Senate Proceeding on Oct 28th, 2009 :: 2:39:30 to 2:49:05
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2:39:30 to 2:49:05( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Robert Menendez

2:39:34 to 2:39:57( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: quorum call: a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator mr. menendez: mr. president, i asthat vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: mr. president, i come to the the pending business before the senate, the unemployment insurance extension, and i rise today to say that it should come as a surprise to no one that we

2:39:58 to 2:40:19( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: have a jobs crisis in america. to help fix term, we need to extend unemployment insurance benefits to help families who a suffering through the worst job market in obstruct and political now, i sometimes wonder whether

2:40:20 to 2:40:40( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: my colleagues understand that people's lives are in the balance. it's not a time for political grandstanding, not a time to once again say no -- no to everyt need help. this is not a time for amdments about acorn or e-verify, amendments that have

2:40:41 to 2:41:03( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: been offer floor of the senate time and time and time again. and it's nice who offer them get their paychecks direct deposited every two weeks. this is not the time to offer them again after the job crisis this administration inherited unemployment in new jersey is at

2:41:04 to 2:41:24( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: 9.8%, just shy of a double-digit unemployment, and the experts tell us it will get worse before it gets better. this is not the time to keep saying have -- we are trying to come out of policies of the last eight years that brought us to these present economic circumstances. the policies of the last administration that favored the

2:41:25 to 2:41:45( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: bottom line over the lives of people, wall street over main street, sent millions of jobs overseas leaving us vulnerable to any economic downturn, let alone one so severe as the one we were left with. when the economy sheds 263,000

2:41:46 to 2:42:06( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: jobs in one month alone, it's a cris. when 14.9 million americans are unemployed and we know that there are only 3 million jobs available, it's not the time to say no. when over a third of all unemployed, more than 5 million american, have been jobless for

2:42:07 to 2:42:30( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: six months or longer and 500,000 americans will exhaust their unemployment benefits this month month, 1.5 million by the end of the year, we have to say yes to extending unemployment benef you know, mr. president, we could day. we could hold up chart after

2:42:31 to 2:42:51( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: chart showing state-by-state unemployment figures. but as the president knows from his own comments on these senate floor, the numbers don't tell us what this is really all about. it's about peoe lives and their hopes and the look on their faces when bill comes due, the fear that

2:42:52 to 2:43:12( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: they could stand to lose everything. everywhere i go when i'm back home, someone comes up to me and i see that look on their face. it's the look of panic. it's the look of anguish. they lost their job after the holidays. their benefits are about to run out.

2:43:13 to 2:43:35( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: they lost their health care, they're behind on their mortgage mortgage. a husband or wife is working two part-time jobs to try to make up up. the story of these troubled times is not in the numbers, it's in the faces of those families who are looking to us for help. mr. president, the numbers are

2:43:36 to 2:43:57( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: significant but they're merely a nap shot frozen in time. the truth of joblessness in this country is an ever-changing story of men and women who are one check away from ruin. mothers and fathers who have struggled all their lives to make ends meet, had a good job

2:43:58 to 2:44:19( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: for years, made a decent wage, then saw eight years of government policies that favored wall street over main street. they watched their companies downsize for greater productivity, sent jobs overseas. they watched their friends laid off. they went to bed at night praying that they would not be next.

2:44:20 to 2:44:42( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: and then they got the news, they were next. but they had hope because of the wisdom of franklin rooseve, who on august 14 of 1935, 74 years ago, signed into law the social security act included the first provisions for unemployment insurance and the republican opposition in

2:44:43 to 2:45:04( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: his day called him a socialist and they tried everything they could to stop the new deal notwithstanding an economy in depressi for f.d.r., the story was not in the numbers, it was in the faces of the people in grainy black-and-white photographs of bread lines and old women selling apples on street corners.

2:45:05 to 2:45:25( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: today the faces of the unemployed are their need for help is the same and our duty to provide it is the same. mr. president, this is about them. it's about realeople who maybe, just maybe, if we have the w somewhat obviously right

2:45:26 to 2:45:46( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: rather than later, we'll look across the kitchen table tonight knowing that they're able to hold on just a little longer. i know there are those who have bought into the notion that government is the problem for everything. that it can do nothing right. and should stay out of just about everything. that the free market should be

2:45:47 to 2:46:08( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: left to its own device and everyone should fend for itself without government oversight or involvement. those are the same views that fought the new deal, they fought against social security an medicare and civil rights and supported reaganomics a street knows best. i think history, especially

2:46:09 to 2:46:30( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: recent history, has proven them wrong. good, well-run, decent, honest government can be part of the solution, and this is one of those times when it's government's responsibility to act. stepping unemployment insurance is what we as responsible government leaders must do when there are those in the community

2:46:31 to 2:46:53( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: who have no other option. this is not a time to say no. to delay voting on this bill is to turn our back on millions across this nation who are still unemployed and facing financial disaster. to look into their faces an say no is not who we are as a people

2:46:54 to 2:47:17( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: or what we stand nation. we are a community united by shared values an common concerns, -- and common concerns, not a nation of 300 million connected individuals. if any one of us should be a concern for all of us. mr. president, the federal government stepped in at the

2:47:18 to 2:47:40( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: right time to help companies predetermined too big to fail. not for the sake of them failing, but for the sake of what they would do to our national economy. we said they were too big to fail. well, i say the american people are too big to fail and now we have to step in and help them. this is america. we don't -- or let the situation get the best of us.

2:47:41 to 2:48:01( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: we take it as an opportunity as frank lynn roosevelt did to -- franklin roosevelt did to have the concept of community, one nation indivisible. whether it means federal aid for those who cannot find a job,

2:48:02 to 2:48:23( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: those who wake up with the want ads in one hand and their resume in another trying to figure out how to match up and get that job or providing incentives to homeowners to boost the economy, we always rise to the challenge. we have done it before and we can do it again. this is our chance for each of

2:48:24 to 2:48:45( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: us in this chamber to do what's right for every american who is looking to us for a little help and a little hope. it's not the time to say no again, mr. president. with that, mr. president, i yield t absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk

2:48:46 to 2:48:51( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Menendez: will call the roll.