From The Associated Press, 12/8/03:
http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-jobless-benefits,0,3033584.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines
GOP Does Not Extend Jobless Benefits
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON --
Citing the improving economy, Republicans decided Monday against
extending federal unemployment benefits before Congress leaves for the
year.
Democrats said it would mean a joyless Christmas for tens of thousands
of jobless Americans.
"It's almost inconceivable to me that Republican leaders are poised to
play the Grinch again," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of
California.
Democrats raised the benefits issue Monday in a vain effort to block a
vote on a $373 billion spending bill for the 2004 budget year, the
House's final major act before it ends this congressional session.
Federal unemployment benefits, which supplement state payments to the
jobless, have been extended three times since March 2002.
Without legislative action, they will be phased out beginning Dec. 21.
House Republican Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said extending the benefits
was unjustified when unemployment is going down in the country.
"It's a question of whether we continue to be in an extraordinary
unemployment environment, and we are not," Blunt said.
Most states provide up to 26 weeks of aid to people who lose their
jobs.
In March last year, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and a downturn
in the economy, Congress voted to add 13 weeks in federal benefits,
with extra help for jobless Americans in states with high unemployment
rates.
That emergency help has been extended three times.
Congress also left last December without reauthorizing the federal
program, then too amid Democratic charges that Republicans were
ignoring the jobless just before Christmas.
The program was extended soon after lawmakers returned in January.
This time, however, the economy is showing signs of a strong recovery,
and the unemployment rates has fallen slightly in recent months, to
5.9 percent.
Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wash., whose state has been hit hard by job
losses in the aviation industry, has led a small group of Republicans
in seeking continuation of federal benefits.
She said, however, that the overall good news has "stalled out our
efforts, the numbers look so good."
Dunn said she had talked to Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., about
the plight of high unemployment states like her own.
"We just need to get them through the holidays," Thomas said.
Thomas' office distributed statistics that showed unemployment at 6.4
percent, higher than now, when a Democratic-controlled Congress ended
a similar program in the 1990s.
But Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the House's No. 2 Democrat, said the
57,000 jobs the country added in November didn't come close to
equaling the 150,000-person growth in the job population.
He said there are 8.7 million unemployed Americans today, and some 2
million have been jobless for more than 26 weeks, the highest
percentage of long-term unemployment since 1983.
He said that after the federal program begins to be phased out, some
80,000 to 90,000 jobless workers a week will be cut off after
exhausting state benefits.
______________________________________________________________
Hey, the congressional Republicans have got theirs, ***** the
unemployed.
Harry
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CNBCTV/Articles/Dispatches/P68661.asp
12/9/2003
Dow crosses 10,000; investors focus on Fed
Dow crosses 10,000 intraday for the first time since May 2002.
With little chance the Fed will change rates, investors concentrate on
the central bank's view of the economic future.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed the 10,000 level intraday for
the first time in more than 18 months this morning.
The index has been struggling to reach the 10,000 level for more than
a month and briefly crossed the mark before falling back down.
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