Mike Levin: “The other body has twice unanimously passed an unemployment compensation extension bill. Twice. What is my colleague…”

“The other body has twice unanimously passed an unemployment compensation extension bill. Twice. What is my colleague waiting for? He says we should not bow down to the Senate. To whom? Trent Lott? Every other Republican in the Senate who voted for this extension? Bowing down, this is a fight with Republicans in the Senate. It is not only a fight with us. The gentleman is all alone. Secondly, the gentleman says this issue is not just about unemployment. That is the problem. The gentleman is ignoring the needs of the unemployed because the gentleman has another agenda. I want the gentleman to go and talk to the 356,000 people who exhausted their benefits in January and tell them this is not just about unemployment. It is the largest number of people exhausting their regular benefits without receiving additional aid in a single month, in any single month on record. So I suggest that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) go to the 50 States of this Union and tell them that this is not just about unemployment. Shame.”