Debbie Stabenow

Ms. STABENOW

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. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I thank my colleague for his courtesy in allowing me to return to the Chamber and also indicate that this particular provision on biodiesel, which I strongly support, is in the underlying jobs bill. We hope to have this passed in a couple of days. We will have another opportunity to vote on this shortly. As a result of that, I object.

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. Before the 5 minutes?

Ms. STABENOW. We have 15 minutes to wrap up. Is that my understanding?

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. Reserving the right to object, I again say to my colleague, we will have an opportunity to address this. We had two opportunities last week to address it and did not get the votes. Hopefully, in the next couple days, we will be able to resolve these issues. I object.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, it is my understanding that the Republican time has now ended.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Reserving the right to object.

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. Mr. President, I rise to speak on behalf of nearly 1 million people who have lost their jobs, who have now also lost their unemployment insurance benefits because of the extensive obstacles and objections that have been put forward in the Senate to extending this important program. I wish I could say this was the first time that had happened. It seems that every time we come to the floor in the middle of these very difficult economic times, even though things are getting better, every time we come to the floor on behalf of people who are out of work, who want to work, who have worked their entire lives but at this point can't find a job, all we get are objections and delays and weeks and weeks and weeks of people sitting on pins and needles, holding their breath, trying to figure out what is going on: Will they have the ability to pay the rent, the mortgage, put food on the table, be able to care for their kids while they are looking for work. Here we are, right back in that very same position. Right now we have over 15 million people who are on unemployment benefits. That doesn't count those who are working part-time jobs or have fallen off of the system completely because they haven't been able to find a job and have been out of work longer than the insurance benefits will allow. We have 15 million people looking for work, and we are told there are about 3.1 million jobs available. That means there are five people looking for every one job opening. This is not a situation of people not wanting to work. In the State of Michigan, we know how to work. We work hard. We make things. We grow things. We work hard. Yet through no fault of their own, people find themselves in a situation where we have seen an economic tsunami go through our country, lasting in Michigan longer than any other place across the country. And even as we climb our way out--and it is getting better; we have turned the corner; the economic recovery provisions we have put in place we know are beginning to make a difference--we still are in a situation, even as we are moving and turning the corner, where there are five people out of work for every one job opening. That is real life for too many people I represent. We have had legislation in front of us. We have been spending weeks now on a jobs bill, a bill to create jobs, to invest in innovation, to help small businesses, to help manufacturers get the capital they need, but to also, in that bill, help people who don't have a job while they are waiting for all this to take effect, for all of this to work, people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, who find themselves in a situation where they are desperate and depending on us to understand what is happening to too many working families, middle- class families, people who never in their wildest dreams thought they would find themselves in this situation but here they are. They want to know that we get it, that we understand what is happening in their lives and that we are not going to play politics or use people who are out of work somehow as pawns in a political chess game that is going on here in the Senate. The normal unemployment insurance benefits only last for 26 weeks, but thanks to the recovery act, we have been able to bridge the gap for millions of Americans by extending it. That is very important. But we are at a point now where the recovery has not fully been actualized. People are still in a situation where they need to have help on a temporary basis while they are looking for work. Since this recession started in 2007, there are now 8 million fewer jobs in America, too many of those in manufacturing. I could spend hours talking about fair trade and what we need to do to make sure markets are open abroad for our products to be sold so we are exporting our products, not our jobs, and how we can have a fair trade policy. I am pleased that in the recovery act we have focused on making things again in America, battery manufacturing facilities and the advanced manufacturing tax credit, both of which I was pleased to be a part of leading to create jobs. We are creating jobs. But it takes time to turn this around. We find ourselves in a situation where nearly 1 million people who have lost their jobs are going to lose their unemployment benefits because of what has been going on here. They don't have time to wait and hold their breath as we continue to work to turn this economy around. These are families trying to make ends meet. They are applying for jobs every day. They are putting in applications. I get e-mail after e-mail--and I will share some this evening--from people who are trying to find work, putting in applications, going back to school. We have all said to them: Maybe you need to go back to school. They have gone back to school to get retraining, but they have to keep a roof over their heads while they are doing that. They have to keep food on the table, keep the electricity on for their families while they are doing that. That is what unemployment benefits allow them to do. The last time Congress cut off emergency unemployment insurance benefits was after the terrible recession in 1985, when the employment rate was 7.3 percent. Today, 33 States and the District of Columbia now have unemployment that is higher than 7.3 percent. These are red States, blue States, Republicans who are out of work, Democrats who are out of work. It doesn't matter what party one is; if they lose their job, it is an emergency for the family. They expect the Senate to understand that and to act. In 16 of those States, unemployment is still higher than 10 percent. Many States haven't seen this many people out of work since the Great Depression. When we look at the States where there are more than 1 in 10 people who have lost jobs through no fault of their own, we see a picture that is, in fact, America. I know one of those great States is the State of my colleague who is from Rhode Island. He has come to the floor on numerous occasions to speak about the people of Rhode Island, just as I have come on numerous occasions to speak about the people in the great State of Michigan. I am pleased the Senator from Rhode Island is here. I yield the Senator up to 10 minutes to speak at this time.

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

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Like my friend from Georgia, I rise today also with great pride to strongly support the nomination of Judge Mark Goldsmith, to be a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. I have known Judge Goldsmith for a long time. He is a friend and someone for whom I have the greatest admiration both as a person and as a judge. He is extremely intelligent. He is highly respected in Michigan as a judge. Since joining the Oakland County Circuit Court in 2004, he has proven himself to be someone who is highly respected by all sides. He is known for his integrity and fairness. That is certainly what we look for as we look to these important confirmations on the Federal bench. After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1974, he went on to receive his law degree from Harvard University in 1977. Before joining the State court, he was a partner at Honigman Miller in Detroit. He has also served as an adjunct professor of the law at Wayne State University's law school. Judge Goldsmith is well known in the community where he formerly served on many boards and is someone who is known for giving back to the community, working with the poor, and working with those who need his help in the Detroit area. He has been recognized for his pro bono involvement and his community work, most notably at B'nai B'rith Antidefamation League and Forgotten Harvest, an organization that collects surplus perishable foods from grocery stores, restaurants, and caterers and provides them to emergency food providers in the metro Detroit area. The American Bar Association has given him the rating of ``unanimously well qualified,'' which is their highest rating for judicial nominees. He has been a judge in Michigan since 2002 when he was appointed as a part-time magistrate hearing traffic violations and civil infractions. In 2004, he was appointed to the Oakland County Circuit Court, which has jurisdiction over felonies and major civil claims cases. He was elected to that position in November of 2004 and reelected in 2006. In the cases that have come before him, he has always been known to be fair and impartial, willing to listen to both sides and make careful rulings based on the law. It has been my great honor and privilege to know him and to join with Senator Levin in making a recommendation to the President regarding his possible nomination. We were very pleased when President Obama chose to nominate him to the Federal bench. I urge my colleagues to support him unanimously, as the American Bar Association has done--again, giving him their highest rating for judicial nominees of ``unanimously well qualified.'' I hope we will do this soon today. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I ask that the time be equally divided between both sides, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs STABENOW

Mrs STABENOW. About 10 minutes.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. From my standpoint, unfortunately, what I see over and over again are middle-class families and folks who are out of work are the ones who get hit over and over again. That is my concern. That is my concern when we get into tax policy, about who we are going to give a tax cut to, who is going to get money back in their pockets. Not too many folks in my State believe it has gone to them. So that is why I raise the estate tax. In general, I would just simply say we know President after President, Republican and Democrat, has extended unemployment benefits as emergency spending for decades. I am just very disappointed that now, suddenly, that is trying to be changed. Thank you, Mr. President.

Ms. STABENOW. Finally, I would say before having to leave the floor, I appreciate that in theory. I guess I would ask my colleague to come up with what your list would be of priorities, because----

Ms. STABENOW. I don't think it is a different issue, with all due respect.

Ms. STABENOW. I guess I would ask my friend back, would you agree that rather than decreasing the estate tax for less than one-half percent of the public, maybe we should make sure any dollars there should go back to somebody who doesn't have a job and maybe help create a partnership with a business to create a job? Would you say that is a better priority than what is going to be coming up not too long from now on the Senate floor to try to help folks who already make millions of dollars a year?

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, with all due respect to my friend, the reality is that we have an economic emergency in this country. If 15 million people out of work isn't an emergency, I don't know what one is. So I would just fundamentally disagree with the Senator. In order for something to be an economic stimulus every economist-- from Reagan economists to Clinton economists to Bush economists to Obama economists--has said by funding this as emergency spending, we jump-start the economy. For every dollar we put into a family's pocket, we get $1.60 in economic turnaround, economic benefit because families who are out of work are forced to spend the money that is put in their pockets. So, no, I would fundamentally disagree. We have had economists testify who would fundamentally disagree with that premise. It sounds good. It sounds good. I wish we had paid for the huge tax cuts that were done a number of years ago. I wish we had paid for that. But right now what we are saying is, where we ought to focus our energies is on taking away the stimulus that comes from unemployment benefits, and somehow we have to get our focus back on people who have lost their jobs. So I fundamentally have a disagreement.

Ms. STABENOW. I would be happy to.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I did not intend to speak again, except after hearing my colleague, I do feel it is important to say--I am not speaking to the specifics at all in terms of a proposal--but I do feel it is important to talk for a moment about how we got to where we are with the deficit. Because it is pretty hard to listen to folks who were involved in policies that got us where we are and are now talking to us about how terrible it is as to where we are. I want to stress, when I came to the Senate in 2001, we were trying to figure out what to do with the largest budget surplus in the history of the country. I was in the House when we made the very tough vote to balance the budget under President Clinton. Unfortunately, for all of us--I mean that sincerely--rather than doing what many of us had proposed--which was to take that large budget surplus and take a third of it to do strategic investments in tax cuts and a third of it for investments in things such as health research and education and jobs, and a third of it to prefund the deficit for the future; that was a proposal we had--instead, all of it went to top-down tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country. It put us in a situation where we had no backup, no surplus. Then we went to war with two countries and put it on the credit card, which we have now used for 10 years. Then we saw a huge new Medicare entitlement. I certainly believe strongly in providing prescription drug help for seniors, but that was not paid for either. There was item after item after item--until President Obama inherited now the largest deficit. So as we are trying to dig our way out of this now, it is very disconcerting to hear over and over, with all due respect, about how deficits matter. Deficits did not matter when it was the Republican agenda. And my guess is, if we were talking about another round of huge tax cuts, it would not matter either. It matters now when we are talking about things that middle-class families want. It matters now when we are talking about jobs or the cost of college or whether we are going to be able to have families be able to have a family doctor for their kids--or all the other things. Now it matters. It did not matter--the Wall Street bailout? OK. A people's bailout? A families bailout? Oh, no, no, no, no, that is deficit spending. I will say this, with all due respect: with over 15 million people on unemployment benefits right now and another how many--who knows-- working part time or who completely had to leave the labor market-- millions and millions of people--we will never get out of deficit until people get back to work. We will never get out of this deficit ditch until people get back to work and they are back contributing and being a part of the economy and being able to care for their families and being able to get this economic engine going again. That is a basic philosophical difference we have. It is a basic difference in beliefs that I was talking about earlier today: about whether it is important to focus on people and putting people back to work on things that middle-class families need or now--when it is a different agenda, when we have different priorities and different values, and we are fighting for different people--now, all of a sudden, despite the former Vice President's claim that deficits did not matter, now they matter. I believe they do matter. I believed they mattered in, I think it was 1997, when I voted for a balanced budget under President Clinton. I believed they mattered in 2001 when I was a member of the Budget Committee. I voted for efforts to have us be fiscally responsible. And I believed they mattered when we voted to reinstate rules that were taken off for 8 years--that you should pay as you go when you do something. I know we have to make sure we are actually living up to that. But with all due respect, we have a very different view of the world. Coming from the great State of Michigan right now, our folks would say it is about time somebody focused on them and their jobs and what is happening to their families. That is what this bill is all about that is on the floor. That is what we are all about. I think it is the right course. I thank the Chair.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first I thank my friend from Pennsylvania for his leadership and passion on this issue, and I am very pleased to join him in this amendment. I also thank the chairman of the Finance Committee for many hours on this floor working very hard to put together this very important jobs bill that we need to get done as quickly as possible. I want to spend a few moments talking about the gulf and what has happened and what it more broadly represents--both in terms of what is happening on the Senate floor and in our country. When I flip on the television and see what is happening in the gulf, like all of us, I know this truly is a tragedy. To see the workers who have lost their jobs, who can't go out on their fishing or shrimping boats, who haven't seen any tourists come their way in over a month; to see the environmental devastation, I know it is a terrible crisis that is testing our Nation and our government. The Obama administration inherited a perfect storm--an oil company known for a history of egregious safety violations, being given permits to drill a mile down under the ocean with no credible public oversight, and a public agency that believed oil companies should basically police themselves, even if there was a risk to American families. That is what they inherited. The tragic events in the Gulf of Mexico started with an explosion that killed 11 workers onboard an offshore oil rig operating in waters deeper than it had ever operated before, with technology that wasn't designed for drilling that deep. It happened because the company operating the oil rig took risks with the lives of the workers. They cut corners, and they ignored the interests of millions of Americans in the gulf who would be affected by their actions. This is a tragedy that was allowed to happen by an agency that was transformed by 8 years of Republican policies urging them to look the other way, an agency whose employees thought they worked for the oil industry rather than the American people, an agency that allowed the oil industry to fill out their own inspection reports. There was a belief articulated by a current Republican Senate candidate who said it was un-American for President Obama to criticize BP. Well, I don't think it is un-American for our President to stand up for the men and women who work in the Gulf of Mexico, whose livelihoods and lives have been jeopardized by this catastrophe. We are seeing millions of barrels of oil being spilled into the waters--waters that are owned by the American people--and I think it is the duty of the American President to make sure BP cleans it up and does everything possible in the gulf to make the people whole. Just this morning, during an ongoing Congressional hearing, we heard another example of this belief in the words of a senior Republican House Member who apologized--apologized--to BP for the President's actions in demanding that BP set up a fund to reimburse the losses of local small businesspeople and families in the gulf and for their tremendous hardships caused, I might add, by BP. This Congressman called it a shakedown, a slush fund. Mr. President, I call it leadership and standing up for the American people. That is his job, and that is our job as well. But there is a larger issue represented in this disaster. Public accountability and commonsense regulations do matter. That is our job as well. My colleagues know that as a Senator from Michigan, there is no one who will fight harder for the auto industry than myself. But even while I will fight tooth and nail--and I have--for this industry and the success of this industry, I still support safety regulations. When I put my grandkids in a car, I want the car to have seatbelts and airbags, and I want to make sure that automobile has gone through a rigorous crash test. Our economy and our quality of life depend on vibrant successful businesses, but our quality of life also depends on public accountability, on commonsense regulations to protect the health and safety of our families. Someone has to stand and protect the water and the air we breathe. Someone has to stand for our children and for our elders. Someone has to stand for the safety of workers--the 11 workers who were killed on that rig or the 29 workers who were killed in the mine collapse in April or the millions of fishermen and shrimpers and tourism workers whose livelihoods are at risk today on the gulf coast. When we look at our record in this Congress, we have seen this same debate played out time and time again. Even this week, two different beliefs, two different sets of values. The first bill that President Obama signed into law was named after a woman named Lilly Ledbetter-- the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act--to require equal pay for equal work. On that very first bill, we saw two different views and beliefs: the Republican view that essentially said corporations should be able to discriminate against women or people with color if they choose to and on our side we stood with a woman, Lilly Ledbetter, who for years had gotten paid significantly less than her male coworkers for doing the exact same job just because she was a woman. We passed that bill, and it was signed into law so that women, so that people of color would not have to go through that in the future. We happen to believe in fair play. We happen to believe in equal pay for equal work. Then there was the Recovery Act. There, again, we saw a very big difference. After the biggest bailout of Wall Street in the history of our country, on one side was a belief that government shouldn't get involved to help the American people hurt by the financial crisis in the face of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression; that the proper course would be to sit back and let the economy fix itself, even though those who caused the financial crisis were, in fact, being helped. Never mind that millions of people who used to live comfortable middle-class lives lost their jobs, their entire life savings and their homes to a bunch of traders on Wall Street who made some bad deals with no public accountability. But we believed something different, Mr. President: that when the economy is on the edge of a cliff and millions of middle-class families have been hurt due to no fault of their own, you don't just sit back and hope for the best. That is not leadership; you do something. So we passed a historic Recovery Act focused on the American people--focused on jobs, on helping small businesses grow by building clean energy technology, schools, bridges, and roads--and making investments in our future and, yes, helping people who had been caught in that economic tsunami so they could keep the lights on at home and have a roof over their head and take care of their families. When President Obama took office in January of 2009, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. Today, thanks to this Recovery Act and other work done here, we are creating jobs. It is not as fast as I would like, certainly coming from Michigan, where we have been hit harder than anyone else, but we are moving in the right direction. It wouldn't be the case if we had done nothing last year. We heard for years that Wall Street needed less regulation, more freedom to innovate, and for nearly a decade there were policies in place that took a hands-off approach. What we saw was an over-the- counter derivatives market that grew to be worth over $500 trillion, completely in the dark, completely unregulated, with no oversight and no transparency. There were many people who thought this was great. Here was an example of a market with no public oversight at all, and it was making money hand over fist. Then the bubble burst, and it turned out the whole thing was smoke and mirrors. Because there was nobody there speaking out for the American public, it was the American families who paid the price, and we paid a heavy price. That is why we recently passed Wall Street reform, and we need to get it to the President to create public accountability and commonsense regulation to protect investors and consumers. That is our job. We passed a bill to give consumers the power to get their mortgages modified so they could stay in their homes and prevent foreclosures from emptying out entire communities. We also passed a law giving new tools to law enforcement and prosecutors to help them crack down on mortgage fraud and securities fraud. On each and every issue our Democratic majority has been fighting for the people of this country. Our Republican colleagues believe and have expressed--and I assume this is sincere--that the old policies of deregulation and no public accountability are better. They believe that large corporate interests--mining companies, oil companies, Wall Street, big banks-- should police themselves and things will be OK. But for the 11 workers on the oil rig in the gulf and the millions of people who live in that region of our country, those policies just didn't work. For the 29 miners who lost their lives in West Virginia, those policies just didn't work. For the millions of Americans who lost their jobs or their life savings because of Wall Street's recklessness, those policies just didn't work. I can't believe the American people want to go back and relive all of that again. I certainly don't. When President Obama took office, we saw the wreckage left behind after 8 years of deregulation and, frankly, it was time to put people first. So that is why we got to work. From day one we have seen unprecedented obstruction--the Republican leadership using every trick in the book to stop us from making the changes the American people want. But we have kept on fighting, we have passed now 242 bills, 175 of them signed into law to move our country forward. Frankly, though, this isn't about numbers. Numbers don't matter. What matters is whether things are getting better for people. But let me just review some of what has been put in place to begin to turn things around. The Recovery Act I mentioned to focus on jobs, the expansion of health insurance for children so that working moms and dads can know at least the kids are going to be able to see a doctor, protection of our public lands and national parks so our kids and grandkids can enjoy our beautiful land and our beautiful parks in this country, credit card reform, veterans health care so our troops coming home get the care they need and the care they deserve, that is the least we can do. We have increased support for our disabled veterans. We have enacted tobacco regulation to keep our kids from smoking. We have stood up to the tobacco industry on behalf of our children's health. We also passed the Serve America Act to support our young people and seniors and help get them involved to give back to the community--a very important value that we believe in as Americans. We also passed an FAA bill to modernize our air traffic control systems so that we have safer air travel; a national Defense bill that gives a pay raise to our men and women in uniform, which is the least we can do, and that helps our veterans who don't have a home; a jobs bill to help our small businesses expand and local communities have the tools they need to create jobs; a health care bill that saves families money, makes sure that every family can have a family doctor and improve the quality of care in this country; student loan changes to stop subsidies to banks and putting more money into making sure students can get some help to go to college and that it costs less so they can afford to go; and major financial industry reform so we never see another Wall Street bailout. As I said, we know none of this matters if you do not have a job and if you are fighting to keep your home. We have to make sure that all of this--and we are working hard to make sure--adds up to real improvements in people's lives and economic security. We are beginning to see things turn around because we have changed the values, we have changed the priorities back to what is best for the American people, what is best for middle-class families--the people we all talk about who are playing by the rules and want to know they will have a fair shot to be able to care for their families and be successful. At every issue we run into roadblocks and opposition from the other side because they believe--and I believe it is an honest belief; we hear it over and over again--that more tax cuts for wealthy Americans and less regulation is always the answer. If that were true, given what has happened in the former administration when they controlled the House and Senate and the White House, things would be great. I wish things were great. But that view has not worked for the majority of Americans. Today, every American with a television set can see the results of those beliefs. We had 8 years of that and we cannot go back. But this is not only about the past, it is also about the differences we debate every day in the Senate. It is about this week, last week, and I am sure next week. It is about the future. We need someone to be a check on the mining and the oil and the banking industries. We need commonsense regulators who do not think they work for the industry they are supposed to oversee. That is what this new administration is about and what we are about. We have to hold companies accountable when they ignore the rules and put the public or their workers at risk. We have to move America forward and continue making the changes this country needs. That is what we have been fighting for. That is what all of the actions we have taken have been about. That is what we will continue to do. But it is not about growing the government. We know that overregulation is not the answer either. But we want the government we have to work. That is the question: Who should our government work for? The special interests, those with great wealth and power, or families working hard to make ends meet and hold onto the American dream--small businesses and entrepreneurs with a great idea; people who want to know that the rules are fair for them, that if they work hard they will be able to have a job and they can be successful in our economy; families who want to know that somebody is making sure the rules protect their 401(k), their pension, their savings; that they can drink the water and breathe the air and eat the food they buy without getting sick. We all want to be able to trust that the safety rules are enforced. If you or a loved one work on a mine or on an oil rig--or if you are getting in the car to take your kids to a soccer game--we all want to trust that when you get permits to drill in our precious waters, we will be looking out for the fishing jobs and our Nation's tourism industry and that we will not allow risky drilling without strong, commonsense regulation and accountability. Our country cannot afford to go back to the previous beliefs that created the crises that President Obama and this Congress have been forced to deal with every day. We believe, the majority believes, it is our public responsibility to be on the side of the American people and that is what each of these legislative battles here in Congress is all about. I yield the floor.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me say I very much understand and appreciate the concerns of the Senator. This is in the bill we have in front of us today that we hope will be passed today. The complete language is in the bill. I understand his concern. I feel the same about extending unemployment benefits which usually is overwhelmingly supported on a bipartisan basis but has been held up as well. I have been in the same situation on that. To me it is a ``no brainer.'' I would love to see that extended as well. I would have loved to have seen that extended a month ago. But the reality is these items have been put together in a package and we will have the opportunity, hopefully later today or tomorrow, to vote on that. So on behalf of the leader, I object.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota. We are here to talk about President Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan. I will come to the floor at a later point to respond to my friend from Wyoming with a different view about health care reform. We have a vote in just a few moments, a very important vote as to whether to support the ability of States, in these difficult times, to be able to continue health care for people who are out of work and for seniors who are in nursing homes, low-income seniors who find themselves caught in the economic crunch. In Michigan, there are 6 individuals out of every 100 who are on Medicaid now or who need to be on Medicaid. The upcoming vote will determine whether we place a value on health care, place a value on seniors in nursing homes and people who, because they have lost a job or because of some other situation in this economy, find themselves without health care. I hope colleagues who express concern about people having access to health care will join us in voting yes. I thank the Senator from Minnesota for organizing and bringing us to the floor. I join her in speaking in favor of the President's nomination of Elena Kagan to be the next Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. She grew up in a family like so many in Michigan, with parents who worked hard for a living so they could provide for their children. Her mom was a teacher. Her dad was a tenants lawyer in New York City. She saw firsthand the effects of laws and court decisions on the everyday lives of Americans. Throughout her distinguished career, she has brought the lessons she learned from her parents--in her words, ``service, character and integrity''--to every role she has had. She took those lessons with her to the White House, where she worked with Democrats and Republicans to forge commonsense solutions to issues such as restricting tobacco companies from targeting ads to children. She took those lessons with her to Harvard, where she became a successful and beloved professor. As dean, she worked to engage her students in service and to honor those who have served. Every year, she invited all of the military veterans on campus to her home for a Veterans Day dinner. She reached out to students from all across the political spectrum and proved to them one-on-one that she was a smart and pragmatic leader. Very conservative law students at Harvard tend to join the Federalist Society, while progressive law students are more likely to join the American Constitution Society. The two groups disagree on almost everything. Yet both groups sent letters to the Judiciary Committee supporting Elena Kagan's nomination as Solicitor General. That is rare in politics and is proof that Elena Kagan is respected for her fairness and impartiality. Besides her parents, perhaps the biggest influence in her life was her onetime boss and mentor Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was also the Solicitor General before becoming a Supreme Court Justice. She admired his ability, in her words, to understand the way law works ``in practice, as well as in the books--of the way in which law acted on people's lives.'' In private practice, Elena Kagan represented clients in litigation. Today, she represents all of us as the people's lawyer, the Solicitor General of the United States. Her job every day is to represent her clients, the people of our great country, before the U.S. Supreme Court. As a Justice, she will continue to represent the people. That is why I urge my colleagues today to join with us in confirming her nomination without delay. I thank the Chair.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, we are coming up to a critical deadline this week once again that touches millions of families across our country who don't have a job, not because they don't want to work but because they have not been able to find one in the hardest hit economy since the Great Depression. Even though things are turning around, we have millions of people yet to be able to find a job, to be able to care for their families and keep a roof over their heads. Twice this year already, the Congress has missed deadlines for extending unemployment benefits because of Republican obstructionism, basically telling millions of Americans: Tough. We are now in a situation where today we will offer a temporary extension to be able to continue unemployment benefits and help with health care, as well as support for our doctors whom we are all concerned about maintaining their Medicare payments, and we will ask for an extension. I hope the answer, again, is not: Tough. That is what I am very hopeful of. Today there are 15.3 million Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and they rely on an unemployment insurance system to pay the bills and put food on the table. We have also heard from economists that this is an important way of keeping dollars in the economy because when someone is out of work and they have to be able to buy food and put gas in the car and be able to do the other basics, it keeps money in the economy so that when someone gets an unemployment check, they are spending it because they have to spend it, and that is part of what is a stimulus to the economy. People are trying to find work and trying to support their families during tough times. They want to be working, as I said. They are pounding the pavement every day. They are putting in applications every day. This is not their fault. They have worked all their lives. Many of them find themselves, having worked for companies for 20 or 30 years, now in their fifties and they have played by the rules and they are finding that because of what has happened in a global economy and unfair trade rules and what has happened on a lot of different fronts, they don't have a job. So they are asking that we continue to understand that, understand the real world for millions of people. We have 15.3 million people who have lost their jobs and who are receiving assistance. That doesn't count the people who are no longer receiving any kind of help or are working one, two, three part-time jobs just to try to figure out how to make it, and, of course, those jobs don't provide health insurance. As we transition to help them, we are not yet there to be able to help those families. When President Obama and when all of us as Democrats took office last year, we saw at that time a loss of almost 800,000 jobs a month. We have been laser-focused on jobs in the Recovery Act. We have been laser-focused on doing everything we can, and continue to do that. It is critical that we pass a small business bill to create capital for our small businesses that have been hit. We have another bill dealing with innovation, and the bill that will be coming to us that extends unemployment is a major jobs bill, and we are continuing to focus on that. With what we have already done, we have now gone from almost 800,000 jobs a month being lost when the President first took office, to moving to that being about zero at the end of the year, to being about 250,000 now new jobs being created. That is good. It is not enough. We know that. It is not nearly enough, but at least we have turned the ship around. At least we are not continuing to go down, down, down as we did with the last administration for 8 years when we lost 6 million manufacturing jobs alone. So we are turning it around. It takes time. It takes way too much time. I am very impatient about that because I know the best thing we can do to help anyone who doesn't have a job in my State is to make sure they can get a job. Folks in my State and folks in Illinois want to work. They know how to work. They are good at working. It is not their fault that there are six people looking for every job that is available right now. But the reality is, because of that, people are looking to us to understand what is going on in their lives, what they are facing in terms of enormous pressures just to keep their heads a little bit above water. They are asking us to extend unemployment benefits as this economy turns around, and understand. So we come now to another day of reckoning. We have gone through this before. I remember last November when there was a filibuster for--I believe it was 4 weeks--on extending unemployment benefits, and then everybody voted for it. After creating tremendous stress in the lives of families who were trying to figure out what was going on, after 4 weeks of filibustering, then we finally saw people voting for it. We have seen various versions of obstruction on the floor of the Senate. I hope today is different. I hope today people are going to say they understand that we need to extend for 30 days if we are not able to complete the jobs bill, depending on what happens if it comes over from the House. I hope we will be able to do that. If there is a continual effort to block the 1-year extension, 1.2 million Americans will lose help right now for themselves and their families while they are looking for work, and over 300,000 people in my great State of Michigan. As I said, these are people who are doing everything we have asked them to do. Let me just share some of the e-mails and letters I get, and I get many of those. I get many of those. Let me share this from Rick Allegan, who wrote: I will not be able to take care of my family at all if benefit extensions are cut. After being laid off, I have not even been able to land a job at local restaurants or fast food places. I am very grateful for these extensions--the help the State is giving me is allowing my children to eat and my family to stay afloat. Please do not take [this help] away. I am confident I will land a job and be back to work. Until then, I just don't want to worry about where I am going to get funds [I need]. I am trying very hard to find work. Mr. President, I am sure that is true. Clinton from Battle Creek wrote: I am a 56-year-old unemployed worker in Michigan. I lost my job at the end of 2008, after a 38-year career in the auto repair industry. When I got laid off, I took advantage of Michigan's No Worker Left Behind program, and I am currently in college working toward a degree in human services. To that end, I work with men at the Calhoun County Jail, and I am a mentor at the newly formed ``Mentor House'' for newly released prisoners here in Battle Creek. When I finish my education, I will be gainfully employed and an asset to my community. To this end, also let me say that if I lose my unemployment benefits, I may not be able to finish college, and we could also lose our home because of the loss of income. Needless to say, we don't want either of those things to happen. Thank you very much for all you do, as I am truly grateful as an American citizen to have all that we are afforded. That is somebody who is doing what we told him to do--go back and get retrained. But he is only able to do that because of a temporary safety net that will help while that is going on. The rug could be pulled out from under him and his family. Christopher from Three Rivers said this: I have been unemployed for 13 months and some days. I have never, ever been unemployed this long--not ever. And it's astoundingly difficult to find anything--more or less even receive a reply to an inquiry. I am registered with no fewer than four temp offices and have been for some months, and nothing--not a single call, even though they assure me they are in fact looking for me. And so I do all I can, and daily, trying not to lose hope. But what truly appalls and galls me is Congress' attitude that all is well and the economy is getting better, so, no, there won't be any further extensions of unemployment [insurance]. And let's be clear about something: I detest this. I can't stand living on barely anything, but to then have it implied that I somehow enjoy doing this and thus am lazy and enjoy living on unemployment is quite offensive. Mr. President, that is offensive to millions of Americans. He says: I can assure you that I do not, and I have been doing everything in my ability to find work. People want to work. People have worked their whole lives. It is not their fault that we find ourselves in this situation. It is not their fault that there was recklessness on Wall Street that led to a collapse of financial markets, that closed down credit, that caused small businesses not to be able to get loans to be able to keep business going or manufacturers to be able to get the support they needed. It is not the fault of the American people. It is not the fault of a breadwinner who can no longer bring home the bread. We have had a collapse on a number of levels. We are rebuilding again. Things are turning around, as slow as it is. The unemployment rate in Michigan is coming down. That is a good thing, but it is not fast enough for the people whom we represent who need temporary help until that job is available, until they are able to get that community college degree, to be able to get that training for the new job we have all told them they should go get. Go get retraining, we say. But how do you put food on the table and pay for a roof over your family's head in the meantime? We have done that through unemployment benefits that allow people to be able to become economically independent again. That is what we are talking about here--temporary help. That temporary help has gone on longer than any of us would like to have it go on. No one is more concerned about having to come to the floor and talk about extending unemployment benefits, but the reality is, for Americans, this is not their fault. We have to figure out how we can continue to support them in their efforts to look for work, to be able to go back to school so they can, in fact, continue their lives with their families, be productive citizens, and be able to continue to contribute to this great country. We also know we have millions of Americans who rely on help with health care. We said to them years ago: If you leave your job or lose your job, you can continue your health care benefits. The problem is that it is so expensive when you have to pay both the employer contribution and the employee contribution, most people haven't been able to do it. Last year, in the Recovery Act, we did something about that. We said we would help so that people could continue their health insurance in COBRA. That expires as well. Just as those jobs have not been there, until we fully see a health reform bill in place, which will take time, as we know, we also need to continue to help with health care. This bill that will be coming in front of us, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act, also includes a very important 1-year fix-- actually, it is beyond 1 year now; it will include multiple years--to fix what has been a drastic cut in reimbursements to doctors, a cut that, if it were allowed to happen, would force many doctors' offices to stop seeing Medicare families and military families. As you know, I believe the payment formula that has been in place and the cuts that have been scheduled for many years should be completely eliminated and we should completely change the system, which is called SGR. But until we can get to that point--and I hope it is very soon--we need to make sure doctors have confidence that those drastic cuts will not happen and that seniors and military families know cuts won't happen and that they are going to be able to continue to see their doctor. It is critical right now that we work together today to make sure we are allowing these important policies--the help for people who have lost their jobs, whether it be health care or unemployment insurance, the ability to continue to provide the kinds of Medicare payments so seniors can see their doctors--it is critical that we don't let that lapse. We will have an opportunity on the floor today to continue that either temporarily or permanently. Obviously, I would like to see the full jobs bill passed today and see this completed at least until the end of this year. If that is not possible, it is not the fault of the people who don't have jobs, so I don't know why they should be the ones who are hurt because of it. I am very hopeful that one way or the other we are going to let people in this country know that as we focus on jobs--which is the best thing we can do, and it is what everybody wants--and continue to turn this economy around, as we continue to see jobs being created in the private sector, we will not forget the people who have gotten caught in this economic tsunami through no fault of their own. I suggest the absence of a quorum.