Unemployment Insurance Extended By House
May 29th, 10The US House passed $112 billion worth of legislation that will extend unemployment, restore tax breaks and raise taxes on mangers of buyout funds and other investment partnerships. Now the legislation will move to the Senate next week. “It’s a good bill for jobs, it’s a good bill for closing tax loopholes, it’s a good bill for dissuading people from taking jobs overseas,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said on the House floor before the vote, according to Business Week.
Without this legislation some benefits for the unemployed will end on May 31, but with this new plan the benefits will be extended through the end of November. Unemployment is still sitting around 10 percent with roughly half of those without jobs being out of work for 27 weeks or more. Earlier this year unemployment payments expired for some Americans, but when lawmakers agreed on an extension the payments were made retroactive. Passing this legislation in the House wasn’t without turmoil, according to the Associated Press.
Fiscally conservative democrats weren’t happy about adding to the country’s $13 trillion in debt. “With this vote, we can help families across the country and continue the path we set out on last year to help dig the country out of a terrible recession,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y, according to the Associated Press. The bill includes $58 billion in tax increases to pay for some of the benefits. “This is not a jobs bill,” said Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif, according to the Associated Press. “It is just another extension of the ‘tax too much, spend too much, borrow too much’ philosophy that we have come to expect” from Democrats.
Tags: wally herger, vote, Public finance, Tax, Unemployment, unemployment benefits
