21 July 2010

Republicans Stall Unemployment Vote in the Senate and 2.5 MILLION people wait for 30 Hours

Yesterday the Senate voted 60-40 for cloture to move forward on passing an extension. This finally passed on the fourth time. Two Republicans from Maine Senator Snowe and Collins voted with the Democrat majority. Now it will go up to a vote in the full Senate. The only procedural method that the Republicans have to slow the vote is to use all 30 hours for debate.
Republicans biggest reason for opposition is the cost of 34 billion dollars. They argued that this bill would increase the deficit. Their solution to help employment is to keep the Bush Tax Cuts. They think that this would help spur job growth.
Unfortunately for the Republicans, it is statistically shown for every dollar given out in unemployment benefits the economy gets $1.62 back. For a tax cut, a dollar given out 30 cents is spent. If you look at this, 34 billion dollars turns into 55 billion dollars. That is a 20 billion dollars injected into the economy, which is almost 2/3 the amount Congress has allocated.
These benefits are needed for Americans to hold on until the economy comes back up.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/21/unemployment-extension-re_n_654083.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/20/unemployment-extension-bi_n_652805.html