Steny Hoyer: “I tell the leader, on this side of the aisle regular order is a concept which we support, but it will not be of help to…”

“I tell the leader, on this side of the aisle regular order is a concept which we support, but it will not be of help to people if we do not act, and by May 31, you indicate 6 million, I am saying 3 million. I am not sure whether it is Federal-State, about a million are at risk on the State program, or maybe 2 million on State and 1 million on Federal. There is a total of 3 million at risk. I tell the leader that it is my understanding in each of the recessions in the early 1980s and in 1990, we extended the existing program's coverage for substantially more weeks than we have done in this recession. With 6 million people unemployed, with jobs difficult to find for those 6 million people, and, as the gentleman knows, under the program you cannot receive benefits unless you are, in fact, looking for a job, I would say that it would be appropriate for us to do this in the regular order.”