Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. REID. Of course.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask the distinguished majority leader whether it is the position of his caucus and his position personally that people ought to be able to collect unemployment compensation and disability benefits simultaneously?

Mr. REID. No. And that is why Jack Reed's proposal stops it.

Mr. CORNYN. I would further ask the majority leader, it is my understanding that the amendment of the distinguished Senator from Ohio would discontinue the simultaneous collection of disability and unemployment benefits. But the majority leader objects to that amendment and instead is blocking that amendment and other amendments by the Republican side of the aisle by one which changes the effective date of the bill 1 day. In other words, it is purely a blocker amendment, has zero substance whatsoever, and does nothing to improve the underlying bill.

Mr. REID. Is there a question in all of this?

Mr. CORNYN. Isn't that right?

Mr. REID. Is what right?

Mr. CORNYN. What I just said.

Mr. REID. No, it is not right, because what the amendment of the Senator from Ohio does is hurt people who are disabled. Part of Jack Reed's amendment stops people from drawing both benefits at the same time.

Mr. CORNYN. I would ask the distinguished majority leader one more question.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

Mr. REID. I would be happy to.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

Mr. CORNYN. Is the majority leader aware there are 24 Republican amendments on file, almost all of which deal with the underlying bill in an attempt to either improve workforce education and training, provide other reforms to the unemployment compensation system, or otherwise help the economy recover so that people won't have to depend on unemployment insurance and they can get a job? Is the majority leader aware that there are those amendments and those ideas on this side of the aisle?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

Mr. REID. I don't know the exact number, but there are always a lot of proposed amendments around. What I would say is this: Rather than continually denigrating our economy, our President, and, frankly, I believe, our country, I think we should have some more constructive things around here.

For example, we had today a conversation for 1 1/2 hours with Chairman Bernanke. He is going to be there until the first of next month. It was a very good discussion. He talked about the vibrancy of this economy now. He said, as we have been saying here, it is not as good as it should be, but with a little bit of help, it would be on fire. Now, why isn't it on fire? Because of the obstruction over here.

As the Presiding Officer knows, the new Fed chair, Chairman Yellen, has also said unemployment benefits are a great impetus in helping the economy. For every $1 put into the economy in unemployment benefits, we get $1.50 back.

This bill recognizes that these benefits don't go on forever. That is why we make structural changes. We would be happy anytime to sit down and have a good discussion with the senior Senator from Texas and anyone else to talk about things we can do.

We have had a lot of programs that deal with job retraining. In 1998 when we did that, it wasn't a bad deal. Here it is all these many years later, and of course we need to sit down and talk about ways to improve retraining. This whole country needs that. That is also something Chairman Bernanke said today.

So I repeat, let's start being constructive around here, and instead of talking about how terrible things are, let's talk about how things are improving. We have had 8 million new jobs since Obama has been President. We have a lot of good things that have happened. Has it been perfect? Not even close to perfect.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source