The Senate was poised for a crucial vote to temporarily restore long-term unemployment insurance on Tuesday, despite arctic conditions preventing some legislators from making it to Capitol Hill.
Around 1.3 million Americans lost their benefits 10 days ago after a bipartisan budget deal on federal spending failed to include a reauthorisation of the insurance program. A further 72,000 saw their benefits cut off on Saturday.
The ‘emergency’ federal benefits program applies only to the long-term jobseekers in times of exceptionally high unemployment. Republicans argue the bipartisan bill, which extends the benefits for three months, will add an additional $6.4bn to the deficit.
Democrats and the White House are behind a concerted push to restore the program, with economic inequality and poverty set to be a major political issue in the run-up to November’s mid-term elections.
A vote for “cloture” – a parliamentary measure that cuts off debate and expedites legislation – had been scheduled for Monday night, amid doubts over how Democrats would muster sufficient Republican defections to achieve the necessary 60 votes.
The vote was further complicated after atrocious weather, which led to 3,500 flight cancellations across the US, prevented more than a dozen senators from being present. Eighteen out of 100 senators were absent during a vote to confirm Janet Yellen’s nomination for the chair of the Federal Reserve.
A congressional source said the vote on the jobless benefits bill, scheduled for 10.30am, would proceed regardless of bad weather on Tuesday. Democrats need around five Republican senators to join them if the initiative is going to pass.
So far only two Republicans in the Senate have said publicly they will support the measure: Dean Heller, the Nevada lawmaker who co-sponsored the bill, and senator Susan Collins of Maine.
The gloomy outlook for the bill was compounded when Club for Growth, a staunchly conservative group wielding significant power over Republican legislators during election years, warned senators against voting for the bill.
President Barack Obama, who is hosting a handf long-term joful of long-term job seekers at the White House on Tuesday, has taken the rare step of personally calling lawmakers to shore up support for the bill.
“He doesn’t normally like calling us,” Republican senator Mark Kirk told Politico after speaking with the president.
Kirk, whose state of Illinois has an unemployment rate of 8.7%, is the Republican senator whose constituents are feeling the most pain as a result of the benefits cut, according to a Guardian analysis of data released over the weekend.
Still, he insisted on Monday that he would not vote to restore the benefits. Critics of the bill say the recent fall in the headline unemployment rate to 7% means the program, named 'emergency unemployment insurance', is no longer warranted.
At the very least, Republicans want the extension to be offset with a spending reduction elsewhere, avoiding an increase to the deficit. But Democrats and leading economists counter that the long-term unemployment rateremains stubbornly high at 2.6%, as opposed to a typical rate of 1%.
Government spending on long-term benefits is also considered an effective means of stimulating the economy because recipients spend the money on goods and services. One economist, Larry Katz, from Harvard, told the Guardian the decision to let the program expire was costing the US economy up to $1bn a week.
In brief remarks on the Senate floor on Monday before the vote was postponed, Democrat Jack Reed, the Rhode Island senator who co-authored the bill, stressed it was only a three-month, stopgap measure, intended to give Congress time to work on a more permanent plan. “Don't leave these people without anything, throwing them off a cliff,” Reed said.
The debate over poverty and income is shaping up to be a major battleground for 2014, and is expected to feature prominently in Obama’s state of the union address at the end of the month. Democrats are determined to press on with what they believe is a vote-losing issue for Republicans.
Following the fight over long-term benefits, Democrats plan to resuscitate the longstanding campaign to increase the minimum wage, a move which has broad public support, even among Tea Party supporters.
Republicans are divided over how to respond, although some believe the GOP should be seeking to carve out its own, fiscally conservative agenda for addressing poverty.
Senator Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican and possible 2014 presidential candidate, will give a major speech on Wednesday in which he seeks to do just that.
Timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of president Lyndon B Johnson’s famed ‘war on poverty’ speech, Rubio's speech in Washington is expected to reject a government-orientated approach to dealing with poverty.
In a preview of his speech, which aids say will contain new and concrete policy proposals, Rubio released a YouTube video on Sunday in which he said the $20tn spent on welfare and other poverty-alleviation programs since LBJ’s speech had not worked.
The senator said it was time to rethink how to address the unjustifiably high levels of poverty in the country. “For millions of Americans living in poverty, the American dream does not seem reachable – and that’s unacceptable,” he said on Sunday. “After 50 years, isn’t it time to declare big government’s war on poverty a failure?”
theguardian.com
Around 1.3 million Americans lost their benefits 10 days ago after a bipartisan budget deal on federal spending failed to include a reauthorisation of the insurance program. A further 72,000 saw their benefits cut off on Saturday.
The ‘emergency’ federal benefits program applies only to the long-term jobseekers in times of exceptionally high unemployment. Republicans argue the bipartisan bill, which extends the benefits for three months, will add an additional $6.4bn to the deficit.
Democrats and the White House are behind a concerted push to restore the program, with economic inequality and poverty set to be a major political issue in the run-up to November’s mid-term elections.
A vote for “cloture” – a parliamentary measure that cuts off debate and expedites legislation – had been scheduled for Monday night, amid doubts over how Democrats would muster sufficient Republican defections to achieve the necessary 60 votes.
The vote was further complicated after atrocious weather, which led to 3,500 flight cancellations across the US, prevented more than a dozen senators from being present. Eighteen out of 100 senators were absent during a vote to confirm Janet Yellen’s nomination for the chair of the Federal Reserve.
A congressional source said the vote on the jobless benefits bill, scheduled for 10.30am, would proceed regardless of bad weather on Tuesday. Democrats need around five Republican senators to join them if the initiative is going to pass.
So far only two Republicans in the Senate have said publicly they will support the measure: Dean Heller, the Nevada lawmaker who co-sponsored the bill, and senator Susan Collins of Maine.
The gloomy outlook for the bill was compounded when Club for Growth, a staunchly conservative group wielding significant power over Republican legislators during election years, warned senators against voting for the bill.
President Barack Obama, who is hosting a handf long-term joful of long-term job seekers at the White House on Tuesday, has taken the rare step of personally calling lawmakers to shore up support for the bill.
“He doesn’t normally like calling us,” Republican senator Mark Kirk told Politico after speaking with the president.
Kirk, whose state of Illinois has an unemployment rate of 8.7%, is the Republican senator whose constituents are feeling the most pain as a result of the benefits cut, according to a Guardian analysis of data released over the weekend.
Still, he insisted on Monday that he would not vote to restore the benefits. Critics of the bill say the recent fall in the headline unemployment rate to 7% means the program, named 'emergency unemployment insurance', is no longer warranted.
At the very least, Republicans want the extension to be offset with a spending reduction elsewhere, avoiding an increase to the deficit. But Democrats and leading economists counter that the long-term unemployment rateremains stubbornly high at 2.6%, as opposed to a typical rate of 1%.
Government spending on long-term benefits is also considered an effective means of stimulating the economy because recipients spend the money on goods and services. One economist, Larry Katz, from Harvard, told the Guardian the decision to let the program expire was costing the US economy up to $1bn a week.
In brief remarks on the Senate floor on Monday before the vote was postponed, Democrat Jack Reed, the Rhode Island senator who co-authored the bill, stressed it was only a three-month, stopgap measure, intended to give Congress time to work on a more permanent plan. “Don't leave these people without anything, throwing them off a cliff,” Reed said.
The debate over poverty and income is shaping up to be a major battleground for 2014, and is expected to feature prominently in Obama’s state of the union address at the end of the month. Democrats are determined to press on with what they believe is a vote-losing issue for Republicans.
Following the fight over long-term benefits, Democrats plan to resuscitate the longstanding campaign to increase the minimum wage, a move which has broad public support, even among Tea Party supporters.
Republicans are divided over how to respond, although some believe the GOP should be seeking to carve out its own, fiscally conservative agenda for addressing poverty.
Senator Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican and possible 2014 presidential candidate, will give a major speech on Wednesday in which he seeks to do just that.
Timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of president Lyndon B Johnson’s famed ‘war on poverty’ speech, Rubio's speech in Washington is expected to reject a government-orientated approach to dealing with poverty.
In a preview of his speech, which aids say will contain new and concrete policy proposals, Rubio released a YouTube video on Sunday in which he said the $20tn spent on welfare and other poverty-alleviation programs since LBJ’s speech had not worked.
The senator said it was time to rethink how to address the unjustifiably high levels of poverty in the country. “For millions of Americans living in poverty, the American dream does not seem reachable – and that’s unacceptable,” he said on Sunday. “After 50 years, isn’t it time to declare big government’s war on poverty a failure?”
theguardian.com
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