Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act

Floor Speech

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Madam President, I tried to be recognized before the majority leader decided to fill the tree, which means taking away the opportunity for amendments to be offered--although there will be an attempt in a moment to offer some. I am disappointed in that, because I think we were very close to reaching an agreement which would have enabled us to move forward with allowing Senators on both sides of the aisle to offer some of their ideas on the unemployment insurance extension.

Recall. This is an important debate we are having for the American people. It is about whether we go beyond the roughly 26 weeks in unemployment insurance to having an emergency extension again. On this side of the aisle, there were a few of us who, in fact, crossed over to vote with the entire Democratic majority to say let's have that debate. We thought we were doing so in good faith in that there would actually be a debate on two issues. One is whether it should be paid for and how it should be paid for, which I will address in a second, but second is how we should reform the unemployment insurance program and do other appropriate policies to get at the underlying problem, which is a record level, a record number of Americans who are long-term unemployed.

Clearly what we are doing isn't working, and we believe this is an opportunity for us to help improve the program to actually address the real problem. The President of the United States wants us to do that. He called me on Monday and told me he had hoped we would be able to address this issue by voting for the motion to proceed to begin the debate so that over the next few months, while we had a short-term extension of this program, there could be even more detailed discussions about how to improve the legislation and how to add other elements to it--specifically, on how to give people who are long-term unemployed the skills they need to access the jobs that are available. Unfortunately, we are not going to have that opportunity now, it appears, to have the debate over how to pay for it, what the pay-fors ought to be, and, again, how to improve the program.

But let me say this is unfortunate, because we had 60 votes to proceed. That includes certainly three of us who are here on the floor today, and all three of us are willing to move forward with this with a reasonable provision to pay for this over the 3 months, and again, during that period to come up with a better and improved unemployment insurance program. We were not part of the discussion as to the pay-for that the majority leader has just put forward.

I appreciate his good faith in wanting to include one of the proposals I had in my amendment. I honestly do appreciate that. I will say the offset he has put in, which I have just learned about because I didn't have an opportunity to see until now, has an important difference--a difference between what was just offered in the new Democratic proposal and what is in my proposal. My proposal, which I have come to the floor to talk about three times now, has been previously proposed by the House. It says that if you get unemployment insurance or you get trade adjustment assistance, then you also do not receive Social Security disability insurance in that same month.

Why? Because these programs are mutually exclusive. If you are on Social Security disability--SSDI--that means you are not working, by definition. If you are working and lose your job, you are then continuing to look for work and you get TAA. If you have lost your job and you are continuing to look for work, which is required, you get unemployment insurance.

This is why this same general program is laid out in the President's budget, and in fact it is something I believe the administration supports in others.

The proposal the Democrats included says that if you receive unemployment insurance in the month you receive Social Security, then your SSDI is reduced by the amount of unemployment insurance received.

Why does that matter? It is not the same. And it matters because the proposal the majority leader has proposed it saves a lot less money. According to the Congressional Budget Office, my proposal would save about $5.4 billion; theirs, as I understand it from the distinguished majority leader today, will save about $1 billion.

So again, I appreciate his wanting to include it, and I think it is in the same spirit as the amendment I offered, but honestly we haven't had the chance to talk about this. I tried today to sit down with the Democratic sponsor of the underlying legislation, the other Senator Reed, who in good faith said he wanted to talk about it, but we haven't been able to schedule that. So we have not had the discussion. So we are just learning today what is again the sort of take-it-or-leave-it proposal that is in the majority leader's proposal in filling the tree.

There is a possibility, I think procedurally--and the majority has expressed some interest in looking at this--in taking that agreement and altering it somewhat over the next couple of days, because the cloture would not ripen, as I understand it, until Monday afternoon, but that still doesn't give all of our other colleagues a chance to offer their good ideas, and there are a bunch of them out there.

The Senator from New Hampshire offered hers day before yesterday, and she talked about it today on the floor, where she wants to take away some of the existing missed payments that are in the child tax credit. I would think all of us would want to do that--to preserve child tax credits for those who are truly eligible. For those who are not eligible, obviously, they shouldn't have access to it. It seems like a sensible amendment to me. I am a cosponsor of that amendment.

Senator Coats raised his ideas today, and I think he has some good ideas that ought to be debated.

So my hope is we would be able to go back to where we were prior to filling the tree and to say let's have a discussion. It can be limited. I think there are a very limited number of amendments.

I see the distinguished Republican whip on the floor, and he indicated to me today there are something under 20 amendments offered by the Republican side. I don't know how many of those have actually been filed, but it seems to me we could have had a good debate on that and still should.

So my hope is that we can come up with a solution here. I do think it is going to require us providing some opportunity for other people to be engaged, and specifically those who want to get to a solution, which is a lot of people on this side of the aisle and that side of the aisle--both sides of the aisle. Let's sit down and talk. We are adults. We have been elected by millions of people to represent them, and it is our responsibility, indeed our commitment to them, we would sit down across the aisle and work these things out, as you would in any other relationship--in your marriage, in your business, with your neighbors.

We had some discussion about this yesterday, that for some reason in the Senate it seems we are unable to have even the most basic level of discussion and debate. So I am open to that. I had hoped to do it today. I put my ideas out there; parts of them have been accepted, and I appreciate that, but, frankly, not the way we had laid it out in my own amendment. I do believe, if we have the opportunity, if we were to back up and to actually solve this problem, meaning to provide what the President says he wants, which is a 3-month extension of long-term unemployment, we can sit down, roll up our sleeves as Republicans and Democrats, and come up with a better way to address what is a crisis in this country, which is more long-term unemployed people than ever in the history of our country.

Those people are hurting, and clearly the current system isn't working. So to just extend it is not the answer. The answer is to allow the Senate to do its job; that is, to reform these programs so they work for the people we represent.

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Madam President, I wish to make two corrections quickly and then yield to my colleague from Indiana.

One is that the proposal I did offer had nothing to do with ObamaCare, as I thought the majority leader understood, and others do not, including the amendment from the Senator from New Hampshire. So we do have a number of amendments and a number of good ideas. We had a debate.

Second, it is in the President's budget. So if it is such a terrible proposal, I am surprised the President would have proposed it.

Mr. REID. Would my friend yield for a question?

Mr. PORTMAN. Of course.

Mr. REID. Does the Senator also understand that in the President's budget, he calls for revenue, does he not?

Mr. PORTMAN. Yes, he does. He calls for major tax increases.

Mr. REID. And my friend would also acknowledge that when Presidents submit these budgets, don't they propose a budget rather than nitpicking different pieces of the budget one at a time?

Mr. PORTMAN. The Senator is correct. After having put together a budget myself, I would say you have to stand by all those policies. And I think if we were to call on the Office of Management and Budget or the Treasury Department, they would tell you they stand by these proposals. So, yes, it is a package, but they put them in because they think they are good policy.

So my point is that we have some good ideas not related to ObamaCare, since that seems to be an objection by the majority leader, and I hope we can work something out. I do think there is an opportunity for us to do so. But I don't think we can do it unless there is a little bit of give-and-take and some discussion, at least, which we have not been able to have yet.

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