Tell Us How You Really Feel
“The jobs bill emerging in the Senate is pathetic”
So starts the lead editorial in The New York Times last Friday titled How Not to Write a Jobs Bill.
The jobs bill emerging in the Senate is pathetic, both as a response to joblessness and as an example of legislation deemed capable of winning bipartisan support.
An $85 billion proposal put forward Thursday morning by Max Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, and by Charles Grassley, the committee’s top Republican, scarcely began to grapple with the $266 billion in provisions for jobs and stimulus that President Obama proposed in his budget. It was not even in the same league as the modest House-passed $154 billion jobs bill.
The Times rightly notes that most of the Baucus-Grassley plan wasn’t really jobs-related, but loaded with a patchwork of business and other tax breaks for the wealthy, as well as special interest payoffs to attract hoped-for Republican votes. In response, many Senate Democrats said they could not support the Baucus-Grassley proposal.
So the majority leader, Harry Reid, decided to hold a vote on a stripped-down, $15 billion version in late February. The rest of the package, plus many other job-creation ideas, would be left for another day.
With 14.8 million Americans unemployed — more than 40 percent of them for more than six months — the smaller package is so puny as to be meaningless.
The Times goes on to endorse a plan that would immediately include key components of the five-point plan proposed by the AFL-CIO and endorsed by the Jobs for America Now coalition.
At a minimum, a credible jobs package must extend unemployment benefits through 2010. Piecemeal extensions only ensure that lawmakers will have to return to the issue repeatedly, creating avoidable uncertainty for unemployed workers and for businesses that rely on the consumer demand generated by jobless benefits.
A credible package also must provide fiscal aid to states, which continue to be slammed by falling tax revenues just as more people need help. Without more aid, states will have to cut spending and raise taxes to close an estimated $142 billion budget gap for fiscal year 2011, which starts on July 1 for most states.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has objected to a proposed emergency one-week extension of jobless benefits beyond their scheduled February 28 expiration.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s tiny payroll tax-break plan leaves out the essential jobless benefit extensions, fiscal relief for states, large-scale infrastructure and public works programs for hardest-hit communities across the country.
Stop the cockamamie nonsense already!
Last week Senator Reid was quoted as saying “we don’t have a jobs bill, we have a jobs agenda.”
At the moment it’s clear that he’s right on the first point. We need to make sure that he’s right on the second. As the Times editorial concluded Friday:
The $15 billion Senate proposal may win Republican votes, but better-than-nothing is not nearly good enough. Neither is a pledge to do more later. A full response to joblessness is already overdue.
Tags: Jobs, jobs bill, unemployment, unemployment benefits extension
The long term unemployed in this country,like myself,are completely demoralized,andhave been and will continue to be lied to by our so called elected officials.So when the millions fall off the files of unemployment,they will be able to fudge the numbers,once again.When the hell are they going to step to the plate,and realize the truth about what is going on out here-not in thier fantasyland!
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I don’t see how or why it makes any difference what the deficit is anymore,we as americans already will never be able to payback china what is owed to them for bailing us out.We were sold out decades ago,for the benefit of a few,we all lose.
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Does anyone know if there is any truth to this article and if so, does it mean only a 12 week eligibility extension or additional tiers or EB?
http://www.chicagodefender.com/article-7172-jobs-bill-to-extend-.html
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The article you’ve provided the link to is not accurate. The problem, I believe, is it combines out of date information and only partial information.
First, there currently is no legislation in the Senate to extend the Recovery Act’s extended unemployment benefits and COBRA subsidies despite the fact that they are scheduled to end Feb 28. Early last week the so-called Baucus-Grassley plan was announced which included a 3-month UI/COBRA extension, but the bill was heavy on tax cuts for businesses and special interest provisions rather than job-creation that it is not moving forward.
That means that a separate, emergency UI/COBRA extension must be enacted in both the Senate and the House next week. We here and allies like the National Employment Law Project (NELP) are urging an immediate, full-year extension of the expanded UI and COBRA programs through 2010. Such an extension would include all the current provisions including Tiers I through IV and EB, but not additional tiers.
In a statement yesterday NELP said:
“Last week, Senate Majority Leader Reid proposed a one-week extension, as a stop-gap measure, but Minority Leader McConnell objected to that. The state UI agencies, NELP and many of our national and state allies have made it clear that one week is unacceptable. It is time to stop playing games with these UI programs, holding them hostage as vehicles on which to move other pieces of legislation. We have called for Congress to move year-long UI and COBRA extensions as stand alone legislation as soon as Congress reconvenes and will be spending the rest of this week and as much of next week as necessary working to make that a reality.”
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