Space Launch Liability Indemnification Extension Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. As the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee leaves, I thank the Senator for her tremendous leadership. I thank the Senator for her leadership in getting this bill to the floor.

I come to the floor today to talk about another topic, and that is the 1.4 million Americans who have lost their unemployment benefits and the over 70,000 people who continue to lose them each week. The Senate has found itself in an all-too-familiar place. Once again, some Republicans are refusing to be able to say yes even to the most reasonable of offers, and it is a problem we have seen in this body too many times.

Over the course of the 16-day shutdown last October, we tried time and time again to find compromises to end that manufactured crisis, return Federal workers to their jobs, and reopen our Federal parks and buildings. But for too long Republicans refused to listen to the American people and embrace compromise. Instead, they were standing firmly in a partisan corner--and it is a pattern of what we saw last year in our efforts to pass a budget.

In March of the past year--as every Senator, I am sure, will remember--we spent a week on the Senate floor in a very open process debating and voting on amendment after amendment until the very wee hours of the morning. On March 23 we finally passed our budget after the House had passed theirs the day earlier. I thought at that time the next step would be to start a conference as quickly as possible. I thought it was a no-brainer.

This is what the American people were expecting, the two sides to get in a room, work out our differences, and avoid another crisis. Every time we tried to start that budget conference--21 times in the Senate--a Senate Republican stood up and said no. They no longer wanted to go to conference, they no longer wanted to follow regular order, they only wanted to obstruct. That took us to a government shutdown, a debt limit crisis, and a lot of pain for families and communities across the country before we could get them in a room with us in a budget conference and agree to a deal the American people expected.

That has been sort of the Republican playbook in the Senate. They say no for as long as they can, they play politics for as long as they can, they hold out and obstruct as long as they can, until the pressure from angry Americans finally reaches a fever pitch, and then, when it is far too late, hopefully come to their senses.

It is getting to be far too late for every single American who lost their unemployment benefits. In fact, as last week's unemployment report showed, nearly 1/2 million Americans recently gave up entirely. Those who haven't given up spent every single day desperately working to get on a job. Unemployment benefits make all the difference for them and their families while they scour the want ads, pound the pavement, and send out resume after resume.

In fact, I have heard from many people in my home State of Washington, story after story from men and women. One of those was from a man named Gary who lives in Spokane. Gary wrote to me about his wife Linda and how at ``56 years young'' with a degree in accounting and an MBA in finance Linda is still unable to find work. After exhausting her unemployment benefits, Gary and Linda are now forced to live off of his Social Security disability insurance. They are now facing monthly medical expenses and rent of over $1,000 just to stay healthy and keep a roof over their heads. Gary's benefits cover about $900 of those expenses.

With each passing day this Congress fails to act Gary and Linda find themselves further and further behind. Gary concluded in his note to me in a simple plea, written in all capital letters, that said: ``PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE HELP!''

I also recently heard from a woman who was laid off from her job at a plant in Keyport, WA.

She said:

This year, I have applied for over 200 jobs and, in spite of a stellar resume, have only gotten 4 phone interviews.

I have lowered my standards throughout the year and applied for jobs far below my pay grade to no avail ..... my husband and I have had to claim bankruptcy ..... [and] I truly worry about losing my home and displacing my children.

These are real people, as the Presiding Officer well knows.

I have heard from Traci, a former executive assistant with 20 years of experience, in Everett, WA. After taking time off from work because she had to care for her dying mother and a daughter who was suffering from bipolar disorder and drug addiction, Traci found herself without a job.

After her mother passed away, Traci fell ill, and it made it very hard for her to look for work. While Traci was receiving unemployment benefits that were barely enough to cover the care her daughter required, she was just barely making it. She told me that now she cannot afford food and has lost over 50 pounds. She spends every day searching high and low for one break. She said: ``I just need time for someone to give me a chance.''

A chance. That is all she is asking us for. That is all they are asking, all of these people. They don't want a handout, they don't want to be a burden. They need support while they get back on their feet and on the job.

We in the Senate need Republican support to do that. We are ready and willing to move forward. We have worked to find compromise. When Republicans wanted this extension to be paid for, even though it has been extended time and time again without pay-fors under Republican Congresses and Republican Presidents, we said OK, we will try and find that.

That wasn't enough. When Republicans signaled that they didn't want to pay for an extension by closing tax loopholes for the wealthiest Americans, we again looked to find a compromise.

When we put forward savings from policies that have either been agreed to by both sides or have been taken from proposals championed by Republicans, they once again said it wasn't good enough.

When they asked for amendments, we offered amendments. They again said no.

Unfortunately, Republicans have now reverted once again to pure politics aimed not at the vast majority of American people who want to see this extended, but instead squarely at their most conservative audience possible. Nowhere is that more evident than in the pay-fors they have offered--whether it is the minority leader's amendment that predictably seeks to undercut health care reform or the Ayotte amendment, which is a very disturbing signal in that after joining us in passing comprehensive immigration legislation, Republicans are now doing a complete 180 on immigration in an election year. With that amendment, Senate Republicans are indicating that they are actually going to begin targeting U.S. citizens, children who are U.S. citizens, simply because they were born to undocumented workers. I think that is shameful, and I am shocked that we have reached this point.

These policies aren't going anywhere. Republicans know that. In the end, all they amount to is nothing more than delaying tactics while American families' lives are hanging in the balance.

Make no mistake, families across the country are teetering on the brink today. In fact, nowhere is that more clear than the last heartbreaking story I came to the floor to share with you. I received this yesterday from a woman named Shiela, who for the last 13 years has worked a middle-management job at a national corporation in my State. She started her letter by saying: ``I've never written to any government official, but I'm compelled to do so today.''

Then she told me how she, her husband, and two children had lived a fairly comfortable life, but all of that changed last year when her employer decided to downsize, and she was one of the many Americans who was laid off.

Her husband, who works in real estate, was struggling in a very weak market, as we all know. Suddenly, Shiela's family of four found themselves relying on just over $500 a week in unemployment assistance.

Having graduated from college and business school, Sheila--like so many others--found herself in need of these benefits, and she said never in a million years did she think she would be in that spot.

These are her words:

I've worked for so many years, paid my taxes, did the right thing for others ..... and now I need help.

In October, Sheila's family lost their house. They are now renting. They do not know if their daughter will still qualify for the student loans she is currently receiving. Sheila's checking account is now overdrawn. Her car payments are past due. She started getting notices from her utility companies. And as my staff talked with her yesterday, she said she was headed out the door to apply for food stamps.

Because of the Republicans' refusal to work with us, we will once again be going home to constituents such as Sheila to explain why this extension hasn't gotten done. I know I will be pointing out the fact that we have compromised time and time again to try to get something done here; that we have all but begged Republicans from the start to work with us on this effort, but I can't help but wonder how Republicans are going to explain their actions.

While I normally don't come to the floor to give advice to my friends on the other side of the aisle, I would certainly like to suggest they do not stare into the eyes of someone who just had to apply for food stamps for the very first time in their life and explain that they can't act until ObamaCare is destroyed. And I hope they do not tell those who are about to lose their home they can't help them until they find a way to cut childcare credits for U.S. children. And I hope they do not tell Americans who spend their days working hard and applying for jobs that pay a fraction of what they have been making they will only be willing to help them if all of their political demands are met. And I especially hope they do not think making arguments about procedure or amendments or arcane rules of the Senate that only people here in DC pay attention to is an excuse for walking away from 1.4 million Americans at a time when all they want to see is results.

What I do hope is that the experiences they have coming face-to-face with these families will change their tone when they come back here in a week. I hope the stories, such as the ones I shared here today, will once again be the pressure that Republicans have required over and over to finally act. And I hope that soon they will join us in passing our nonpartisan, commonsense bill and finally delivering some certainty and some security for struggling Americans who deserve it.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mrs. MURRAY. Yes, I will.

Ms. MIKULSKI. First, I thank the Senator for the work she did in the Budget Committee, because that budget she worked so diligently on on a bipartisan basis with Paul Ryan has enabled us to have the allocation for discretionary spending that has enabled our coming here today to make sure the government will function, that it will work as hard as the taxpayers who pay for it, and that we will have no government shutdown and no crisis environment. So I really want to thank the Senator for that.

The question I have for the Senator is in regard to her role as the chair of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing, Urban Development, and Related Agencies. Has the Senator had a chance to look at what she thinks will be the positive job impact of what she has been able to do? Because the Senator funds transportation for the United States. There are TIGER grants that are so important to Maryland and the Port of Baltimore, and also the issues related to housing. In my own hometown the renovation of housing for the elderly--most of it built in the 1970s and 1980s under Carter and Reagan--needs to be rehabilitated. They need to be reformed so they meet new ADA standards, all of which would put men and women to work where, in my State, the job rate among construction workers is enormously high. So building bridges and building homes would sure go a long way. Has the Senator had a chance to look at any of that?

Mrs. MURRAY. Let me respond to the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. President.

I came to the floor today to talk about the millions of Americans who are in need of extended unemployment benefits, but I would tell my colleague that everyone I have ever talked to on unemployment would much rather have a job. As to the question the Senator has asked me in relation to my role as chair of the subcommittee on transportation and housing and the bill we are about to pass here in the Senate, it will have an impact on creating jobs and building that infrastructure so people will have that job certainty. It is extremely important.

On the transportation side of my appropriations bill, the TIGER grant program the Senator has described will bring not only jobs to communities but real projects that will help build a foundation for future economic growth.

There is no one who questions that transportation infrastructure brings jobs today, provides economic development for the future, and is absolutely the way people get to work and home in a timely manner, bringing certainty for so many families we know. That is a critical part of my subcommittee.

The other part of my subcommittee, as the Senator mentioned, is housing. Those issues are so important. I think most people forget if you don't have a place to live it is pretty hard to go to work. Providing some of these programs we do, such as section 8, and some of the reforms we have put in here, is absolutely critical for so many Americans to be able to have the stability and to get out and get a job, so that we don't have to be arguing over unemployment extension here but actually how we can make the investments so this country can work and survive.

I hope we can provide those extensions today, as we struggle to get back on our feet, but meanwhile pass this critical bill the Senator has authored so we can provide jobs and economic support, which is what people want.

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