S10406 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE October 2, 2008 

sides and then send it back to the 

House. They will then clear it tomorrow because it has had a very small 

change that we negotiated yesterday 

but not a material change. When we do 

that, we will have done something very 

important in terms of organ transplants and the ability to save lives in 

this country. 

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I 

suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The legislative clerk proceeded to 

call the roll. 

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent the order for the 

quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. NELSON of Nebraska). Without objection, it 

is so ordered. 

f 

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE 

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, last 

night we passed an economic stabilization plan that is intended to protect 

business, pensions, and jobs. I know 

from my State of Ohio, all too often I 

get plant shutdown notifications and 

applications for shutdown assistance, 

for worker retraining, for all kinds of 

responses to economic problems. What 

we did last night was particularly important because of potential lost jobs. 

With that bill we are trying to prevent 

an economic crisis. 

Last week, Republican Members of 

this body, unfortunately, set the stage 

for another economic crisis. They set 

the stage for a crisis when they 

blocked a bill to extend unemployment 

insurance for millions of Americans 

and their families. Congress must extend this insurance for Americans. We 

have a bill to do that. I urge my colleagues to support S. 3507. 

My friend from Rhode Island, Senator JACK REED, has introduced this 

bill that will provide an extension of 

insurance for all States for 7 weeks, an 

additional 13 weeks for high unemployment States, which means those States 

that have an unemployment rate of at 

least 6 percent. 

Think about the conditions, everywhere from Lima to Zanesville, Ashtabula to Middletown in my State, and 

States across the country—food prices 

exploding, energy prices exploding, unemployment benefits running out. If 

that is not an economic crisis, an 

American crisis—not just in Chillicothe and Ravenna, it is a crisis all 

over this State—then I guess I don’t 

know what the word ‘‘crisis’’ means. 

Last month’s jobs report from the 

Labor Department showed that for the 

eighth straight month the country has 

lost jobs. Eight months in a row we 

have lost jobs in this country. 

Tomorrow we will get the latest report. I am not looking forward to it. 

Just last week there were 493,000—almost a half million—new unemployment claims filed, the largest number 

since September 2001. We know what 

happened that month. 

Before that, you have to go back to 

July 1992 when the Nation’s unemployment rate was 7.7 percent. The unemployment statistics, as we know, only 

count individuals actively looking for 

work. It may be convenient to characterize the unemployed as lazy, then 

you don’t have to help them. Apparently, that is what my friends on the 

other side of the aisle are doing who 

blocked this extension of unemployment benefits. These are working people who cannot find work. These are 

plant shutdowns in Dayton. These are 

major layoffs in Mansfield. These are 

people who simply cannot find jobs in 

Columbus and Akron and Youngstown 

and Toledo and Bowling Green and 

Findlay. These are people all over my 

State. These are men and women who 

want to support their families and save 

for the future. These are people who 

want to work; they simply can’t find 

jobs in this economy. 

These are people such as Terry, in 

Holmes County, OH, one of the least 

populous counties. A veteran, after 20 

years of service he wanted to return to 

Ohio, which he did, and get his life and 

family settled. His company laid off 

workers this past summer. He has been 

looking for a job, but employers are 

simply not hiring. His unemployment 

insurance ended in February. 

These are people such as Patricia 

from Troy, OH, a small community 

just north of Dayton in Miami County. 

In Troy, that part of Ohio—Clinton 

County, Clark County, Montgomery 

County, Miami County—that part of 

Ohio is one of the hardest hit parts of 

the State and of the Nation. Patricia 

from Troy put it better than I could. 

She said: 

My husband is just another one of the 

334,000 unemployed Ohioans. . . . I would like 

to know what we are supposed to do without. 

Are we supposed to go without a roof over 

our head? Are we supposed to go without 

food? Am I supposed to go without medication or the medical care I need to survive? 

Unemployment compensation is an 

insurance program, it is not a welfare 

program. These are people, they and 

their employers, who paid into this unemployment insurance fund. That is 

why it is called unemployment insurance. It has been with us for 75 years, 

since around the time of the beginning 

of the Great Depression. It matters for 

people. It helps not just those individuals, it helps to bring money into our 

community, money that will be spent 

on the necessities of life, will create 

economic activity, and will help us in 

our economic recovery. People all over 

my State have asked me the kinds of 

questions that Patricia asked. What 

am I supposed to do about medical 

care? How am I supposed to go without 

food? 

These people, Patricia and Terry, are 

not paid spokespeople. They are not 

lobbyists. They are watching the news. 

They are seeing how Wall Street’s 

greed and mistakes have us in this crisis today. They understand intuitively 

that people on Wall Street betrayed 

them. They understand intuitively 

that people such as one of JOHN

MCCAIN’s chief economic advisers, 

Carly Fiorina, was let go as CEO of a 

major company and was paid tens of 

millions of dollars as a bonus, as a 

golden parachute, even though she was 

fired from this company. 

They understand that they have 

worked hard and played by the rules. 

What is really amazing about this economic crisis is that the elite in this 

country tell us over and over: If you 

work hard, if you play by the rules, 

then you are going to do all right. You 

are going to be rewarded. 

People in the middle class in this 

country have worked hard. They have 

played by the rules. But when they 

look to Wall Street and the Bush regulators, the Treasury Department, the 

SEC, the people who were in charge, 

they have gotten rid of the rules for 

Wall Street so the cowboy capitalists 

on Wall Street who don’t play by the 

rules get rewarded handsomely while 

the middle class in Tiffin, in Cambridge, in St. Clairsville, the middle 

class in Circleville and Portsmouth, 

they play by the rules. They don’t get 

rewarded even though that was the 

promise made by so many people in 

this country. These are people with 

real concerns and real families, from 

Gallipolis to Toledo, Cleveland to 

Akron, Mansfield to Xenia. They are 

people who are at the end of the line, 

and they are not alone. 

Across the country, 9.4 million workers are unemployed and looking for 

work, 2.2 million more than a year ago, 

the highest figure recorded, as I said, 

since December 1992, more than 15 

years ago. Even September 11 didn’t 

cause this kind of unemployment; 9.4 

million unemployed compared to 6 million unemployed in January 2001. 

If Congress doesn’t act this week, 

more than 800,000 unemployed people 

will stop getting their much need 

checks, including 22,000 people in Ohio. 

Last night, this Senate, by a vote of 

74 to 25, more than half the members of 

each party, voted because we had to. 

We voted. If we did not do this financial stabilization package, we knew 

that pensions would be threatened, we 

knew that student loans would disappear or interest rates would go so 

high they might as well disappear, and 

middle-class college students would 

lose the opportunity to go to school. 

We knew that some small businesses 

would close and others would have to 

lay off, costing States such as mine, 

which are so hard hit already, more 

lost jobs. We knew that was what was 

happening last night. That is why we 

passed that legislation. 

The same people in the Treasury Department and the Bush administration 

who relaxed the rules and betrayed our 

country, betrayed the middle class, 

hurt families all over my State—those 

same people have blocked the extension of unemployment benefits. That is 

why we are not voting on it today because every time we try, Republican 

leaders say we can’t do unemployment. 


rfrederick on PROD1PC67 with SENATE
October 2, 2008 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S10407 

I don’t know if they think unemployed people are lazy. I don’t know if 

they think because we provide them a 

few dollars to get by until they can 

find a job and keep their families 

going, keep their kids in school, keep 

food on their tables, keep a roof over 

their heads—I don’t know what they 

think. They are not going to try to get 

a job if they get a few dollars unemployment? It is not like unemployment 

is like a congressional pension. It is 

not like unemployment compensation 

is like a Carly Fiorina bailout or Carly 

Fiorina’s bonus for failing at her company. It is not like this is a lot of 

money that is going to keep people so 

fat and happy that they do not need to 

work. I do not get why they would do 

that. 

Congress needs to extend unemployment benefits for unemployed workers. 

We need to do it for those workers, for 

those workers’ families, for those communities in which they live. It is in no 

one’s best interests for Congress to 

twiddle its thumbs while more American families sink into poverty. An extension of unemployment insurance— 

not welfare, insurance—was in the economic stimulus package last week. The 

House may very well take up unemployment insurance extension before 

we adjourn. Here is why. 

If we are going to talk about stimulating the economy, there is no better 

way to do it. Every dollar invested in 

unemployment benefits leads to $1.64 in 

growth. This is not money that people 

use to go out and buy a flat-screen TV 

made in China. This money, unemployment extension, is used for food; it is 

used for books for their children and 

clothes for their children. It is used to 

pay the rent. It is used to pay utility 

bills. These are dollars that stay in the 

community, dollars which help the 

local hardware store, help the local 

grocery store, dollars which provide 

other jobs in the community. There is 

no better stimulus than that. 

The Congressional Budget Office says 

extending unemployment benefits is 

cost effective and fast acting. We already have the mechanism. We put 

money in the pipeline. The money gets 

into the community. It doesn’t take 3 

months to send out a check. It is 

money that can be put into the pipeline right away. 

Unemployment benefits are spent to 

sustain families so they do not need 

other forms of public assistance. It 

gives workers the resources they need 

to put gas in their cars to go out and 

look for work. I get letters all the time 

from people who literally cannot afford 

to buy gas so they can go out and look 

for a job, particularly in rural Ohio, 

particularly in places such as Waverly 

and places such as Jackson and places 

such as Ottawa and places such as Tiffin. It is just too expensive to have to 

go looking for jobs in rural Ohio too 

often. 

There is another reason to extend unemployment benefits: patriotism demands it. Our Nation is not defined by 

its borders, it is defined by its people. 

Millions of people are running out of 

unemployment benefits. They need our 

help, and they need it now. We cannot 

claim to be American patriots and ignore the American people. It is not just 

a strong military. It is not just pride of 

country or wearing an American flag 

pin. It is that, too, for sure. But patriotism is helping our people. Patriotism 

is a covenant we have between our 

Government and our people. 

That means if you work hard and 

play by the rules—if you work hard and 

you play by the rules—you are able to 

get ahead. That means if your company 

closed, if your company laid off workers and you happened to be one of the 

unlucky souls who got laid off, it may 

be that the Government, your neighborhood, your country, your community, can help you until you can find 

your new job. Workers, their families, 

their communities—we cannot continue to ignore them. 

When my Republican friends talk 

about patriotism, they talk about 

whatever it is we need to do—tax cuts 

for corporations, to provide jobs, all 

that. They ought to start talking about 

workers because we know the wealth in 

this country is created by productive 

workers. Workers in this country are 

more productive than they have ever 

been. They produce more wealth for 

their employers. It is time that they 

shared—that employers, as their profits go up, even in not-as-good economic 

times, as their profits go up, it is time 

more of that wealth was shared with 

workers. It is time those workers who 

are working their hearts out get a little reward, playing by the rules, get 

some advantage, get some opportunity, 

have the opportunity to get ahead. 

We have a responsibility to listen to 

Americans who are not employed and 

probably believe they have nowhere to 

turn. They can turn to us. They should 

turn to us. We should not turn our 

backs on them. That is what too many 

people in this institution, too many 

people at the White House, too many 

people in this whole Bush-CheneyMcCain idea of how to run an economy—clearly, they have not done that 

good a job on Wall Street or on Main 

Street. It is the way they may look at 

things. I got elected to the Senate in 

2006 because people thought their country betrayed them. They saw the drug 

companies writing the Medicare laws; 

they saw the insurance industry writing health care legislation; they saw 

the oil industry dictate energy policies; 

they saw Wall Street jam down the 

American peoples’ throats these jobkilling trade agreements. This Government, this administration, has betrayed the middle class. 

We want a government where the 

public can turn to us, they should turn 

to us, and we will not turn our backs. 

No, we will actually embrace them and 

work with them. We can start by extending unemployment insurance. Senator REED has a bill to do that. We 

should pass it. We should move on and 

begin to change this country. 

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The legislative clerk proceeded to 

call the roll. 

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

ECONOMIC STABILIZATION ACT 

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, last 

night I reluctantly voted in favor of 

the Economic Stabilization Act. I want 

to emphasize the word ‘‘reluctantly.’’ I 

did so because the Nation’s financial 

system faces serious challenges, and it 

was important for us to act. However, I 

am under no illusion. While this rescue 

plan will likely calm and stabilize the 

financial system, at least in the short 

term, it is not as strong as it should be 

in terms of protecting taxpayers’ 

money, and it does not get at the underlying problem of what got us here in 

the first place. 

Over the last week, I worked with a 

number of other Senators to improve 

this measure that was in the House, 

that the House turned down. For example, I joined with a group of Senators 

in developing and creating a special inspector general to oversee the emergency efforts of the Treasury Department and to investigate the inevitable 

waste, fraud, and abuse as the bailout 

goes forward. I say ‘‘inevitable’’ because when you have $700 billion sloshing around out there and you have one 

person sort of deciding where it goes, 

that just invites a lot of mischief. So 

we have this special inspector general 

to oversee that. That was a good addition. I am pleased that recommendation was included in the final bill. 

I am disappointed that the limits on 

executive compensation in the bill are 

not as strong as I would have liked and 

others would have liked. The final decisions on executive compensation are 

left to the Secretary, who, by his background, training, and everything, is 

certainly no champion of limits on executive compensation. Look at his own 

background, for example. I felt and 

still feel we should have definitive, 

hard limits on executive compensation. 

If they are going to come in here and 

ask the taxpayers to bail them out, 

they are, in fact, becoming, effectively, 

like Government employees, and they 

should not make anything more, I have 

often said, than the highest paid Government employee, who is the President of the United States. If they do 

not like it, they do not have to come to 

us for the taxpayers to bail them out. 

So that is something we are going to 

have to fix. 

Likewise, the final decision on acquiring stock in participating banks— 

that is, getting equity positions—is 

crucial to protecting taxpayers’ 

money. The decision on what we do on 

equity is left up to the Secretary 


rfrederick on PROD1PC67 with SENATE