Next up on unfinished Senate agenda: unemployment insurance

Once Democrat Carte Goodwin is sworn in Tuesday to replace the late Sen. Robert Byrd, Senate Democrats will have the votes to try again to extend unemployment insurance to the jobless.

For congressional Democrats – especially in the often-gridlocked US Senate – this week marks a sprint to wind up a large, unfinished agenda in time to sway midterm elections.

Big-ticket items range from energy and campaign-finance reform to decisions over expiring Bush-era tax cuts, war funding, and 12 spending bills for fiscal year 2011, which begins Oct. 1. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court, with a full Senate vote expected later in the week.

With the swearing-in on Tuesday of Democrat Carte Goodwin to fill the seat of the late Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Democrats say they have the 60th vote needed break a Republican filibuster and approve a long-stalled $34 billion extension of unemployment benefits..

Highlighting the unfinished Senate agenda in his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama charged Republicans with "filibustering the nation's economic recovery" and making a stand “on the backs of the unemployed.” Most Senate Republicans oppose the measure on the grounds that Democrats have not identified offsetting spending cuts to pay for it..

“We're all for extending unemployment insurance. The question is, when are we going to get serious … about the debt?” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday on CNN’s "State of the Union." “We recently passed a $13 trillion cumulative deficit threshold. When are we going to get serious about this? This administration has been on an incredible spending spree.”.

Back in February, when maverick Sen. Jim Bunning (R) of Kentucky launched a one-man bid to block a $10 billion, temporary extension of eligibility for unemployment insurance, 78 senators opposed him, including 19 of his GOP colleagues. But since then, Senate Republicans, with the exception of Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, have rallied around the theme of reining in federal deficits, even at the expense of unemployed constituents..

“There’s bipartisan support for the idea of helping the unemployed. The Democrats missed a great opportunity to pass a bill showing that we could also control costs,” says Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina..

At the same time, Republicans say there is no need to offset the cost of extending the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, now set to expire Dec. 31. If these cuts expire, the highest income tax bracket jumps from 35 percent to 39.6 percent; the lowest, from 10 percent to 15 percent. The top rate for dividends, now 15 percent, runs up to 39.6 percent. The top rate for taxes on capital gains rises from 15 to 20 percent. The estate tax, which dropped to zero for 2010, reverts to a top rate of 55 percent..

“We believe that the problem is not that we tax too little but that we spend too much,” Senator McConnell said Sunday..

Mr. Obama campaigned on a pledge to extend the Bush tax cuts for families with incomes less than $250,000 a year and for individuals earning less than $200,000 – a measure that Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation estimates will cost $300 billion annually..   Full Story

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Jobless aid stalls in Senate; home buyers get more time

The Senate failed once again late Wednesday to advance a plan to restore jobless benefits for people out of work more than six months, leaving millions of unemployed workers in limbo until after the July 4 recess.

The measure fell one vote shy of the 60 needed to end a Republican filibuster. Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) said he was prepared to provide that vote, but that Democrats had rejected his request to pay for at least half of the $34 billion measure with unspent funds from last year's stimulus package.

"Democrats are more interested in having this issue to demagogue for political gamesmanship than they are in simply passing the benefits extension," Voinovich, who is retiring, said in a statement. "I came to the table with a fair compromise and the ball is in their court."

Democrats countered that the 9.7 percent jobless rate constitutes a continuing emergency that, under congressional budget rules, has traditionally been addressed through deficit spending.

"For those who question whether this is an emergency situation, they should talk to the Nevadans who I hear from every day who rely on this assistance to put food on the table and pay the bills while they look for work," Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said at a news conference with Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis.

That argument won over at least two Republicans: Sens. Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine voted for the stripped-down measure, which would have restored jobless benefits that expired June 2 and extended the deadline for home buyers to claim a tax credit aimed at reviving the housing market until Sept. 30. After the overall bill failed, the Senate passed a separate measure that sent the tax credit to President Obama for his signature.

At Snowe's urging, Democrats had jettisoned numerous other provisions from the jobless bill, including $16 billion for cash-strapped state governments, $1 billion for summer jobs and $32 billion in special-interest tax breaks that expired earlier this year.

But other Republicans -- as well as Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) -- continued to insist that at least a portion of the jobless benefits be paid for, arguing that the nation can no longer afford to add to record budget deficits. When it became clear that the vote would fail, Reid switched sides for strategic reasons, making the final vote 58 to 38.

House leaders were planning to take up the jobless bill Thursday and said they expect it to pass. But its failure in the Senate ensures that more than 2 million people will have their checks cut off before Congress returns to Washington after a week-long break. The Labor Department estimates that more than 1.2 million people already have been affected.

States typically provide unemployment benefits for up to 26 weeks. Congress triggered emergency benefits in 2008 and expanded them in last year's stimulus package. On June 2, the federal programs was providing more than 5 million people with up to 99 weeks of assistance.  Via Washington Post






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