[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 19 (Thursday, February 28, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E243]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       HOUSE LEADERSHIP FAILS AGAIN TO ASSIST LONGTERM UNEMPLOYED

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                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 28, 2002

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to 
believe that once again, the House of Representatives is leaving 
Washington without passing an Unemployment Assistance extension bill 
that could be in effect by the time we return next Tuesday.
  The Senate has passed the extension bill several times. But the House 
Republican leadership refuses to take that bill and send it to the 
President for signature--unless it is loaded up with unjustified and 
very detrimental tax cuts for the most affluent Americans and 
corporations., a bill that the Wall Street Journal declared ``mainly 
padded corporate bottom lines.''
  And so, once again, Congress leaves Washington without doing its job 
for the men and women who send us here to represent them and whose 
taxes pay our salaries.
  That may not be very important to our Republican leaders who run this 
House. But it surely is important to the 378,000 working men and women 
who filed new unemployment claims last week who wonder if extended 
benefits will be there for them when their meager weeks run out, as 
they have for over I million Americans between September 11 and 
December 31, 2001 and 11,000 more every day of this year!
  When we left Washington without passing extended benefits for the 
President's Day recess, over a quarter million Americans lost their 
unemployment benefits. By the time we return next week after being gone 
for nearly five full days, another 55,000 left high and dry by this 
Congress and by the Republican leadership that uses them, and their 
suffering, as leverage for fat cat tax breaks.
  Mr. Speaker, where is the compassion of the Republican leadership? 
Why can we not have a straight up-or-down vote on the Senate's bill to 
extend unemployment benefits as we have been urged to do by 9 Nobel 
laureates who say these benefits are the quickest and surest stimulus 
we could enact? Let's stop the political gamesmanship, get the 
assistance to the men and women who paid for it with their labor, and 
then we can continue the debate over tax cuts for the wealthy.

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