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 Democrats hold the Senate, 55-45, but may have difficulty
mustering the 60 votes that will be needed on Thursday to clear a
Republican procedural hurdle.
In a bid to build support, Democrats included a provision to bar
those earning more than $1 million a year from drawing unemployment
checks. The measure was modeled after one drafted a few years ago by
Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
Tax records show that in 2010 a couple of thousand unemployed
millionaires managed to get federal or state jobless benefits,
backers of the legislation said.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid scheduled the vote for Thursday
after rejecting Republican requests that they be allowed to propose
a number of amendments to the Democratic bill.
In describing the bill on the Senate floor, Reid said, "What we are
going to do is offer a fully paid for three-month extension of
unemployment insurance."
"That's what Republicans said they wanted, and we agreed to it,"
Reid said, alluding to Republican demands last month. "We will not
agree to an unlimited number of amendments."
If and when the Senate passes a bill to restore jobless benefits,
the measure would go the Republican-led House of Representatives for
consideration.
The Senate bill was introduced by Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island
Democrat whose state has one of the highest jobless rates in the
nation, more than 9 percent.
Senate Republicans last month blocked an earlier version of the
bill, which Reed co-sponsored with Republican Senator Dean Heller of
Nevada.
But, unlike the previous bill, the new one would fully cover the
$6.4 billion cost of providing jobless benefits for an additional
three months and would not increase the record federal debt load,
Reed said.
In fact, Reed said, it would provide enough additional revenue to
help reduce the debt by $1.2 billion.
Reed explained that the cost of restoring jobless benefits would be
offset by "pension smoothing," which, he explained, would allow
companies to use historical data in determining pension
contributions.
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That, in turn, would increase revenues and result in additional
taxes to pay for the jobless benefits.
"It is a technique that has been used before by both Republicans and
Democrats in terms of paying for proposals," Reed said in a
conference call with reporters. "I don't think that is going to
cause any controversy."
A senior Senate Republican aide, however, said there could be
resistance, noting that "pension smoothing" has been "a gimmick in
the past, and it is still a gimmick."
The bill would renew benefits, retroactive to December 28, when they
began ending for the long-term unemployed, generally out of work for
six months or more.
It would also give Congress time to explore ways to pay for
restoring benefits for a full year and consider possible new
job-creating proposals.
Initially, some 1.3 million unemployed people lost their benefits
after Christmas, but that number grew in the past month to 1.7
million.
Although U.S. unemployment has fallen to 6.7 percent from 10 percent
in October 2009, economists say some of the decline is because many
have given up searching for work.
President Barack Obama, top fellow Democrats and their supporters
say restoring the benefits are key to ensuring that those unemployed
workers have a basic safety net in place while continuing to look
for jobs.
They say such relief would also help the overall economy by pumping
money into it. Recipients of jobless benefits receive on average
about $300 a week.
(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro; editing by Paul Simao and David
Gregorio)
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