Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act -- Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, last month the President of the United States gave a speech on what has come to be known by the code words ``income inequality,'' which means different things to different people. He also talked about a very important aspect of that, and that is upward income mobility. In other words, we want to make sure that somebody who goes to work in a restaurant bussing tables can work their way up the income and education ladder to where they can actually own their own restaurant and create jobs and opportunities for other people. The President called it ``the defining challenge of our time.''

Well, the timing, coming as it has, one might be forgiven from wondering whether the President and his allies want to change the subject from ObamaCare. We know that the rollout of ObamaCare has been an unmitigated disaster, and, frankly, there is more to come. We can certainly understand why the President might want to change the subject. But while he is changing the subject, Republicans should embrace the challenge of discussing this: What are the policies that have resulted in income inequality and insufficient upward mobility when it comes to jobs in America?

Of course, the President, you might predict, has talked about his proposed solutions, which are creating more government programs and more spending, including up to $6 billion of money that we have to borrow from China and our other creditors just to extend the unemployment insurance program by 3 months. My question is: What happens after that 3 months? I don't want to be rash, but I will make a prediction that the Democrats will say: We need another 3 months. After that, they will say: We need another 3 months. Before you know it, unemployment insurance has been extended beyond the half-year mark, which is the basic program, to another full year beyond that at a cost of $25 billion.

Just to put all of this in context, the Federal Government spent $250 billion for extended unemployment insurance benefits since 2008. Of course, the President did not mention some of the primary causes for income inequality and the loss of upward mobility because he is responsible for a lot of that, along with his allies. He failed to mention that under his administration America has suffered the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, and he failed to mention his signature health care law. I mentioned that a moment ago. He is trying to pivot to another subject, but inevitably we find ourselves coming back to ObamaCare and its negative impact on job creation and the 40-hour workweek.

We know that ObamaCare has done a number of things in the short period of time since it began the rollout, which was October 1st. Millions of people have lost their existing insurance coverage. In fact, more people have lost their insurance coverage than have signed up for ObamaCare or even Medicaid. Then there is the issue of skyrocketing insurance premiums. So I thought the idea was: How do we make health care more affordable? In fact, instead of making health care better and more affordable, it has become less affordable.

We are not just talking about the insurance premiums, we are talking about deductibles. We have all heard the stories of people signing up on the ObamaCare exchanges only to find out: Yeah, they have health insurance, but you know what, the first $5,000 per person is the deductible, which effectively means--for all practical purposes--that person is self-insured. That is a deal breaker for many hard-working middle-class Americans.

We know, of course, that even organized labor has complained about the fact that ObamaCare has turned full-time work into part-time work. Why is that? For employers who put their employees on a 30-hour workweek, they are not required, under the law, to pay for health care benefits. But if you have a full-time worker, you are required to pay for health care benefits. So what is happening is that many employers are cutting people back from 40 hours to 30 hours with a commensurate loss of income.

Recently, I was in Tyler, TX, sitting around a table at a restaurant when one gentleman who owns a restaurant said that because of ObamaCare one of the single moms who works in his restaurant lost her 40-hour workweek job. He had to cut her down to 30 hours. So she had to get two 30-hour jobs in order to get by. In other words, she now has to work 60 hours instead of working 40 hours, and obviously she is worried about the lack of time she has with her children in addition to having lost her full-time job.

The President has also failed to mention a number of other items which have contributed to income inequality and the loss of upward mobility, such as the medical device tax that is a feature of ObamaCare. In Texas we have a number of medical device companies that came to see me after the ObamaCare legislation passed.

They said: We have a duty to our shareholders not to spend their money inefficiently, and so our only alternative is to expand our existing facility in Costa Rica rather than in Texas. So the jobs that would have been created in Texas effectively moved to Costa Rica because of the medical device tax. So much for job creation and reducing income inequality and enhancing upward mobility.

The President also declined to talk about his refusal to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. Of course, this is a pipeline that would start in Canada and end up in Port Arthur, TX, in an area we call the Golden Triangle. We happen to have a lot of refineries there that can refine that oil into gasoline, jet fuel, and other products for Americans consumers.

The President promised the country he would make a decision by the end of 2013. I may have missed something during the holidays, but I don't recall the President making any announcement whatsoever on the Keystone XL Pipeline. Not only would it produce thousands of good well-paying jobs, it would also produce a dependable supply of energy from a friendly country--the nation of Canada.

What else did the President fail to mention in his income inequality and upward mobility speech? He failed to mention how the impact of his regulatory policies are piling hundreds of billions of dollars of additional costs on small businesses.

For example, the small banks in Texas have told me that they have hired new people, but the people they hired are the people who help us comply with the Dodd-Frank regulations. This bill--just to remind everybody--was filed to address the abuses on Wall Street that led to the subprime loan crisis and collapse in 2008. As we now know, while Wall Street was the target of Dodd-Frank and these regulations, Main Street is the collateral damage. Yes, people are being hired but not for the purpose of loaning more money and helping small businesses start and grow their businesses but, rather, just to comply with new government regulations.

What else did the President fail to mention in his discussion about the lack of jobs and upward mobility? He failed to mention his proposed greenhouse gas rules, which will kill jobs and drive up energy costs.

He failed to mention that during the so-called Obama economic recovery--the President has now been President for 5 years. He can't blame this on George Bush anymore. But during the so-called Obama economic recovery, real median household income has fallen more than $2,500. At the same time that real household median income has fallen by $2,500, households are finding that their health care insurance costs have gone up by $2,500, for a net loss of $5,000 for most hard-working American families.

The President has failed to acknowledge--in his discussion of slow economic growth--high unemployment. He has failed to mention that the economic recovery following the 2008 recession has been the weakest U.S. recovery since World War II.

Economists ordinarily say that after a recession there will be sort of a V-shaped recovery--once you hit the bottom, you come out of it very quickly and the economy grows fast. Under the Obama recovery, that has been flatlined to anemic growth, which is not fast enough or strong enough to hire more American workers.

Indeed, we have the lowest percentage of Americans actually in the workforce in the last 30 years. What that means is that even though the unemployment rate is roughly 7 percent--that is on a national basis--millions of people have simply dropped out of looking for a job because they see the prospects for finding work so dim.

The President also failed to mention that his 2009 stimulus package--at that time you may remember that Speaker Pelosi said: Our goal is to make timely, targeted, and temporary investments in government spending to help stimulate the economy and help bring down the unemployment rate.

The President later joked and said--we found out it wasn't a funny joke--that ``shovel ready'' didn't actually mean it was shovel ready, which was absolutely true. He failed to add that his 2009 stimulus package added more than $1 trillion to the national debt, which now stands at $17.3 trillion. That is equivalent to more than $54,000 worth of debt for every man, woman, and child living in America today.

I don't think anyone in their right mind believes we can continue down this same path of racking up more and more debt by borrowing more and more money without having some negative consequences at some point in the future. One thing we do know will occur is that the present generation that is racking up all of this debt will probably not be around to have to pay it back, but the next generation and beyond will.

If the President wants to have an honest debate about income inequality, he needs to be honest about his own record, and he needs to talk about it in a holistic context.

A few months ago, the New York Times reported that the trend of rising inequality ``appears to have accelerated during the Obama administration.'' Indeed, according to one measure of the income gap, inequality has increased about four times faster under President Obama than it did under President George W. Bush.

Here is the reality: If we want to reduce income inequality, we need to boost economic growth. That is the debate we should be having and which this side of the aisle embraces--not how we can pay more government benefits to people who can't find work or artificially fix the price of wages. We need to figure a way to benefit the entire country by growing the economy.

Largely--at least where I come from--people say there are three things that the Federal Government can do to help grow the economy: Get out of the way, get off our back, and get your hand out of our pocket. Those are three things the Federal Government could do which would help the economy grow, create more opportunity, and deal with this issue of income equality in an effective sort of way.

So we need to boost economic growth. That is the debate we should be having--how do we create more jobs, or actually how do we allow the private sector to create more jobs? We tried having the government spend borrowed money to create more jobs, and that did not turn out so well. So now we need to figure a way to get out of the way so the private-sector economy can create the jobs that will put Americans back to work and deal with this issue of income inequality once and for all.

As we saw last night, instead of trying to actually solve the problem, sometimes I am tempted to think that the majority leader and his allies really want a political issue rather than a solution to the problem, because we saw last night the majority leader was ready to have a vote with 17 Senators missing because of the storms around the country. We know people could not get back because of cold weather and storms and flight cancellations and the like, and I predict if we had had the vote last night, the cloture vote that we had today would have failed, and that would have fit very nicely into the majority leader's and the President's desire to change the subject from ObamaCare to Republicans blocking this unemployment compensation bill.

It did not turn out that way because we had the vote here this morning. We embrace the opportunity to talk about our progrowth alternatives, which will actually make life better for the American people, not worse, as the policies of this administration have over the last 5 years.

Basically, we know that the demand is this: to extend long-term unemployment benefits beyond the half year, which is the basic program, another 3 months, and to put the entire $6.5 billion tab on our national credit card. But I ask you, What is going to happen after 3 months? Will the President and his allies be back asking for another 3 months and another $6.5 billion in deficit spending that will be added to the debt? I think so. How about in 9 months? If we extend it for two 3-month periods, we will be here for another one that will extend it to 9 months and beyond, ad infinitum--$25 billion in added deficit and debt spending--unless we solve the root of the problem.

Republicans would prefer that we offset any real extension with spending cuts that would make it revenue neutral. We would also like to reform the unemployment insurance program so it delivers better results to the unemployed.

For example, if there is one thing that most people who are unemployed need it is the opportunity for job skills training. We ought to make sure things such as Pell grants are available for people during that 26-week period of time they are on unemployment, that they can go to a community college in their own town and learn new job skills, and so they do not have to be stuck in the same old position. They could learn new job skills, which will open a whole new world of opportunity for them when it comes to jobs.

Before I conclude, I want to mention a few numbers that help put the Obama economy in perspective. According to the Joint Economic Committee, the economy grew during the first 4 years of the Reagan administration by 22.3 percent--22.3 percent. During the first 4 years of the Obama administration, it was about 9 percent--less than half. Why is that? Why is it that the economy grew during the first 4 years of the Reagan administration by 22 percent; in the first 4 years of the Obama administration by about 9.2 percent?

As I pointed out, there are some good reasons why this recovery has been anemic and so slow and why so many people are still struggling to find work. If the Obama recovery had been as strong as the Reagan recovery, we would have millions more private-sector jobs. Isn't that what we want? The recipients of unemployment insurance compensation do not want to receive a government check. What they want is the dignity and the self-confidence and the opportunity to provide for their family that comes with a good job. That is what is missing in this whole equation and this transparent political exercise to play gotcha at their expense.

We know it was President Reagan's economic strategies, combined with permanent, broad-based tax cuts and sensible regulatory policies that helped grow the economy. By contrast, President Obama's strategy is to combine massive tax increases--including the payroll tax, a year ago January--with a regulatory bonanza. We do not have to speculate about what the impacts of President Obama's policies are. We are living with them today.

So I would say to President Obama, if you really want to reduce income inequality and promote upward mobility, we want to have that conversation. Let's get back to the policies, though, that have worked so well in the past, not those which have failed us and the American people during the last 5 years. Let's put a stop to regulations that do not pass a cost-benefit test. Let's do what we need to expand domestic energy production and create jobs.

Do you know where the two lowest unemployment rates in the country are? Bismarck, ND, and Midland, TX, and that is because of the shale energy renaissance that has created jobs. If you can pass a commercial driver's license test, you can get a job driving a truck with a high school degree in both of those places and earn between $75,000 and $100,000 a year; the lowest unemployment in the country but this administration's policies have made it harder and harder for those jobs to be created, along with the Keystone Pipeline and the jobs that would create.

We need also to reform our Tax Code to encourage more investment. We need to reward earned success so that small businesses can be started, so existing small businesses can expand. All of the President's policies, including, of course, most notably, ObamaCare, have made that harder. We need to do what we can, as I said, to expand domestic energy production and create jobs. We need to reform unemployment insurance to get more people back into the workforce by making sure they have the job training they need to learn employable skills.

Then, of course, the subject that will not go away--notwithstanding the President's most earnest desire--that is, we need to dismantle ObamaCare before it does any more harm to our health care system and our broader economy. We need to replace it with more affordable coverage that lets consumers keep the doctor they trust--a promise that ObamaCare made, but a promise that has been broken, as too many people already know.

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Mr. CORNYN. Before the distinguished Senator from Ohio leaves the floor, I did not know he was coming down, but I am delighted he did. Not only is he an expert and former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, distinguished Member of the House, now the Senate, and a great new addition since 2010, he understands these issues, particularly the fiscal issues, better than most of us.

But the Senator makes a very important point. I am worried, based on what the majority leader did last night, that they preferred to have a ``gotcha'' moment, have the bill fail at the very outset, rather than have a fulsome debate and a realistic discussion about what the alternatives are to basically permanently paying people not to work, through virtually a permanent extension of unemployment.

More than most people, the Senator from Ohio, when he came to this Chamber, said what we need is a jobs program. So he advocated among those in our Republican conference. He said: We need a positive program for how do we facilitate the economy, the private sector, creating those jobs. Of course, he described the amendment that he intends to offer on this bill, not only to pay for this 3-month extension, which would be a welcome measure, but also to reform the unemployment system so that people can learn skills that actually match them with the jobs that do exist.

I would add, while the Senator is on the floor, that as he knows, there are a lot of other good ideas that will be offered this week by this side of the aisle, but it is entirely dependent upon the majority leader allowing that sort of fulsome debate and those ideas to come to the floor and be available for a vote, things such as the Forty Hours Is Full Time Act that Senator Collins has promoted, the medical device tax which I talked about, the repeal sponsored--the chief sponsor, Senator Hatch of Utah.

Senator Barrasso from Wyoming has got one that would repeal the health insurance tax from ObamaCare, which is a direct passthrough to consumers. Senator Paul, Senator McConnell have their economic freedom zones idea to help blighted areas where unemployment is high, and to create a way for the private sector to be incentivized to come in and start jobs and to create opportunity.

We have got regulatory reform bills and proposals. We have got the Keystone XL Pipeline idea. I know Senator Lee and Senator Rubio have both recently come up with some very visionary ideas about how do we fight the war on poverty in a realistic sort of way. But my point is that whether we are going to get into that debate and give a full and fair consideration of all of these ideas about how to solve this problem depends on the majority leader allowing amendments to be offered and voted on.

I would ask the Senator from Ohio what his expectation is in that regard, and what the consequences would be if the majority leader decides to deny any amendments and basically shut down this process?

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Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Senator for responding to that question.

I would point out, in conclusion, that this bill extends unemployment benefits for 3 months at a cost of $6.5 billion, right now which is unpaid for. But if the amendment of the Senator from Ohio is adopted, there is the solution to that problem, along with reform of the job training components of our current unemployment compensation system.

But if we are unable to have this broader debate, we will find ourselves right back here in 3 more months because none of the underlying problems, of which high unemployment and low growth are symptoms, will have been addressed. So what I hope--and I would love to be optimistic about the majority leader's willingness to allow those amendments and allow those votes and have that fulsome debate. If he does not, then we have had a 3-month patch and we will be right back here with the same problems confronting us, with the underlying symptoms of an anemic economy, with slow economic growth and high unemployment.

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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