Last year, Republicans refused to renew unemployment benefits unless the high-end Bush-era tax cuts were preserved. After the White House agreed to keep the tax cuts through 2012, they agreed to extend federal jobless benefits through 2011. Now, they want to renege.
The House Ways and Means Committee, on a strict Republican vote, recently passed a bill to let states use federal jobless money for other purposes, including tax cuts for business. This is a very bad idea at a time when the national jobless rate is 9 percent, and higher than that in 22 states. The $31 billion in yet to be paid federal benefits is desperately needed.
State unemployment benefits end after six months. Federal benefits, which average $293 a week, then kick in. In better times six months may be a reasonable period to expect a laid-off worker to find another job. But not these days. Right now, more than four million families depend on extended federal benefits to get by.
The bill would let states use the federal jobless money to pay debt that would otherwise have to be paid by raising business taxes. In particular, the bill could get businesses off the hook for increases that will be needed to repay $41 billion in federal loans that states took to cover shortfalls in their unemployment funds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/opinion/16mon1.html?hp=&pagewanted=print