Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 2003

Mr. Speaker, my heart goes out to the gentleman from Pennsylvania who is not allowed to put up an amendment. He is the only one I have ever heard of talk about exhaustees on the other side.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

(Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the gentleman from California that under the Republican bill, that if you had exhausted your benefits under your bill, you would have gotten absolutely nothing.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).

(Mr. FATTAH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my distinguished colleague from the State of Washington, and she had this list, and she said that the Republican bill helped 134,000 members or something in the State. I have my list here, which is the list of all those people we do not help, and the question is why can we not do that? I mean the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn) and I have 31,500 people that this bill does nothing for. They are the people who exhausted their benefits. I know she cares about them. I am absolutely sure she does, and I care about them, but we are told that we cannot do anything about it because the Senate has acted unanimously.

I am sorry, but I have been in legislatures, State legislatures, the House and Senate, and I have been here in the House, and I have been doing this for 30 years, and I have seen things go through legislatures in an hour through both houses, no problem, if you want to do something. Of course if you do not want to do something, then you say, oh, the heavy burdens of the legislative process, the Senate has acted, the House has acted, oh, we cannot get it done, the President must have it on his desk tomorrow at 11 o'clock, that is the time his press conference is, I think, so he can sign it at the press conference tomorrow to put it out.

Now for those 31,000 people in the State of Washington that the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn) and I care about, we are just saying to them we do not have time because the press release is already printed. I am sorry, folks. It might take an extra 3 or 4 hours to get the House and Senate to get it done, but have no fear, 31,000 people, the President has you on his mind,

deeply on his mind. He went to Chicago to make the speech about how big and how heavy his heart was about your problems. He is proposing to put $674 billion into the economy, not to you of course, no, unless you have capital gains that you might benefit a little bit from his bill, but it is really for the rich people on the top. They are going to get 75 percent of it, and then they will think up some way to put you to work. So hold on and we will pass this tax bill and then in April of 2004 when they got this money back, then they are going to invest it and make you a job. So if you can hold your breath for a year for that tax break to take hold, why, things are going to be all right.

And the worst thing about this whole process, why it is an empty promise the President is making, is that in today's newspaper there is an article entitled War's Cost May Dwarf Stimulus Effect, from the Washington Post, January 8. This article says that as long as this country is threatening the whole world with the war in the Middle East that what is going to happen is that we are going to suck all the juice out of the stimulus package by the war.

The gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn) and I represent an air company that makes airplanes. Last year they made 400 and some odd planes. Do my colleagues know what their orders are for this year? Two hundred twenty-one. Now, why are airlines not buying airplanes? Well, it probably has something to do with the fact that people are not flying. They are not getting on planes and flying all over the world like they used to. So this war on terrorism that is scaring the living daylights out of the travelers is knocking the jobs out. We have lost 30,000 jobs at Boeing this last couple of years. And the President says, yes, but we are going to Iraq and we are going to have a war there and that is going to fix it all, and then after that Iraq war everybody will feel comfortable again and we will go back to living the way we have always lived.

Nonsense. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott) was right. We are going to be back here in 3 months with this very same bill or something just like it because you are not going to get a stimulus in 90 days and you certainly would not want to have this linger on into the next election period. You had better have something on the table for them. Maybe you will wait until this time next year to put a little something more on the table, but by then there will be a million more. The long- term unemployment in the State of Washington has risen by 35 percent in the last 2 years, 35 percent. I admit we are the point persons, Washington and Oregon, for the unemployment problem in this country; so we have got it a little worse than the rest of you, but if you think it is not going to affect you, that somehow you are going to slide by this thing, you are wrong, and to say here today that we have not got an extra hour to add an amendment to take care of a million people and then ship it back over to the Senate and say would they please accept the House amendment, I have done it. I am sure I have done it 500 times in the last 30 years, to send an amendment over and it gets accepted and that is the end of it. You know you could do it. You do not want to do it. You do not want to do it. You do not care about those million people. No matter what you say or how you wave your arms and whatever you want to say, the Republican Party does not care about those million unemployed because you have the Presidency, you have the Senate, and you have the House, and if you cannot do it, you have two choices, I guess. You could be stupid and not know how to do it. That is one possibility. I do not think that is true. The alternative is you do not want to do it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

[From the Washington Post, Jan. 8, 2003]

War's Cost May Dwarf Stimulus Effect

(By Jonathan Weisman)

Mindful of his pending reelection bid and his father's

political mistakes, President Bush is plowing ahead with an

ambitious 10-year, $674 billion economic stimulus plan even

as U.S. troops pour into the Persian Gulf region preparing

for war.

The president's determination to push more tax cuts as the

nation prepares for war has struck some economists as folly,

since the economic shock of war would likely dwarf the impact

of Bush's stimulus plan. Moreover, no tax policy at the

moment could actually address what many economists believe to

be the greatest drag on the nation's economy: the uncertainty

of war.

``Clearing away the clouds over Iraq would open the paths

for expansion, regardless of what the Bush administration is

proposing,'' said Robert DiClemente, a managing director at

Salomon Smith Barney who has studied the potential impact of

an Iraq war on the U.S. economy.'' That is undoubtedly the

biggest obstacle to expansion right now.''

Bush was explicit about his two-track policymaking

yesterday, beginning his speech in Chicago by addressing the

threats of terrorism, Iraq and North Korea. He then added,

``Even as we confront these dangers, you need to know I know

we have needs here at home, especially the need for a

vigorous and growing economy.''

But it is becoming increasingly difficult to address those

domestic needs without first confronting the problems abroad,

economists said. The goal of the president's plan is to

inject $102 billion into the economy this year, by

accelerating planned income tax cuts, excluding investment

dividends from taxation, boosting the child tax credit and

speeding tax relief to married couples. The elimination of

dividend taxes alone could boost the stock market by 10

percent, according to White House allies.

But all of that could be undone by a war in the oil-rich

Persian Gulf region, especially if the war were protracted

and led to terrorist attacks and the use of weapons of mass

destruction. Last month, Yale University economist William D.

Nordhaus published an analysis that dramatized the

uncertainties the United States faces. The cost to the

Treasury of a war with Iraq could be as low as $100 billion

over the next decade or as high as $1.6 trillion, he

concluded. Most likely, the economy would take a $391 billion

hit in the next two years, Nordhaus predicted, which would

dwarf the cash infusion the president is offering.

``If energy prices spike up, it wouldn't take much to

offset all of this stimulus,'' said William G. Gale, a tax

economist at the Brookings Institution.

A recent analysis by experts convened by the Center for

Strategic and International Studies predicted that any war

would knock down stock prices by as much as 25 percent, more

than undoing the anticipated benefit of the dividend tax

elimination.

Recovery would depend on how a war with Iraq unfolded. If

the war ended swiftly, stocks and the economy as a whole

would recover quickly and grow at a rate faster than they

would if there were no war, thanks to the lifting of

uncertainty, falling oil prices, higher government spending

and rising consumer confidence. In that event, the Bush plan

could end up harming the economy by fueling inflation or

pushing interest rates higher, said Laurence Meyer, a former

Federal Reserve Board governor who convened the CSIS

conference.

But if the war lasted six to 12 weeks, stock prices would

continue to fall, interest rates would rise and economic

growth would slow by 1\3/4\ percent, the CSIS analysis said.

A worst-case scenario--in which the war dragged on for 90 to

180 days, oil supplies were significantly disrupted, and

serious terrorists attacks ensued--would push the economy

back into recession, regardless of economic policymaking.

In that case, the economic response would probably be far

different from the one Bush is proposing now, Meyer said.

That range of potential outcomes makes policymaking at this

point ``treacherous,'' he said.

``The best policy right now is to wait, to see what happens

ahead, and to plan in the background some contingency plans,

just in case we have an adverse outcome,'' Meyer said.

Not everyone is so cautious. DiClemente said the Bush

proposal could provide a buffer for the shocks that would

come from a war. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist

with the National Center for Policy Analysis, noted that a

war with Iraq could be long over by the time Congress passed

a stimulus plan. In that case, he said, Bush might as well

get the ball rolling now.

But, for the president's critics, the timing and boldness

of the Bush plan present an irresistible target.

``Whenever the president talks about war, he talks about a

spirit of shared sacrifice,'' Gale said. ``But for rich

people, shared sacrifice appears to be accepting tax cuts,

and for the poor, it seems to be accepting cuts in social

spending. There seems to be a disconnect bordering on the

dishonest.''

Fumed Rep. Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), the ranking Democrat

on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, ``Never in

a time of war have we reduced the tax burden on the most

privileged.''

Even some of Bush's allies in past tax fights expressed

exasperation yesterday, given the gathering clouds of war.

``I understand you can't just put everything on the back

burner and ignore it,'' said Sen. John Breaux (D-La.), a key

ally in the battle over the president's 2001 tax cut. ``But

what you can do is take modest steps, and $670 billion is

more than modest.''

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the gentleman from Colorado that according to the U.S. Department of Labor, for every job opening, there are 2.7 applicants. So if the problem is immigration, I do not know quite how we are going to fix this. We already have too many people looking for jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania tell those 44,000 people in Pennsylvania to hold on, hold on.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kleczka).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kleczka).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I think all that needs to be said has been said already, but I would only emphasize the fact that what we are hearing today is what we heard from the Supreme Court of the United States at the time of the election of the President. The Supreme Court said, we do not have time to count the votes. We have to declare a winner here.

In this instance, we are telling a million people out there that we do not have time to do anything about extending their benefits. If they happened to run out of them last year, well, that is just tough luck. I guess they can wait for the economy to pick up, and we wish them well.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal).

(Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to commit.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

Yes, in its present form.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that you have a calendar which says we will be here until 8 or 9 o'clock tonight, so there is plenty of time to make this small change, and any argument that we do not have time is simply a bogus argument.

Now, the fact is that as my colleague from Maryland has said, this is unfinished business from before. I have tried two different ways and the majority is intent on killing any attempt to modify what they have agreed to with the Senate. Now, I guess from now on we will just wait for the Senate to tell us what we need to do because the House clearly has no power to ever confront the Senate and tell the Senate that they have made not quite the right bill.

This is a historic moment. I do not ever remember being in the House of Representatives any place where they conceded to the Senate that whatever the Senate says is what we have to do.

We could do this by 3 o'clock very easily and cover a million people. Now, for anybody to say that because they have already exhausted, because of that technicality on the 28th of December they should not get any more, I find that incredible that you would say that to somebody who is unemployed, that the law we wrote did not work so you do not get any money. Explain that to your kids when you are sitting there at the dinner table. We do not have any food, kids, because the law that the Congress wrote did not work right so I did not get a check this month. I paid for it, I paid into the benefits, and we do not get them.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the million worker comment made by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel). I think it is very important for us to know the history of what has already happened in the area of unemployment compensation and why we are going to add some additional assistance for people who come from States like mine.

The Democrats make it sound like we have not helped at all the unemployed, whom we already have helped. We have helped those million unemployed workers. We have helped them consistently through this last year. They make that assertion about the million people being let down, but already we have helped one million people under the Federal expanded benefits that we put into effect last year in March of 2002. They have all already received Federal unemployment benefits that averaged $250 a week generally for 13 weeks. On top of that, generally 26 weeks of regular State benefits which they had received previously, and I think that is very important. In States like Washington State, my State, there have been additional expanded benefits.

So to talk about not helping one million folks who have been unemployed is to move from the truth, Mr. Speaker, and I think it is important to clear that up.

My second point is in addition to the one million folks, we are going to help two million additional people. Plus, we will be extending benefits that ran out on December 28 for 800,000 additional people. Let us not get mixed up in the rhetoric of partisanship here and let us talk about what we can do to help unemployed people who very much want to hold jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English).

Mr. Speaker, I would comment to the gentleman from Michigan that this assistance which we are providing in today's legislation will assist 86,000 new individuals from his State of Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would remind the gentleman from Ohio that our unemployment compensation assistance provided last year, from his State we assisted 123,000 individuals. And with the passage of today's bill, which is very important to be passed on the floor today, signed by the President tomorrow so there is no gap in assistance from December 28, we will be assisting an additional 61,600 folks from the State of Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

It is very important for us, Mr. Speaker, to debate, and we will debate over the ensuing months, an economic growth plan that will stimulate the economy and create more jobs. Everybody right now on unemployment wishes that he or she had a job. We are going to have that debate. It is vitally important. Today we are debating what we can do in the interim to assist people who, not by their own choice, are out of a job.

We are talking about a $7 billion piece of legislation today that will assist a huge number of folks who were not covered before by unemployment compensation. We have already spent $19 billion with assistance last year. I think it is vitally important that we continue the debate on this bill so we can get passage of it on the floor today, combined with the piece of legislation passed by the Senate yesterday, and get it to the President tomorrow so we can begin to help people whose unemployment benefits ended on December 28; and we can do this without disruption in the dollars they will receive so they can have some peace of mind as they move through this very, very tough time in their lives.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I retain the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to remind the gentleman from Washington of what the situation was last fall when we began to debate the extension of unemployment compensation. The leading plan was one that was proposed by

his party on the Senate side. It was a $5 billion plan. It called for a 3-month extension of unemployment benefits. It called for an additional 3-month phaseout. What we have done in the interim, led by people who are from States like Alaska and Oregon and Washington, States where we are very, very concerned about our extremely high level of unemployment, not led by people from Virginia, where the unemployment rate is something like 3.8 percent over the last 3 months, or Georgia, where the unemployment rate is 4.6 percent, low unemployment rates never thought to be even possible to achieve by economists in years past, but we have put together a piece of legislation which considering the state of our economy is a generous piece of legislation. It takes care of an additional 2 million people who were not helped before. It extends benefits for some 800,000 folks nationwide whose benefits were interrupted on December 28, and this is specifically Federal dollars I am talking about. I am not including the State unemployment programs.

We are at the point where we have a 5-month extension that we are providing of unemployment benefits to folks who have been put out of their jobs through no choice of their own plus a 3-month phaseout of these benefits, plus we are helping an additional 800,000 whose benefits are interrupted. So this is a bill that is almost twice as much, certainly almost twice as much as what we were talking about last fall. It is generous, and I think it is a very good bill, and I think the fact that as we pass it today, as it is signed into law by the President tomorrow, that will allow for no interruption in the receipt of Federal unemployment benefits by people in the States. We are also assisting States so that they can use their funds later, not at the beginning.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would remind the gentleman from Washington State that just late last fall, I think in December, senior Members of his own party leadership were talking about what a wonderful bill the unemployment bill was that then was far less generous than what we would like to do today. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), for example, last fall said, ``Tomorrow the House will meet one more time before adjourning for the year. We could simply take up the bipartisan Senate bill which has the 3-month extension and agree to it unanimously. That action would send a positive signal about our willingness to work together to solve our economic problems.''

I submit that this additional 2-month extension, our bill is 5 months, plus a 3-month phaseout that assists 2 million additional people, is far more generous. So I think a dark day is perhaps not the right characterization for what we are doing today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I will remind the gentleman from Wisconsin that 37,000 people would likely be helped by this additional bill; and also remind him that that piece of legislation we looked at very late and very briefly last fall was a provision that was far less expansive than this one. In the time that we have had in order to put together legislation on which the Senate and the House together would agree and the President would sign, we have come up with a larger program that extends unemployment benefits for 5 months with a phaseout of 3 months, and I think a far better piece of legislation, I am sure the gentleman from Wisconsin would agree.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, the unemployment rate in my State is 6.6 percent. That is a hugely, incredibly large number of folks who, through no fault of their own, have found themselves without jobs. This is occurring in many States around the Nation.

The attempt we are making today, which is a huge assistance to folks who are out of jobs, a bill that totals $7 billion, that includes 2 million additional people who will be assisted, 2 million people who will be assisted through additional help over the 4 million who we have already helped through our legislation that provided benefits last year, is hugely important.

In my own State, Washington State, many layoffs have been due to the aerospace industry. The adverse impact of the economy on our aerospace industry concerns me, because I have thousands of aerospace workers who live in my district. I do not want to see them without jobs. If they are without jobs, I want to help to stimulate the economy so they will not much longer be without jobs. But the fact is, they are now.

I am very pleased that we are beginning this new session of Congress by heading in the right direction by providing much needed benefits to all Americans who are out of jobs. Under this legislation, unemployed workers who had Federal unemployment benefits that remained after December 28, when, by the way, we had put into place on the floor of the House a 5-week extension which would overlap into this session, so we could take a look and see what additional work we needed to do, which is what we are doing today, these folks will now receive the balance of their benefits. It is very important to those whose benefits were interrupted.

Further, workers who exhaust the regular State unemployment benefits in the coming months will become eligible for up to 13 weeks of Federal benefits in all States and up to 26 weeks in States like mine that have high unemployment, as we do in Washington State. In my State, this will help 56,000 additional people. That is 2.7 million people all over the country who are recipients of unemployment benefits who need help. These are folks who are still looking for jobs.

I think we need to put ourselves in their place. I think we need to feel how they feel when they need to meet a mortgage, to pay for the costs of food and heat in their homes. This is a vitally important piece of legislation that we are discussing today.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this vitally important bill. I know there is debate on what additions we could make to this, but this is a generous bill and it is going to help a lot of people in my State and other States around the Nation. It is going to assist almost 2 million additional people today, in addition to the 4 million we have assisted in the past through other provisions that were passed last year.

I think it is a generous piece of legislation, and I think it is an imperative

as we begin the debate to stimulate this economy and create those jobs that folks right now would like to be holding.

I have great faith in this body. I know that we will do the right thing: that we will pass this piece of legislation today so in coordination with the Senate we may send this to the President, so by tomorrow he can sign this bill, and create no interruption in the Federal benefits received by folks whose benefits were stopped on December 28.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 14, I call up the Senate bill (S. 23) to provide for a 5-month extension of the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation Act of 2002 and for a transition period for individuals receiving compensation when the program under such Act ends, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind Members why we are here today. We are here today to vote on an unemployment assistance bill because the House, in trying to respond to the needs of the

unemployed, passed legislation last December. The Senate, in attempting to respond to the needs of the unemployed, passed legislation last December. As we all know, constitutionally for it to go to the President, if the Senate passes legislation different than the House, and similarly if the House passes legislation different than the Senate, the differences in those bills need to be reconciled. They were not reconciled.

The last Congress adjourned without addressing unemployment needs with the understanding that some individuals, through no fault of their own, notwithstanding the fact that they had not received the full benefits entitled to them, would lose unemployment benefits on December 28. That is still technically the case. They have not yet lost those benefits, but if the President does not have a bill to sign by tomorrow, that technicality will in fact be a reality.

We are here today because the Senate modified the proposal that they had passed in the last Congress and they sent it to us yesterday by unanimous consent.

Mr. Speaker, I imagine there are as many different ways to structure unemployment benefits as there are Members of the House; and if we are to debate the different ways in which it can be constructed and if we are to offer votes to try to produce a different result than the Senate, then it is inevitable that what we are trying to avoid will in fact occur.

I, as a Member of this body, do not like being put in the position of making a statement of this type. We are compelled to pass the unemployment provision as it was structured by the Senate because if we do not the President will not have a bill tomorrow.

I had visited with the leadership of the Senate and talked to them about offering amendments so we could really target unemployment to where it is most needed, give those most in need more benefits. They indicated while they may be sympathetic with that view, there was no way given the structure of the Senate's membership and the rules of Senate that that could be done in a day.

What we were able to do was to extend the period that the Senate had passed so instead of getting into this discussion in March, once again we are extending for 5 months the unemployment benefits to May with a phase-out through August. That means that we are going to see a continuation of assistance to the unemployed. It means that the President's commitment to make sure that those who would have lost their benefits on December 28 does not happen, and it means that there are going to be 1.9 million new recipients and 800,000 current recipients that will receive unemployment benefits at a cost of up to $7.2 billion when the House votes on this measure.

We are going to hear people say we could have, would have, should have, and the argument is that they are being denied rights because they cannot offer alternatives. If we do not pass this measure, people will lose their unemployment benefits. That should not happen.

Mr. Speaker, I hope I do not take the floor again in this session of the 108th Congress and say we have to do what the Senate has given us. I only hope we do that because we want to do it. I believe this is the right thing to do. More importantly, it is absolutely essential that we do it and that we do it today rather than argue that somebody is trying to withhold these unemployment benefits from these individuals. All we have to do is say yes, the President will sign, and the unemployment benefits will be available.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn) to control the time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no objection to considering the motion as having been read, but I object to the motion to commit on the basis of its violation of the Budget Act.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a point of order.

Mr. Speaker, I object and make the point of order because this motion, if passed, would cause the allocation to the Committee on Ways and Means to be further exceeded in the first year and over the 5- year period governed by the budget resolution currently deemed in force. The motion therefore violates section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act, and I make a point of order that it violates section 302(f) of the Budget Act.

Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman that that is the

technical effect. However, had the minority offered an amendment which was in the----

Might I make an argument on the point of order, Mr. Speaker?

Yes, sir.

Further on my point of order, Mr. Speaker, the reason I believe a 302(f) budget point of order lies against this measure is that it significantly exceeds in its amount the underlying bill.

The legislation before us was not reported by any committee of the House; rather, it was passed by the Senate, and the Committee on Rules has presented it to us.

So my point of order is not based on the fact that the underlying measure has a waiver from the Committee on Rules; it is that if the minority had offered an amendment equal to or less than the Senate position, it would have been in order and not subject to a point of order. Since it is significantly in excess of the Senate measure, it does in fact violate 302(f) of the Budget Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to commit.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, apparently we have come full circle. I opened this debate

by saying I had the uncomfortable requirement of informing the House and hoped that it would be the last time that we did so, that I was presenting a bill passed by the Senate and that we would be compelled to have to pass the bill that was passed by the Senate.

I did mention at that time that the Senate passed it unanimously. Notwithstanding the difficulties the other body has in coming together to pass legislation, when time is up, they were able to come together and agree that we needed to address a problem, and they passed this legislation.

For my friends on the other side of the aisle to offer this motion to commit versus the previous one, and the reason I said you did not need to read any further is all you have to do is look at the first paragraph that said the House should report it forthwith. That, in fact, means it comes immediately back and it could go to the Senate. They changed the word ``forthwith'' to ``promptly.'' That means it has to go to committee. And for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, members of the Committee on Ways and Means say all we have to do is get the Committee on Ways and Means together so we can go ahead and hold a meeting, I have to tell you, who are your appointees to the Committee on Ways and Means?

The Committee on Ways and Means has not been constituted. We do not have a functioning committee. And yet they say blithely all we have to do is come together.

I cannot imagine the mental set that says notwithstanding the Senate came together in time of need and worked cooperatively that even at 11:30 to midnight my friends on the other side of the aisle are offering motions to commit which will kill this provision.

This provision allows for those December 28 folks to continue their benefits. In fact, it allows for almost 4 million to continue to receive benefits, an additional 2 million under the time extension, for a total of 6 million Americans to receive their unemployment benefits. If the motion to commit passes, it effectively kills the measure. The Senate's attempt to unify and put politics aside will have been destroyed by my colleagues' willingness to even today play politics.

In December, the House passed a short-term extension, only 5 weeks. We were criticized for making it only 5 weeks. Why? Because we wanted to address the question when we came back.

My friend from Maryland says we ought to address this promptly. You voted against the measure that would have required us to address it promptly. The Senate failed to pass it. So we are in a position of having the President sign a bill tomorrow or not sign a bill tomorrow.

If you vote ``yes'' for the motion to commit, there will be no bill signed tomorrow and people will really lose the unemployment benefits that they have earned, those people that you apparently shed crocodile tears over. If you vote against the motion to commit and for passage of the measure, we will pick up those folks who inadvertently were dropped on December 28; and 6 million people will continue to receive benefits and hopefully we will pass legislation which will in fact spur the economy and provide them with a job instead of unemployment insurance. And I am quite sure my colleagues will be opposed to the proposals to stimulate the economy as well. So those will be future battles.

Today the line is drawn very simply. Vote for the motion to commit and kill the opportunity to help people get their well-deserved unemployment. Vote against the motion to commit, vote for the underlying bill, and the President can have a bill-signing ceremony tomorrow, and we can do what we should have done back in December.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

There has been talk in recent months that if there is to be an economic recovery in our future, it will be a so-called ``jobless recovery.'' I would submit that for the 8.5 million Americans who are currently unemployed, an economic recovery that does not provide jobs is no recovery at all. The Economic Policy Institute has reported that using even optimistic projections of the gross domestic product, the unemployment rate is expected to remain at 6 percent for all of 2003. An analysis projecting less optimistic growth numbers suggests the unemployment rate will climb to 6.4 percent by the last quarter of this year.

However, there is one factor that impacts the severity of the current downturn for American workers more than any other. That is, significantly more workers have exhausted their Federal benefits since the Federal extension of benefit program began in March than ran out of Federal benefits over a comparable number of months in the recession of the early nineties. Under the Federal extension program of the early nineties, each worker was eligible for 20 to 26 weeks of benefits some 10 months after the program was enacted. Under the program which just expired at the end of December, most workers were eligible for a maximum of 13 weeks of benefits. As a result, by the end of December, an estimated 2.2 million workers had exhausted all of their Federal benefits. And without congressional assistance, the new year brings these 2.2 million unemployed a job market that is stripped bare. It is a job market with 1.5 million fewer jobs than in March of 2001.

It is for this reason that it is critical that the Federal unemployment insurance system be extended now. However, the majority plan and the Democratic proposal, which was disallowed, offer two very different levels of compensation to American families. The majority plan would provide for 13 weeks of extended benefits over the next 5 months to the estimated 90,000 workers a week who will exhaust their State benefits without finding work. The Democratic plan would have offered 26 weeks.

I want to say that there is a difference in the economic benefit to families. We need to make sure that families have some of this uncertainty lifted from them. It is not enough to just say, well, another 13 weeks. This country has the money for a longer extension. Families should not have to wonder if they are going to have the ability to pay their mortgage or to buy clothes or to put food on the table. We have an obligation to the unemployed, and that is why I am supporting our Democratic proposal.

Mr. Speaker, there has been talk in recent months that if there is to be an economic recovery in our future, it will be a so- called ``jobless recovery''. I would submit that for the 8.5 million Americans who are currently unemployed, an economic recovery that does not provide jobs is no recovery at all.

The Economic Policy (EPI) has reported that using even optimistic projections of GDP growth, the unemployment rate is expected to remain at 6 percent for all of 2003. An analysis projecting less optimistic growth numbers suggest the unemployment rate will climb to 6.4 percent by the last quarter of this year. However, there is one factor that impacts the severity of the current downturn for American workers more than any other. That is, significantly more workers have exhausted their federal benefits since the federal extension of benefit program began in March than ran out of federal benefits over a comparable number of months in the recession of the early nineties.

Under the federal extension program of the early 90s, each worker was eligible for 20 to 26 weeks of benefits some ten months after the program was enacted. Under the program which just expired at the end of last December, most workers were eligible for a maximum of 13 weeks of benefits. As a result, by the end of December, an estimated 2.2 million workers had exhausted all of their federal benefits. And without Congressional assistance, the New year brings these 2.2 million unemployed a job market that is stripped bare. It is a job market with 1.5 million fewer jobs today than in March of 2001.

For this reason it is critical that the federal unemployment insurance system be extended now. However, the Republican plan, and Democratic proposal which was disallowed, offer two very different levels of compensation to American families.

The Republican plan would provide 13 weeks of extended benefits over the next five months to the estimated 90,000 workers a week who will exhaust their state benefits without finding work. The Democratic plan would have offered 26 weeks. The Republican plan will also provide the remainder of 13 weeks of benefits to the nearly 800,000 workers who were cut off from federal unemployment benefits on December 28th when the program was allowed to expire. The Democratic plan offered workers those 13 weeks and adds 13 more for a total of 26 weeks.

In an even starker comparison, even in the face of economic data suggesting the current economic conditions are no better, and maybe even worse than when the current program began in March, The Republican proposal mysteriously provides no extension of benefits to the 1 million workers who exhausted their federal benefits by December and remain jobless.

The Democratic proposal gave those workers an extra 13 weeks of job- hunting cushioned by unemployment insurance. Indeed, the Democratic plan did not selectively pick and choose which group of unemployed workers id deemed worthy of coverage. For in a so-called ``jobless recovery'' millions of Americans will remain jobless. But under the Republican's so-called unemployment plan, 1 million

Americans will also be without unemployment insurance.

In covering these 1 million Americans, the Democratic proposal did not ignore the over $24 million sitting unused in the Federal Unemployment Trust Fund. Instead it honors the basic purpose of the trust funds: to build large resources when work is plentiful in order to provide relief to the unemployed when they need it most. The Republican proposal ``writes off'' 1 million people. Contrary to the thinking behind the Republican proposal, there is no reason 1 million unemployed workers should be denied unemployment compensation when they need it the most. The Democratic plan suggest the time for them to receive it is now. So do I. Vote for the Motion to Recommit.

Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, if I understand the objection, it is based upon the fact that, as I understand it, the bill before us has a waiver on the Budget Act from the Committee on Rules, but that because there is no waiver of the Budget Act provided in the rules, the minority will not have a chance to offer a similar type of a motion to recommit.

I would ask the chairman, is that the basis that we were not protected in the rule, whereas the underlying bill did not get a waiver in the rule?

Mr. Speaker, may I yield on my reservation or argument?

Let me just complete my argument, and then I would welcome the chairman's response.

Mr. Speaker, I think that there needs to be some discretion here as far as fairness in the rules. I know that yesterday we adopted the rules of the House. It seems to me that the minority needs to be protected to be able to offer a motion to recommit.

I understand the chairman's point, but it would seem to me that the rules should permit the minority to offer a motion to recommit if we are going to have an open and full debate in the House.

Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I think that we need to pass legislation today, so I support legislation. I think it is important that we deal with the people who lost their benefits in December because we failed to extend the law. I think it is important that we pass legislation that will provide the additional weeks of benefits for those who exhaust their regular unemployment insurance, and the underlying legislation does that and it is worthy of support.

The problem is, as we have heard during the course of this debate, that the legislation does not go far enough. There will be a million people during the next several months who will exhaust their extended benefits, and the gentleman's motion to commit urges us to deal with that group of unemployed who have lost their unemployment insurance benefits through no fault of their own; and if we do not take action immediately, these individuals will not have any unemployment insurance benefits.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the motion before us will not delay the issue. I know I will hear that from my friends. The conference could be appointed today. It could act today. This is not a controversial issue. This is unfinished business from the last Congress. The funds are there. The funds are in the Federal unemployment trust account to pay for these benefits.

In 1990, the last recession we had, we extended benefits for 26 additional weeks. This tells us to do at least as well for the unemployed today as we did in the 1990s so we can get this done. We can get it done quickly, and we can get it done before we adjourn this week, and that is the essence of the gentleman's motion. So I support the underlying bill, but we need to do better now on the unfinished business of the last Congress.

Then, Mr. Speaker, let me urge my chairman who is on the floor that we look at reforming the unemployment insurance and we do it quickly, that we deal with the part-time employees who pay into the unemployment insurance funds and do not get unemployment benefits. And we deal with the people, many of whom left the welfare system for work only to find that their jobs have been lost and we deal with the most recent quarter of their earnings so they can qualify for unemployment insurance. As we look at a stimulus package, let us also look at increasing the benefits for those people who are unemployed. That would certainly stimulate our economy and is far less costly than the tax legislation that the President brought forward yesterday.

So I would urge my colleagues to support the gentleman from Washington's motion to commit. It urges us to do more. It allows us to move forward with the underlying bill but to do more; and we can get it done today, make no mistake about it. The conference report could be back to us before we leave this evening. There is no question about that in anyone's mind. We know exactly what needs to be done, and I would urge my colleagues to support the motion to commit.