Don Nickles: “My very good friend from Oregon--and he is my good friend--as he is trying to find another vote said, wait a minute, we…”

“My very good friend from Oregon--and he is my good friend--as he is trying to find another vote said, wait a minute, we should not treat service workers differently than those in manufacturing. I used to run a manufacturing company. Manufacturing, frankly, in this country has been on about a 40-year decline, almost straight, on the number of jobs. The service industry, on the other hand, has been quite volatile, but jobs are increasing--frankly, increasing in lots of different and exciting ways. But to say we are going to have a Federal benefit if somebody works in a job for 26 weeks and somebody says, I lost my job and I think I lost it because of overseas competition, therefore, I am entitled to 2 years of unemployment compensation, I am entitled to a refundable, advanceable tax credit, and basically to have the Federal Government pay for my health care--three-fourths of it--for the next 2 years, and to get cash assistance of up to $5,000 a year for each year, I think is going over board. It costs a lot of money. The Congressional Budget Office scored this. We just got this. You ask, why? We just got the amendment, so we just got the score from CBO. It says the outlays to this are $5.3 billion in BA, or obligation authority. The tax credit would cost $669 million over the next 10 years. The cost is about $6 billion.”