Mr. President, we are seeing over the last 12 months a slow recovery in our job market. In the last 6 months, we have seen that accelerate but not sufficiently to reduce unemployment to anything comparable to a full employment economy. This year, so far, however, we have generated 600,000 jobs in the private sector. That is in sharp contrast to January of 2009 when President Obama took office and when we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. But despite this improvement in the job market, we have a long way to go.

   It is particularly troubling to be, once again, anticipating the vote tomorrow on the extension of unemployment benefits. These benefits lapsed weeks ago. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are without access to unemployment funds--the insurance funds they paid each week out of their daily wages for the time they hoped would never come but has come--that they could rely upon for some support as they look for work.

   In Rhode Island, the unemployment rate is 12 percent--absolutely horrendous. We are seeing more and more of this unemployment being long term, not a temporary situation. Nearly half--45.5 percent--of those unemployed have been out of work for more than 6 months, and in those 6 months, the excess savings one might have, the ability to cut a few corners to make it week by week, are less and less effective in simply keeping the lights on and keeping the family together. Then when you take away the unemployment compensation, people are, frankly, becoming desperate.

   Yet many on the other side are completely indifferent to this. They say it is not their problem. Well, it is their problem. It is our problem. If we cannot do this, then we are failing in a basic function which is to provide support for Americans in crisis, and that is what we must do. People are looking for work. The average individual has been looking for work for 35 weeks. That is almost a year, or a big part of a year. Yet, in the midst of this economic downturn--with 14.6 million unemployed Americans--my colleagues on the other side have forced us to go through procedural hoops to get a vote on an unemployment compensation extension.

   The Senate has failed on three occasions to pass this extension. It is not because there is not a majority of Senators who want to, but because procedurally, we need 60 votes to end debate and vote on the measure. We have let this program lapse for short periods and now it has been lapsed since June 2, and that is unacceptable. There is no other word for it other than obstruction--stopping something that has been done routinely on a bipartisan basis in every major job recession in this country in our lifetime. This should be a simple bipartisan endeavor.

   George W. Bush had a period of time where we had a recession in the job market and we, on a bipartisan basis, extended unemployment insurance. There were no repeated delays, stretching it out, only 2-month extensions or 3-month extensions to be considered. It was done because we had to help Americans who needed the help and who had contributed to the fund through their unemployment compensation insurance. We have never failed to extend unemployment compensation while the unemployment rate was at least 7.4 percent. Today, if your State has 7.4 percent, you are in recovery. You are in great shape. We have 12 percent in Rhode Island. If I go around the country, there are too many States such as Rhode Island, with 10, 11, 12 percent unemployment. The national unemployment rate is 9.5 percent. So this is an historical anomaly. We have routinely, on a bipartisan basis, extended unemployment compensation as long as the unemployment rate has been at least 7.4 percent. But now, in the midst of a much worse national economic crisis, most of my colleagues are simply indifferent to it. I am hopeful tomorrow we will rally at least two who recognize the need to respond to the needs of their constituents.

   We have extended it for much longer periods of time than the current period. In the 1970s, under Presidents Ford and Carter--again, through two Presidents, one Republican, one Democrat--3 years and 1 month of extended unemployment benefits. In the 1980s under President Reagan, yes, we extended unemployment compensation benefits without paying for it under Ronald Reagan on a bipartisan basis to help Americans for 2 years and 10 months. In the 1990s, under President Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush and President Clinton, 2 years and 6 months. So we are hardly at the point where these benefits have gone on so long that they are intolerable.

   Again, routinely we have done this on a bipartisan basis, Republican Presidents, Democratic Presidents, Republican Congresses, Democratic Congresses. What I would argue has changed is our colleagues on the other side. Now we are going through another procedural vote and at the end of the day, on the final merits, this could pass by 75, 80, 90 votes, because no one wants to be accused of not extending unemployment benefits. But this whole procedural strategy of delay after delay after delay effectively has denied millions of people not just the dollars, which are important, but the small sense of security that they can rely on these funds, that there is someplace they can get help. In Rhode Island, the average weekly benefit is $360. They can get roughly $360 a week to feed their family, to provide for the essentials in life. When that is stripped away, they lose more than just $360; they lose the sense that there is anything out there that is going to help.

   Beyond this procedural delay, some of my colleagues are arguing: Well, the reason we don't want to give unemployment compensation is it is a disincentive to work. I say $360 a week is not a disincentive for people to work who have worked all of their lives, making much more than that, who are desperate to work. The reality is that for every worker unemployed today who is out there looking around, there are not the jobs. In fact, there are five unemployed workers for every available job. This is not a situation where they are sort of sifting through and saying, Well, I don't like that work; that is too far for me to go. Talk to your neighbors, as we all do. They will take almost anything to get back in the workforce, and just to make more than, in Rhode Island, $360 a week. So that argument is disingenuous, but it has been raised here as if it is the gospel. It is not.

   We are in a deep economic crisis. Most of it is the result of policies that my colleagues enthusiastically supported: deep tax cuts to benefit, because of the nature of the income tax, the wealthiest Americans; more than low-income Americans. Two wars unfunded. In fact, I think this is probably the first time in the history of this country where we cut taxes in a time of war rather than trying to pay for these wars. The largest expansion of an entitlement program--Medicare Part D--in the history of the country since the 1960s, unpaid for. I could go on and on and on. That has led to a myriad of other policies--lax regulation; inattention to the lack of innovation in our country; the looking on as other countries such as China and others have taken bold steps in terms of infrastructure construction; the development of new technologies, including alternate energy and high-speed electric rail transportation--the Bush administration sort of casually tended to ignore it.

   I don't think anything indicates clearly the priorities of that side and this side. We have been struggling for months to try to pass an extension of unemployment compensation, but being told we have to pay for it. In the same breath, our colleagues say, But we have to extend the Bush tax cuts, including the estate tax cuts, without paying for them. We can't help people struggling to find work with $360 a week, but we can help multibillionaires with their estate taxes. I would argue that if you want to invest in productivity in America, help working people get jobs and work, and they will pay their taxes, they will work hard, they will contribute to the community.

   Now we have to deal with the deficit, but the notion that the $34 billion we are talking about today in unemployment compensation is going to rank with the $3.28 trillion that these Bush tax extensions will cost the country it is not even apples and oranges. Literally and ideologically we can't pay for tax cuts, yet the deficit is the most important problem we face. It doesn't make sense, and it particularly doesn't make sense to Americans who are out there desperately looking for work.

   Again, when you look at where this deficit came from, I remember in the 1990s when we stood up as Democrats without any Republican help and passed an economic program that resulted in not only deficit reduction but a $236 billion surplus.

   It resulted in not only economic growth but strong employment growth through the nineties.

   When President George W. Bush took office, he was looking at a significant projected surplus. He was looking at solid employment numbers and a growing, expanding economy. In the 8 years he was in office, he took that surplus and not only turned it into a deficit, but he increased the national debt more in 8 years than had been done in the previous history of the country. Then, again, to have my colleagues on the other side suddenly discover that deficits are important--it wasn't important enough for them in the nineties to stand with us and vote to reduce the deficit, balance the budget, and raise the surplus. It wasn't important enough for them in the Bush administration, which adopted programs and policies to undercut that fiscal stability and put us into a precipitous economic collapse--and now it is important.

   It is important, but when we talk about this issue of unemployment compensation, it is central to this debate. Robert Bixby, president of the Concord Coalition, which has been, throughout the years, one of the most consistent in terms of fiscal responsibility, put it well when he said:

   As a deficit hawk, I wouldn't worry about extending unemployment benefits. It is not going to add to the long-term structural deficit, and it does address a serious need. I just feel like unemployment benefits wandered onto the wrong street corner at the wrong time, and now they are getting mugged.

   That is what is going on. They are mugging a program the American people need. It is close at hand. It can invoke this notion of responsible deficit reduction. Where was all this responsible deficit reduction talk when they were proposing Medicare Part D, which is a huge benefit to the pharmaceutical industry--without any payments, a lot of expensive entitlement, which adds to the structural deficit, because year in and year out, when you get to be 65 years old, you qualify for Part D.

   Unemployment benefits are countercyclical--people pay into it, it builds up the trust funds in the States, and then when you meet a point at which you need it, it should be there. It should be there now.

   The other point that is important to make is, for every dollar of unemployment benefits there is $1.90 of economic activity. This is a stimulus measure too. At a time when we are seeing a fragile recovery, we need to put more muscle behind the recovery. Not only are we giving people a chance to make ends meet, when they take their unemployment compensation and other resources and go into the marketplace, it provides an increase in economic activity.

   In fact, if we don't have increased economic activity, there is a danger this recovery will be very slow--painfully slow--and that would be unfortunate, because what we measure in terms of economic recovery is measured in American families by the opportunities to send their children to school, the opportunities to provide more for their families. If that is inhibited over months and months, then those who suffer are the American families.

   There are other aspects of this. For example, the Joint Economic Committee estimated that by the end of 2010--this year--290,000 unemployed disabled workers--these are people who work but have a disability--will exhaust their benefits. If these individuals choose to drop out of the labor market and go onto the Social Security disability rolls, go through the process of being qualified and approved for disability, over the lifetime, this could result in $24.2 billion in costs, contrasted to the $721 million this year that this group would receive in extended benefits.

   It is a simple sort of issue. Do we want to keep people in the workforce--at least keep them looking for work with unemployment benefits--or do we want them to say: I will give up and declare that I can't work again, and I will go see if my disability can be covered by Social Security disability insurance and, for the rest of my life, I will collect my Social Security disability, even though I would really like to work. That is another aspect of this problem.

   We have a challenge tomorrow, when we greet our new colleague from West Virginia, to stand and extend unemployment benefits. Once again, if we look at history, this should have been done weeks ago on a strong, bipartisan basis, putting aside the relative politics of the moment and concentrating on what we should do for the American people. Tomorrow we will have a chance to do that, and I hope we do.