provide food on the table, for children who are innocent, for seniors who may be living with families who are innocence -- innocent, for single parent head of households who are innocent, who literally have worked. a story i heard today at hearing in memphis on foreclosure, about a woman with a number of children who worked as hard as she could but the industry that she was in, furniture sales, obviously home sales are down, furniture sales are down, she find hers self upon hard times. she needs unemployment insurance to make sure that she doesn't lose the small condominium that she has. these are painful stories. 62% of americans agree that we should extend the unemployment benefits. the congressional budget office policies that could be implemented relatively quickly are targeted to what people whose consumption tend to be restricted by their income, such as reducing payroll taxes for firms that increase payroll or

increasing aid to the unemployed would have the largest effects on output and employment per dollar of budgetary costs, meaning that extending unemployment benefits is one of the most cost effective ways of turning the economy but preventing people from collapsing you understand the weight and the burden of having nothing. it also speaks to the mental state of people who are struggling. they need to know there's an out, there's a way they can be provided for. so we, the democrats, would provide for up to 99 weekly unemployment checks averaging about $300 to people whose 26 weeks of state-paid benefits have run out. the benefits would be extended toward the end of november. what can i say? it's a simple request. i ask the senate republicans to

stop now from blocking hard working americans from being table provide for their families. i ask you to accept the democratic proposal of extending these benefits for 99 weeks, up to 99 weeks, and to do what we did in this house. i'm appreciative of the gentlelady's leadership and grateful our leadership came to the floor tonight. majority leader steny hoyer wanted our colleagues to know that the leadership stands firmly behind doing the right thing. as i close, i want to remind our colleagues of some stories that we heard early on. we were discussing another issue. some may not be aware that some of our young soldiers have had to be on food stamps in the past. democrats, of course, have corrected some of that by increasing their wages. but never let it be said that

we are here making tomfoolery out of the budget of this nation. we are here standing for people truly in need. tomorrow will be the s.o.s. day, the emergency day the call to day for action. i hope my colleagues remember the story of the good samaritan and provide and reinforce the trust and contract made with the american people if you work and invest, when you need the rainy day umbrella of unemployment benefits extended, we will be there for you. i yield back to the gentlelady. ms. fudge: thank you very much. it's always enlightening to hear how you approach a subject, thank you for always sharing monday evenings with me. i would now like to yield to my friend, the gentlelady from california, ms. chu. ms. chu: thank you so much and

i truly appreciate the gentlelady from ohio for her leadership in putting this special order together on such a critical topic. i rise today to call attention to the plight of millions of american families. across the country, men, women, and children are caught in the crosshairs of republican political calculations. instead of providing emergency relief to americans laid off in the latest recession, a partisan senate minority is blocking this vital aid. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle should be ashamed. time and time again, when asked to solve our nation's problems, they have instead shown why they have been known as the party of no. it couldn't come at a worse time. throughout our country, we face the worst financial crisis since the great depression. it's the legacy of eight years of the bush administration. my hometown, los angeles, lost

over 84,000 jobs this past year. that's the greatest decrease for any metropolitan area in america. congressional democrats want to confront this problem head on. that's why a majority of senators have tried, not once, not twice but three times to temporarily extend unemployment benefits. because any economist will tell you that in addition to helping individual families, the program stimulates the entire economy. but, the obstructionists just don't care. they don't care about the 368,000 californian who was lost benefits since their filibuster began a month ago. they don't care about the 2.1 million americans in other state who was been cut off. they don't care about people like marcello and maria gonzalez. for 34 years, marcello work nerd same credit card

manufacturing company. it provided a paycheck and peace of mind. but 16 months ago, his facility cut back production and marcello lost his job. fortunately, unemployment benefits kept food on the table for the gonzalezes and their two children. that is, until republicans cut off the program and its aid to families like them. this obstruction doesn't just keep food off american tables. it keeps american people out of work. people like anet tornberg. last summer, anette lost her job at a sacramento book bindery. last mt. she lost her weekly $270 in unemployment benefits. this means she can no longer buy the gas she needs to drive to job interviews you see, annette, like the vast majority of those on unemployment, used these funds as a bridge to their next job. not a replacement for it.

the notion that emergency relief somehow discourages people from looking for work is not only misguided, it reflects a lack of faith in hardworking americans like annette. this republican opposition, however, goes beyond a lack of faith. it is a deliberate means of allowing millions to suffer, worrying about whether they can put food on the table. and we cannot let this happen. it's time for this stonewalling to end. senate republicans need to get out of the way so annette can get the new job, so marcello gonzalez can put food on the table again, and so that millions of meshes who are out of work through no fault of their own can once again get the emergency relief and peace of mind they need to make it through tough times. tonight, i'm calling on republicans to stop hurting american families, stop playing

politics with this problem, and start letting the senate and millions of americans get back to work. again, i thank the gentlelady from ohio for this very, very important special order and allowing us to say what we need to on this very important issue. ms. fudge: thank you so very much. mr. speaker, i would now yield to my friend and classmate, the gentleman from florida, mr. grayson. mr. grayson: thank you. my grandfather, in the 1930's, spent several years of his life, every single day, going to the dump looking for things there that he could sell. looking for things he could take to the market and sell because there was no other way for him to survive the 1930's, the great depression. there was no unemployment insurance back then. there was no state benefits

back then. there was no help for the people who had jobs. all they could do, like my grandfather in desperate straits, supporting a family of seven, was to go to the dump and desperately try to find something he could sell. that, my friends is the america that the republicans are trying to revive. the america of desperate straits and for them, cheap labor. the america where people have nothing, hope for nothing and are desperate to live for the next day. that is what the republicans are trying to resurrectly blocking unemployment insurance day after day, week after week and now month after month. i've got news for my republican friends. every single person is going to receive unemployment insurance under this bill is unemployed. every single one of them doesn't have a job. and that's why they need this money. now, i know what the republicans are thinking. they're thinking, why don't they just sell some stock.

if they're in really dire straits, maybe they could take some of their art collection and send it off to the auctioneer and if they're in deep, deep trouble, maybe these unemployed can sell one of their yachts. that's what the republicans are thinking right now. but that's not the life of ordinary people. the 99% of america that actually has to work for a living that doesn't just clip coupons and live off interest and dividends like my republican friends do. that's why we need this bill to pass. because of the 99% of america that deals with reality every day. the people who will lose their homes if this bill doesn't pass. the people who will be living in their cars if this bill doesn't pass. that's why we need this to pass. i will say this to republicans who have blocked this bill now for months and kept food out of the mouths of children, i will say to them now, may god have mercy on your souls. i yield back.

ms. fudge: thank you very much. mr. speaker, we've heard but a few stories of the millions of americans who stand in need in this country today. the wealthiest nation in the world. as people who are hungry, as people who are homeless. mr. speaker, i asked the question earlier, to those who would fight and try to block this legislation, how do you sleep at night? how i want to think of those same people who would oppose this bill, i hope you don't sleep. i hope you don't get a wink of sleep until you decide that it is important to do what is right for the people of this country. i hope you can't sleep. until you understand that our former co-workers, our neighbors, our friends, our family are hurting. if you can't figure it out as you lay awake, get up and walk to the drugstore, to the grocery store, to the barbershop, any place where people are gathered. you'll find someone who needs your help.

so i would just hope that you stay awake all night tonight so that when the vote comes down tomorrow, you will do the right thing. mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mr. king: thank you, mr. speaker. as always, i'm privileged and honored to address you here on the floor of the great deliberative body. having come here and sat down and listened to the presentation of my colleagues in the previous hour. most of what you have heard here tonight has been the regular fair delivered from the d-triple c.

not a lot of original thinking. i call upon the american people to use that great gift of reason and think this through. first, i just go backwards, the gentleman from florida alleges, mr. speaker, that republicans have blocked the unemployment extension. republicans have blocked the unemployment extension. the gentleman from florida if he knows anything, knows very well the republicans don't have the votes to block an unemployment extension. don't have the votes to block a declaration of war we don't have the votes to block anything in this congress. anything that didn't get done that he laments should have been done, why is -- lies at the feet of the speaker of the house and the majority leader in the united states senate and the democrats. not republicans. wish we had the authority and the votes to kill some of these crazy ideas that are coming out of the progressives on the left. we don't have those votes. we can't kill crazy ideas.

now i have to sit here and listen to the crazy allegation that republicans are to blame for blocking unemployment benefit extensions. outrageous thing to say. then to follow it up with, may god have mercy on your soul, as if the gentleman has a deep core of faith and was worried about the souls of republicans. i'm awfully glad he's not been appointed to be st. peter. if he could make that call at the paroley gates, i'm pretty -- at the pearly gates, i'm pretty sure republicans would be condemned to the fires of hell in his judgment. we have been fed a line of baloney. republicans don't have the votes to block an unemployment extension. if it didn't happen in the house of representatives, it didn't happen by the will of the speaker and the majority in this congress, the democrats. that is a fact, mr. speaker. it's not arguable. it's not even nuanced. it's clean as it can be. i wish it were not the case but it is.

speaker pelosi could have forced an unemployment extension off this floor, had she chose ton do so. and if she chose to send it to the floor on suspension, where it takes 2/3 to pass an unemployment extension, then clearly it's a cynical attempt to try to tell the american people the same thing we've heard from the gentleman from florida, blame it on the republicans. but if democrats cared about extending unemployment benefits, they would have brought the legislation through. this house doesn't have the votes to kill it. the speaker, if the democrats -- remember, 34 democrats voted no on obamacare. every single republican voted no on obamacare and still it's the law of the land. however, temporarily, it's the law of the land. obamacare passed the house of representatives with every single republican standing in

uniform saying no. and 34 democrats joined we have single republican and said no to obamacare and still, and still their hearts were hardened and still obamacare went to the white house and to the president's desk where today it's the law of the land. so for the gentleman from florida to stand over at that microphone and try to convince you, mr. speaker, probably should have gaveled him for the audacity of that statement and the lack of accuracy, but try to convince you and the american people that it's republicans that are blocking an extension of unemployment benefits, i don't think there's a sixth grader out there with a rational thought in their head that would believe that if they knew the facts. now, the gentleman from florida, some of the members of the democrat party, some of the people who are the spokesmen and spokeswomen for speaker pelosi

would say, steve king is wrong, we're really referring to republicans blocking unemployment benefits in the senate. we know that, we've established this, mr. speaker, there is no question and if anyone challenges the veracity of my statement, stand up. i'll recognize you. i'll yield my time to hear, if you think you have a rebuttal to my statement. of course you won't. you'll sit there and sit on your hands because you know i'm right. your silence is a confession that what i've said is 100% true. democrats haven't moved an extension of unemployment benefits because they don't have the rotes -- votes to get that done. it's not the republican resistance that stood in the way. that's the fact. it's unrebut wid makes it a fact -- unrebutted which makes it a fact. and so the deal with the house is all wrapped up. my argument stands. no one can rebut my argument.

and so the arguments on the part of the gentleman from florida are false. but down the other end of this rotunda there might be an argument, mr. speaker, and so perhaps we should examine that argument about whether the republicans in the senate have the votes to kill the extension of unemployment benefits. let's remember, this is 33 -- $33 billion or $34 billion with a b. to extends unemployment benefits to 99 weeks. for practical purposes let's give that in round numbers. you only have to round up that three weeks to get to two years. two years of unemployment. extended by the united states congress, the tab picked up by the taxpayers of america, money coming from where? let's just say the chinese, for want of a better source, as long as they keep loaning us money we'll borrow it and we'll borrow money to pay people not to work to the tune of 99 weeks of

unemployment. now, that's a separate argument, mr. speaker. but the argument made by the gentleman from florida that republicans are blocking the extension of unemployment benefits and should god have mercy on their soul for doing that, it's not the republicans, republicans don't have the power in the senate either. we've established we don't have the power in the house. republicans don't have the power in the senate to block an extension of unemployment benefits. these democrats know by the way it's coming. it's going to get done, it's going to pass the senate, it will come here to the house, unemployment benefits. but, should every republican in the united states senate stand against the extension of unemployment benefits without a paid for, by the way, without any fiscal responsibility, 100% borrowed money, 100% racking up the national debt, the national debt that this year rings into $ 1.5 -- excuse me, the deficit rings into $1.5 trillion.

the national debt runs to $13.18 trillion. the g.d.p., gross domestic product, is $13.20 trillion. so if we just round that to the nearest tenth of a trillion, our national debt is equal to our gross domestic product. i don't know that that's ever happened in the history of america. but to explore the question in the united states senate, if harry reid, the majority leader, decides to bring an extension of unemployment benefits that cost the taxpayers $33 billion or $34 billion to the floor of the united states senate and republicans decide they want to block it, now, according to the filibuster rules it might require -- it might require the 60 votes, that 60/40 majority in the senate to break the filibuster. and they are a vote short of that and they swore in a new

senator i think it is today. so now they come closer and if a republican will switch over and vote to break the filibuster then they're ready to close the deal on unemployment benefits, unpaid for, fiscally irresponsible, without trying to cut some government spending somewhere. ok. weel give you all that have, mr. speaker -- we'll give you all of that, mr. speaker, you understand the filibuster rules. but let's -- under the filibuster rules. but let's keep in mind that we had obamacare come before the house and before the senate and is our memory so short, is mr. grayson's memory so short that he doesn't remember the reconciliation package that came bang from the senate here to the floor -- back from the senate here to the floor of the house? does the gentleman from florida and the other people who put these allegations out, do they forget that obamacare didn't pass with a 60/40 vote to break the filibuster in the united states senate? it passed with a reconciliation

package that required a simple majority in the united states senate. so, if harcombrry reid is sincere and he really -- so if harry reid is sincere answered really wants to get unemployment benefits to the people in this country, he can wrap it up in a reconciliation package, pass it in a simple majority and send it over here to the house where the speaker would almost certainly bring unemployment benefits to the floor of the house and the gentleman from florida, nerve america knows, the votes are here in the house right now to pass those extensions. but they can't do that right away. they've got to spend a day or two or three more beating up on republicans, making false allegations to try to convince the american people that these demons that are knocking at the pearly gates, may god have mercy on your souls, according to mr. grayson, are somehow trying to keep those resources out of the hands of hardworking americans. and they wonder why america is cynical. and they wonder why their

credibility has gone down the drain, they wonder why the popularity of congress is at the lowest point ever and the popularity of the speaker may be, at least in modern record keeping, at the lowest point of and the lack in confidence in government officials is as great as it's ever been. the greatest lack of confidence we've ever had in the united states cofpblgt why? because people -- congress, why? because people come here to the floor and make outrageous statements like that and people don't always hear a rebut al like they're hearing now but -- rebuttal like they're hearing now but they have a memory that lets them roll back and think, what happened here now? we're not going to have obamacare unless we had 60 votes in the senate to pass it. remember this? but remember how because of obamacare, i think it was a big reason, massachusetts delivered to the united states senate scott brown who said, i'm

opposed to obamacare. i will oppose it, i will vote against, it i'll kill it if i can and he came here to the united states senate, was sworn in, was sworn to vote against and kill obamacare. that's what the people in massachusetts wanted, that's what the people in america wanted. but, no, president obama and harry reid and nancy pelosi and a small group of people who were meeting in back rooms decide, we're going to force-feed this on the american people because it matched their ideology. not because it was good policy, not because the budget would be better off, it's worse off. not because they provide better care, it's less care. not because it would be less costly, no, it's more costly. not because people would have more choice as president obama said, they'd have less choice. not because people would be able to keep their insurance policy if they liked it, we know this now. we know that anybody in america

that has a policy today that they think they get to keep, sorry, there isn't one, not one policy, not one american out of 306 million americans that has a health insurance policy that the white house, president obama, robert gibbs, rahm emanuel, you name your spokesman for the quhouse, not one of them, including the president, can point to one single policy and say, rest easy, it's yours. i guaranteed you'd get get to keep your policy and no one can -- you'd get to keep your policy and no one can take it away and no one can dramatically change the benefit package that you have, that's not true. it never was true. they knew it couldn't be true but they never could have cooked up obamacare in the first place, but they said. it they sold the american people a bill of goods and now i'm hearing a bill of goods delivered from this podium over here. but the bottom line is, if it's

unemployment benefit extensions that you seek, it can be delivered by the democrat majority and they should take the blame if it's not there now, not lay it off on the republicans. republicans don't have the votes. harry reid can do a reconciliation package and deliver unemployment benefits just as surely as he sent us obamacare in a reconciliation pack and. remember how that was? we'll pass the bill -- package. remember how that was? we'll pass a bill, even though the majority of the house doesn't support obamacare, there will be a deal that there will be a reconciliation pack thadge will come down the line through the middle of the capital, -- capitol, it will arrive here a reconciliation package and enough people on the democrat side of the aisle, one of the components of that in such way that they said, i'll vote for obamacare on the promise that reconciliation comes and then we'll vote for that and then we'll send them to the white house, to the president's desk, and he can sign them in just the

right order so that a simple majority in the house, a simple majority in the senate can pass obamacare, a simple majority in the house and a simple majority in the senate can pass reconciliation and that in the right timing and the rye sequence, signed in the right order by the president of of the -- president of the united states can impose obamacare on every single american even though on date that obamacare passed the house that bill, standing alone, did not enjoy the majority support of the members here. no, mr. speaker. it enjoyed a bare majority on the promise that there would be a reconciliation package come here to the house floor and on that were some things that didn't have anything to do with health care, including the government take joferte student loan program in the united states -- takeover of the student loan program in the united states of america. the people know it was a back room deal and it was a prom promise and some didn't trust

the promise. and here we stand today listening to dribble about republicans obstructing the extension of unemployment benefits when every american that paid attention to the forced feeding on all of us of obamacare understands that a simple majority in the house will pass and dominate any piece of policy if the speaker decides it's going to go forward, if the majority leader doesn't stand in the way. the speaker will determine what passes in the house and the only check on the speaker is are there 218 slow thes over here? -- votes over here? they had 218 votes over here for obamacare, plus a couple. enand 34 votes to spare -- and 34 votes to pair. shst the problem, mr. speaker -- spare. this is the problem, mr. speaker. when you have massive majorities in the house and in the senate that align themselves with the president of the united states, then you have a situation where

the president wants a policy, let's just call it obamacare, could be extension of unemployment benefits to the tune of $34 billion, and so the president says, i want this. give me obamacare. and by the way, i had a radio announcer talk to me today about how i had used the term obamacare and maybe we should call it something else and i pointed out that obamacare was used by the president of the united states. february 25 of this year. at blair house. he called it obama care -- obamacare. if the president calls it obamacare, i think it's pretty easy shorthand for the rest of us to call it obamacare and it's not prajortive. so the president can decide he wants obamacare and he deliffers to the house of representatives and -- delivers it that house of

representatives and says, give me obamacare. so the speaker marks jort leader and the whip and the rest of the leadership they look around and think, he's our leader, we getter give our leader what he wants. so they will set about reconciling any tiny differences in the back rooms of the united states congress and they will come out with something that compliments the president's request and now you've got the approach that comes from the house, matching up with that of the president of the united states and then they spin it over to the senate where harry reid sits over there and decides, well, let's see, i don't want to cross the president, i don't want to cross the speaker of the house and i don't want to cross the democrat majority of the united states congress, so i want to compliment all the things that they do and add the bells and whistles on that his people want, so they stack that on and now here we go it's an upward spiral. think of this in the terms of policy, a liberty-stealing policy which is obamacare,

that's easy for me to see today because i've talked about this for some time. this massive, $1.5 trillion deficit created by this president, this congress, the house and the senate. it also is an upward spiral of spending. even though the president -- the president did present a budget. the house didn't do a budget. the house didn't do a budget, how many years has it been since the house had a budget? i think 1974. we've had a budget every year since 1974, i may stand to be corrected on that but i believe i'm exactly right on the year, the house will be required by rule to produce a budget since 1974. here we are, 2010, first time the house didn't produce a budget. the president kicks one out, the house doesn't produce one, if the house doesn't produce a

budget, that means republicans don't have the opportunity offer one. so we don't get to put a budget into the record and have a debate and vote these budgets up or down, in which case i vote for the balanced one. we produced a balanced budget within the republican study committee, mr. speaker. it's something i have been engaged in, involved in, and very supportive of for a number of years. and with chairman tom price of the study committee and the budget chair, jim jordan we produced a balanced budget. i've, in the past, voted for a balanced budget, took a while to get here. this year we don't have a chance to do that because the pelosi congress doesn't produce a budget, even though the president does. they don't get to plus up or plus down the spending of the white house. when that does happen, the house here stands to plus it up. because they don't want to say no to the president of the united states system of they

add on. they don't subtract. they don't have a sense of fiscal responsibility. no, they have a sense of pandering to constituencies or taxees. mine are taxpayers, you can tell by my thought process, they wouldn't elect me if they weren't producers. the house would normally plus up the president's budget. if the house is run by democrats if the white house is run by democrats. and then send that budget over there to the senate where harry reid and company would plus up the budget again. they don't want to say no to the president or the house. they just want to make sure they get their spending priorities. they plus that up, spend that up, we've got an upward spiral of the budgeting process going on. the president makes a quherk sends it to the house, the house says we don't want to say no to your things but we've got our things we want, watch the spirals going upwards. the house promotes a spending

increase. now to the senate, harry reid and company, spending, spending, spending. up and up, out through the roof the spending goes. we see numbers like this we see a $1.5 trillion deficit. we see a national debt of $13.18 trillion compared to a gross domestic product of $13.2 trillion, mr. speaker. and if you haven't done the calculation yourself, and i'm sure you're sitting there with a calculator taking a look at this, mr. speaker, it is 99%. our national debt is 99% of our gross domestic product. 99%. so all the money that gets produced, all the production in america in a year, we owe an equivalent amount, 99% of the

equivalent amount, 2010 debt held by public as a percent of g.d.p. the debt, just the debt, not the deficit, but the debt, held by the public as a percent of g.d.p. is 63.2%. by 2020, given how this budget is -- we have to project this because we don't really have a budget. debt held by the pluck as a percent of g.d.p. will be 90% by 2020. by 2027, it will be 120%. that's the debt levpl in 2027 that surpasses greece's current debt level. and when we look at the president's effort the total cost of job saving and job creating stimulus, have to think about that one. i got challenged on that the other day. when i said to an economist on national radio dialogue, made a little fun of the idea, we're

going to create, this is what the president said, we're going to save or create 3.6 million new jobs. 3.6 million jobs. save or create 3.6 million jobs. save or create, mr. speaker. what does that mean? when you save, you can point to creating a job, you can point to creating a job, you might be able to point to the jobs and say, listen, we invested this money in national defense and decided to build these tanks or these drones or this bulletproof vests or m-4's or whatever it might be. so because we've invested in this new equipment and hardware, this factly has hired people for the exclusive purpose of making tanks or drones or bulletproof vests or m-4's. you can say, these jobs are created by government spending. i won't argue so much with that

accounting, though i'd like to see them in the private sector, and those are, but it's government spending. 3.6 million jobs saved or created. when you get to the saved jobs category, mr. speaker. from the instant that came out of the mouth of the president, saved or created, i asked the question, how do you ever determine that 3.6 million jobs have been saved? what jobs haven't been saved, mr. speaker? what jobs? we sit here today with a work force of around 153 million people in this country. 153 million. i'm going to guess on the employment level. i'm going to expect it's lower than that, but the actual working work force, actually, mr. speaker, i will not guess that that. i'll say it's over 100 million. probably 20 million less than that. somewhere around 132 million or 133 million but i qualify that

because that's not a number from the department of labor. so let's just say that employment in america has probably not dropped below 125 million in a long time. and if you're in a -- if you're going to dump 1.-- $1.3 trillion -- excuse me, that number is $1.2 trillion into saving or creating jobs, and the lowest employment we had in america is perhaps 125 million over the last generation or so, then as long as you had 3.6 million jobs left, you could always point to that and say, i saved those 3.6 million. the very last 3.6 million jobs in america, i saved them with my $1.2 trillion economic stimulus plan. so i asked the economist is that a number you use when you're really looking at economics? do you evaluate a category called jobs saved versus jobs

created? he said we do we talk about this in economics. i didn't get it sored -- sorted out if they co-mingle jobs saved with jobs created. i don't think so. it doesn't make sense to me. how do you save jobs? if you have a stable tax base a stable economy, if you have a competitive situation where employers can hire and fire and produce to -- and sell to a marketplace, under those circumstances if those circumstances are static, then chances are the jobs also are static. about the same number of jobs that would be there one day to the next to the next system of the jobs saved -- jobs created would be the jobs that are added to that number because of, let's just say a tax cut policy a regulatory improvement poll soir the president would argue government spending. government spending. we've had a lot of government spending, all right. and there have been jobs that

have been saved because of it. government jobs mostly, not all of them. but we should understand that when the president of the united states steps up and says, i'm going to spend $1.2 trillion of your dollars, your grandchildren are going to have to pay the interest and the principal and in the meantime we borrow money from the chinese and saudis and we're going to save or create 3.6 million jobs, we should say, wait a minute, mr. president. tell us the difference. how many jobs will be created versus how many jobs will be saved? and how will you define saved jobs? how will you define created jobs? what's the difference in your calculation between private sector jobs and public sector jobs? how many are government jobs? how many are private sector jobs? and when we look at the jobs growth and job loss, it makes a

difference what percentage of them, what part of them are private sector versus what part are public. so, we know that the president and democrats, mr. speaker, promise that if the stimulus passed, unemployment wouldn't rise above 8%. so we know we saw unemployment bump up against 10%. it bumped there for quite a while. then it drifted down just a scoshe, mr. speaker, dropped down to 9.5%. now we hear 10% unemployment is the new norm. that's not what the democrats were saying when we had 4.6% unemployment. they said that's too high. they said that's a failure of the bush administration. now we're at 9.5%. it's a lower rate than the new norm of roughly 10%. that's what's going on. the redefinition of the benchmarks and the metrics to

evaluate our economy. but here are the facts, mr. speaker. there have been 3.42 million gross jobs lost since the stimulus plan was passed. that's that $787 billion rolled around by the time you add in loose change to $1 trillion. and 2.53 million net jobs lost. there's been a net loss of 2.53 million jobs. jobs lost. and the gross domestic product growth has averaged 1.4% since the stimulus was passed. 1.4%. how good is that? i mean, i listen to the talking heads, that constantly are yammering about how bad it was and how many jobs were di vested in the bush administration and one would think that the bush administration, mr. speaker,

would be a distant memory. but it's not because we're reminded of it every day, including today, by the president, president obama, when he came forward to demand that the republicans get out of the way and extend unemployment benefits, even the president, apparently, doesn't understand how he pass odd because macare he pass odd draw -- obamacare without any republican votes anywhere. republicans don't have the votes to block any of these ideas. if the president had enough to marinate and figure out how to pass obamacare, how can he with a straight face have the temerity to say to the american people, the republicans are blocking the extension of unemployment benefits? we don't have the votes to do that. all it takes is nan city pelosi, harry reid, barack obama, the ruling troika, to decide they want to pass unemployment benefits and th can do that, mr. speaker.

it is -- there's no doubt about it. they have proven it. they proved it in march of this year when they pass odd because macare. who could be -- passed obamacare. who could be mesmerized by this, by people who want to demagogue against republicans. when the facts are before us. so, here's what we have. 1.4% growth. that's the growth that we have since the stimulus plan was passed. now we might be in an unusual situation. this unusual situation where we are in an economic situation that we can clearly call a recession and it may or may not be more serious than the recession we had when ronald reagan was launched into the white house was of the abysmal economic policies of jimmy carter. but what we saw then, 1982, for example, mr. speaker, 9.3% growth for multiple quarters

from 1982 on, the reagan recovery. the obama recovery, 1.4% growth. 9.3% is the reagan recovery. so which policy worked the best? the tax cuts that reagan brought forward? even though he was faced with democrat majority, he went to the american people and said, get the load off the private sector in america. let them produce, let them earn their keep, let them keep what they earn, more of what they earn, 90% tax rates, can't have that. otherwise, who would go to work if the house will take 90% out of every pot. that's what was going on in 1980 when reagan was elected president. today we have 1.4% growth, tiny little growth. it is growth. i grant the president that. it is growth. the reagan recovery was 9.3% gross growth. i did this tricky little math thing. i took the range growth and

divided it by obama growth and i came with this number, 6.64%. the reagan recovery was 6.64 times greater than what we've seen so far in the obama recovery. so what would be the cause of that? ronds reagan believed the private sector was the growth engine. president obama believes that government is the growth engine. the gross engine. i'll accept that. and so, mr. speaker, quheas going on here is this -- what's going on here is. this the president is a keynesian economist onster oids. whenever the economy -- on steroids. whenever the economy doesn't grow, he believes that we didn't borrow enough money. he believes we didn't spend enough money. he believes we didn't put our grandchildren far enough into debt, apparently. we didn't borrow enough from the chinese, not enough from the

saudies, not enough from the world market. think about it, we funded our way through the great depression and through world war ii almost exclusively with american money. and here we are financing our way through this economic situation with saudi arabia an and chinese money, mr. speaker. and so, as i listen to the president as he delivered his analysis of his economic theory before the republicans in the house conference on february 10, 2009, what he said was that franklin dell nor roosevelt, during the great depression, in the era of the new deal, lost his nerve thearks got worried about spending too much money, he got worried about running america too deeply into debt and because he was worried about spending too much money, f.d.r. pulled back and as he pulled

back he didn't spend enough money, according to the president, in the second half of the 1930's, which brought about a recession within a depression, unemployment numbers went back up again, the growth in g.d.p. went down again and along came world war ii which was the greatest stimulus plan ever. that's the composite of the presentation made by the president, february 10, 2009. well, mr. speaker, we have elected a president who looks back at the keynesian economic theories of the 1930's and draws an entirely different lesson think a draw. he draws the lesson -- than i draufment he draws the lesson that government can borrow money, spend money, stimulate the economy and somehow all of this rolls over and lifts us all up and a rising tide floats all boats but you can raise the tide with federal spending on

borrowed money. i don't know that he's read into detail the history of what actually took place in the 1930's, nor has he per haps read the statements made by john main ard keynes himself, who said, mr. speaker, i can solve for you the problem of all of the unemployment in america, i'll solve all the unemployment in america by doing this, give me an bain doned coal mine and i'll go in there and drill coles -- holes and i'll fill those holes up with american cash. and now back fill the holes and fill that coal mine up with garbage and now here will be all of this american currency buried in these holes, a coal mine filled up with garbage and then he says, i'll turn the entrepreneurs loose to dig up the money. if that happens, look what

happened. that means that people go to work, they start digging through the garbage, they find the money, they digit money out and it takes, you know, it takes all kinds of support mechanisms out there to keep them going. somebody's going to have to move the garbage out of the way, they'll get paid to do that even though they don't get the cash. somebody's going to have to be a doctor there to take care of the people, there's another profession that thank goes on, somebody's got to be the barber, somebody's got to run the sloon, somebody's got to run the restaurant, somebody's got to be the lawyer's office and pretty soon you have this stimulated economy that rolls out of the money that's dug out of the ground as if they were mining gold in fact, keynes said, the keynesian economist, the orange one said, if -- the original one said, if -- well, he believe, i should say, rather than try to quote him precisely that when government spends money, the more foolish the spending, the better because if it's footish

enough it doesn't compete with the private sector. so if government spended money and spends foolishly, it stimulates the economy because it singer lates it back into the economy. if you spend it really dumb it doesn't compete with the private sector. what kind of thinking is this? this is john quheens lost his faith in that economic approach during f.d.r. but we have a president who missed that part of the lesson. we have a president who didn't read the bureauy the cash in the abandoned coal mine and fill the coal mine up with garbage scenario, or if he did he took a different lesson from it than did i. we have a president who does not see the economic continuum from production through the expenditures that builds the way adam smith saw it. but here's this. and dame smith had a beautiful approach to this -- and adam smith had a beautiful approach to. this if the president read "a wealth of nations" he didn't aye

adhere to it but adam smith's book from 1776, what a glorious time that was in our history in western civilization, one of the foundational principles of free enterprise, were articulated in such a clear way by adam smith. by our economy is not based upon consumption, the consumption, eventually, if you have a consumption economy, it's just one huge chain letter and you know what happens if you get in a room and there are 10 of you in the room, the first one that does the chain letter, you can't go outside of the room, is the one that makes the money. the last one to buy the chain letter doesn't have anybody to sell it to. so you go on up the line. it was sam clemens who said a nation can't get rich doing each other's laundsry. neither can we get rich if we are this giant chain letter. where we simply charge each other for doing things and echo that money up and down the economy. quheas the foundation, the benefit of the economy? it's this.

any economy has to be rooted in, if the productivity of its people and productivity comes in vareying degrees. if it's a service economy than it has to be a necessary service economy. it's if it's recreation, that's spending for the disposable income. but here's what an economy has to have. what a people have to have. those components of our survival as a species. so, we need food, we need clothing, we need shelter, we need water at a minimum, something to drink. what produces that? i'll submit, mr. speaker, that it comes from the land. all new wealth comes from the land. new wealth. we value add to that new wealth again and again and again. it's true that you can go out into the ocean and see some fish and that's kind of outside the land, so new wealth plus what you can find out of the ocean

represents all new wealth. and you go cut some timber, you can mine it out of the earth, it can be gold, it can be minerals, it can be cole coal, it can be limestone, it can be gravel. it can be a lot of different minerals that come out of the earth, it comes -- all new wealth comes out of the earth but primarily it's a crop that grows every year that provides the food, clothing and shelter and the water comes from the sky that's necessary for the survival of humanity. they're the most precious commodities we have. when the economy comes down into a crunch and we have to make our decisions on what our priorities are, first we want something to drink. then we want something to eat. then we want some shelter, place to get out of the cold or out of the heat and then we want to put some clothes on because it protects us from the cold, not necessarily from the heat. those are the things that are necessary and where do they come from? out of the soil every year.

and it can be corn, it can be wheat, that's food, you feed it to livestock and it comes back to you in a highly concentrated protein, value-added ag product, concentrated recycled enhanced vegetable notice form of meat. clothing, cotton, for example, all kinds of fiber, those things that we use to make -- and of course the wool that comes from sheep that are grazing off of the grass that comes out of the soil. so there's your food and there's your clothing and we build shelter out of the same thing. wood to build a home with, for example, mine some rocks out and line them you will up and build a building. and so that's all new wealth, the thix we need for survival come out of the earth itself. and most of them are regenerated every year out of the soil. and as this economy moves forward, then we value add to

those products. a bushel of corn becomes ethanol, 300-some other products, it gets wofpke in -- let's just say corn sweet ener that goes into our soda pop and all the way to the plastic for that we use in the cafeteria. that comes out of corn. so we keep adding value and adding value as it multiplies up through the economy and the funds that come from that pay for the doctor, the lawyer, the teacher, the nurse, the accountant, the mayor and the city council, the state legislators, the list goes on and on and on. but it's value added back down to the root of our economy. and the foundation of this, there's free enterprise capitalism and the invisible hand that makes the decision, if you want to sell a loaf of bread you have to figure out how to make a better loaf of bread for the price that's on the shelf today or sell an equal loaf of bread or maybe not quite so high quality for a lesser price.

and as those decisions are made, you change your mix and your bread and you put it on your shelf, might change the wrapper, my lower the price to compete against your exegsexetigs understand that invisible hand will go in there and take your loaf of bread off the shelf. here i have one for $1.25, i'm going take that one because this one for $1.40rks i don't like it that good. decision gets made, supply and demand. the baker who is meeting that supply, the one who has the high quality for the benefit price, judging by the -- if you trust the judgment of the consumer, will be the one that's making more and more loaves of bread until somebody figures out how to do it better. it's an automatic adjustment of supply and demands, mr. speaker, not understood, i don't think, by the president of of the -- president of the united states, by the people who vounds him in the white house. i think they're befundled by how this works. they think this economy is a giant chain letter. they think that there's always another sucker out there that you can sith sell the idea that you can grow government and if

you grow government and increase borrowing and increase spending somehow magically this economy will sprout and grow and there will be a wizard result of a president who is a keynesian economist on steroids. not to be, mr. speaker. because you cannot defeat the law of economic gravity. which is, if you give people an opportunity to produce and succeed that's what they'll do. if you take that opportunity away and you decide you're going to call all the shots at the government level, the people are going to do what they have to do, that's ordered by the government. how many economies and how many societies have we seen collapse because they believed that central command could run the show with a bunch of intellectual elitists better than the invisible hands of the housewife, the house husband who goes to buy that loaf of bread i spoke about earlier? there's magic here, there's a

magic in america, there's a magic that comes from our freedom from our liberty, from having the freedom to make these decisions ourselves and some of us who walk through the grocery store and looked and thought, i can tpwhake bread better than anybody there and went home and started up a bakery and they've competed and some of us have gone to the gas station and decided, i don't like the service here and don't like the price and i think i can do a better job. and gone back and opened up a gas station. and some of us have bought a product like, let's say disk or a golf cart, and decided, i can make this a lot better, i think i'll start making them and selling them and pretty soon there's somebody selling golf carts out there that weren't on the market before. this is free enterprise. this is the beauty of this system that adam smith so clearly articulated in wealth of nations, that every american should understand deeply and it should be in our soul, mr. speaker.

it should be in our soul. it's so deeply in part of the american culture and experience that if one were to go to the uscis, the united states citizenship immigration services, and look at the flash cards that they offer, there in those flash cards they show that you can study to become an american citizen for a naturalization test, and these flash cards, they're nice glossy things about like that, you can look at one side and it will say, who's the father of our country? snap it over to the other side, george washington. another one, who emancipated the slaves? abraham lincoln. number 1 1, the question number 11 is, what is the economic system of america? snap that flash card over, it says, free enterprise capitalism. huh. how about that? united states citizenship immigration services understands this, i don't know that you can become a citizen of the united states, natural idse, and not know free enterprise capitalism

is our basic economic system. we're not socialism, we're not communism weerks not marxism, we're not managed economies, we're not the federal government takes over the private sector, we're not the president of the united states swallows up eight fortune 500 companies and threatens to swallow up b.p. on top of it. we're not a country that swallows up, we are we did, but we shouldn't, these student loan, all the student loans in america, but i -- by the way we had a vote last week, the federal flood insurance program, back in the early 1960's the only flood insurance available in america was flood insurance that was offered by the private sector. federal government decided to get involved. so they offered a competing model of flood insurance. early 1960's, 1963rks i think. a few short years there were no private sector flood companies providing flood insurance anymore.

if you didn't want to do business with the federal government buying flood insurance, if you didn't like the premiums, you were out of luck. if you borrowed money from a national bank, you are compelled to buy flood insurance if that bank said you have to because that was the federal standard. . the the federal government took over 100% of the flood insurance in america. and 19.2 billion in the red and we have to legislate here in the united states house of representatives and impose flood insurance on more people and get more people to pay the premium so the flood insurance can get back into the black which there is nothing in the bill that gets us there. and if that pattern wasn't there, what happens when the federal government gets involved in the flood insurance business.

then i direct your attention to the student loan program. now, not just that many years ago, all the student loans were private, separate from government and operated through the lending institutions and we had a pretty good program. very, very good program. their losses were minimal and worked hard with people to make sure they got the payments coming in and performed a service and they minimized the losses of the student loan program. iowa and and many other states. george miller and others decided we can't trust the private sector to private student loans so we'll take it over. a couple, three years ago, they took a bite of that apple and took a hold of the sfuned loan program here in america and passed it here in the senate.

and it came in the reconciliation package that came from the senate. there was the one that had to do with the last component of obamacare that i spoke about 40 minutes ago. the reconciliation has in it the elimination of private sector student loans, all of them now go through the united states department of education. the federal government has taken overall of the student loans in america. now, i don't know if anybody can give me an example of when the federal government got involved in a business to provide competition and didn't involve getting swallowed up. i can give you two, flood insurance. when i entered high school, zero percent of the flood insurance in america was government. 100% was private. well, some -- by the time i got

out of high school or some years after that, 100% of the flood insurance in america is government. there is no private. zero. it wiped out the private sector flood insurance competition. and we have seen it happen with the student loan program. we don't thri there is a legitimate marketplace. we'll get the private sector to be honest. they got the private sector to be gone. they legislated the private sector out of existence and gave over the entire student loan program to the department of education. and here we are with obamacare. obamacare. huh. president of the united states said he wants to provide one more competitor for health insurance for the people in america. i don't know that he would have answered the question, but the white house press corps has failed time and time again.

number of questions i would like to ask him, mr. president, how many insurance companies exist in the united states of america when you make the statement that we need more competition? if he knew the answer and gave an honest one, it would have been 1,300. 1,300 health insurance companies in america providing health insurance for a large percentage of americans. 85 or more percent of us are satisfied with what we have. and of those 1,300 companies, they produce in the aggregate of 100,000 policy varieties that the health insurance consumer could evaluate in order to buy the policy of their choice. and the president wanted more competition. 1,300 companies, not enough. 100,000 policies are not enough. let's have 1,301 companies and

110,000 poll sits available. that would keep the rest of them honest, right? don't we know this? haven't we seen enough of this? haven't we seen the flood insurance program taken over by the federal government? haven't we seen the federal government swallow up and nationalize three large investment banks, a.i.g. to the tune of $180 billion, taking over the balance offall and fame and making you the -- freddie mac and fannie mae, liable for a contingent liability of $5.5 trillion. three large investment banks, a.i.g., freddie mac and fannie mae and general motors and chrysler swallowed up by the federal government, shares ripped out by the hands of the secured creditors and handed

over on a silver platter to the trade unions who had no investment, no risk, no concessions, 17.5% of general motors owned now by the united states. the secured creditors and the white house dictated the terms, the the bankruptcy court, at least for chrysler and very likely general motors, but we have sworn testimony on chrysler that the terms going in were dictated by the federal government, the terms going out were exactly the terms dictated by the federal government. there were witnesses in the bankruptcy court, but not one component of the bankruptcy of chrysler, not one piece of it was changed as a result of the sworn testimony before the bankruptcy hearing. the federal government going in evaluated and assessed the asset value of chrysler. they were the only ones

evaluating the asset value of chrysler going in. they took the secured creditors and ripped the assets out of their hands and handed them over to the unions and who is the only buyer? the federal government. the federal government appraises it going in, sets the terms of bankruptcy, no amount of testimony changes anything, the bankruptcy court accepted the dictates of the president or his peoplement. and on the other end, the federal fire hands over shares again to the united auto workers. this is free enterprise capitalism. this qualifies for the flash card of what drives the economy in america? i'm not done. three large investment banks. a.i.g., fannie mae, freddie mac, germ motors, the student loan

programs, that comes to to 1/3 and along comes obamacare, the nationalization of all of these entities, all fortune 500 companies and we come to the nationalization, mr. speaker, of your skin, your skin, and everything inside it, taken over by the federal government and the very taxation of the outside started the first of july if you walked into a tanning salon, 10% goes to uncle sam to pay for obamacare which is going to be a revenue-saving operation. we need to repeal obamacare and pull it out by the roots. i have in conjunction with michelle bachmann, worked intensively to repeal obamacare. she introduced a repeal on the first day. i introduced one on the first week. we have a discharge at the

petition at the well, discharge number 11. we have 136 signatures and i wouldn't be surprised if it goes over 140. a discharge petition can circumvent a block by the speaker if 218 signatures on discharge petition number 11, that means obamacare comes to the floor of the house where it would certainly be repealed in the house, however difficult it is to get it through the senate. we need it gone. we need to put an end to obamacare lock, stock and barrel. no one parallel of d.n.a. left behind. obamacare has become a tumor and threatens to spread on these free people, formerly free people. and if we were to have the vitality, we can't be living with the dependency that is

created biobauma care. mr. speaker, i pledge my strongest effort to repeal obamacare, completely and entirely to ritch it out by its roots and to quote, as if it had never been enacted, closed quote. mr. speaker, the american people demand the repeal of obamacare. i ask my colleagues to sign on to discharge petition number 11 so we can get there and give the american people back their liberty. let us become the vital people with the vitality we have had in the past to take us to the next level of our economic destiny. mr. speaker, that is our charge. that is our responsibility and that will be the cry and call of the american people in november. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman make a motion?

mr. king: i move the house do now adjourn. ism the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have >> the house finished their business for the week, and the house could discusses house extension program and take up this extension. live house coverage always here on c-span, in a few moments, president obama to speak about unemployment benefits. and in about 10 minutes, procedures for benefits. and after that,

>> good morning, everybody. right now, across this country, many americans are sitting at the kitchen table, they're scanning the classifieds, they're updating their resumes or sending out another job application, hoping that this time they'll hear back from a potential employer. and they're filled with a sense of uncertainty about where their next paycheck will come from. and i know the only thing that will entirely free them of those worries -- the only thing that will fully lift that sense of uncertainty -- is the security of a new job. to that end, we all have to continue our efforts to do everything in our power to spur growth and hiring. and i hope the senate acts this week on a package of tax cuts and expanded lending for small businesses, where most of america's jobs are created.

so we've got a lot of work to do to make sure that we are digging ourselves out of this tough economic hole that we've been in. but even as we work to jumpstart job growth in the private sector, even as we work to get businesses hiring again, we also have another responsibility: to offer emergency assistance to people who desperately need it -- to americans who've been laid off in this recession. we've got a responsibility to help them make ends meet and support their families even as they're looking for another job. that's why it's so essential to pass the unemployment insurance extension that comes up for a vote tomorrow. we need to pass it for men like jim chukalas, who's with me here today.

jim worked as a parts manager at a honda dealership until about two years ago. he's posted resumes everywhere. he's gone door-to-door looking for jobs. but he hasn't gotten a single interview. he's trying to be strong for his two young kids, but now that he's exhausted his unemployment benefits, that's getting harder to do. we need to pass it for women like leslie macko, who lost her job at a fitness center last year and has been looking for work ever since. because she's eligible for only a few more weeks of unemployment, she's doing what she never thought she'd have to do -- not at this point, anyway. she's turning to her father for financial support. and we need to pass it for americans like denise gibson, who was laid off from a real estate agency earlier this year. denise has been interviewing for jobs -- but so far nothing has turned up. meanwhile, she's fallen further

and further behind on her rent. and with her unemployment benefits set to expire, she's worried about what the future holds. we need to pass it for all the americans who haven't been able to find work in an economy where there are five applicants for every opening, who need emergency relief to help them pay the rent and cover their utilities and put food on the table while they're looking for another job. and for a long time, there's been a tradition -- under both democratic and republican presidents -- to offer relief to the unemployed. that was certainly the case under my predecessor, when republican senators voted several times to extend emergency unemployment benefits. but right now, these benefits -- benefits that are often the person's sole source of income while they're looking for work -- are in jeopardy. and i have to say, after years of championing policies that turned a record surplus into a massive deficit, the same people

who didn't have any problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest americans are now saying we shouldn't offer relief to middle-class americans like jim or leslie or denise, who really need help. over the past few weeks, a majority of senators have tried -- not once, not twice, but three times -- to extend emergency relief on a temporary basis. each time, a partisan minority in the senate has used parliamentary maneuvers to block a vote, denying millions of people who are out of work much-needed relief. these leaders in the senate who are advancing a misguided notion that emergency relief somehow discourages people from looking for a job should talk to these folks. that attitude i think reflects a lack of faith in the american people, because the americans i hear from in letters and meet in

town hall meetings -- americans like leslie and jim and denise -- they're not looking for a handout. they desperately want to work. just right now they can't find a job. these are honest, decent, hardworking folks who've fallen on hard times through no fault of their own, and who have nowhere else to turn except unemployment benefits and who need emergency relief to help them weather this economic storm. now, tomorrow we will have another chance to offer them that relief, to do right by not just jim and leslie and denise, but all the americans who need a helping hand right now -- and i hope we seize it. it's time to stop holding workers laid off in this recession hostage to washington politics. it's time to do what's right -- not for the next election but for the middle class. we've got to stop blocking emergency relief for americans who are out of work.

we've got to extend unemployment insurance. we need to pass those tax cuts for small businesses and the lending for small businesses. times are hard right now. we are moving in the right direction. i know it's getting close to an election, but there are times where you put elections aside. this is one of those times. and that's what i hope members of congress on both sides of the aisle will do tomorrow. thanks very much.

>> another procedure vote to move forward on the unemployment benefits bill is scheduled on the senate floor on tuesday afternoon. over the next half-hour some of monday's discussion on the senate floor. >> mr. president, millions of americans their retirement security. they lost their tuition payments in many instances. they lost their homes. they lost their gas money, their grocery money, and many other things that they simply couldn't do. all of this through no fault of their own. and i'm not talking about a handful of people in isolated corners of this country. i'm talking about millions of americans from every one of our states. to many of them, unemployment is not just a temporary inconvenience. for far too many, it's an unending emergency.

mr. reid: as the front page of today's "new york times" reports -- and the same in newspapers all over the country -- 40% of the unemployed in this country have been out of work for six months or longer. they're trying to understand why at this pressing moment, when jobs are harder to come by than at any time in recent history, congress just can't get its act together to extend emergency insurance just as we've always done with bipartisan backing for decades. well, part of the reason is that many on the other side don't see this as an emergency. they look at a crisis for families' budgets and see an opportunity for their political fortunes. they think that when unemployment goes up, so do their poll numbers. some even think that the unemployed enjoy being out of work. that's why one of the top republicans in the senate called unemployment assistance -- and i

quote -- "a disincentive for them to seek new work." and voted three times in recent weeks against extending it. another senior republican senator said that these americans, people who want nothing more than to find a new job -- quote -- "don't want to go look for work." and then he, too, voted no three times. and a third senior republican senator, who, like his colleagues, has time and again stood in the way of addressing this emergency, justified it by saying -- listen to this quote -- "we should not be giving cash to people who basically are just going to blow it on drugs." end of quote. and that is a direct quote. my constituents take offense at these absurd allegations and they've let me know about it time and time again. they've written or called, sent me e-mails, they've pulled me aside when i've been home to

talk to me about this. mr. reid: one of these e-mails came to me last week from las vegas. where unemployment is now 4.5%, statewide 14.2%, this man's name is scott hedrick. he wrote me and you could hear the -- in the e-mail his anger. it's really sad.

he's one of 2.5 million americans who, because of the republicans' objections, are no longer getting unemployment help they need. this is what scott hedrick rote to me -- quote -- "i've been unemployed since july 2008 and have even sought jobs packing groceries at a supermarket. i can't find work. i've been religiously seeking, searching and applying for work without any luck. i've since left my name las vegas, a wife and five children, to look for work in other stat states, and, again, no luck." scott mentioned the senators making these outrageous claims and demanded that they, in his words, apologize to those americans truthfully looking for work to support their families. further quote -- "i and my family have already lost everything but each other." that was the end of his e-mail. mr. president, scott's right. the twisted logic we've seen in the unemployment debate isn't

just appalling or heartless -- though it's certainly both of those things -- it's also factually wrong. first, there's only one job in america for every five americans desperate to fill it. so no one should be so crass as to accuse anyone of being unemployed by choice, especially not those same lawmakers whose irresponsible policies over the past decade created the very crisis that collapsed the job market in the first place. and second, unemployment insurance works. it helps our economy recover. mark zandy, who was john mccain's economic advisor when he ran for president, calculated that every time a dollar goes out in unemployment benefits, $1.61 comes back to the economy. the congressional budget office has estimated that number could actually be as high as $2, meaning we'd double our investment in the unemployed. and if you think about it, it makes sense. nobody's getting rich off the $300 unemployment check they get

each week and nobody keeps those checks under their mattress. these americans turn around and spend the money. they immediately pay their bills, go to the store, keep up with their mortgage payments, which stimulates the economy. they spend it on the basics and bare necessities while they look for work. the money goes right back into the economy, which strengthens it, fuels growth and let's businesses create the very jobs the unemployed have been looking for, for so long. the people we're trying to help want to find work. they're trying to find work. and they'd much rather get a paycheck than an unemployment check. nevadans like scott hedrick, who lost his job two years ago this month, who has tried tirelessly to find a new one, is just one of millions who need our help. democrats aren't going to turn our backs on them. he sends out resumes and goes to job interviews but for months and months he's heard nothing but "no." what a shame. is that he's hearing the same

from the republicans ir from rh. mr. reed: mr. president, i would ask to dispee with the calling of the quorum. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reed: thank you, mr. president. we are seeing over the last 12 months a slow recovery in our job market. in the last six months, we have seen that accelerate but not sufficiently to reduce unemployment to anything comparable to full employment economy. this year so far, however, we have generated 600,000 jobs in the private sector. that is in sharp contrast to january, 2009, when president obam took office when we were losing 700,000 jobs a month, losing 700,000 jobs a month. but despite this improvement in the job market, we have a long, long way to go.

and it is particularly troubling to be once again anticipating a vote tomrow on the extension of unemployment benefits. these benefits lapsed weeks ago, and meanwhile, millions of americans are without access to unemployment funds, the insurance funds that they paid each week in their daily wages for the time that they never hoped would come but has come, where they could rely upon some support as they look for work. in rhode island, the unemployment rate is 12%. absolutely horrendous. and we're seeing more and more of this unemployment being long term. not a tporary loss, but a long term. nearly half, 45.5%, of the unemployed have bn out of work for more than six months. in those six months, the excess savings you might have, the ability to cut a few corners, to

make it week by week are less and less effective in simply keeping the lights on and keeping the family together. then when you tak away your unemployment compensation, people are frankly becoming desperate. and yet many on the other side are completely indifferent to this. it's not their job -- well, it is their problem. it's our problem. if we cannot do this, then we are failing at a basic function, which is to provide support for americans in crisis, and that's what we must do. people are looking for work. the average indivual have been looking for 35 weeks for work. that's -- tt's almost a year, a big part of a year. and yet in the midst of this economic downturn, 14.6 million unemployed americans, my colleaguesn the other side, have forced us to go through procedural hoops to get a vote on unemployment compensation extension. the senate has failed on three

occasions to pass this extension. not because there is not a majority of senators who want this, because procedurally, we need 60 votes to end debate and vote on the measure. we've let this program lapse for short periods, and now we have been lapsed since january -- since june 2. that is unacceptable. there's no other word for it but obstruction, of stopping something that has been done routinely on a bipartisan measure, bas, in every major job discretion in this country in our lifetime. this should be aimple bipartisan vote. george w. bush had a period of time where we had a recession in the job market and we on a bipartisan basis extended unemployment insurance.

there was no repeated delays stretching it out, only two-month extension or three-month extensions could be considered. it was done because we had to help americans who needed the help and who had contributed to the fund through their unemployment compensation insurance. we have never failed to extend unemployment compensation while the unemployment rate was at least 7.4%. today, if your state has 7.4%, you're in recovery. you're in great shape. 12% in rhode island. as i go around the country, there are too many states like rhode island with 12%, 10%, 11%. the national unemployment rate is over 9%. so this is an historical anomaly. we have routinely on a bipartisan basis extended unemployme compensation as long as the unemployment rate has been at least 7.4%. but now in the midst of a much

worse national economic crisis, my colleags are simply indifferent to it. most of it. i'm hopeful that tomorrow we will rally one or two who recognize the need to respond to the needs of their constituents. and you know, we have extended it for much longer periods of time than the current period. in the 1970's under presidents ford and carter. again, through two presidents, one republican, one democrat, three years and one month of extended unemployment benefits. in t 1980's under president reagan, yes, we extended unemployment compensation benefits without paying for it under ronald reagan on a bipartisan basis to help americans two years and ten months. in the 1990's under president bush, george herbert walker bush and president clinton, t years and six months.

so we're hardly at the point where these benefits have gone on so long that they're intolerable. again, routinely we've done this on a bipartisan basis, republican presidents, democratic presidents, republican congresses, democratic congresses. what i would argue has changed is our colleagues on the other side. now, we are going through another procedural vote, and at the end of the day, on the final merits, this could pass by 75, 80, 90 votes, because no one wants to be accused of not extending unemployment benefits. but this whole procedural strategy of delay after delay, delay effectively has denied millions of people not just the dollars which are important, but just the sense the small sense of security that they can rely on these funds, that there is

some place they can go and get -- in ode island, the average weekly benefit is $360 a month, that they can get at least $360 a month to feed their family, to provide for the essentials of life. when thas stripped away, they lose more tn just $360. they lose the sense that there is anything out there that's going to helphem. now, beyond this procedural delay, some of my colleagues are arguing well, the reason we -- u know, we don't want to give unemployment compensation, it's a disincentive to work. $360 a week is not a disincentive to work to people in -- who have worked all their lives making much more than that who are desperate to find work. the reality is that for every unemployed worker today who is out there looking around, there are not the jobs. in fact,here are five unemployed workers for every available job.

there is not a situation where they are sort of sifting through and saying i don't like that work, that's too far for me to go. talk to your neighbors, as we all do. they will take anything just to get back in the work force and just to make more in rhode island, $360 a week. so that argument is disingenuous, but it's been raised here as if it's the gospel. it's not. we are in a deep economic crisis. mostly the result of policies that my colleagues enthusiastically supported. deep tax cuts that benefits the wealthiest americans, more than low-incomemericans. two wars, unfunded. in fact, i think this is probably the first time in the history of this country where we cut taxes in a time of war rather than trying to pay for these wars.

the largest expansion of entitlement programs, medicare part-d in the history of the country since the 1960's, unpaid for. you can go on and on and on. and that has led, along with a myriad of other policies, lax regulation, an inattention to the lack of innovation in our economy, looking on as other countries, china and other countries have taken bold steps in terms of infrastructure construction, the development of new technologies, alternate energy, high-speed electric rail transportation and the administration, the bush administration sort of casually tended to ignore it. now, i don't think anything indicates clearly the priorities of that side and this side, is that we have been struggling for months to -- to try to pass

unemployment compensation and be told you've got to pay for it, and in the same breath our colleagues say but we have to extend the bush tax cuts, including the estate tax cuts, without paying for it. we can't help people who are struggling to find work with $360 a month, but we can help multibillionaires with their eate taxes. and i would argue that if you want to invest in the productivity of america, help working people get jobs and work, they'll pay their taxes, they'll workard, they'll contribute to their community. now, we have got to deal with the deficit, but the notion that the $34 billion we're talking about today in unemployment compensation is going to rank with the $3.28 triion that these bush tax extensions will

cost the country, it's not even apples and oranges. and yet glibly and ideologically, we can't pay for tax cuts. and yet, the deficit is the most important problem we face. it doesn't make sense, and it particularly doesn't make sense to americans who are out there desperately looking for work. now, again, when you look at where this deficit came from, i remember in the 1990's when we stood up as democrats without any repubcan help and passed an economic program that resulted in not only deficit reduction but a surplus, not only economic growth but strong employment growth through the 1990's. and when president george w. bush took office, he was looking at a significant projected surplus. he was looking at solid employment numbers and a growing and expanding economy.

and in the eight years he was in office, he took that surplus and not only turned it into a deficit but he increased the tional debt more in eight years than had been done in the previous history of th country. and then again to have my colleagues on the other side suddenly discover the deficit's important, it wasn't important enough for them in the 1992' 19s anvote to stand with us, balance the budget and have a surplus. it wasn't important enough in the bush administration to adopt programs and policies that undercut that fiscal stability, undercut that surplus and put us into a precipitous economic collapse, and now it's important. it is important, but when we talk about this issue of unemployment compensation, it is not central to this debate. robert bixby, president of the concord coalition, who has been

throughout the years one of the most consistent in terms of fiscal responsibility, put it well. in his words, "as a deficit hawk, i won't worry about extending unemployment benefits. it is not going to add to the long-term structural deficit and it does address a serious need. i just feel like unemployment benefits wandered on to the wrong street corner at the wrong time and now they are getting mugged." well, that's what's going on here. they're just mugging a program that the american people need, just -- it's close at hand, it can invoke this notion of responsible deficit reduction. you know, where was all this responsible deficit reduction talk when they were proposing medicare part-d, a huge, huge benefit to the pharmaceutical industry, without any payment, the largest expense of entitlement which does add to the structural deficit? because year in and year out,

when you get to th be 65 years oacialtiond you qualify -- 65 years old, you qualify for part-d. unemployment benefits, countercyclical, people pay into it, build up we hope the trust funds in the states and then when you meet a point at which you need it, it should be there and hould be there now. the other point, too, i think is important to make is that for every dollar of unemployment benefits, there is $1.90 of economic activity. this is a stimulus measure also. at a time when we're seeing a fragile recovery, we need to put more muscle behind the recovery. so not only are we giving people the chance to just make ends meet, when they take their unemployment compensation and their other resources and go into the marketplace, it provides increased economic activity. and, in fact, if we don't have this increased economic activi activity, there is a -- a danger

that this recovery will be very slow, painfully slow, and that would be unfortunate, because what we measure in terms of economic recovery is measured in american families by the opportunity to send children to school, by the opportunity to provide a little bit more for their families. and if that is inhibited over months and months and months, then those who suffer are the american family. there are other aspects of this. for example, in the joint economic committee estimated that by the end of 2010, this year, 290,000 unemployed disabled workers -- these are individuals who workut have a disability -- will exhaust their benefits. now, if these individuals choose to finally drop out of the labor market and go on to the social security disability rolls, to go through the process of being qualified and approved for

disability, over the lifime, this could result in $24.2 billion in costs contrasted to the721 million this yr that would be -- this group that would receive benefits. it's a simple issue here. do we want to keep people in the work force or at least keep them working for -- looking for work with unemployment benefits or do we want them to say i'll give up, i'll simply declare i can't work again, i'll go and see if my disabled can be covered by social security disability insurance and i, for the rest of my life, will collect msocial security disability, even though i'd really like to work? that's another aspect of this problem. so we have a challenge, a challenge tomorrow when we greet our new colleague fm west virginia, is to stand up and extend unemployment benefits. once again, if we look at

history, this should have been done weeks ago on a strong bipartisan basis, putting aside the relative politics of the moment and concentrating on what we should do for the american people. tomorrow we'll have a chance to do that and i hope we do. >> does he have the votes to succeed is this time? >> certainly the democrats hope to have the possible votes for the filibuster and senator

goodman who replaces senator bird and will sign in for the procedural vote scheduled for 2:30 tomorrow afternoon. in addition to him there is possibility for three republican moderates, senator snow and collins from maine and brown from massachusetts. all three have supported short extensions for unemployment benefits. and as well as a republican from ohio, there is some combination of those various lawmakers plus the democratic caucus leadership expect to have the votes to overcome this hurdle tomorrow. >> if that procedural vote is invoked, what is the next step for the bill? >> that kind of depends on the republicans at that stage. procedural they would be up to 30 hours of debate.

and that the party could insist on occurring. i think that democrats would hope that once the culture hurdle was overcome, that republicans could allow that time to be handed back to move to a final vote. i doubt they would do that wednesday but seem to move to that final vote on wednesday. when they do, once they overcome the culture vote it seems certain to have sufficient vote for final passage. then at that stage the bill has to go back to the house for one more roll of dice over there. >> why has extending these benefits such a challenge? >> it's been a mike --

microcasim of the federal government, as we know the story of red ink and escalating debt. and at the same time you have a u.s. economy still struggling to keep this recovery going. and democrats clearly believe that the need to provide a sufficient base for that recovery through unemployment benefits is necessary. republicans on the other hand, with an eye towards november elections are trumping the concerns of the debt. fine, do them but on a basis they don't add to the federal government deficit. >> if appears that the democrats have the vote to move that bill forward as you mentioned, why did the president make a statement today talking about republicans and their approach?

>> it seems that his message was calculated to attempt to make sure that the votes were there. to make sure as we have seen several times throughout this lengthy process of trying to get this bill through. there has been a number of votes where democrats thought they had sufficient votes. and at the last minute a waivering republican changed their minds, scott brown did that once. and i think that the president wanted to put pressure on the moderate democrats for their vote. >> thank you cory for joining us. in a few moments kenneth feinberg speaks to washington. in a little less than an hour, a

town hall meeting of how that works. and later a session on guantanamo bay detainees. >> the senate judiciary meets together for eelena kagan. you with find this online and for past support at c-sp c-span.orgclac-span.or c-span.org/kagan. >> c-span is available in homes as a public service created by

american cable companies. >> now kenneth feinberg, administrator of the bp fund, he spoke in washington for a little less than an hour. >> objection >> could i have your attention please? we are pleased to have kenneth feinberg as a speaker. ken and i have known each other on capitol hill, i was working with senator vie, ken had come to capitol hill after time as an assistant attorney in new york and worked for a judge in court of appeals.

ken is native of massachusetts, and graduated from ny law school. and after leaving in 1980 he set up the office for kay scluler and appointed by judge in the southern district of new york. to help the special master for the agent orange litigation. and did such a good job and appointed for other master's such as asbestos and subsequent to that. ken started his own firm, feinberg and company, and now rozen, and asked to do things in the mediation area, until known for the special master for 9/11

compensation fund. he did that pro bono and distributed $7 million to the families of the victims of the 9/11 accident and tragedy. and subsequent to that he was appointed as a special master to help administer the virginia tech funds, related to those killings. and most recently ken has been serving as the special master related to the compensation for those executives who received compensation under the tarp funds and appointed by b.p. and administration to serve for the $20 billion fund. and ken will make remarks what he's doing in that regard.

i am pleased that ken is here to be here. ken and i worked in the capacity of the chairman kennedy center, and because of his love the nation music and opera. thank you very much for being here, ken. [applause] >> i want to thank david for the introduction. it's correct, we go back a long, long way to our days working together in the u.s. senate. and whatever we do, whatever david does, whatever i do, nothing is as difficult as chairing the kennedy center and being president of the opera. i assure you, there is nothing quite like that. david is correct when he says i have been a special master in some tough assignments.

that's a legal term, special master. i once said to my wife, you know i am the special master for the 9/11 fund. and she said, that's fine with me, but if anybody every once in a while, fortunately not that often, but every once in a while wills a

public -- there is a public policy dilemma. it requires public policymakers to think out of the box. now, put aside the issue of whether or not you agree with the resolution of that public policy. put aside the merits of whether or not a special master for pay is a good idea or a bp $20 billion fund is a good idea. put that aside for a minute. but understand that what is unique about these assignments, agent orange was another one, the 9/11 victim compensation fund, virginia tech, other examples. the conventional way of resolving these dilemmas won't work, and whether it's government or the private sector a decision is made that we better go off and try something new. it may not work, but

conventional resolution won't get the job done. now, when it comes to treasury and pay, my job there was made eyes -- easier by the fact that congress spoke. like in the 9/11 fund, congress spoke. and congress said for those seven companies that received theht taxpayer assistance and t those seven somebody at treasury ought to set their pay for the top people. for the top people. congress delegated that assignment to the secretary who delegated it to me. and for those seven companies, aig, citigroup, bank of america, chrysler, chrysler financial, gm and gmac, congress said,

treasury, feinberg, set the pay of the top 100 officials in each of those seven companies until they repay the taxpayer. once they repay the taxpayer, they are out from under your thumb. so in 2009 i at the request of the secretary, i determined and calculated the actual dollars for each of the top 25 officials in those companies, and we established a regiment of pay for -- regimen of pay for individuals 26-100 in each of those seven companies and only those seven companies. i did that in 2009. citigroup and bank of america, for reasons you can ask them -- one being to get out from under

my thumb -- borrowed money from the taxpayers to get out from under my jurisdiction, and they did. so in 2010 there were five companies. chrysler financial which is in runoff, they're out from under my thumb. so today as we heat here this morning, there are only four companies left. but as to those four companies, until they repay the taxpayer their pay will be established by a treasury official. congress has spoken. now, i would have thought as to that assignment there would have been a great deal of criticism. government regulation of private pay is none of the government's business. i would have thought that. i would have thought that would have been a big issue. turned out to be a nonissue. turned out to be a nonnish view -- nonissue i think, i've concluded, for two reasons. first, feinberg's only dealing with 100 some odd officials.

what are we getting excited about? it's a side show. it's a rather very limited role that i'm playing. and if you really want to see impact on pay, don't look to what i'm doing which is relatively modest. look to the other initiatives that are out there being promoted by this administration, the regulatory reform bill is about to become law, corporate governance reform, secretary geithner has taken the lead on the g20 in trying to make sure that competitive pay in the united states is not disadvantaged by foreign pay. the sec and commissioner shapiro with her transparency rules, sheila bair at the fdic, the federal reserve, there's a lot more going on on executive pay than my limited role. that's one reason there hasn't been a human cry. the other reason there hasn't been much criticism at all is because, after all, these

companies survive because of the american taxpayer. so when you talk to other corporate officials, their basic approach to me is i have no problem with what you're doing. those companies only maintained their financial stability because the taxpayer came to the rescue. why shouldn't they have their pay set? don't touch my pay. but in terms of those seven companies, why not? the taxpayer is a creditor of those companies. why shouldn't there be some say in what these companies get paid? now, because of that there hasn't been a great deal of criticism. i am somewhat surprised at the degree of interest in what i'm doing. why if i'm only establishing pay for a very small number of people is there such interest in well, i think there is a reason. again, two reasons. first, at a time of great

economic uncertainty pop list fervor is very high. people are upset. unemployment rate's high. people want to know what are those wall street guys getting? it's a historical thing. it was no different in the guilded age of jpmorgan or whatever. if you look at american history, there's always a tension between wall street and main street. and what you find at this time in america because of economic uncertainty people are focused on pay more than they might otherwise be. the second reason is a very practical one. i'm the only fellow in government who takes rather vanilla prescriptions about pay and actually calculates to the penny what somebody ought to make. and that, i think, allows people to hone in not on, well, it's

very important that compensation be tied to performance. you know, what else is new? but, and that means that this person should make 800,000 or a million eight or three million or 600,000. for that reason this tends to be a good deal of focus. now, the one remaining issue i've still got to deal with within the next week or so under the statute, i've got to look back at what 419 companies received in terms of t.a.r.p. assistance, how much bonus money did they give out and should there be an effort under the statute to try and recoup some of those funds. and that project's been underway now for about three months, and it involves 419 companies, not just the seven. this is a purely voluntary

program. i can't enforce efforts to recoup money. the question is, should i try and get any of it back from two years ago? we're finishing up that lookback and those decisions will be rendered by me sometime, i think, within the next week or so. there's been some interest among 419 companies as to whether there'll be an effort to recoup any of those dollars or impose any other or voluntarily suggest any other remedial steps to prevent excessive bonuses going forward. so that's pay. and what makes the pay assignment so interesting is its uniqueness. the assignment from the secretary who has been unbelievably supportive of my role while at the same time, as the president has said, we are not micromanaging these companies. this is a very narrow, limited role that i am engaged in.

so that's one assignment that i juggle these days with a second assignment quite different in scope, magnitude and source, but similar in that conventional thinking won't work. wp. bp. now, it's altogether different from pay. the administration and bp on their own -- i have nothing, nothing to do with it -- decided to set up an alternative mechanism for resolving bp claims. bp agreed voluntarily, no legislation, this is a voluntary compact. bp agreed to put up $20 billion to pay claims arising out of the spill. and bp said if $20 billion is insufficient, and i hope it is

sufficient, but if it's insufficient, bp will honor all supplementary financial obligations in the gulf. so now i have this assignment of designing, implementing and administering a $20 billion escrow fund designed to pay eligible claims. and that fund will, i believe, i'm recommending, will be a fund that will last for three years. and during that three-year period i will evaluate, analyze, determine independently what individual individuals, businesses, small businesses, large businesses in the gulf impacted by the spill should receive. now, i'm totally independent. i do not answer to the administration, nor to bp.

it's very, very clear when i spoke and accepted this assignment from the administration and from bp that i am an independent actor. this is a program that everybody voluntarily can enter into. they don't have to. any fisherman, any businessman, any real estate owner, any motel, any crabber, oyster harvester, food processer, anybody can decide, i want nothing to do with this. i'd rather go to court or implement my other legal rights. go ahead. you're crazy to do so though. go ahead if you want. because under this program you'll receive, if you're eligible, you will receive compensation without having to go to court for years, without

the uncertainty of going to court since i'll be much more generous than any court would be, and at the same time you won't immediate to pay lawyers and costs. so you ought to come into this program. and until you know exactly what you'll get to the penny, you're under no obligation to waive any right you might have to litigate against bp. in fact, as i've announced, anybody who needs money immediately who's eligible can come in and immediately receive a check for six months' emergency payment. you have to prove it, but you'll get six months' payment without any release. if you decide after that to litigate, you still keep the check. i mean, who wouldn't come into this program?

and take that which is offered with no obligation, and then at the end of the day when you're offered a lump sum payment for all present and future injury calculated by the administrator. only then when you know that amount do you decide whether or not you want to take it in lieu of going to court. it is, to my way of thinking, an easy call. but do not underestimate the problems associated with human nature. i've seen it over and over again. do not assume everybody sees these funds; 9/11, virginia tech, agent orange, this one. do not assume that people automatically will opt into these programs. people are skeptical, angry, disspiritted, worried about

their financial certainty, their financial future. human nature being what it is, you have to sell these programs, and that's why i've been spending so much time in the gulf. you cannot do this program from washington. impossible. you've got to go down there to louisiana, alabama, florida, mississippi. i've received tremendous support from the governors of those states. i've received support from the attorneys general. i was on the phone the other day with attorney general mccollum in florida, very helpful. i plan to meet with the attorneys general this week or next to meet with them to talk about their concerns. this -- i am nod adversarial to the people in the gulf, i'm trying to distribute the money. at the same time, i'm trying to corral the claims, you see, so the courts don't get inundated with cases. there are certain tragedies in

american life where public policy seeks a creative alternative to conventional thinking, and that's what pay is about, and that's what bp is about. now, with bp let me just give you two hurdles to success, substantive hurdles. one, how attenuated will you allow the claims? mr. feinberg, i own a restaurant in the north end of boston. i have the best shrimp scampi in the city. i can't get gulf shrimp. where's my money? highly unlikely. at some point you have to say as a matter of public policy and law claims are so attenuated they can't be compensated. mr. feinberg, i own a motel on the beach. there's oil there, and i've lost customers. pay them, pay the claim. i own a golf course 50 miles

from the gulf. i'm down 30%. people aren't coming to play golf. dubious. but where do you draw that line? that's a judgment call, and you look to the law, pollution control act, but the law only helps you so much. at some point you have to make a call, so one challenge i've got, these claims are eligible, these claims are not eligible. judgment. i could be wrong. you people could draw the line somewhere else. that's one problem. problem number two is a corroboration problem, a problem of proof. mr. feinberg, i was making $5,000 a month as a fisherman. now i can't fish. pay me 5,000. okay. what do you have to corroborate? corroborate? what do you mean? prove. it was a cash business. nothing illegal about a cash business. what's your proof that you were making 5,000?

do you have a tax return? i lost it. okay. you lost your tax return, okay. do you have a profit and loss statement? do you have checkbook, check stubs, something? no, i don't, i have no paper. will the ship captain vouch for the 5,000 a month? i mean, i cannot just pay claims. you've got to prove your claim. i can be very lenient as to the proof, there's nothing illegal about a cash business, but i've got to have proof. and, you know, fishermen, you're getting a 1099. the law requires it. ..

don't assume that there's only one way to do these things. that's not true. with these assignments, it's creativity, it's practicality, it's coming up with incentive-based alternatives that will voluntarily channel people into a better way,

win-win, of resolving these public policy dramas that come up. i believe that thanks to the secretary and the people at the treasury, i think that the executive compensation approach in a very narrow realm worked. it really did. it worked and i think also the bp program, once it's up and running next month will work. it will work. because you create creative ways to voluntarily entice people to participate. with very, very little downside risk, and that's the challenge. so i think, i want to thank all of you, you don't say no to my friend david. who has been a friend and an ally for many, many years and i jumped at the chance to be here. this is a very, very distinguished group. i think substantively, you

understand better than most what i'm trying to do and i welcome now the opportunity under david's approach, i follow his lead for q & a. thank you very much. [applause] >> now, can -- when you first got into the business of alternative resolution decision making, you were appointed by judge jack weinstein in new york, how did you know him and how did he know of you, and have you ever thought, had he not appointed you, what you'd be doing now? >> i knew judge weinstein because we had both clerked for the same judge 35 years apart. so he's still sit, judge weinstein, he's 88, he's still sitting in the eastern district in brooklyn, and he appointed me, because he knew of my work for senator ken dirks and

thought -- kennedy and thought that this would be the right assignment for me in dealing with the vietnam veterans and with the veterans administration. now if he hadn't appointed me, would i have been just a lawyer and done other things? i assume i would have. like all of you, like everybody in life, can you plan a little bit, but you have never know the twists and turns and what will happen in your professional and personal life, so who knows what would have happened, but it worked out fine. >> you did the 9-11, that i assume was very emotionally grueling because you were dealing with enormous am of debts. how long did it take you to ultimately come up with the procedures and when people got paid there, did -- was it publicly known what each person got paid? >> took me about six months to come up with the procedures to pay almost 3,000 death claims, world trade center, airplanes, pentagon, and about 2300 physical injury claims. mostly respiratory claims.

there weren't many traumatic injuries of 9-11. you either got out of those planes or buildings or you didn't. so it took us about six months to set up the procedures. the program ran by statute for 33 months. and so all but 94 people came into the program,. >> and normally, you've had legislation that would guide you about how you would do these kinds of things, you have no legislation in the bp situation. do you need legislation or do you need any guidance from any other authority? >> guidance is fine. guidance, i welcome. we don't need any legislation. this is a purely private contract compact, between the administration, the justice department on one hand and bp on the other, with the goal of setting up, delegating to an administrator, me, set it up, run it, pay it. and i've asked for and received a good deal of input,

suggestions as to how best to do this, but ultimately, it's my call gentleman. >> and you're now taking over a procedure that bp had already implemented. could you explain what they were doing before and was any money distributed before and who does a lot of the staff work, how many people will you have working for you? >> i give bp credit here. bp has paid out on its own, preme, about $200 million in claims. mostly, but not completely, wage loss claims. a few business claims as well. bp, which is not generally in the claims processing business, has tried its best. it retained contractors, there are roughly 1600 people working in 35 offices throughout the gulf, processing claims, receiving claims, all of that will transition in the next few weeks. to the gulf coast claims

facility, which i will administer and we will continue to accelerate claims, hopefully emergency claims will be paid within a couple of days of requesting emergency funds, and there after, over the next three years, we'll process claims. the challenge is going to be, you know, long-term injury. fishermen, you have a fishing boat, i think that you'll be unable to fish for a year, so here's a lump sum check. no, no. i think i won't be able to fish for five years. you think that, don't take the check. go about your business and litigate or do what you will. >> suppose somebody does take the check, they think they're going to be out of business or harm for a year and then it turns out that it was more than a year. can they come back or do you have to make one check and that's it, that's all they get? >> don't come back. if you sign this release, your releasing your right to come back, but a, if you don't think

that the period that i'm covering in this check is worthwhile, a, don't take it. you haven't lost any rights. b, come back next year. the fund is going to be in existence for three years, so come back next year. >> and you'll have a better feel for this. or c, take the check. and i think this is a generous check, i've checked, i've looked around, i've asked people. we think you'll be able to fish or what have you. that is entirely voluntary and entirely it's up to you. >> now on 9-11, did you review every single payment and will you be reviewing every single payment here? >> i signed off on every single payment and i will do so here. now, when you sign off on these payments, that doesn't mean that every single individual or every single business crosses my desk. you come up with a methodology, you know about this, economic loss, lost profits, business interruption claims, you come up with a methodology for

shrimpers, for charter boats, for motels, for restaurants, and that methodology must be consistent, you can't be biased in favor of one or another, you have to apply the same methodology, so once you start streamlining this process, it becomes relatively easier so resolve these claims, because basically you have a process in place that is systemic and consistent. the other problem you have to worry about is fraud. nothing undercuts the credibility of these programs. more than fraud. in 9-11, we had 7300 applications, 35 were fraudulent. fabulous. we had checks. we watched it. internal and external auditing, with bp, i've got the help of the criminal division of the department of justice. very, very important. and we'll have internal auditing and investigatory procedures.

now the final point you make on your last question, will everybody in the public know in 9-11 or in bp, is all of this information public? of course not. of course not. if i disclosed to government, state, local, federal, the names of every individual, their address, how much they received, nobody would sign up for these programs. this is private, individual, proprietary information. i'll provide some general statistics, aggregate statistics about the claims, how long it takes, how much money has been distributed or for what types of claims, but the individual information must remain private and confidential, otherwise people will not -- you mean to tell me my information is going to washington, to the internal revenue service or to the --? absolutely not.

it will be -- it would be a huge barrier to voluntary participation. >> and how long -- how many people will it take to administer the bp program? you have hundreds of people to help process these claims? >> well, we subcontract out. right now, as i said, bp hired 1600 people in the gulf. i don't think we need that many people. once we've systemized, you're going to be able to file a bp claim entirely online, if you want, electronically, never even go to a claims office much. so -- office. so we'll streamline and systemize the office. we're in the process of doing that. bp didn't do that. bp was putting band-aids on the problem as you would expect an in -- in an emergency situation. the best news is that the oil stopped. until the oil stops, it's very hard to corral the claims. you don't know how many claims, whether the oil reaches a certain area. now that the oil has apparently

been stopped or the leak has stopped, it will make it a lot easier and quicker to get a handle on the universe of claims. >> now on the 9-11 situation, you did that pro bono, and how were you able to spend that much time pro bono, you do have to make a living, you just gave that as a gift to the country? >> i gave it as a gift to the country, but let's be more pragmatic, when i did the 9-11 fund, i was a special government employee, as i did now, with t.a.r.p., so i'm not an official government employee. i'm allowed in both 9-11 pro bono and t.a.r.p. pro bono, to maintain a private practice, while at the same time working in these public policy areas, so i was allowed to benefit, to benefit from my law firm practice, i didn't practice very much, but to benefit from my law firm practice, while at the same

time taking on these assignments. >> now in bp, if somebody has insurance, it's a business or individual has insurance and they come to you for a claim and you pay them, can they still collect insurance or you don't care about their insurance? >> i certainly do care. it's an upset. to make them whole, if they have received money from their insurer, especially if they've received state assistance, unemployment compensation, for example, use that as an example, mr. feinberg, i was earning $5,000 a month, i've received $800 a month, from the state of alabama. how much can i get? you can get $4,200. we're going to offset the $800 that you've already received from your insurer. now your insurer, the state certainly has a subrogation claim to recoup the $800 and we'll deal with that. >> if somebody comes to you for a claim and a year later, they subsequently file for insurance, you wouldn't know about that? >> it's too late. you got paid and if you got your insurance later, good luck to you. >> of all of the assignments

you've taken in this area, with would you say has been the most difficult to get your hands around and what was the most emotionally grueling in. >> they're all emotionally grueling. the 9-11 fund was a horror, because congress passed that law 11 days, days after 9-11. so you were dealing with people distraught, mr. jones, i'm here to give you $2 million. you're here to give me $2 million? mr. feinberg, they haven't recovered my husband's body from the world trade center and you're here to offer me money? how dare you. offer me money. i want my husband back. 9-11, do not -- bp, do not underestimate, when you go down there, mr. feinberg, i don't know what i'm going to do. i'm a sixth generation oyster

harvester and my oyster harvesting days are over. now what are you going to do for me, mr. feinberg? how can money possibly replace the heritage that my family built up here in the gulf? this job, all of these assig assignments, require a certain perspective, emotional perspective, on what people are going through, and no matter how creative you may be in coming up with a program that reasonable people would claim is very reasonable and makes a lot of sense, you've still got to sell it to people who are emotionally distraught and that is a big part of what i have to do here. >> now, when you are the most famous, up until presently, i guess, the most famous person who came from brockton, massachusetts, but is everybody else from there speak with that

same accent that you have? >> last week in the gulf, i told somebody in biloxi, mississippi, that i speak like a southerner. south bostonner. and i think most people who live in brockton, massachusetts, some of you are from massachusetts, we sort of cultivate the accent. >> so it comes in handy. where did you get your love your classical music an opera? >> there's really interesting story. my love of classical music, when i was 9 years old, i began studying in brockton for my bar mitzvah. and the cantor -- >> four years early. >> i was a slow learner. and the cantor in my synagogue in brockton was an emgrant from

vienna and he got me interested as a youngster in opera and some of thieves assignments, opera and classical music saved my sanity. >> is it true you have a room in your house where you play classical music at great volumes and this is how you relax now? >> it's one way. i've got technologically a nice system with thousands of operas and c.d.'s, classical music. i mean, some people read, some people play softball, there's a lot of -- go to the movies. you do what works best for you in terms of trying, 9-11, i must have gone to the kennedy center or to carnegie hall or the metropolitan opera three nights a week, otherwise you'd go mad doing these assignments. and you've got to find some outlet.

>> have you ever considered going on to the opera as a performer, or not yet? >> well, now that you're the head of the kennedy stern, david -- it shal center. >> we'll work that out. we have some time for questions from our guests, i don't know if there are mics out there, but people, i don't have any cards, but anybody, raise your hands if you have questions. here's a question right here. >> ken, what did you learn from the victims compensation fund? to what's going on in bp? >> what you learn from all of these assignments, including bp, is how diverse human nature is. the reaction of people is as diverse as human nature itself. some people are angry, some people are skeptical, some people are uncertain.

some people are incredibly hopeful. thank goodness you're here to help. one size does not fit all. and you better be prepared for a wide range of emotional reactions to what you're trying to accomplish. >> ok. other questions? here's a question right here. >> joint center for economic studies. do you think that $20 billion will be adequate? >> well, i hope $20 billion will be adequate. the good news is that bp has publicly stated that if it is inadequate, they will continue to honor all additional financial obligations that confront them. i hope it's adequate, but remember, the $20 billion is not just for me, and the private program. out of that $20 billion comes

government claims. so depending on the size, eligibility, scope of those government claims as well for cleanup, that $20 billion is all encompassing. so we'll just have to play it out over the next few months. we'll get a much better handle if the oil is gone, stop the leak, we'll get a better handle on the claims and then a lot will depend on where i define the eligibility criteria, how many people come into prove their claim. i hope it's enough. >> you said 9-11, 54 people -- >> 94. >> gentleman 94 chose not to go through your process. how did those people actually fare in the litigation system. >> 94 people opted out of the program. 3% opted out of the program. and all of their cases were settled. >> so you don't know whether they did financially better or worse, nobody knows? >> no one knows, but i'm sure they didn't do as well. not after they went through all

that trouble, waited that many years, paid their lawyer, costs of litigation. >> do most of the people in the 9-11 case, did they hire lawyers when they came into your system and were the people who come into the bp process the lawyers or not. >> they don't need lawyers. they're more than welcome to have lawyers. i like lawyers. i'm a lawyer. if you have want a lawyer, by all means have a lawyer, really, but in the 9-11 fund, the american association of trial lawyers stepped up and provided pro bono lawyers for 1500 people. i think we'll have some sort of pro bono program in bp as well if you want a lawyer. >> can you please describe the infrastructure or the team you need to build to administer the bp fund, where do you get the people, how do you subcontract, so forth. >> well, i've received a fair number. i'm a very popular guy these days from vendors interested, you have to hire people locally, really, i got a letter from senator bitter the other day

from louisiana, ken, i hope the $20 billion will go in local banks in the gulf. you hire local people who are trusted by the community in terms of receiving the claims, sitting with them, helping process the claim, evaluate it, so we've hired a -- bp hired a claims adjustor firm from hammond, louisiana, that has spread out over the gulf, so as we're setting up the infrastructure now, i'm focused primarily, not exclusively, but primarily on local people. i met with the mayor of new orleans a couple of weeks ago, he's great. ken, we're sure you're going to do a great job. we want your headquarters here in new orleans, that's where you should be headquartered and senator landreaux and governor riley and others, governor jindal, all very, very helpful, but all urging hire local, hire

local, hire local. >> in your t.a.r.p. role, how did you find the executives when they were pleading for additional compensation, were they effect testify generally or not in their pleas to you? >> i think they were effective. they weren't pleased. i think they were fatherly effective. -- fairly effective. i didn't deal with too many c.e.o.'c.e.o.'s. mostly you dealt with vice-presidents for human resources, you dealt with general counsels, you dealt with consultants. >> we worked it out. it was -- it was difficult, but i think it was fairly collegial. people read the statute, they saw what i had to do. and i think it worked out. it worked out ok. treasury was particularly helpful. the deputy secretary of the treasury, at my request, i would

go and see him, and neil was just -- and the secretary, very, very helpful in this whole project. >> and is the $20 billion escrow fund, is that safe from claims from other bp creditors, and in the case of that -- what you do with that $20 billion, while you're waiting to pay the claims, is it sitting there or waiting to be invested in anything or not yet actually in an escrow? >> is this the carlyle group asking this question. >> i'm sure we could get a good return for it. >> it's not on my watch. it's interesting. the he is crow fund, the $20 billion, i'm just drawing on it. i don't know as we sit here today, i think the administration and bp have still not finalized the escrow, so i can't really give you answers to those questions, because that's beyond my jurisdiction. i'm going to draw on those moneys, but i'm not a custodian of those funds, i don't really have much of a say right now. in the terms and conditions of

the fund. >> and as you know, there were some views, not just bp might have been at fault, some of the people who constructed the rigs and so forth, but that's not something that you're worried about and other people may -- other companies may have to contribute to this $20 billion or those people will deal with bp separately? >> i have nothing to do with anybody but bp. clearly, those companies don't have to contribute. they may want to at some point, not on my watch, somebody who comes in to this voluntary program and gets a check for the fund is not releasing anybody but bp. an ultimate check. remember, the emergency money, you don't even have to release bp. with incentive to come into the program and corral the claims. so we'll see what others do. right now, i'm focused on setting up the program, trying to get as many people as possible to participate, give them emergency payments, without any obligation at all and only

down screen when you file for a lump sum check. will you then make a decision whether you want that check in return for releasing bp only, or whether you want to reject the check and litigate. >> and when you -- were you approached first by bp and almost simultaneously by the administration, how did that come together? >> bp twice, two meetings with bp, and then rather suddenly, all within two weeks, the administration through the justice department, the associate attorney general, justice has been fabulous here. they've been very, very cooperative in trying to set this program up. tom walls the point man and those are the people i've dealt with. i haven't dealt with anybody at the white house. it's been the associate attorney general's office at justice and it's been bp in houston. and tom milch at arnold & porter

here in washington. >> ken, can you describe your role earlier when you were working for senator kennedy, you're not the head of the kennedy library, is that right? >> my day job. >> and in that role, you are doing what with the kennedy library? it's the 50th anniversary of kennedy's inauguration is coming up. >> that's right. the j.f.k. library foundation, i'm the chairman of the board of the foundation, the library of course is a national presidential library funded by the taxpayer, but there's a foundation that i chair, probably about sip members of the board -- 16 members of the board, designed to perpetuate the legacy of president kennedy and the 50th anniversary is coming up, there are various projects underway, there's a great event thanks to you and others at the kennedy center, celebrating the 50t 50th anniversary of the election of president kennedy and our charge there is to sort of perpetuate the legacy and the memory of what president kennedy stood for in the country. >> all right.

my last question will be, ken, do you ever have any self-doubt? you seem to be a very confident person. is self-doubt ever one of your emotions? >> these assignments, you'd better have a great deal of self-doubt. you're up at 3:00 a.m., trying to figure these things out. self-doubt and criticism, public criticism goes with the territory. because if i'm right, that you've got to think out of the box, and you've got to be a little bit different in the way you approach these problems, so you don't have a whole lot of precedent to guide you. very, very important that you have that self-doubt, very, very important that you reach out to as many people as you need to -- get ideas, bounce ideas off people. that's why, with 9-11, john ashcroft, its attorney general, fabulous, helped me on that.

virginia tech, president steiger at virginia tech, secretary geithner and neal wolen, bounce ideas, at my request. now, bp, justice department, bp, the attorneys general, the governors, haley barber, ken, i have one bit of advice for you. get the money out, time is the enemy. time is the enemy. very, very sound advice. so self-doubt goes with the territory, it's a good thing just make sure it doesn't paralyze you. at some points you make a decision. others make it differently. you make that decision, move on. >> ken, on behalf of other americans, i don't speak for the whole country, but i do want to thank you for what you've been doing for our country and helping in this resolution an on the 9-11 matter and on behalf of the members of the

>> c-span is now available in over 100 million homes. >> now what town hall meeting on the oil spill fund. kenneth feinberg who oversees the fund talked with residents of the houma, louisiana about the claims process. this is a little more than an hour.

>> this gentleman has had a long history of working with people to resolve certain problems. he worked with agent orange people, he has worked with the 9/11 people, he has been a mediator and a very impressive individual. i have heard him speak twice. the first was when the senior senator from louisiana brought him down and we had that good pleasure of meeting at that time. we begged him to come to houma because we have so many questions about processing claims.

it was my great pleasure to introduce a person known as the $20 billion man, the man selected to actually handle the $20 billion fund, mr. kenneth feinberg. [applause] >> thank you very much. a nice introduction and i appreciated. i want to thank everyone for being here. i particularly want to thank the governor had been working but to try to get this program up and running. the governor helped to arrange this entire day, traveling to what they call today, alabama next week, florida on the 29th. i will be coming back here as often as is necessary to answer questions and to help you understand what this program is all about.

and in the next few minutes, before i take questions, let me try and give all of you a thorough understanding of what is going on. first, the program i am administering is a private program. i am not working for the government of the united states or the government of louisiana. i am working for the people of louisiana. an agreement was entered into between the obama administration and bp to set aside $20 billion to pay any and all claims arising out of this bill. -- this spill. if the $20 billion is not

enough, bp has agreed that it will honor any and all of its financial obligations above $20 billion. so the money is there. but i am not working for bp or the administration. they picked me to run an independent facility company -- claims program. if it works, i get the credit. if it does not work, only i get the blame -- nobody else. this is not about politics. this is about helping people in the gulf. that is what this is about. i am working for you, not for bp. next, i believe that bp deserves

some credit for the program it has already set up. the man behind bp is here. they have paid out about $150 million already. that has not even come out of the $20 billion. that is separate. what bp has already done, i commend them, but in another two weeks, or around august 6 bp is gone. they are out of the claims business. i will be responsible for processing all claims, from individuals and businesses. i do not have jurisdiction over

two types of claims. i want you to understand. right now i have no authority to process government claims, the county, the paris, the state, the bedsfe --ds -- the feds. government claims go to bp. i also do not have jurisdiction yet over moratorium claims. now bp set aside $100 million, not part of the $20 billion, an additional $100 million set aside just for rig workers, out of work because of the moratorium.

that $100 million is for rig workers only ronly rig-related businesses only. and on like the $20 billion, that will not be added to. that is said. right now about $100 million is not part of the $20 billion, and it is over here somewhere. bp is currently trying to decide how to district that $100 million. -- how to distribute the 100 may in dollars. keep in mind -- i am not here to talk about government claims. i am not here today to distribute $100 million in moratorium claims. i am here with a $20 billion

fund for individuals and businesses. private -- that is what i am doing. but now keep in mind that this program, this $20 billion, is not just limited to -- the government claims come out of the $20 billion even though it is not part of my watch. the government claims did. the moratorium claims are separate. cleanup cost come out of the $20 billion. so why do not control this $20 billion. i. control whatever i need to process individual and business claims out of that fund. it is not enough, bp has stated it will pay additional claims as needed.

now want to urge everybody to file a claim in this program. i believe and i have told all but government officials that will listen to me that it is a mistake for people not to file a claim, and here is why. if you file a claim with me, and the claim is eligible, and it is corroborated, you will be paid for with -- forthwith 24-48 hours, emergency payments totaling at what you need for

six months. bp to its credit has been paying a emergency payments one month at a time. you come in for a month, and you get it checked, you come back next month, and you get a check, if you come back the third month, you get at another check -- four get. when the gulf coast claims fund is up and running, come in, file a claim -- six months advanced emergency payments. you may not what six months. you may like coming back every month. that is all right. but if you want six months up front, no obligation -- you do not waive any rights. if you need an emergency payments and you are eligible

and you corroborate the claim, you will get it checked for six months -- you will get a check for six months without signing away any legal rights that you may have. but if you do not file a claim, i cannot pay you. i have to look at the claim, make sure that it is backed up with facts, six months emergency payments. now when the oil stops and you want more money, you can come in and i will examine your claim or all of your loss now and in the future. mr. feinberg, i think i will not be able to fish for 18 months.

it will take 18 months for me to be up and running again. i will examine that. i will look at the claim. i will turn to you and say, i agree with your i do not agree with you. but if they agree with you, here is a check for 18 months lost pay, lost income. but then think long and hard, ,ecause to get that big checke lump-sum, full payment, you have to release bp. you have to sign a piece of paper that you will not sue bp. in return, if you like the amount of that check, here. now keep in mind -- this program is entirely 100% voluntary.

nobody has to come into the program. if you think this is a trick, if you think this is a trap, it is not. but if you think that, do not do it. you can go file lawsuits, but my friends, i am telling you that litigate forill years, you may not win, if you have to pay a lawyer -- you have to pay a lawyer. i am suggesting the program i am setting up here in louisiana is absolutely -- i am convinced -- the way to go. whatet's walk through happens if you file a claim. mr. feinberg, i am here and i

want emergency payments. i cannot work. ok. fill out form. by the way, and a couple more weeks, if you want, fill out the form on line. you do not have to go on office. you can do it on the internet electronically, i do not care. but we have 35 claims offices that bp set up all over the cult. you can go to one of those claims offices. yet in called the 1-800 number. you can make an appointment. or you can do it in your living room on the internet. i am out of work, the fishing vote dry dock, i cannot work. all right, fill out the form, corroborate your claim, here is a check for six months and you do not have to sign anything. take the money. if you do not want to

participate later ron, do not. you still keep the six months. forget it. wait a minute, mr. feinberg, it says i have to corroborate the claim. i have an all-cash business. nothing illegal about an all- cash business. that is fine with me. how are you going to show me that you are losing $8,000 a month or $6,000 a month? you have to show me something. you cannot walk in and say give me the money. show me a tax return. well, i lost it. all right, you lost your tax return. show me a profit-loss statement, a check stub -- something. >> i do not have that. i do not know. tell the captain of the boat or priestr