Date: 2004-02-04
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. this amendment authorizes an additional 6 months of urgently needed extended unemployment compensation benefits through the Community Services Block Grant program. Last week. the shocking neglect of the unemployed by this administration became all too apparent. The tagteam termination of extended unemployment benefits by the Republican leadership and the Bush admilistration has left a staggering. recordbreaking 375.000 unemployed individuals who have been out of work over a half a year and still cannot find work. By July. over 2 million unemployed workers will be left to fend for themselves. with no paycheck and no unemployment assistance. Two million Americans who were working before this recession. 2 million Ameribans who were working before the tech bubble burst. 2 million Americans who were working before the corporate scandals in this Nation. who were supporting their families and themselves. cannot find work and this government will not help them because this administration does not see it as a priority. In no other month on record and in no other 6month period for which data is available have so many unemployed workers exhausted their regular unemployment benefits without being able to receive additional aid. At a time when we see that this administration is willing to lavish billions of dollars on special perks for the pharmaceutical companies and HMOs but nothing for an unemployed family. at a time when we see us borrowing money to rebuild Iraq and provide solesource contracts that are now over.charging us millions of dollars for the care and feeding of our soldiers. no money for the unemployed. At a time when this administration comes to us and tells us we should borrow to go to Mars. nothing for the unemployed. We should borrow to rebuild Iraq. nothing for the unemployed. Time and again. we have made decisions in this Congress and in this administration that do not include the ordinary. hardworking American families who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own. Their jobs have been outsourced. their jobs have been sent overseas. their jobs have been eliminated. It is not because they are not struggling. These people want a job. They want a job. They would trade their unemployment check in a minute for a job. But the jobs are not available. 0l 1630 They were told at the beginning of this Congress by this administration with their economic program. with their budget priorities that they were going to create 1.B million jobs. Well. here we are. folks. a year later. and they are 1.6 million jobs short. They just did not hit the target. But what they did hit was the misery and the trauma among the unemployed in this country. In the past. we have recognized when jobs are not available. as the economy bottoms out. as it starts to turn up. we have extended the unemployment benefits to get those people to a job. These people have been looking for work for 6 months. But -this administration will not do it. This administration will not do it. This administration makes this part of the attack on middleclass America. middleclass working people who have lost their jobs. They take away their unemployment benefits. Middleclass America. that relies on overtime to meet their annual support for their families. to provide their cars. to buy their houses. they want to engineer the taking away of their overtime. Middleclass America that needs a pension. they want to take away their pension in the cash balance program. What is it that middleclass America did that so angered the Republican Party. that so angered this President. that he cannot understand and have compassion over what these families are going through when they are unemployed? What is it that the middle class did that does not allow this President to understand what it means when they close down the factory in your hometown. when they outsource your job to India. to China. to Singapore? Your job just disappeared. The answer from this administration and this Congress. this Republican Congress. is. tough. it is tough. These are hardworking people. They were working the day before they were unemployed. They have a work history. They have a history of supporting their families. of supporting themselves. of trying to hold on to a standard of living.