Reid touts new plan to extend jobless aid

Democratic proposal has cost offsets

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offered a Democratic plan to revive expanded U.S. jobless benefits through mid-November that he said meets Republicans’ demand that the price tag would be covered by budget reductions.

“We believe this is a sound and balanced proposal,” the Nevada Democrat said on the Senate floor Thursday. He said the plan was being offered to Nevada’s Sen. Dean Heller, the lead Republican in the negotiations.

Democrats need support from at least five Republicans to restore expanded unemployment benefits that ran out Dec. 28 for 1.3 million Americans.

Republicans who have been working with Democrats to find a compromise said they were disappointed by Reid’s plan, which they said he didn’t run by them before announcing it on the Senate floor.

“We are just learning today what is in the sort of take-it-or-leave-it proposal,” said Ohio’s Sen. Rob Portman, one of six Republicans who voted with Democrats on Tuesday to advance a bill for a three-month revival of benefits without cost offsets. “My hope is we still can come up with a solution here.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s spokesman Don Stewart said in a posting on Twitter after Reid’s statement that there was “still no agreement” among leaders.

Reid said the proposal would partially cover the cost of benefits with a one-year extension of federal spending cuts, known as sequestration. It also would eliminate some “double-dipping” by people eligible for both unemployment and disability insurance, Reid said. That aspect of the plan is a revision of a proposal put forth by Portman.

Any extension of the sequestration cuts would occur toward the end of the decade. In past disputes, Republicans have objected to upfront spending offset by far-off spending cuts.

Democrats earlier proposed the three-month extension of jobless benefits, costing $6.4 billion, as emergency aid.

The push to extend the benefits marks the start of the Democrats’ election-year focus on income inequality. Democrats also will seek to raise the federal minimum wage and increase spending on infrastructure projects to create jobs.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday that his chamber would consider an extension of benefits “if it was paid for and if there were provisions that we could agree to that would get our economy moving again and put the American people back to work.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Republicans are “moving the goal posts” on what they are seeking. Extending the benefits would stimulate the economy, she said.

“This money is spent immediately, injecting demand into the economy and creating jobs,” Pelosi said.

House Democrats tried and failed Thursday to force a vote on extending unemployment insurance without a way to pay for it. Republicans voted 226-191 to block the Democratic effort.

The expanded program started in 2008, when the U.S. jobless rate was 5.6 percent, and at one point provided as many as 99 weeks of benefits for the long-term unemployed. At the end of 2013 the maximum was 73 weeks, including 26 weeks of state-funded benefits.

The national jobless rate in November was 7 percent.

Earlier this week, Reid rejected a proposal that a group of Senate Republicans pressed for at a news conference Wednesday. The amendment proposed by Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire would require people who seek refundable child tax credits to have Social Security numbers.

Republicans at the event said adoption of Ayotte’s measure would gain their support for extending jobless benefits.

“I will vote for the extension if you will pay for it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Wednesday that she spoke to President Barack Obama several times as he courted her vote. She said he was “very receptive” to her proposal to link longterm unemployment benefits to job training.

“I was very encouraged by the president’s response,” Collins said.

In addition to Collins, Ayotte, Heller and Portman, Senate Republicans who supported advancing the expanded jobless benefits were Dan Coats of Indiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Collins is the lone Senate Republican seeking re-election this year in a state Obama won in 2012. Coats, Heller and Portman represent states where the November jobless rate was higher than the nationwide rate.

The emergency benefits have been renewed 11 times since President George W. Bush put them in place. All extended benefits are covered by federal dollars, while initial jobless insurance comes from federal, state and employer funds.

Besides casting the measure as a moral imperative, Democrats are stepping up efforts to demonstrate the economic benefits of restoring the weekly payments.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, is using the debate to try to cast Republicans as unconcerned about the poor.

The committee is targeting Republican Senate candidates in Republican-leaning states including Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana and West Virginia.

All except Georgia and Kentucky - where McConnell is seeking re-election - are states where Democrats are defending seats.

Information for this article was contributed by Peter Cook, Derek Wallbank and Richard Rubin of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/10/2014

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