Unemployment Insurance

Floor Speech

Mr. REED. Mr. President, yesterday, the Senate voted for cloture on the unemployment insurance extension bill. Unfortunately, we are still delaying and deferring the final vote on this measure. This is essential to millions of Americans who need the money they receive--which, frankly, it is not a huge amount. In Rhode Island, the average weekly unemployment compensation is $360 a week. But they need to have some certainty that this program is going to be there at least for the next several months.

We have made a lot of points rhetorically. Now it is time to take the final vote, to move forward, and to deal with a more fundamental issue; that is, how to create the jobs--now that we are providing some assistance to those who are unemployed. How do we go ahead and further create jobs in this economy so our unemployment rolls shrink?

That task is challenging. We have taken 2 months now to get to this juncture. In the past, extending unemployment compensation was a bipartisan initiative. It was done routinely and repeatedly. It was always extended as long as the unemployment rate was at least 7.4 percent. Today the unemployment rate nationally is 9.5 percent. In my State of Rhode Island it is 12 percent. We are not alone. There are many States that are very much mired in a huge economic crisis.

The other factor of this unemployment situation is that it has been a long-term unemployment for so many people, nearly half of those unemployed. So the money they put aside, the rainy day money, the money they put in the coffee can for that special occasion or that special treat, has long been exhausted. This unemployment compensation is absolutely essential for people.

There are many on the other side who will stand and say: We are all for unemployment compensation; we just want to pay for it. Well, historically, we have not paid for it. It is truly an emergency expenditure.

The other factor that is critical to notice is that unemployment compensation does not add to the structural deficit. That is in sharp contrast to the tax cuts, which my colleagues on the other side are urging be extended without paying for them, and in sharp contrast to the largest expansion of an entitlement program since the 1960s, the Medicare Part D Program, which was not paid for. Those programs do add to the structural deficit because they are not replenished periodically in the good times because people qualify for them as soon as they hit an age--65--or as soon as they qualify by filing their income taxes. Those are structural deficit issues. Yet the other side says that is not important. I can't figure that out.

If the deficit is so overwhelming, so all-consuming, then why are my colleagues on the Republican side, first, suggesting we extend all the tax cuts of the Bush years without any offsets; and why did they, in the past, vote for the creation of Medicare Part D, really? Why did they vote for 2 wars that were unpaid for? There is something inconsistent in that.

As I pointed out, unemployment compensation is not a problem of structural deficit because, as the economy recovers, people will continue to pay into the unemployment compensation trust fund through payroll taxes. In good times those funds increase so that in the unfortunate times we can provide assistance.

What we are doing now with this legislation is recognizing that this is a particularly challenging moment for families and for States, and they need further assistance. Part of the legislation we have is fully compensating the States for the Extended Benefits program, which, in other times, are shared 50 percent by the States and 50 percent by the Federal Government. In these extraordinary times, we have to pass this legislation.

We also recognize, too, in terms of the offsets of the legislation, that this is part of our overall attempt to stimulate the economy. For every dollar of unemployment benefits, there is at least $1.60 or $1.90 in economic activity. It makes sense. When they get that $360 a week, they take whatever resources they have and they go to the store. They don't go off jetting to Europe on a vacation. They go to the store and buy food, clothes, and those things that are essential to their families.

Mr. President, I am continually baffled by the reluctance, the resistance, and the obstruction of the other side in terms of doing what has to be done, and done promptly. It will be done in a way in which it will assist the recovery that we are beginning to sense throughout the country.

I note the arrival of my colleague, the junior Senator from Rhode Island. I think he is about to take the floor.

With that, I yield the floor.

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