Congressional dunderheads screw up critical unemployment extension

H.R. 6867 is a seriously flawed piece of legislation, and it’s now going to require a redo.

Flawed unemployment extension legislation means potential “fix-it” bill, additional support

HR 3548, the unemployment extension bill that was signed into law by President Obama this past Friday, is meant to provide 14 weeks of federal extended unemployment benefits to all 50 states, with an additional extension of 6 weeks for people in high-unemployment states (with a 3-month average unemployment rate of at least 8.5%).

However, because the Senate took so long to act on the bill, the law as it is written makes it logically impossible for unemployed workers in high-unemployment states to file for the extra 6 weeks.

The law treats the additional 6 weeks as a separate extension, and one must first exhaust the 14 weeks before applying for the additional 6. Because of the filing deadline of December 31, 2009, there is simply not enough time left in the year for people to collect their 14 weeks. Congress has eliminated the usefulness of the extra 6 weeks in this legislation by making it literally impossible for anyone to collect the full 20 weeks – desperately needed in high-unemployment states (and, dare I say it, nationwide).

Because of this tiny little glitch, legislators are already talking about new unemployment extension legislation to come on the heels of that which was just passed, fixing this timeline illogicality and providing additional help as unemployment is expected to continue to increase into the double digits, having broken 10.2% up through October.

What do you think about this major mistake by Congress and the prospects of their fixing it soon and/or providing additional unemployment relief by the end of this year or early in 2010?

 

What do I think?

I think that Congress has it’s damned priorities screwed up, that’s what I think. And if the GOP’s behavior over the last three months is an indicator of future behavior, they’ll continue to add insult to injury and we won’t see a proper revision of this bill until late January early February. 

Congress just doesn’t get it. Millions of struggling, suffering Americans who are unemployed through no fault of their own are depending on these benefits to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads until the economy improves. They could care less about healthcare, they’re  just trying to feed themselves and survive an incredibly difficult and painful economic situation. 

 This bill was hobbled together like an afterthought, and it shows. End result: a bill that’s as full of holes as a block of swiss cheese.

The GOP held this critical bill up for weeks in the Senate, while unemployed families went hungry and lost their homes because they couldn’t make payments to landlords and mortgage companies. The behavior of the GOP regarding the passage of this bill was inexcusible and unforgivable, and make no mistake… voters are not going to forget the cruel and irresponsible indifference of the politicians who held up this critical emergency compensation come the next election cycle. 

Perhaps if  they had given as much time and attention to providing practical and timely assistance to hurting Americans as they’ve been giving to their precious  healthcare bill, they would have gotten it right the first time.