Political Quotes

“the bill before us does extend unemployment insurance benefits for 7 months. I agree with the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn) that a 7-month extension of the unemployment insurance benefits at this time is the appropriate length of time for us to extend unemployment insurance benefits. We hope that during this period of time our economy will rebound; and if not, then we will have to revisit it again, but the length of time is the right period, and we have no objection to that. Our objection is that we are not covering all the people who need to be helped. As I pointed out, in the recession in the 1990s when the loss of employment was less severe than the loss of employment in this recession, with the number of people who exhausted their Federal unemployment insurance benefits was less than under the current recession, we extended benefits for 26 weeks. We have the money in the unemployment insurance trust fund in order to do this. We have the money in the account, $21 billion. This will add a little over $3 billion.”