Unanimous Consent Request - H.R. 4691
Floor Speech
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Ms. STABENOW. I appreciate the Senator from Illinois, my friend, in his comments. I guess my question would relate to the State of Michigan because the Senator listed off some very important statistics. I wonder if the Senator is aware that in March, 62,000 people in the great State of Michigan, where we have the highest unemployment rate--we have a 14.6-percent unemployment rate, over 700,000 people right now unemployed, looking for work. These are people trying to keep a roof over their head, trying to keep food on their table, they are trying to hold things together as they are looking for a job. Yet we have 62,000 great people from Michigan who are going to lose their benefits in March. In fact, if this continues--and I know all of us are working very hard to get a year extension of unemployment benefits. But I am wondering if my friend is aware that by May, 225,000 people in Michigan will be out of their benefits. These are people who are looking for work. We know for every one job available there are six people right now who are fighting to get that job. We have a jobs agenda. We are working very hard to make sure there are more jobs and partnering within the private sector.
But in the meantime, I am wondering if my friend would agree with the fact that this is a disaster, in fact. This is as much a disaster for families as anything else. We do emergency spending for floods and hurricanes and all kinds of disasters. For families, would my friend agree, this is as much of a disaster and warrants as much immediate attention as anything else we do?
Mr. DURBIN. I would say to the Senator from Michigan, this has been characterized as an emergency because it is an emergency. It has been acknowledged by the Budget Committee. It will be treated as an emergency spending situation. It is an extraordinary situation, just like a drought or flood or hurricane or tornado. These people have had their lives disrupted. We are trying to keep these families together. If there is ever a family value issue, this is it.
At this point I would like, on behalf of the people of Michigan and Illinois and Kentucky, Mr. President, to ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4691, a 30-day extension of provisions which expire on Sunday, February 28, unemployment insurance, COBRA, flood insurance, Satellite Home Viewer Act, highway funding, SBA, business loans and small business provisions of the American Recovery Act, SGR, and poverty guidelines received from the House and at the desk; that the bill be read three times, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.
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Ms. STABENOW. Will the Senator yield for a question? I want to ask a question. Would the Senator from Illinois agree that we make choices here every day about what, in fact, we are going to do? And there is no question that the deficit is a huge issue. But I, along with you, have a reaction this evening listening to my friend from Kentucky, who is my friend. We have worked together on a number of different issues.
But to hear that somehow, when there has not been a concern about rising deficits when we were talking about tax benefits for the wealthiest Americans that did not have to be paid for, but now we are talking about those who find themselves, through no fault of their own, without a job, who are trying to hold it together in one of the worst economies certainly of my lifetime, and that somehow we are now--now--going to worry about balancing the budget and the deficit on the backs of the least of our brothers--I mean, that is really what is being talked about tonight. I find it outrageous that we would be having this kind of discussion.
Would my friend agree that, in fact, there are other choices? In fact, when we have the debate about extending the tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, I want to hear the same debate and the same objection coming as is coming to people right now who are trying to hold it together for $200 or $300 a week and keep food on their table for their families.
Would my colleague agree?
Mr. DURBIN. I agree with the Senator from Michigan. I will tell you that because the Senator from Kentucky has noted our current national debt, $14 trillion, I think it is worth a moment to explain that debt and how we reached that astronomic figure.
When President George W. Bush became President of the United States, we had a national debt of $5 trillion, and we handed him a surplus--as President Clinton left office, he gave to President George W. Bush a surplus. At the end of the George W. Bush Presidency 8 years later, we were knocking on the door of $12 trillion in debt. We had more than doubled the national debt in 8 years.
How did that happen? Some of it came from circumstances beyond President Bush's control. 9/11 devastated the economy, and that devastation cost us dearly in terms of jobs and services and businesses and revenue lost.
But conscious decisions were made by the George W. Bush administration to enact tax cuts in the midst of a war. That has never happened before in the history of the United States. It is counterintuitive. In addition to your ordinary budget of your country, you have a war budget on top of it. When you desperately need revenue to pay for that war and the ordinary expenses of your government, this administration, the previous administration under George W. Bush said: Let's give tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the midst of those two wars. They were voted on by the other side of the aisle, who supported the idea, driving us deeper in debt as a nation. And, of course, we waged the wars under President Bush without paying for them. That, too, added to our national debt.
Another $400 billion was added to the debt with the Medicare prescription drug program, which was not paid for. So when this President came to office, he inherited not only a recession, but $12 trillion in national debt brought on by the previous administration. The recession has taken and added another $1 trillion to that debt in this last year, and we are trying to claw our way out of it.
Now, that is the reality and the history of how we reached this point of $14 trillion in debt. To suggest it is the Democratic side of the aisle that does not take the deficit seriously, I would say, we produced a surplus under President Clinton, a surplus that was handed to President George W. Bush and quickly mushroomed into the biggest debt in the history of the United States of America.
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