Jobless help to expire as Congress debates tax
WASHINGTON - Jobless benefits will run out for two million people during the holiday season unless they are renewed by a Congress that is focused more on a quarrel over preserving tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 a year.
WASHINGTON - Jobless benefits will run out for two million people during the holiday season unless they are renewed by a Congress that is focused more on a quarrel over preserving tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 a year.
It is questionable whether Congress will renew benefits averaging $310 a week nationwide that now are claimed by almost five million people who have been out of work for more than six months.
An extension of jobless benefits enacted this summer expires Dec. 1, and a bill to extend them for three months failed in the House on Thursday. Democrats brought the bill to the floor under fast-track rules that required a two-thirds vote to pass. Republicans opposed the legislation because they were denied a chance to attach spending cuts, so the measure fell despite winning a 258-154 majority.
In Thursday's vote, 21 Republicans joined with Democrats in favor. Eleven moderate-to-conservative Democrats opposed the bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) promised to bring the measure back to the floor after Thanksgiving to try to enact an emergency measure that would extend benefits at least through the holidays. But Senate Democrats do not have time. Instead, they hope the jobless-benefits issue is addressed in year-end negotiations over taxes and other important year-end legislation.
The most recent effort to renew jobless benefits occupied weeks of the notoriously balky Senate's time and barely advanced with the required 60 votes.
Now, even if there were time, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky would appear to command the votes to block any benefits extension that is not "paid for" with cuts to other programs. Sen.-elect Mark Kirk of Illinois will soon join the chamber, replacing Democrat Roland Burris, which appears now to leave Democrats short of the votes to defeat a filibuster.
Still, the looming expiration of benefits could put Republicans on the defensive - they will expire just as debate peaks in the lame-duck session over whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts on individuals with income exceeding $200,000 or for couples making more than $250,000. The tax cuts expire Dec. 31, and Democrats oppose permanently extending the upper-bracket tax cuts, which would cost about $700 billion over 10 years.