Unemployed Workers Win Jobless Aid Extension
Congress this morning extended for two months unemployment insurance (UI) for America’s jobless workers. Republicans in the House earlier this week had blocked the UI extenstion, but after suffering badly in opinion polling, they announced they’d join with 89 out of 100 senators from both political parties who’d already voted to renew unemployment aid for two months—with no cuts and no strings attached.
Media headlines throughout the week–including the conservative Wall Street Journal–and Republican stalwarts such as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), had decried House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) refusal to move the UI bill, which gives a lifeline to 2.8 million jobless Americans who otherwise would lose UI after Dec. 31.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka described the victory for jobless Americans as “not a hnndout or a free ride” but “a lifeline.”
In the fight to extend aid for the jobless, the 99 percent went on the offense against 1 percent politicians. And we won. And if working people keep it up, we’ll score more victories and build a better future. Not every time—two steps forward, one step back. But look around. People all across the country are saying our economy and our democracy are out of balance. And they’re winning the public debate.
House Republicans Getting Holiday Jeers—not Cheer—Working Families
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The 229 Republican House members who voted to kill unemployment insurance UI benefits for the long-term jobless and a payroll tax cut for working families are home for the holidays. But they will be getting some visitors who likely aren’t on their holiday parties guest lists.
Union members, jobless workers, faith and community activists are telling the lawmakers they should get back to work and pass the bipartisan Senate compromise that keeps the UI lifeline and payroll tax cut alive. If they don’t, 2 million unemployed workers will lose their benefits next month and another 4 million as the year goes on.
This afternoon, a group of protestors will be outside House Speaker John Boehner’s (R) in West Chester, Ohio. Dozens of other actions are also on tap.
Yesterday in Wisconsin, working families demonstrated outside the offices of Republican Reps. Paul Ryan, Sean Duffy and Reid Ribble. At Duffy’s Wausau office, activists offered a new take on Deck the Halls that included this verse: Read the rest of this entry »
House Republicans Take Off for the Holidays, Shaft Jobless Workers
Fearing they didn’t have the votes to defeat a bipartisan Senate compromise that would extend unemployment insurance (UI) for long-term jobless workers and a payroll tax cut for workers, Republican House leaders scuttled a vote on the bill today. Then they left town for the holidays. Both the UI program and the tax cut expire Dec. 31.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) previously indicated he supported the compromise that passed the Senate 89-10 with 39 Republican votes. However, when the Republican tea party wing vociferously objected, he changed his tune and opposed the bill. Republican leaders then blocked an up or down vote and 229 Republicans voted to kill Senate bill through parliamentary trickery.
Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), says that the compromise was negotiated “with the involvement and blessing of the Speaker of the House.” She also says that Senate bill rebuffed attempts in an earlier House bill that scapegoated unemployed workers and “enacted dangerous changes to the basic UI program which undermined its very purpose and effectiveness.”
While a two-month deal is not ideal, time is running out to protect the unemployed from being victims of the worst partisan games Congress has ever seen. Congress is preparing to recess for five weeks. By the time members return to D.C. to begin negotiations anew, close to 1.8 million long-term unemployed will lose their only life-line. As Speaker Boehner well knows, this stalling tactic virtually guarantees that benefits for the long-term unemployed, those already hit hardest by the recession and slow recovery, will lapse for a dangerously long period of time.
Act Now: Tell House Republicans to Stop Holding Jobless Hostage
UPDATE: The Republican-controlled House Rules Committee early Tuesday morning voted to block a full House vote on the bipartisan Senate compromise that extends unemployment insurance (UI) benefits for the long-term jobless. The current program expires Dec. 31.
House Republicans tonight are expected to reject a bipartisan Senate compromise that extends unemployment insurance (UI) benefits for the long-term jobless and also extends the payroll tax cut for workers and employers. Without House approval, the UI benefits and tax cut expire Dec. 31.
Call House Speaker John Boehner at 202-225-0600. Tell him to stop playing politics with the lives of working familes–pass the Senate’s bipartisan bill to extend unemployment aid and middle-class tax cuts now.
Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:
While the bipartisan compromise negotiated by Senate Republican and Democrat leadership and approved overwhelmingly by 89 senators is not ideal, it would give millions of working families some assurance as they head into the holidays that their unemployment benefits will not be cut off in January. Read the rest of this entry »
House Plan Attacks 99%, Benefits 1%
House Republican leaders unveiled a budget plan today in which “once again rushed to the rescue of the 1 percent” by insisting that millionaires should not have to pay one penny in taxes, according to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Instead,
the House Republican proposal would cut benefits for jobless workers, cut pay for public employees, cut preventive health services, reduce premium assistance for low- and middle-income individuals buying health insurance, and raise premiums for many Medicare beneficiaries. House Republicans obviously have more sympathy for millionaires than for the jobless.
AFGE President John Gage also blasted the Republicans leaders” Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, introduced by House Speaker John Boehner.
This is just another attack on the 99% on behalf of their good friends—the 1%. They are targeting a small segment of people who make $30,000 to $70,000 a year, rather than asking their millionaire and billionaire supporters to pay a little more. It’s not right, and the American people should be outraged.
Tell Congress: Extend UI Lifeline for 6 Million Now
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If Congress doesn’t act to ensure 6 million longtime jobless workers don’t lose unemployment insurance (UI) next year, 2 million people desperately seeking work will lose the lifeline that’s helping them and their families get by on Jan. 1. Another 4 million will run out of help week by week next year.
Yet House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) would rather spend the limited amount of time Congress has left this year to attack workers’ rights and workplace safety and health laws than exetend UI for workers struggling in an economy where there are more than four workers for every available job.
Tell Boehner and Congress it’s time to stop playing partisan politics. Click here to sign a petition to Congress demanding it act now to extend the emergency UI benefits program.
Tomorrow, a coalition of workers groups will deliver the petition to Congress during a rally where jobless workers will urge Congress to act before it’s too late for millions of working families.
Tea Party and Blue Dog Democrats: Let’s Double Unemployment and Drown U.S. Economy
Want a job? Want Medicare when you retire? How about good public schools? Then look out: Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) is joining with his tea party allies to hold a vote today that would guarantee deep, radical cuts—and make those cuts part of the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land.
The so-called Balanced Budget Amendment is even worse than the budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). As Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) put it, the Ryan plan would have produced:
the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history, while increasing poverty and inequality more than any measure in recent times and possibly in the nation’s history.
Senate Passes China Currency Bill: Will Boehner Support Jobs as Well?
By a wide margin, the U.S. Senate this evening passed a bill to hold China accountable for its job-killing practice of currency manipulation. The 63-35 vote on S.1619, the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Act of 2011, is a good step toward creating U.S. jobs.
According to new data, 2.8 million American jobs were lost or displaced over the past decade due to the growing U.S. trade deficit with China—fueled by Chinese currency manipulation.
But the measure must now be passed by the House, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called on House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) to “allow this vote to take place without delay.”
Congress must stand up for American manufacturing and put an end to the trade war being waged against the working families and communities. Our country needs jobs, and we can no longer afford to be passive.
Alliance for American Manufacturing Executive Director Scott Paul also challenged Boehner to pass the bill after tonight’s vote:
Will you side with the Beijing regime and outsourcers, or will you stand with American manufacturing?
Poll: Public Supports Taxing the Richest
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) blusters about not passing the American Jobs Act because he and other Republicans don’t want to raise taxes. But the Jobs Act would only raise taxes on the very richest of the rich—and that’s what he and other corporate puppets don’t want.
But the American people do. More than two-thirds of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, say the extremely wealthiest should pay more in taxes to bring down the budget deficit, and even larger numbers think Medicare and Social Security benefits should be left alone, according to a poll released today.
The Bloomberg-Washington Post national poll—another in a line of polls showing U.S. public support for raising taxes on the rich—shows that 53 percent of self-identified Republicans said they would support such a measure to bring down the deficit.
But the Boehners in Congress aren’t listening. Which is why tens of thousands of people have gathered at Occupy Wall Street events across the nation, and why thousands of people are taking part in the union movement’sAmerica Wants to Work week of action now under way.
Senate Votes Today on China Currency
The U.S. Senate today will vote on a bill (S. 1619) to hold China accountable for its job-killing practice of currency manipulation. According to new data, 2.8 million American jobs were lost or displaced over the past decade due to the growing U.S. trade deficit with China—fueled by Chinese currency manipulation. (Call your senators today and urge them to vote for S. 1619 or click HERE to e-mail your senators.)
A filibuster against the China currency bill was broken Oct. 6 (63-28). But the vote on final passage was delayed last week when Republicans tried to attach a series of weakening amendments.
