WASHINGTON - A month after House Republicans dug themselves into a corner and left millions of Americans facing a $1,000 tax increase, an end to federal unemployment insurance and a loss of access to doctors of their choice, they have signaled this week that they intend to go backward - not forward - as the Conference Committee gets started. House Republicans have returned to the federal unemployment provisions in the House bill that would cut unemployment insurance by 40 weeks and impose burdensome new requirements on the unemployed and states.
“House Republicans are threatening another round of brinksmanship by insisting on starting with a rerun of the approaches within the House Republican bill that deeply polarized the two parties," said Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin. “We cannot succeed by unilaterally starting with the House bill as the basis for the work of the Conference Committee. Yet that approach was exemplified when Chairman Camp, in announcing the agenda for the first meeting for a substantive discussion, said the Conference Committee would consider several highly controversial unemployment insurance provisions in the House Republican bill."
Rep. Levin continued: “Department of Labor data shows that 2.8 million Americans would lose unemployment benefits under the House Republican proposal compared to current law. American families and our nation’s economy cannot afford a rerun of the brinksmanship and uncertainty that stalled action in December. Democrats won’t start from the premise that the unemployed are to blame for unemployment, that weeks can be slashed without harming workers in the hardest hit states, and that the President should simply be forced to approve the Keystone XL pipeline proposal even though it requires professional evaluation and consultation. There’s far too much at stake for millions of Americans for House Republicans to return to policies that have already been rejected."
