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Reid: Unemployment will be in Iraq bill |
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By J. Taylor Rushing
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Posted: 06/12/08 02:08 PM [ET] |
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) indicated Thursday the Senate will send an Iraq supplemental spending bill to President Bush that includes a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits regardless of what the House does. Reid said he will ask Senate Republicans for unanimous consent to take up the unemployment measure, which the House is expected to consider today. If that fails, as expected, he said he would add it to the Iraq supplemental. “If the Republicans don’t let us, I’m not wasting any time, we’re going to throw it into the supplemental,” Reid said. “We have an obligation to help people … People are desperate.” Bush has threatened to veto the unemployment bill, and it might be easier for him to do so if it is unattached to Iraq spending. The Senate already voted last month by a 75-22 tally for a supplemental that included a new GI bill and the unemployment benefits, with more than half of the 49-member Republican Conference crossing over to support it. In the House, passage of that measure has been complicated by the insistence of conservative Democrats that the new GI benefits be offset. In addition, anti-Iraq war Democrats oppose an Iraq funding bill that does not include timetables for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Reid said he has been in touch with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on the process. |
