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Subscribe to RSSHouse Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the second-ranking Democrat in the House, in a 9:30 am ET speech at the National Press Club will urge Congress to look beyond elections, which happen every two years for the House, and take “on the long-term, structural problems that defy quick answers.” He’ll say, according to prepared remarks, “Our politics may run on two-year cycles—but our problems do not. We won’t get to full employment in two years. We won’t get out of debt in two years. We won’t get our middle class out of this historic hole of inequality and lost opportunity in two years, either.” More: “America isn’t convinced that either party has all the answers. And on November 2nd, I believe that the voters called us to find common ground on real solutions to real problems—unemployment, economic growth, and debt.”
He touts a need to increase manufacturing, calls for bipartisanship, and lauds the work done by the president’s debt commission. He draws a line in the sand, however, on bipartisanship when it comes to funding health care, the environment, “and protecting our consumers from unfair practices that put them unknowingly at great economic risk.” Programming note: Hoyer will be on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell tonight.
“In a sign of fading resistance to President Obama’s tax cut deal with Republicans, a Democratic leader said yesterday that the House will try to make changes but will not block the bill,” the Boston Globe writes, adding, “Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, a member of the Democratic leadership who represented the House in negotiations with the administration, made clear that Democrats strongly object to extending breaks to estates as large as $5 million. But he indicated that the issue would not be a deal-breaker if Republicans refuse to relent and said middle class families will get their tax relief. ‘We’re not talking about blocking the whole thing,’ Van Hollen said on ‘Fox News Sunday.’”
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Well, bipartisanship would help solve the mystery. I'm hoping the House will try to make changes that will benefit the Americans who need it; not the un patriotic multi/millionaires multi/billionaires .
Well, as a part of the long-term unemployed, I am furious and frustrated beyond belief that there are so many unemployed who have desperately looked for work at a time where there are simply not enough jobs to rehire all those formerly working. To the smug who have not already lost their own jobs....let me only say that until you have had to face the same situation many face, you might be better off to not display your lack of basic arithmetic skills....there are 30 million unemployed americans versus about 150,000 available jobs.
The extended benefits of all the very long-term unemployed STOPPED getting checks after 12/4....now, with all this absurd posturing on the parts of the House members who want publicity for the posturing has done nothing except worsen the situation of those already in desperate straits.
Even if the thing is passed now, many of those will NOT get check until after Christmas!! They are already without checks for last week...along with the check for this and NEXT week also...
This will do just what it has done every time the fool politicians have mucked around with it...cause endless expense in overtime for STATE workers trying to fix the mess the books get in when everything stops and has to restart again. Now that it is bitterly cold across the nation, millions will have to go stand out in the cold in line in front of unemployment offices just to get their accounts straightened out.
The folks in the HOUSE forget that they have never been able to get 13 months of unemployment benefits funded....and have EVERY time caused one of this stupid expensive lapse times.
Merry Christmas to all the selfish politicians who have now caused millions of miserable unemployed folks to suffer NEEDLESSLY at Christmas time by their selfish political posturing and games. I hope they all have the exact same miserable Christmas that they have caused so many of their constituents to have.
Very well said and so true. The country seems to be at the mercy of 2 yr. olds throwing tandrums and stomping their feet because they don't get their way. They don't have to worry about keeping a roof over their heads, food on the table or gas for their expensive cars because we are already paying for it with our very lives. They and their families are buying expensive gifts, going to parties, eating fancy food while we try to get a job that a hundred are applying for. Then go home(if we have one) to nothing!!! I too am fed up with the ones that have a job belittling all those people that don't. JUST WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE??? We are the bodies they are stepping over because they think they are better than us.