Senate fails to advance Extenders bill again.
Senate Fails to Advance Extenders Bill Again, Next Steps Unclear
For the second time in two days, the Senate on Thursday night failed to advance their version of the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (HR 4213), the tax ‘extenders’ bill that includes a range of investments in job training and worker support programs. The final vote was 56-40, short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate and proceed to a final vote on the measure. The amendment under consideration had been significantly scaled back from an earlier version, cutting the overall cost of the bill from roughly $140 billion to $118 billion to try to address concerns from moderate Democrats and Republicans about costs and deficit impact of the bill, but the modified amendment was unable to attract any Republican votes, and two members of the Democratic caucus – Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) - also voted against the cloture motion. The result pushes any further consideration of the measure into next week, at the earliest, and it is unclear whether Senate leaders can assemble a final package capable of winning sufficient support to get past a procedural vote (although there are reports that Sen. Lieberman will vote in favor of the bill if his vote would make 60). Much attention has been focused on the two Republican Senators from Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, but so far they have declined to support the bill without further spending offsets.
The costs of delay on this legislation are significant: The current Senate version would extend unemployment insurance (UI) programs authorized under the Recovery Act through November 2010, providing desperately needed assistance to unemployed workers and their families (although it would not extend a federal program that increased UI benefits by $25 per week). Congress allowed extensions of these programs to lapse June 2, meaning that more than 900,000 jobless workers have already lost access to extended federal unemployment benefits.
The Senate bill would also extend the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund (ECF) through September 2011 and provide an additional $2.5 billion in funding for the program. More than 30 states are using these funds to support subsidized employment programs, creating more than 180,000 jobs for low-income and unemployed workers, but many of these programs will begin shutting down in the next few weeks without an extension. The bill would also provide $1 billion to support as many as 350,000 summer youth employment positions under the Workforce Investment Act, but with the official start of summer now just days away it is critical that these funds be made available to local communities as soon as possible.
Senate leadership is meeting today to determine next steps. Having already failed twice to pass the bill, it is almost certain that there will be strong pressure to further reduce the overall cost. Although it seems so far that investments in workforce development programs included in the bill have not been targeted for cuts, it is likely that everything in the bill is on the table at this point. With unemployment continuing to hover near 10 percent, Congress must ensure that workers continue to have access to the services and supports that help them through periods of extended unemployment and obtain the skills necessary to enter or reenter the workforce.
National Skills Coalition will continue to monitor this legislation and provide updates as new information becomes available.
