United States Capitol Police Administrative Technical Corrections Act of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I wish to speak just briefly about today's vote. Today, this body, in a rare but very welcome moment of at least partial bipartisanship, voted to pass Leader Reid's jobs bill. While that bill does not include every provision I would like to see, it is certainly an important step, and I commend my colleagues from both parties for supporting these provisions to put people back to work.

As a Senator from Rhode Island, which currently faces one of the highest unemployment rates in the Nation, at near 13 percent--I know the help contained in this bill, which builds on the programs we passed last year in the Recovery Act, cannot come soon enough. I hope the vote is a watershed.

Over the past few months, I have heard from hundreds of Rhode Islanders who are struggling just to find work. I have heard from Carole in North Providence, RI, who had worked all her life but was laid off 2 years ago from her position as a construction project manager. Carole has a bachelor's degree in business administration and an associate's degree in architecture and she has plenty of experience as a construction project manager. But for 2 years, she has been unable to find any work--talented, hard working, and unemployed.

I also heard from Nathaniel in Coventry, RI, who recently graduated from law school. That is a wonderful achievement and is ordinarily a benchmark that kids pass through on the way to success--certainly to employment. But Nathaniel is carrying $100,000 in student loans and cannot find a job.

I heard from Brian in Saunderstown, an unemployed construction worker who has been unable to find a job for more than a year. He has been receiving unemployment benefits, but he is justifiably concerned that those, too, might soon run out. He loves to work. He doesn't want to be on unemployment. But right now, in this economy, there is no other option for Brian and for his family.

Leader Reid's jobs bill--the HIRE Act--will help put Rhode Islanders back to work. The bill provides a payroll tax holiday for businesses to encourage hiring, increased cashflow for small businesses that can be used for investments and payroll expansion, and an expansion of the Build America Bonds program to subsidize and encourage local infrastructure projects. In addition, the HIRE Act extends Federal highway funding through the end of the year, which will make a $225 million difference for Rhode Island alone in 2010.

This legislation will be a big help for my home State, but it is only a first step toward restoring economic growth. It is certainly not the last step we need to take in this work session. As I said, I hope the vote yesterday and today is a watershed. Outside in Washington, the heavy snows of February are melting away. Perhaps--just perhaps--the blockade that has stifled the Senate is melting away a little also.

We must now act to extend unemployment insurance and COBRA subsidies to make sure unemployed workers, such as Brian, and their families continue to be able to pay their bills and to maintain their family health insurance coverage. I hope we will soon thereafter turn to new investments in our failing transportation, water, and school infrastructure.

We had a hearing in the Budget Committee this morning with Transportation Secretary LaHood, and he agreed very strongly that where you have decrepit infrastructure--and everyone knows the United States of America has an enormous deficit of decrepit infrastructure--we are going to need to repair that sooner or later.

If we need to repair it sooner or later, why not do it now, while we need the jobs? If we need to repair it sooner or later, repairing it now does not add anything to our Nation's long-term liabilities. Indeed, under the old Yankee principle that a stitch in time saves nine, under the commonsense principle that when you get to maintenance and repair earlier rather than later, it costs less to do the maintenance and repair, there is actually a very strong case to be made that there are net savings from moving the repair of our decrepit infrastructure forward. So it is really a win-win, as Secretary LaHood acknowledged.

I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues as we go forward past today's watershed votes and into the following votes to help restore our economy and meet the needs of Carole and Nathaniel and Brian and millions of Americans who are unemployed and need help now.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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