Unemployment Insurance

Floor Speech

Mr. REED. Mr. President, first, I wish to thank my colleague Senator Whitehouse for yielding me 2 minutes.

We are leaving here with major unfinished business. We have not extended unemployment benefits for 1.8 million Americans. They are getting to be increasingly desperate. They need this assistance as they continue to look for work in a very difficult time.

I think it is interesting, if not ironic, that the pay-for mechanism that was instead used to pay for the appropriate adjustment of the military retirees' COLA was the same pay-for mechanism we had proposed to use to extend these benefits for up to several months, almost 1 year. Yet many of my colleagues on the other side rejected that, saying that was inappropriate.

We have to come back. We will come back. We have to deal with unemployment insurance. We have to find a way, both sides, to come together and find a way to provide modest assistance for these Americans who are struggling to find work in a market where there are up to three applicants for every job.

With that, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island, and I yield the floor.

Source