STATEMENT BY WILL MARSHALL:
Today, Will Marshall, President of the Progressive Policy Institute, issued the following statement on legislation proposed in the Senate to extend unemployment insurance benefits:
“The Senate is set to vote this evening on extending unemployment insurance for 1.3 million Americans whose benefits expired at the end of 2013. With the jobless rate still at seven percent following the weakest “recovery” in post-war history, this should be a no-brainer. In days past, legislation to help jobless families keep food on the table and roofs over their heads during economic emergencies has garnered broad, bipartisan support.
“Not only is it morally right to lend a helping hand to people out of work through no fault of their own, it’s good economics, since the unemployed are likely to put every dollar of their benefits right back into the economy. Nonetheless, Senate Republicans are balking on the grounds that Democrats aren’t proposing offsetting budget cuts to pay for the $6.5 billion extension.
“Their commitment to fiscal discipline is selective and phony, since it seems to apply mainly to spending on the poor, vulnerable and jobless, not to taxes on the affluent. But maybe that’s slightly less offensive than Sen. Rand Paul’s insulting warnings against encouraging dependency on government. Either way, the vote is shaping up as a test of the Republican Party’s basic decency, and the early returns don’t look good.”
