Debbie Stabenow

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. First, if I might, I wish to take a moment to say thank you to the senior Senator from Louisiana for her leadership on small business. Her efforts in terms of job creation and availability of capital and so on is right on point. My question would be, is it the Senator's desire to have this done by the end of next week so we can move this forward and hopefully have these benefits take place as quickly as possible for our small businesses?

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, would my friend be willing to yield for a question?

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. I am sorry?

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, with all due respect to our Republican leader, I have to express concern on a couple of points. He was just talking about court decisions, a court decision that said BP is a person; that said all big corporations have the same rights as individuals. What we are trying to do, both in the House and the Senate, is to make sure that, in fact, the democratic process can work and that huge corporate interests that have controlled too much of this country are not allowed to do even more in terms of overriding elections and putting money into elections. I also have to disagree with our distinguished Republican colleague when he says this is all about the deficit. As we would say in Michigan, that is a bunch of bunk. This is about who we care about and how we think we should move forward as a country in terms of what is best for the majority of the American people. Very different views. Very different beliefs. Our Republican colleagues have believed if we give tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and wait for it to trickle down, things will get better. If we back up and let corporations police themselves, everything will be OK. Well, we saw that for 8 years, 6 years of which they had control of the whole system. I tell you what, it did not trickle down to the people in Michigan. After the Wall Street collapse and what we saw with BP in the gulf and what we have seen with miners' loss of life, I would suggest that view, that belief, has not worked for the majority of people. So we have a different view. We have a different view. It is one that actually worked in the 1990s under President Clinton when 22 million jobs were created. Yes, we believe this is about jobs. This is about how we get out of deficit. I also find it amazing that the people who dug the hole, the deepest hole we have ever had in the history of the country, when they were handed a surplus--they dug the hole--now want us to give the shovels back. They want more shovels to dig even deeper. So this is a difference of opinion on how we believe we should move the country forward and who we are trying to move it for--not the large corporate interests that the Republican leader just talked about who want to be able to give millions of dollars for elections and have no rules and regulations and be able to control the democratic process of elections in this country. It is not about the folks who are concerned about paying their fair share in this jobs bill, with the tax loopholes we want to close so they cannot take jobs overseas and requiring people to pay their fair share. That is not what we are about. What we are about is creating jobs for the American people. The bill in front of us, the bill we are going to have a chance to vote on one more time, is all about jobs and who we are fighting for. That is what it is about. It is about whether we believe we should only invest in what the wealthy and powerful of this country care about or should we invest in the majority of Americans and create good-paying, middle-class jobs. It really is a philosophy right now about how we get out of debt. They say more tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. We will have an estate tax fight where they say: Oh, we ought to be more and more for the top few hundred families, billionaires in the country. Give them more tax relief. We say, in this bill, what we ought to be doing is focusing on creating jobs to grow out of debt. We are all opposed to debt. I was opposed to the debt when I voted to balance the budget. I was opposed to debt when they got us into debt in the last 8 years, 10 years, when they were focusing on racking up debt. I was opposed then. Now the question is, How do we get out of debt? We say we have to create jobs, and we have to help the people who are out of work be able to get some help to be able to get some training to be able to keep a roof over their heads and food on their tables while they look for a job. That is what we believe. That is what this is about. We believe we will never get out of deficit with over 15 million out of work, having to ask for temporary assistance. We will never get out of debt unless we are creating jobs. We have begun to do that. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say: We want to stop that. Let's look at what happened. I talk about the previous administration not only to focus on the past, but these are the same ideas that are on the floor today. They are promoting the ideas that got us into these job losses. When President Obama came into office, we were losing about 750,000 jobs a month. That is what he inherited. We said: This hasn't been working for the majority of people. It didn't work for the majority of people in Michigan. We want to go back to investing in people and communities, helping businesses get the capital to grow, supporting small businesses, focusing on manufacturing, making things in this country. Let's take away the incentives to take jobs overseas. We are in a global economy, but we want to export our products, not our jobs. This bill takes away incentives to go offshore, overseas, keeps the jobs here. It creates more capital for manufacturers. I was pleased to craft a provision that will create the ability to buy more equipment and facilities to create jobs. It helps small businesses keep jobs. That is what we believe. We have put in place the Recovery Act. We have begun to climb out. We are not out. But these guys are going: Stop. Oh, my gosh, it is beginning to work. This may affect the elections. Let's do everything we can to stop the recovery. Let's take the resources that have been used to invest in a battery manufacturing plant, private sector, in Midland, MI, where I attended a groundbreaking on Monday, Dow Kokam. Let's take that money away now. We will say: We have too big deficits. We can't invest in jobs. We can't invest in jobs. They want to take that away and come over and say: We will take the money that is creating jobs and we will give it to people who don't have a job. Wait a minute. So you want to use the Recovery Act money that is beginning to create jobs and put it over here to help people who don't have a job, and then we will create more people who don't have jobs? We say that is a bunch of hooey, that is a bunch of bunk. In Michigan, we have stronger words for that, but I won't say them on the Senate floor. My people in Michigan are sick and tired of this. It is pretty bad when we have one side in this Chamber rooting for failure every day. I have people in my State, Republicans who are out of work, small businesses that are Republican. They don't have capital, manufacturers that are Republicans who want us to pass legislation to give them more capital. This is not a partisan issue. This is about whose side we are on in this country. It is about whether we embrace a philosophy that will work for the majority of Americans or work for only a few. That is what this is about. What we have from the other side is a litany of no, no, no. We will be yes, if you take away the money for the recovery, which they all voted against--most, excuse me, not all but most--we will take away those dollars because that will slow us down, that will make sure this President is not successful. God help us if this President is successful and this majority is successful. Let's keep people hurting as long as possible, because maybe that will help us pick up some seats. No wonder people are angry. No wonder people are cynical. I am pretty angry myself. There are real people's lives at stake in all of this. All we get is no, no, no--cynical, political games on the other side. Even though things are moving up slowly but surely--way too slow from my perspective but, thank God, they are not continuing to go down, it is beginning to work. Instead of letting it work--and it certainly is not everything we want, but it is beginning, it is turning--instead, they want to stop it. The election is coming up. Let's make sure people are as mad as possible, and then we will blame the people who were in the majority, even though we are stopping them every day. We are stopping them from doing things. We filibuster. The cynical view is that the public won't understand that so we will keep making sure that nothing happens so people are hurting. That is what is happening here. Let's talk about unemployment benefits and the fact that we do have people hurting. We do, in fact, have 3 million jobs available and 15 million people looking for work. Some say: Those folks are just lazy. Go get a job. I would like to show them the real world and what is happening for too many families. The numbers are changing. When I first started coming to the floor, we were talking about six people out of work for every one job opening. Now it is five. I don't celebrate that because I want to make it one for one. It is getting better. It is creeping around. It is turning around. It is turning around because the Recovery Act incentivized people to buy a new home which, in this bill, we want to extend for people, to get as many people who have benefited from that $8,000 tax credit as possible, or the $6,500. But our colleagues on the other side say no. Realtors tell me in Michigan things are turning around because of support from the Recovery Act. The stimulus has helped begin to turn things. But, oh, my gosh, no, we cannot possibly continue to support something that is actually working, because it might have bad political effects. People might not be hurting as much or as mad, and that may not help us in the election. We have today people who are looking for work, have been looking for work for months, some longer than a year--in some cases, 2 years. People did what we told them to do. They went back to school. They are living off of unemployment for their family while they are going to school. They are trying to do everything they can. These are people who have done nothing but work hard and take care of their families and love this country. They assume, just as in every other economic downturn in the country, that we will understand, we will get it. The Congress will get it and support them to turn their lives around without losing their homes and the ability to care for their families. I want to read a few letters from people in Michigan. We have thousands of e-mails and letters. It breaks our heart. People cannot believe what in the world is going on around here that we are not doing everything conceivable to create jobs. These artificial debates about deficits--again, it is a very big issue, these deficits, but it is pretty hard for us to be lectured by the people who created the deficits who are now saying: We can't help people caught in this economic recession because of deficits. It is pretty hard to accept their view, the way they would get us out, which didn't get us out, which created more deficit, that somehow we should go back to that rather than what has worked in the past which is putting people to work, having people work so they can pay into the system and contribute and buy things. They become part of the economy. Then deficits begin to go away. We begin to come out of the hole. That is what we believe, focusing on people. Kim from Flint says: I am writing today to beseech you to urge Congress to act quickly to extend federal unemployment benefits. In this unprecedented economy, especially where I live in Michigan, extra time is much needed to find employment. Many of my family, friends and neighbors are in the same situation I am. I personally was laid off from what I thought was a stable position back in July and despite having experience and a BBA, I have not been able to find comparable work. Our no worker left behind program in Michigan is out of funding. My college career services department has not been helpful. While I'm trying to keep hope in pursuing job leads and even looking at going back to school for an entirely different field, I fear what will happen to me if these benefits are not extended. I will lose everything. I am indeed writing from my own self-interest but not only for my own interests. With so many people in the same situation as I am, what will happen to them? Will you have a large segment of your constituent population suffer so, or will you have the economic situation in Michigan worsen as many become unable to even provide the bare necessities for themselves and their families? Or will you act quickly to extend much needed unemployment benefits? Kim, we are trying to act as quickly as we can. We have been trying to. I know it is no consolation. It feels so frustrating and empty to talk about differences between Republicans and Democrats when people are hurting. But the reality is, we don't have one Republican right now willing to step forward, as one, and stop this filibuster that has been going on for weeks. We have been dealing with this now every time we bring up the extension. We don't have one colleague, people with whom we work in good faith on so many different issues, not one has been willing up to this point to step up and join us based on the larger good, not the political pressure, not the partisanship but the larger good of making sure somebody who is out of work knows that they have at least the bare minimum so they can continue and not lose a house and be homeless on top of job loss and then try to figure out what to do to take care of the kids. We don't have one colleague who has been willing to do that, to step up and have the courage to join us in stopping this incredibly irresponsible filibuster that has been going on. We will have an opportunity later today. We fully expect the same result, unfortunately. The politics of the moment seem to be overwhelming. It is amazing to me. But I guess if it works, people will keep doing it. That is the question, whether it will work with the American people. With all of the mumbo-jumbo going on, numbers and so on, the bottom line in the world in which I live and the world in which my family lives in Michigan and the people I represent is a world that is very different from here. We in Michigan, Democrats and Republicans, are rooting for success as Americans. We want things to get better. We want our country to be safe. We want it to get better for everybody. We will go on, have another day to fight about differences, ideological differences on issues. But we are at least rooting for the country to succeed, for the President, for the government to be working together to do the right thing so we can get out of this hole. When we look at what is happening around the world, when we look at the brink of disaster last year when President Obama came in and we were on the edge of the cliff--some would say over the cliff--holding on with our fingers, losing 750,000 jobs a month, we began to walk it back through some very bold things that had to be done at the time, such as investing in people and jobs. In the previous administration, when they stepped up and did what was called the Wall Street bailout, a lot of folks in Michigan said: What about us? Who is going to bail out us working people? Well, the Recovery Act, in my judgment, was that. It was the people's bail out. It was focusing on people, jobs, and job training, and helping those who are temporarily out of work while they get their lives together and find another job, and investing in the future. That is what that was about. And that is what it is still about. It is a 2-year effort, and it is beginning to work. We can go back and look at the numbers again. We are certainly not where we want to be, but it is turning around. We are coming out of the hole. Step by step, we are coming out of the hole. Now the folks who created the hole say: Oh, give us more shovels so we can dig some more. We are saying: No, let's keep it going. Let's give it a try. We can tinker with it. We can change some things that we need to, but let's keep it going, let's give it a try here so we can keep this thing moving in the right direction. These folks are saying no. In order to do the bill in front of us on jobs, we want to take money away from jobs, slow this down in order to be able to ``pay'' for the bill in front of us. Well, what is in front of us? We have a bill today that provides tax cuts to businesses, tax relief to State and local governments to help them invest and create jobs. The other side of the aisle has said no. We have a bill in front of us to provide tax cuts that are going to put dollars back into the pockets of working families trying to make it. The other side has said no. We have a bill that is going to help restore credit to small businesses. It is the one thing I hear over and over, and I want to thank our leader for keeping small businesses at the forefront, and we are working on additional legislation to help small businesses. We have to free up capital. Too many cannot get their line of credit or get the loan they need to operate or to be able to expand. That is certainly true in Michigan. But this bill has provisions to help small businesses expand, hire new workers. The other side has said no. It would expand career training so the people we want to be able to get off unemployment benefits and to be able to get into jobs will have an opportunity to focus on new careers. This bill includes provisions to help people get career training to get new jobs. The other side has said no. It would extend help for people who are out of work right now, people who have had the dignity of working their whole lives, breadwinners who are no longer bringing home the bread. It would help them keep a roof over their head and food on the table and maybe a little gas in the car so they can go look for a job while they are moving through this difficult time and while we are focusing on job creation. The other side has said no. This bill would ensure that senior citizens, military servicemembers, and Americans with disabilities would continue to have access to their doctors. We did get agreement to pull out that one provision to be able to extend it for 6 months, which I hope will get done very quickly. But the rest of this, frankly, is being held up, in my judgment, because-- even though it is all paid for. None of this I have just talked about-- other than unemployment benefits, which are always funded differently as an emergency because it is an emergency--the rest of this is entirely paid for, does not add a penny to the deficit. But I do think it then brings up the question: Why would they be objecting? Well, we are paying for jobs and job training by closing some tax loopholes. You will no longer get tax benefits if you take the jobs overseas. We want the jobs in America. We want to stop that. The other side says no. We want to make sure people who are very wealthy but whose income comes in in a different way are paying their fair share, contributing just like middle-class people, low-income people. We close some loopholes to pay for this. They say no. We also have in this bill a provision that would increase the dollars, by pennies--49 cents--on every barrel of oil to be able to clean up the spill in the gulf, to be able to add money to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. In the past, oil companies only had to kick in 8 cents a barrel. Well, given what has happened in the gulf, that is not enough. So we have said 49 cents for every barrel. A barrel of oil--I do not know the price now but $70, $80 a barrel, whatever it is: 49 cents. The oil companies probably do not like that. So the other side said no. In fact, the day the distinguished Republican Congressman in committee was apologizing to BP on the House side--that same day-- Republican colleagues here were doing the bidding of the oil companies by voting ``no'' on increasing their contributions by 41 cents a barrel into the liability trust fund to clean up the oilspills. I think it is pretty clear whose side we are on, whose side they are on, what is happening right now. We have a stalemate going on. We have tried and tried, and our leader and the chairman of the Finance Committee, who has worked and worked and worked and worked, as he always does, in good faith to find some compromise, to be able to move this jobs bill forward and help people who are out of work. It appears right now we do not have one Republican colleague willing to join us in that effort. There have been discussions, but there has been no agreement. So we have the votes. That is the darnedest thing about this place. We have the votes. We just cannot stop a filibuster. Somehow in our democracy, with men and women fighting around the world for our democratic process of majority rule--when you win an election, you have to get one more than the other guy, one more vote than the other guy to win the election. And here, instead of having majority rule, they are using the political processes and tricks in a way so as to tie us up in a pretzel like I have never seen before, unprecedented, using rules in a way that is absolutely unprecedented so that the public shakes their head and says: What is going on here? What are these people doing? But they are doing this in a way so that instead of majority rule, you have to get a supermajority. That is what we are talking about: Trying to get 60 votes, not 51, which is majority rule in every town and city and State and every Federal election; you have to get one more than the other guy. But because of a gross misuse of the rules in the last year and a half, we have to now get 60 for everything. And we cannot--up to this point--get even one Republican colleague to join us. So that is where we are. I would ask, Madam President, how much time is remaining on the majority side?

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Friday, June 25; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and that following any leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 5297, the small business jobs bill. Finally, I ask that the quorum with respect to the cloture motion be waived.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, there will be no rollcall votes during Friday's session of the Senate. Senators should expect the next votes to begin at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, June 28.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate agree to the request that the Senate return to the House H.R. 5136, the Department of Defense Authorization Act.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. In closing, I wish to take a few more minutes to stress again how disappointing and, frankly, outrageous I find what happened tonight to be as it relates to the continual 8 weeks of blocking the jobs bill in front of us, for the ability for people who are out of work to be able to get some temporary help just to be able to keep things going for their family while they are looking for that next job. There are almost 1 million people who find themselves in a situation now where they have lost their jobs and have lost their insurance benefits, insurance benefits paid in when they were working to then be able to get help when they are not working, as any of us would want for ourselves and our families. We are in a situation where we cannot get beyond--we cannot get even beyond one, and we need two Republican colleagues--we cannot even get one to be able to join with us to overturn this filibuster. We have a bill, a jobs bill in front of us that would provide tax cuts to businesses, provide help to State and local and municipal governments to keep police officers, firefighters, and teachers on the job in our communities for our children, and the other side has said no. Time after time, no. We are putting much needed tax cuts, money back into the pockets of middle-class families. The other side has said no. We wanted to help small businesses be able to restore credit to create jobs. They said no. We want to help people who are going back to school to start a new career, people who have been looking for work, and they have said no. And we want to make sure we are investing in the kinds of jobs that are going to rebuild America--roads and bridges, other kinds of construction efforts, good-paying jobs for engineers, construction workers. Those provisions were in this bill, and they have said no. For people who are out of work, they have gotten a great big no, no way, time and time again from colleagues on the other side of the aisle. We know that for every $1 we put into unemployment insurance benefits, we get, according to Mark Zandi, an economist, and certainly many other economists, at least $1.40 back in investment. Why? Because somebody goes to the store and buys some food with that $200 or $300 a month in unemployment benefits. They go buy some shoes for the kids. They put gas in the car. They keep the lights on. They are able to pay their rent or the mortgage or do other things we all want to be able to do for our families, for our children. So when you give unemployment insurance benefits to someone who is out of work, they, unfortunately for themselves, have to turn right around and spend it. But from an economic standpoint, that is stimulus, which is why that is viewed as one of the best economic stimuli you can have, to be able to provide assistance for people who are going to turn around and spend it in the economy. We are struggling now. Even though we have the majority in the Senate, we do not have a supermajority, enough to stop filibusters. And we are struggling with a perversion of the Senate rules that has taken place. I think, frankly, our forefathers would be rolling over in their graves to see the perversion that has gone on here. Instead of using a majority vote like any of us would use if we were in an election--one more vote than the other guy wins the election--here one more vote than the other guy does not get us moving forward because of the efforts to block, obstruct, and filibuster that go on every single day and require 60 votes in order to overcome. So what are they saying no to? Why are they blocking and stopping? Why do we see this continual effort to go back to the way it was, to go back to the policies that got us where we are today? We are in a situation now where we want to go forward. We want to change things. We want to go forward. And all we get are efforts to take us back. Well, what was happening then? What was happening at the place they want to go? Well, in the last Presidency, when they were in charge, we saw us lose jobs, more and more jobs throughout the 8 years of this former President. And there were a number of reasons: wrong economic policies; wrong investments; investing in people who were very wealthy hoping that it would trickle down; not enforcing our trade laws; not stopping the incentives to ship our jobs overseas; not paying attention to manufacturing and making things in this country; and, frankly, not paying for things; two wars, not paid for; Medicare prescription drug benefit, not paid for--nothing was paid for. Everything was put on the credit card. And now the people who got us into this ditch, amazingly, are arguing for policies to take us back into the ditch. They dug the ditch, and now they want us to give them back the shovel and get more shovels to dig a bigger one. We have a very different view and, frankly, a different set of priorities on whom we are fighting for. We are losing the middle class of this country. We are losing the middle class of this country because of the policies that have focused not on jobs, not on things that matter to middle-class families, working-class families, but on what the privileged few care about. The philosophy that got us where we are, which this President inherited, President Obama, was a philosophy that said that a tax cut to the wealthy solves every problem and, by the way, step back and let corporate America regulate themselves, police themselves, and everything will be OK. Well, we saw what happened on Wall Street--millions of jobs lost, 401(k)s gone, pensions gone, savings gone. We have seen what happened in the gulf when the oil companies policed themselves. We saw what happened in West Virginia, where the miners lost their lives because the mines were policing themselves. And we saw what happened economically in terms of job loss. This really is a bigger fight than just the jobs bill in front of us. It is about whose side you are on. It is about what your values and priorities are. And I can tell you, just as a practical matter, I am going to support whatever works for the people I represent, whatever works for the people in Michigan. This did not work, this red ink getting longer and longer and longer. President Obama comes in; 750,000 jobs lost a month. We put in a jobs bill, a Recovery Act to focus on manufacturing and small businesses, job training, to help the people who lost their jobs. It has been slow because the hole was so deep, but we have begun to turn it around. By the end of the year, we got it to zero jobs lost, and now we are gaining jobs. Now we have to keep gaining jobs. We are returning accountability and commonsense regulation to Wall Street, to the oil industry, and to other areas where lives could be lost and there is a public interest. So we are in the middle of a major debate in this country. And what I find most disturbing is that too many on the other side of the aisle are rooting for failure. They want the President to fail. They want our majority to fail. But in the process of that, we all will fail. The country will fail if we do not have a set of economic policies and investments and partnerships that work, if we do not focus on the people who need temporary help and support right now while they hold their family together and look for a job. When I think about the men and women fighting overseas, fighting in two wars around the world for our great democracy, they want to know that they are coming home to a job; that their family has a house; that the kids are going to be able to go to college; that they are going to be able to breathe fresh air and drink clean water; and that somehow that they were fighting not for some craziness, some crazy political battlefield here, but for a sense of love and thought about our country and the people in our country. Patriotism really is, when it comes to our country, against other countries in the world, it is fighting for our side--not our side of the aisle but our country, not rooting for people to fail just so you can get a short-term political advantage. I hope that does not work. Obviously, you could say for personal reasons, we do not want it to work, but I hope it does not work for our country because we have to get beyond this and be able to work together because too many people are counting on us. In closing this evening, I want to express an apology to everyone who is caught in this economic tsunami. I am not going to stand here and apologize to BP, but I am going to apologize to the people who are out of work in this country for what has happened today because it is shameful. And over 87,000 people in my State are going to be directly affected by this by the end of next week. I apologize to them for what has happened because it is wrong. It is wrong. And we are going to do everything we can to turn this around because people are counting on us to do that.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I rise today with a very urgent and critical situation from my home State and the home State of the Presiding Officer and for our Great Lakes in general. We are just finding out today that a commercial fisherman, contracted by the government to do routine sampling of areas leading into the Great Lakes and Lake Michigan, caught a 34-inch, 20-pound Asian carp in Lake Calumet, approximately 6 miles downstream from Lake Michigan, past the barriers, and on its way to Lake Michigan. This is the first Asian carp found past the electric barriers. It represents a very serious risk to the Great Lakes' ecosystem and, frankly, to our way of life in the Great Lakes region. These fish are huge, and they are able to invade the Great Lakes. They could easily destroy our $7 billion fishing industry and our $16 billion recreational boating industry. Invasive species in the Great Lakes have already contributed to significant declines in fish populations. The Asian carp could completely unwind the food chain, with devastating effects for our existing fish populations. We heard in testimony before my Subcommittee on Water and Power that these fish, which can get up to 90 or 100 pounds, effectively have no stomach. They eat all the time. They eat up everything in the food chain, leaving other fish to die throughout the Great Lakes. It is extremely serious. We have been working on this issue for a number of years with electric fencing and most recently poisoning a part of the waters in the Chicago channels to determine whether there are any of these Asian carp that have come up the Mississippi River and into the Illinois River. At the time, they didn't find anything. Unfortunately, today they did, and it was well past the electric barriers and fences for the first time. Let me share with you one story from a few years ago that reflects what happens if these huge fish get into our precious Great Lakes. In 2003, a woman named Mary Poplett, from Peoria, IL, decided to enjoy some warm October weather with a little jet skiing on the Illinois River. As she cruised the waves, the sound of her ski's motor excited a 30-pound Asian carp swimming under the water, which then leapt up and crashed into her. Imagine being hit in the face by a bowling ball. That is how she referred to it. She was knocked unconscious. She broke her nose, fractured a vertebrae, and she would have drowned if other boaters in the area had not gotten to her in time. Imagine that. Imagine that happening over and over again in Lake Michigan, in Lake Superior, and around our Great Lakes. I can't imagine it. I don't want to imagine it. Mary is not alone. Since Asian carp were introduced to control algae in catfish ponds down South in the 1970s, the carp have spread at a very rapid pace, causing injuries, destroying ecosystems, and threatening entire industries. Now that an Asian carp has been found so close to Lake Michigan, it better be a huge wake-up call that we have to act swiftly to contain this threat. Despite everyone's best efforts, this situation we find ourselves in is calling for very decisive action. I have introduced legislation to close the locks until we have a permanent solution. This has also been introduced in the House by my colleague, Congressman Camp, and others, and I today urge in the strongest possible terms that the Army Corps close the locks between the rivers and Lake Michigan now--now, today-- while they continue to determine the best way to permanently separate the Chicago area waterway system from the Great Lakes. We know we need additional monitoring and sampling of resources applied to the area. I appreciate that last December, when there was fish DNA found above the locks, the administration worked with us very quickly to redirect resources to the Army Corps to take some immediate actions at that time. But now it is not just DNA from a dead fish. Now it is a live fish, and it is beyond the electric barrier. It is on its way in open waters into our Great Lakes, and we have to act decisively and immediately to protect our waters while a long-term solution is found. Again, I urge the Army Corps of Engineers and the other agencies involved to take this finding very seriously and to act with the same tremendous urgency that all of us who represent Great Lakes States feel to prevent further encroachment by these Asian carp into our Great Lakes. This isn't just the economy, it is not just boating, and it is not just fishing; it really is our way of life in the Great Lakes. Despite efforts that have gone on for years to stop the fish, that hasn't happened, and now we have to take very decisive action to close the locks immediately so we can determine how best, in the long term, to solve this problem. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Before the 5 minutes?

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I thank you very much. Let me conclude by saying we are moving in the right direction, but we inherited a huge hole. By the way, the folks who created the hole want us to give them more shovels to go back and create another hole, a deeper hole. We are saying, do you know what. Take away the shovels. Take them away. We need to fill in the hole, not dig a deeper one. So that is what we have been doing. But here is the reality. It was six people out of work for every one job. Now it is five. OK, it is moving in the right direction. We have a long ways to go. But five people are looking and trying to find every one job. That is what this debate is all about. Millions of people--most of them worked all their lives, never been out of work in their entire life and are humiliated at the idea they have to ask for help from anybody--find themselves in a position where they are going to lose their house, they are not going to be able to care for their kids, unless we give them the dignity of temporary help. That is all this is, the dignity of temporary help, and the dignity of saying, yes, this is an emergency; yes, we are not changing the rules just for you. We are not going to have a different set of rules for the wealthy in this country and separate rules for somebody who is out of work who is 55 years old who has worked all their life.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, how much time do we have remaining?

Ms. STABENOW. On that note, I will simply say again that we are here and we will continue to be here fighting on behalf of people who are counting on us to do the right thing. We remember what it is like for too many families right now whose breadwinner cannot bring home any bread because there is no job. We want to remember them and we want to help them and support them as they are looking for work, as all Americans want to be able to have a job and the dignity of work, and that is what we are fighting for. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I would like to now speak both in response to some of what my friends on the other side of the aisle have said and also to talk about why we are here this evening, why we started this whole discussion this evening. I remember when we, in fact, balanced the budget. We passed a balanced budget under President Clinton. I was against deficits then when I voted, for the first time in 30 years, to balance the budget. I was against deficits when I supported a different way to go with the largest surpluses created by the policies of President Clinton, when I said just focusing on the wealthy in this country and tax benefits for the wealthy not only was not fair, but it was going to balloon the deficit; that not paying for two wars was going to balloon the deficit; that not paying for really any major policy during the 8 years of the Bush administration would balloon the deficit. I was against deficits at that time as well, and I am still against deficits. When we talk about what happened in the last 8 years, it is not to go back, but it is to learn from what did not work for the American people. One of my friends on the other side of the aisle said they were for private-sector jobs and we were for public-sector jobs. Well, the reality is, during the last 8 years, when deficits did not matter--I will never forget the former Vice President saying deficits did not matter. When they were trying to pass their policies that affected the wealthiest in the country, at the expense of the middle class, deficits did not matter. But we lost 6 million private-sector jobs during that time--6 million manufacturing jobs--when there was a focus on cheap products instead of American jobs. We lost jobs. Well, deficits mattered to me at that time too, as well as deficits in jobs, which is the main engine of our economy: middle class jobs. Well, it is true. When we came into the majority and President Obama came into office, after that time of losing 750,000 jobs a month, we took a different tack. We did. We said: Do you know what. Instead of focusing on big bailouts for Wall Street, and losing 8 million jobs because of that, or people losing their pensions or 401(k)s, we think we ought to have a different set of priorities. We think we ought to focus on the middle class in this country and working people and people who spend all their lives playing by the rules who are saying: What about us? So we did something different. We put in an investment jobs plan that our colleagues have spent the last year and a half trying to talk down, trying to make sure it did not work. But we put in place a jobs plan to begin to turn things around. And that 750,000 jobs that were lost a month that President Obama inherited went down to zero by the end of the year. As shown on this chart, this is where we were on jobs in the Bush administration. If their approach had worked, I would say great. If people in my State had not been hit by an economic tsunami during this time, I would say great. I would be out here promoting it. I would be promoting what they are talking about--if it had worked for the majority of Americans. The problem is it did not work. Now, people listening I know get very confused because there are all kinds of back and forth and different versions of what happened in history. I would ask people just to think about their own lives. As shown on this chart, it did not work here, starting in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005. I can tell you, in my State, where we lost a million jobs, these policies did not work. So we tried something else, when we started focusing on people, investing in innovation, partnering with manufacturers--private-sector jobs. Yesterday, I went to a facility groundbreaking for a battery manufacturing plant. We have 16 different battery manufacturing facilities in Michigan now because of the Recovery Act that are creating private-sector jobs. The manufacturing tax credit we put in for alternative energies is creating private-sector jobs. Now, they are not as fast as we want. They are not as fast as we need. But we are beginning to turn this huge economic ship around. The ship that was going down, down, down--we are beginning to turn it around. We are beginning to turn it around. My colleagues say we should help people who are out of work by taking money away from this. Let's stop this. Let's take money away from creating jobs to help people out of work. Well, that does not make any sense. What we have said is we want to continue this. That is why we are saying no to the proposals. That is why I objected to proposals tonight on the floor that sound great on the surface. They sound great. Well, why not just pay for it? Well, you are talking about taking money away from jobs in order to be able to put it into something that is desperately needed as well--both are needed--helping people who are out of work. We say no. Keep investing. Keep moving it forward, and at the same time--at the same time--let's help people who are out of work in the same way every President--Republican and Democrat--for decades has done; that is, we call it an emergency. It is an emergency in this country when over 15 million people are out of work. And the reality is, from an economic standpoint, we will never get out of a deficit with over 15 million people not working and contributing to the tax base and contributing to the economy, buying things as consumers. We will never get out of debt. So, yes, we do have a different view. We do. We have a view that worked under President Clinton when 22 million jobs were created. We have that same view now, that same view that says we are going to move ourselves out of this by investing in the middle class of this country, working people. We are going to invest in innovation. We are going to partner with our businesses. They are competing with countries around the world right now to create good private-sector jobs. And, yes, to support small business, we have done more in tax policies related to small business, and we intend to do even more than I think at any other time I can think of in terms of support for small business. All of that is true. Mr. President, in order for my colleague from Pennsylvania to speak, will you please tell me when there is 5 minutes left of our time. I do not want to lose the opportunity for the Senator from Pennsylvania to be able to speak.

Ms. STABENOW. First, as a courtesy to my colleagues, I will offer a unanimous consent request at the beginning of our comments, and this relates to the nearly 1 million people who have lost their jobs who have now lost their unemployment benefits because of the inability to move this forward in terms of extending unemployment benefits through the end of November. Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3520 So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3520, the Unemployment Extension Act of 2010, that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Ms. STABENOW. That is what this is about, and it is my great pleasure tonight, as we end, and as we continue to fight for these Americans, to turn our final 5 minutes over to the Senator from Pennsylvania, who has been a real champion standing up for working families in this country.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. I certainly understand the concern about this particular program. This is something I support, and it is, in fact, in the broader jobs bill we have. Hopefully, within the next 2 days, we will get another vote to complete this along with unemployment benefits. Given the fact that we are still in a situation where we have almost 1 million people whose unemployment benefits are running out and that is not included in this request, I have to object.

Ms. STABENOW. Reserving the right to object.

Ms. STABENOW. She said: I am 56 . . . and employers are opting for the person with a master's degree--or frankly, someone younger . . . I am a hard worker, intelligent, efficient, trustworthy, honest, dependable and upbeat. Mr. President, these are the folks we are talking about and for whom we are fighting this evening. I yield the floor.

Ms. STABENOW. If I may have 30 more seconds to complete the sentence.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Vermont for his passion. I now yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, who is a true leader on this issue. He has been coming to the floor and standing up for working men and women. It is a pleasure always to work with him on this issue.