Byron Dorgan: “the to-do list in the Congress, and especially in the Senate, is long and difficult. We have witnessed all of this year…”

“the to-do list in the Congress, and especially in the Senate, is long and difficult. We have witnessed all of this year a determined minority to act as a set of human brake pads. The minority has tried to stop almost everything in the Senate, including providing extended unemployment benefits for those who are out of work during the country's deepest recession since the Great Depression. It is unbelievable to me. It seems to me everyone should understand that when we are in a deep recession, as we have been--and we are coming out of it--that is the time to extend unemployment benefits because it is necessary to do. Yet it, too, has gotten caught in this trap of saying no to everything. I wish to go over just a bit of the to-do list in the Senate. First and foremost, there is no question that one of the most significant challenges facing this country is debt and deficits. Everybody understands that. The question is, How do we deal with it? The President is criticized for describing what he took over, but it is pretty important. You go to a rental car dealership and they want you to look around and see what the car is like before you rent it, right? This President ran for President, but when he took over this economy, had he done nothing, not lifted a finger, the Federal budget deficit was going to be $1.3 trillion. On the first month of his Presidency, the economy he was left with had 680,000 people losing their jobs in that month.”