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Senate to Take Up Full Year Jobless Aid Extension

Attempts to pass an emergency one month extension of expanded jobless benefit programs continued to be blocked in the Senate yesterday by retiring Republican Senator and Hall of Fame Shame pitcher Jim Bunning of Kentucky.

More than 200,000 jobless workers will lose unemployment benefits this week as the February 28th cut-off to extend benefits lapses without Senate action, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) announced today.

Sen. Bunning continued to block the emergency measure again this morning, even objecting to a request by Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins.

From ABC via AP:

Sen. Jim Bunning has again blocked the Senate from extending unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless.

The Kentucky Republican objected Tuesday to a request by Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a fellow Republican, to pass a 30-day extension of jobless benefits and other expired measures. The measure would also extend highway programs and prevent a big cut in Medicare payments to doctors.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are moving forward with a plan that includes a full year extension of the jobless aid programs first put in place in last year’s Recovery Act, a move we’ve been urging them to take all along.

The Washington Post reports:

The measure includes one-year extensions of unemployment insurance and COBRA, making the benefits retroactive to Feb. 28 to compensate those whose benefits have temporarily run out. It would continue the increased level of funding for state Medicaid programs that began with last year’s stimulus package, and provide extra help for pension funds that were hit hard by the economic recession.

McClatchy has a fantastic map showing what they dub “the Bunning effect.”

The Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal unloaded on Bunning in today’s editorial titled Bunning’s True Colors:

Jim Bunning partisans will say that the Kentucky junior senator’s most recent headline-grabbing display of obstinate oafishness was really a principled stand. His lone vote — not once, but twice — to block the extension of unemployment and health benefits to unemployed Americans, a vote that also stalled road projects and furloughed those workers, was purportedly all about forcing the country to pay as it goes, even when it comes to extending safety nets to those feeling the worst pains of the worst recession in modern American history. (Question: Did he demand the same standard for bankrolling the wars?)

The penury of even his political soul is breathtaking and is nothing to be admired or emulated. Indeed, a series of missteps, misstatements and other embarrassments so alienated Mr. Bunning from his Senate peers, his fellow Republican Party members and all but the most bovine party-line voters in his home state that he could not run for re-election for a seat that should have been his until he was ready to meet his maker. Instead, he’s raging — and cussing — at the dying of the spotlight. If only he could exit stage right now.

Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl yesterday defended Bunning on the Senate floor and attacked unemployment insurance, saying that for jobless workers “unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work”.

“I’m sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it, but you can’t argue that it’s a job enhancer. If anything, as I said, it’s a disincentive. And the same thing with the COBRA extension and the other extensions here,” said Kyl.

Kyl’s not just mean. He’s wrong.

By every economic indicator, the extension of jobless aid provided by the Recovery Act should continue through the end of year. As recently documented by the Congressional Budget Office, the extension of jobless aid also provides the most significant boost to the economy and job growth of any policy option being debated by Congress. It provides $1.90 in stimulus for every dollar spent, and will be responsible for creating 800,000 jobs this year alone.

With new unemployment claims surging it’s way past time for Congress to pass an extension of critical jobless aid programs through 2010.

Tell Congress to pass the full-year extension of UI and COBRA now.

And tell Senator Bunning (202-224-4343) and Senator Kyl (202-224-4521) to get out of the way.

Tags: COBRA, jobless benefits extension, unemployment