Senate Sends State Aid, Teachers’ Jobs Bill to House

by Mike Hall, Aug 5, 2010

By a 61-39 vote today, the U.S. Senate put its finishing touches on an aid to state and local governments bill that would save or create nearly a million jobs for teachers, public employees, police officers, firefighters and others. The measure is fully paid for, in part because it closes tax loopholes for multi-national corporations  that send U.S. jobs overseas.

The bill provides $16 billion for a Medicaid funding assistance program known as FMAP and $10 billion for teachers’ jobs. Without such funding, the states facing huge budget shortfalls will be forced to begin massive layoffs that could cost nearly a million workers their jobs.

Now it is up to the House to take the final vote before sending the bill to the White House for President Obama’s signature.  Click here to tell your representative to vote for the bill and support Medicaid and teacher funding to save jobs.

After the Senate voted yesterday to end a Republican filibuster of the bill, House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she is calling the House back into session next week for the vote.

As millions of children prepare to go back to school—many in just a few days—the House will act quickly to approve this legislation [and] send the bill to President Obama without further delay.

Although Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine voted for the bill, it  has met near unanimous Republican opposition in the Senate and House. But as Doug Thornell, a spokesman for Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), assistant House speaker, said:

If Republicans vote against this, they are voting to fire hundreds of thousands of teachers, firefighters and police officers just to protect powerful corporate special interests who want to send American jobs overseas.

Something for voters to remember in November.

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