Unemployment Benefits Special Orders

President George H.W. Bush vetoed S. 1722, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act, later the Senate failed by two votes to override that veto. The legislation would have extended federal unemployment benefits to the nation’s estimated seven million unemployed workers. At the time, President Bush called the bill unnecessary, saying the recession was over and that the legislation would break the federal budget agreement worked out last year by the White House and the Congress. Since then, Democrats and Republicans debated the issue of unemployment and how best to help those workers who have exhausted their 26 weeks of federal unemployment assistance and at the same time strengthen the nation’s slumping economy. On Wednesday the U.S. States House of Representatives members from both sides of the aisle took to the floor of the House to debate these and other economic issues following the end of Wednesday’s legislative business. close