6
Senate OKs extending jobless benefits
Senator Jeanne Shaheen delivers remarks about legislation she and Sen. Jack Reed introduced that would extend unemployment benefits during a news conference with Sen. Debbie Stabenow at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
To view this content, Javascript must be enabled and Adobe Flash Player must be installed.
TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Bill Radke: The Senate has passed a spending bill that's like one of those goody bags you get at a party --
call it the let's-end-this-recession-already party. The bill extends a tax credit for home buyers; it extends emergency unemployment benefits, it has a nice hefty tax break for companies hit by the downturn. Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman has been following this legislation. He joins us live. Hi, Mitchell.
Mitchell Hartman: Good morning, Bill.
Radke: This Senate bill pulls a lot of levers.
Hartman There is a theme here. It's hit a lot of big constituencies with financial relief, and then maybe everyone will start to act and feel like the recession's over, the way that economists tell us it already is. So here's what's in the bill: There's up to 20 extra weeks of unemployment checks. That's for more than a million workers who are running out of benefits. That $8,000 tax credit for home buyers that has been responsible for resurrecting the housing market. It now goes through April. And home owners who are trading up can access that as well. Finally, Congress extends a very nice tax break that they've already given small businesses. Big businesses will be able to use it as well. They can recover corporate taxes that they paid in the boom times, by writing them off against losses that they've now suffered in the recession.
Radke: Well let's talk costs, Mitchell. This all must come with a lot of zeroes.
Hartman: It's $20 billion, is the price tag. And that's nine zeros, if my math is right. But keep in mind, Congress doesn't want to be caught adding to the deficit, so it's trying to do this "pay as you go." The unemployment extension is actually fully paid for by extending an existing payroll tax on employers. The rest is covered by delaying a tax break that big multinational corporations were expecting to get on international interest payments. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn't like that part of it, and says it'll fight any more corporate tax increases. This Senate bill now goes on to the House, and the president's expected to sign it.
Radke: Mitchell Hartman, thank you.
Hartman: You're welcome.
This is for show as all extended benefits expire Dec 2009. Dont act like its 14-20 week reprieve when only 7 weeks are left until the expiration. You left out most of the population.The senate never addressed that issue. On the next election day perhaps these senators should be left unemployed since they can not seem to understand that their constituant can in fact do simple math!
"...until this massive recession hit."
I'm sorry for your problems. I've been unemployed also.
Please grasp that the govt. does not exist to give money away; the primary cause of the current economic problems is 4 decades of deficit spending. Congress has been irresponsible in spending more than it has, thus taxing our children and grandchildren. This is moral bankruptcy!
The extensions are FULLY paid for by a $14 tax on employers(businesses), which has been in place for about 30 yrs now as is!! It amounts to 26 cents per day, per employee! It doesn't add a single DIME to the defocite, nor is it being funded by tax dollars. It should have been passed bare bones with NO add ons in my opinion. The house seems to be a lot more honest to me, because they sent it with only one issue written on it to the senate. The senate being more corrupt and with corporate greed running rampant and pulling their puppet strings for the most part, of course could not simply let the issue be passed in a timely manner, nor alone, they always have to try and sneak something in to help the banks (or their other sponsors, wallstreet and big business) If they don't, how will they ever get hired as lobbyists when they're tired of being Senators, they need those sponsors to hire them for the big bucks they've promised! Money needs to get out of our politics, time to make a law stopping our politicians from being controlled by money and corporate greed!
The Repubs would've like to tack even more onto the bill, but the Dems said no! This resulted in a campaign to bog down the bill, which the GOP did successfully for over a month before the majority leader put away the olive branch and flexed his majority muscle adopting the slow process of invoking cloture to stop the fillibustering.
What happened with the homebuyers tax is that the GOP wanted a BIGGER home buyer tax credit than the Dems did! The Dems compromised, and put it on the bill! They also compromised by upping the income limit for who qualifies for the homebuyer tax credit, and by extending it to "move up" buyers!
This was all an effort to get the GOP to stop dragging its feet and cooperate by passing the bill instead of repeatedly objecting to it, forcing the Dems to flex their majority muscle, and invoke cloture! (a long drawn out process of ending debate on a bill, that is intended to stop fillibusters, when a majority of Senators is clearly in favor of a bill)
When the Repubs refused to cooperate, the Dems of course felt pressured to play ball, rather than starve the 7,000 people per day who no longer had a check to pay the rent, thanks to the delay the hold up was causing!
GOP suggested upping the income limits to 300k per couple, 150k per person, and Dems countered with the compromise of 125k per person, and 225k per couple. Instead of extending it for anyone who buys a house, like the GOP suggested, the Dems compromised with the "move up" portion of the bill instead which lets people who've lived in their primary residence for at least 5yrs qualify in addition to first time buyers tax. In spite of the Dems compromising to try and lure the Repubs into supporting the UE extension, the Repubs still continued to drag their feet slowing the passage of much needed aid to almost a million people who already are in dire straights having already exhausted ALL benefits, and now faced with hunger, and in some cases homelessness! People were getting angry at being starved, it was all over the internet, and putting a lot of pressure on the politicians to stop bailing out the banks, and giving out bonuses, and passing raises for their staff, and start helping the people they represent stay afloat. There was a national message given loudly that you starving mainstreet in order to fatten wallstreet, is not OK in America.
The homebuyers credit has already had a high level of fraud by participants, and it does cost a lot, and I'm not in favor of extending it personally, but if it was the only way to get money for rent, and for food into the hands of suffering American tax payers who worked all of their lives just to have their jobs shipped over sees, or their companies lay them off to increase their bottom lines, then I say let them have it! Which they are of course.
There is a serious problem in America when billions in record bonuses can be passed in a matter of days, and yet it takes MONTHS to pass aid to the American tax payer, that doesn't even cost the government a dime out of pocket! We really really need to fix this. John Kyl is up there saying that nobody ran out of UE, and that they can take all the time in the world, as myself and hundreds of thousands of Americans go hungry, and still can't find work, including many who have Master's degrees, and a much more formal education than I, most of whom have never even been unemployed, until this massive recession hit!
I have been out of work for well over a year now there just isn't anyone hiring right now. I also will never forgive the Republicans for holding this up! I've never been in this position before Hopefully things will get better soon God willing!
