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Nearly 200,000 lose unemployment benefits while Senate dithers
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According to a Democratic Senate ticker, almost 200,000 Americans have lost their unemployment compensation insurance benefits in the past 26 days since GOP Senators have blocked a bill to extend unemployment insurance. That amounts to over 7000 per day and still ticking.
The old adage that time is money may apply to ordinary Americans, but apparently it has little relevance in the U.S. Senate, where every day is beginning to seem more and more like Groundhog Day.
The House bill, called the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009 (HR 3548), passed overwhelmingly on Sept. 22 by a 331-83 margin. The bill would extend jobless benefits to all states for 14 weeks, with an additional six weeks for states with more than 8.5 percent unemployment, and all without adding one penny to the deficit. The Senate version (S 1699) was introduced a day later and has since been stalled by bipartisan bickering.
After the House bill passed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), filed a motion to pass the Senate version by unanimous consent in early October. The Republican minority responded with a filibuster to block the bill. After negotiations, Reid filed for cloture on Oct. 21 to break the filibuster. On October 27, the Senate voted 87-13 on a motion to proceed to consider the bill, breaking the filibuster. The GOP then elected to take the 30 hours for "debate" that is allowed under Senate rules, thereby forcing another cloture vote.
Senate rules require two cloture votes to move to final passage of a bill originating in the House when Senate Democrats want to swap it out for a substitute proposal, as was the case here. The reality is that there is not much debate on the bill at that point. Senators can take to the floor and speak about whatever they want in order to stall the legislation.
Democrats then made several concessions to get things moving, adding a substitute amendment with billions in tax breaks for businesses, a net operating loss carry-back provision that the GOP has long favored, and an extension of the home buyer tax credit. After feeding the pigs at the trough, Reid filed for cloture again on Oct. 29th. It came to a vote Monday night, Nov. 2nd, where it passed 85-2. The GOP response: another 30 hours of debate! That means yet another cloture vote will be required late Tuesday at the earliest, and another 30 hours debate will mean the actual bill cannot be voted on until sometime Thursday.
According to Ryan Grim, writing for the Huffington Post, an aide for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said an offer has been made to complete the bill by Thursday. An aide for Reid's office, however, said that offer included several "unrelated amendments" to the bill, including attacks on ACORN, illegal immigrants and the financial-industry bailout that are unacceptable.
With a popular bill that won a vote by margins of 331-83 in the House and 87-13 in the Senate, one may think it would be easy to get it passed. That, however, is not the case. Part of the democratic process in congress allows the minority party to slow down legislation in congress if they choose to exercise that right, and that is exactly what the GOP Senators are doing.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters in the Capitol today that GOP leaders are stalling intentionally in order to prevent other Democratic priorities from reaching the floor. “Even today they’re still stalling before we can pass this bill finally,” Reid said. “Perhaps Senate Republicans don’t think it matters to stall and delay, but it matters to the unemployed worker who so desperately needs this money.”
It is probably a safe assumption that most Americans are more concerned about jobs and putting food on their tables than they are Senate procedures. Meanwhile, appropriations bills that fund the government, or health care bills are pushed back on the congressional schedule...while over 7000 Americans per day lose their unemployment benefits. Helping the unemployed helps all of us because that money goes directly back into our economy. Delaying congressional proceedings helps no one.
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