Byron Dorgan: “I regret what happened in the Senate today. We passed some legislation that will offer some assistance to some who are…”

“I regret what happened in the Senate today. We passed some legislation that will offer some assistance to some who are unemployed in this country, but we left 1 million people who should have received the help of Members of the Senate, from the Congress, and from the President, without the kind of help they need. A lot of folks in this country don't have people clogging the hallways of the Capitol lobbying on their behalf--certainly not the people who are without means, at the lower end of the economic ladder; they have not hired people in the hallways of the Capitol to represent their interests. They rely on us to do that. There are so many families in this country who know things that Members of the Senate do not know. They know about a second shift, they know about a second job, they know about a second mortgage, and they know about buying a secondhand car. They know firsthand that they are the first in this country during an economic downturn to be called into an office and be told, by the way, you are being laid off, you are losing your job. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans have had to go home to tell their families that, through no fault of theirs, they were given a notice that their job was gone. They are no longer employed. It is a devastating thing for families to experience that.”