Mike Levin: “What I wish the majority would be allowing tonight is consideration of legislation that addresses the loss of over 3…”

“What I wish the majority would be allowing tonight is consideration of legislation that addresses the loss of over 3 million jobs in this country during the last few years, most of them manufacturing jobs. What I wish the majority would be allowing us to do tonight is to consider legislation to extend the unemployment benefits to those Americans who have lost their jobs in this recession, the way we have extended unemployment benefits in previous downturns. Those needs of the American people and a dozen other needs are what we ought to be spending our time on tonight and every day until those issues, and many other critical issues, are addressed. Instead, those on the other side of the aisle decided to spend 30 hours rehashing the reasons that 4 out of the 172 of President Bush's judicial nominees have not been confirmed by the Senate. In my home State of Michigan, the unemployment rate is 7.4 percent. In fact, Michigan has lost and continues to lose more manufacturing jobs than almost any other State in the Nation. Mr. President, 2.5 million of the 3.3 million jobs which the U.S. economy has lost since January 1, 2001, were in manufacturing. We lost over 160,000 of those jobs in Michigan alone.”