Marcy Kaptur: “I would have to say this also, that when the Bush administration's unemployment proposal was talked about, the President…”

“I would have to say this also, that when the Bush administration's unemployment proposal was talked about, the President talked about this before the first of the year; he did not say what his proposal really was. His original proposal would have only taken care of the unemployed in three States. The State of Oregon was one of them, but our State was left out, the State of Ohio. I fail to see how an unemployed worker in Ohio who has exhausted his benefits is any different than an unemployed worker in Oregon or New Jersey. Then there was the issue of how many weeks and at what level for benefits they had worked for. These are working people. They are people who have believed in our system of enterprise and have tried to make a difference in their lives. I was just amazed that none of the press talked about the difference in the bills, that we were as the Democratic Party talking about every State in the Union, every unemployed worker who had fallen off of benefits, and that we were talking about a realistic number of weeks, not just 6 weeks or 7 weeks, but so that people could plan, 26 weeks, which has been historic here.”