Senate Majority Leader Reid Predicts Passage of Unemployment Bill Next Week

Washington (Mar 5) – Senator Reid is hoping to invoke cloture to prevent a filibuster on the new bill containing a one year extension of unemployment and other measures. With votes suspended for today and Monday, Reid stated that they were still in the process of working out the specifics on this bill.

This “bill” must be the most well kept secret in Washington. As of this writing WorldNewsVine has not received a return phone call requesting details of the bill. The bill is said to provide a one year extension of unemployment benefits, still no word on what the verbiage regarding this “extension” is.

Will this bill simply extend the period of time to which unemployed Americans can qualify for existing “Tiers” or will the bill simply allow for a longer, more immediate relief for the long-term unemployed.

A new report regarding the numbers of unemployed released by the Labor department caused some stir as to the wording of Senator Reid’s comments on same. The report stated 36,000 more Americans lost their jobs last month, significantly down from prior months. The Senator’s comments remarking, “only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good” was played by GOP lawmakers as being a slashing remark to American workers.

In response Friday, Senator Reid lashed out against the Republicans, remarking that his words were “being irresponsibly mischaracterized by those seeking to score political points”. Reid continued his attack on Republicans over the filibuster of the unemployment benefits and other parts of his “jobs agenda” arguing that, Senator Bunning (of all people) and other Republicans were taking his words out of context.

“I encourage my Republican friends to remember this critical context before their political reflexes lead them to make claims they know to be false. And I warn them, once again, that this country has no place and no patience for those who root for failure,” Reid said.

With all this said, and the job situation worsening, still no word as to what this “extension” brings to the unemployed American workers.

Posted by rgrone on March 5, 2010. Filed under economic recovery,economy,News,US Politics,WorldNewsVine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.