Senate Fails To Move Emergency Unemployment Compensation Forward 55-45, but Republican Constituents are Catching On that their Representatives Don't Care About Them

 Senate Republicans Move the Goal Posts and Deny 1.3 Million Americans Extended Unemployment Compensation, But Constituents are Starting to Realize It

Chart by www.cbpp.org

Well, the Senate failed to move the Emergency Unemployment Compensation bill forward because they couldn't get Republicans to vote for helping 1.3 million Americans in dire need of help.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has struggled to attract Republican votes as the GOP – still fuming about a rules change he pushed that diminishes their filibuster power – moved the goalposts on what it would take for GOP lawmakers to support an extension of the program.

Two procedural votes on different variations on an extension failed Tuesday afternoon, sending lawmakers back the drawing table.

 How can Republicans say they give an iota about Americans that are struggling?  At first, Senate Republicans said they would not support the extended benefits if it were not paid for. Then, after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rounded up Democratic AND Republican proposals on how they would pay for an extension for varying lengths of time, the Republicans starting complaining about not being able to offer amendments to the legislation, therefore "moving the goalposts."

 Reid proposed a number of deals that would allow the Republicans to make amendments with 60 votes, as long as final passage of the bill would require only a majority of 51 votes. Minority leader Mitch McConnell rejected them immediately. The Republicans want a system where the minority of the senate that opposes unemployment insurance benefits gets both an amendment process where they can offer these poison pill amendments and then the minority of the Senate that opposes the bill can still kill the bill.”

 It outrages me that the Republicans/TeaPublicans really don't care what real people are going through so they can win political points. They don't have to worry about where their next meal, next tank of oil to heat there home, or tank of gas is coming from.

Republican Constituents Starting to Realize Their Politicians Don't Really Care About Them

 The PBS NewsHour.org reports that "Hardly a liberal bastion, El Paso County, in Colorado, has the largest number of people in the state who lost unemployment benefits, and many aren't happy about it. Plenty of Republicans, too, depend on jobless aid that Republicans in Congress are hesitant to prolong. The ideological argument for standing against an extension of benefits -- that the aid can ultimately make it harder to find work -- meets a more complex reality where people live.

 Democrats propose to extend the emergency benefits for people who have been or are about to be out of work for more than six months; Republicans are less inclined to take that step, particularly if it means the government borrows more money. The paralysis led to the expiration of benefits for 1.3 million long-term unemployed on Dec. 28. Lawmakers are still working on a compromise."

Read More

Republicans Need to Get in Touch With the People, and Reality

 The  TeaPublican run Republican Party needs to get in touch with reality. They don't understand that the 1.3 million Americans who have now received their last unemployment check are in desperate need of assistance. On average, the $237.00 a week was allowing those families just barely enough to scrape by, and now they've taken that away. You can't tell me that with corporate subsidies reaching $154B last year that they can't find the $6B it would take to extend the benefits that these families so desperately need. Wake up people, this is real, not a game. How far can people be pushed to their limit? What happens now, when the recipients of those benefits can't put anymore food on the table, gas in the car? And no, their not what a number of Republicans have said this week, lazy!

Please contact your Senators through GovTrack.us and tell them to stop playing games with peoples lives, they will hit their limit, it's not right.

S 1845 - The Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act was Placed on the Senate Schedule January 4, 2014

S 1845 - The Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act Was Placed on the Senate Schedule January 4, 2014 for the Next Legislative Day - Contact YOUR Senators Office

Cartoon by unemployedworkers.org

The S 1845 Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act was placed on the Senate schedule on January 4, 2014 to be acted upon on the very next legislative day. GovTrack.us says it has a 14% chance of being enacted. The bill has 21 Co-Sponsors. Only 23% of bills that made it past committee in 2011–2013 were enacted. That's not saying much because we've had an obstructionist party blocking all legislation that our current President was is favor of. See below for step-by-step instructions on finding and calling your U.S. Senators (with screenshots) and a link to track the bill and your Representatives.

Photo by www.westernjournalism.com

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Proposes Expanding Unemployment Benefits - Not Just Extending Them

In a Washington Post blog,  The Plum Line - Greg Sargent's take from a Liberal Prospective, article Reid: Let's Not Just Extend Unemployment. Let's Expand it. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proposed expanding Emergency Unemployment Benefits, not just extending them.


The short version of this is that under the current proposal to extend the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, the overall program would be extended three months. But that doesn’t mean all people on unemployment insurance get three months more; their duration is dictated by how much they’ve already received, and how long the duration of those in their tier are supposed to last. Each tier — there are four of them — is dictated by the unemployment rate in their states.

What Reid is proposing is to change the structure of the program, so that those in states with a high unemployment rate – but one that’s not high enough to qualify for the maximum of 73 weeks, the top tier – would get the maximum length. In other words, the duration of benefits would last longer for more people.
Reid told the Las Vegas Sun that he won’t push for this restructuring of the program until the three month extension is secured (which may or may not happen). And obviously, this is going to be a huge lift, given that even the temporary extension’s passage is in doubt.

Graph by www.dailykos.com

What Exactly is Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC)?

EUC is a 100% federally funded program that provides benefits to individuals who have exhausted regular state benefits. The EUC program was created on June 30, 2008, and has been modified several times. Most recently, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (P.L. 112-240) extended the expiration date of the EUC program to January 1, 2014.These benefits DO NOT apply to provide additional weeks of benefits to individuals who had already exhausted all entitlements under previous law.

Photo by inhabitat.com

President Obama Says He Will Sign 3-Month Extension of Unemployment Benefits

In a CBS News post by Jake Miller Unemployment Benefits' Expiration "Just Plain Cruel" a video of President Barack Obama shows him saying he would sign a 3-month extension bill for EUC. He urges Congress to pass he bill. The President says that these benefits are vital to a mother trying to feed her children while she's looking for work, or a father who needs help paying the rent while he's learning the skills to get a better job.

 In another article by Greg Sargent Republicans Could Face Serious Backlash Over Unemployment Benefit Expiration he examines whether or not there will be a backlash on Republicans for refusing to extend the EUC before going home for the holidays, and continuing to be stingy.

Public Policy Polling (PPP) took a look at four Republican-occupied swing districts in the House, as well as the district of House Speaker John Boehner. Bipartisan majorities of voters in each district supported extending long-term unemployment benefits:

• In California’s 31st district, currently held by Rep. Gary Miller, 68 percent of voters want the benefits continued and 28 percent support ending them. Republicans support an extension 54-41.
• In Colorado’s 6th district, held by Rep. Mike Coffman, voters want the benefits extended by a 63-33 margin, with a narrow plurality of Republicans (48 percent) in favor.
• Rep. Dan Benishek will face voters in Michigan’s 1st district who heavily support an extension, by a 66-29 percent margin, including 60 percent of Republicans.
• In Illinois’s 13th district there is also a 66-29 percent split in favor of extending benefits, with 53 percent of Republicans in favor. The seat is currently held by Rep. Rodney Davis.

 Even in Boehner’s home district, one finds similar numbers: Sixty-three percent of voters want the fund extended and 34 percent do not, including a majority (52 percent) of Republican voters.
A common rejoinder to such polling data is that perhaps voters will not prioritize the issue when casting a ballot next fall — but PPP also asked if a failure to extend long-term unemployment benefits would make voters less likely to reelect the incumbent. In each district the answer was yes.

by www.americanprogress.org

The History of Unemployment Compensation

The Social Security Act of 1935 (Public Law 74-271) created the Federal-State Unemployment Compensation (UC) Program. The program has two main objectives: (1) to provide temporary and partial wage replacement to involuntarily unemployed workers who were recently employed; and (2) to help stabilize the economy during recessions. The U.S. Department of Labor oversees the system, but each State administers its own program. Because Federal law defines the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands as States for the purposes of UC, there are 53 State programs.

photo by www.pcmech.com

 Get Involved For A Better America

 Use GovTrack to Call Your U.S. Senators (2):

1) Click on this link (I've already set it up to go right to the Senate bill "S 1845": S 1845

You will see this:

 

Click on "Call Congress"

You will see two buttons: "I Support S 1845" and "I Do Not Support S 1845" (Choose one) 

NOTE: If you have never registered with GovTrack.gov you will be asked to register, it is a very simple process, follow the prompts. After you register and have chosen whether or not to support the bill, 

You will see this:

It will automatically have your two U.S. Senators, choose what to do with the first one:

1) Enter your phone number and GovTrack will IMMEDIATELY call you at that number and then connect you to that Senators office. There is a "Call Script" to follow if you'd like.

2) GovTrack gives you the direct phone number for that Senators office for you to place the call yourself.

3) Once you've completed the first call, click on the "Call (your second Senator's name) button and you will place a call to your second Senator the same as you did the first.

CONGRATULATIONS! You have GOT INVOLVED! Subscribe to this blog by entering your e-mail address at the top left margin of this blog to get important posts so you can keep getting involved on issues important to you. Or, if you prefer, you can "Subscribe in a Reader" to get RSS feeds. Thanks for getting involved for a better America.