Cory Booker: “I rise today to speak on behalf of the 2.3 million Americans, including the 140,000 New Jerseyans who have been without…”

“I rise today to speak on behalf of the 2.3 million Americans, including the 140,000 New Jerseyans who have been without a job for months and desperately need our help. These Americans are Americans who are veterans who stood for us in the military and Armed Forces. These are families and individuals with children. These are our seniors. These are folks who have been working for decades and suddenly found themselves in the worst economy of my lifetime without a job. I am very proud of this body. We are inching closer toward passing legislation to restore Federal unemployment insurance. What this money does is it takes families from crisis with these meager checks to give a little bit of stability so they can do what is necessary to look for work. It helps them keep their car insurance so they can ride to interviews. It helps them keep the cable service going so they can apply online and actually file their reesumees as they look for jobs. It helps them meet mortgage payments, so they can keep a roof over their heads or rental payments as well. I want to thank the incredible bipartisan leadership of Dean Heller and Jack Reed. Senator Heller and Senator Reed have been working hard together with a group of us relentlessly to bring us this far. I have been so grateful for the leadership of those two Senators and others because it made us so close in this body to getting unemployment insurance extended. This is a bipartisan bill. It involves compromise.…”