployment extensions. My understanding is, I don't know how it is going to be, but I suspect many Republicans are probably going to vote with many on this side; is that a correct assumption? And are we simply bringing more pain and confusion to hundreds of thousands of people who suddenly, Sunday, Monday, are going to find out they don't get a check?

Mr. DURBIN. I would say, in response to the Senator from Vermont, the last time we went through this exercise about unemployment benefits, he may recall there was a Republican Senator who insisted on an amendment on the bill relating to ACORN. If he could not get another chance to take a swing at the organization, ACORN, he was going to hold up the unemployment benefit bill.

I reached the limit of my patience at that moment. I thought to myself, it was not the first, second, third, or fourth or fifth time, it was going to be the sixth or seventh time. There was a belief on his part that he had to keep taking a swing at this organization, even at the expense of delaying unemployment benefits.

I will tell you, I think that is unfortunate. If you want to fight a battle, for goodness' sakes, make it a fair fight. Do not fight the battle over the bodies of people who are unemployed and struggling to get by on a day-to-day basis. If you want to fight the battle of the deficit, fight the battle of the deficit on the budget resolution or whatever appropriations bill you choose.

But to deny unemployment benefits to make your point about the Nation's debt takes this to an extreme. That is why I am here. That is why I did not go home tonight. I would like to be there to see what is happening with the Olympics and what every other American family is doing. But I thought to myself, I cannot walk out that door without speaking up for what I consider to be an unjust decision by one of my colleagues.

He sees it differently. I do like Senator Bunning. He and I may have had our differences, but we have had some good conversations about baseball. Maybe that is all but about baseball.

Mr. SANDERS. I would say that the Senator and I have had strong agreements. I would ask the Senator from Illinois, in the hearing of the Senator from Kentucky: Look, the Senator from Kentucky has raised important issues. I would hope that he would allow us, not for our sake, but for the sake of tens and tens of thousands of people, to get those checks out. Let's come back and continue that debate.

You have raised the right issues. These unemployment checks are going to go out, unless I am mistaken. So all we are doing is disrupting the process. We understand where you are coming from. You have raised a fair point. It is a very important issue.

But I would, through my friend from Illinois, ask my friend from Kentucky, who is a friend--I like Jim Bunning: Let us continue this debate. But it does not have to be tonight. It does not have to be in a way that causes confusion and uncertainty and a lot of pain for a lot of people. So I would--

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