Senate Passes Unemployment Benefits Extension as Two Republicans Vote in Favor and One Democrat Against
Posted on | July 20, 2010 | No Comments
Today the Senate passed the unemployment benefits extension bill 60-40 as two Republicans, Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, voted in favor of the bill while one Democrat, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, voted against the bill. The House is expected to pass the bill easily tomorrow and should be on the President’s desk by the end of this week.
Since the end of May 2.5 million unemployed Americans have gone without unemployment assistance. For much of the modern era Congress has not allowed unemployed insurance benefits to expire when the national unemployment rate is above 7.2%. At the present time the unemployment rate is at 9.5%.
The bill that is set to hit the president’s desk by the end of this week will extended unemployment benefits through November. With some very important elections taking place this November it will be very interesting to see how politicans use the unemployment benefits issue in terms of marketing themselves as positive for the economy and the overall jobs market.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader made the following statement, “Republicans support extending benefits to the unemployed. As the president himself said yesterday, we’ve repeatedly voted for similar bills in the past. And we are ready to support one now. What we do not support — and we make no apologies for — is borrowing tens of billions of dollars to pass this bill at a time when the national debt is spinning completely out of control.”
Author: Jesse Wojdylo
Ask Wojdylo Column – Financial, Entertainment and Sports news with a money spin.
Tags: democrats unemployment extension > republicans unemployment extension > senate passes unemployment extension > senate unemployment > unemployment benefits > unemployment benefits extension > unemployment extension
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