Todays news from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.): Unemployment Insurance: A Senate push to extend federal jobless benefits for three months was put on hold Wednesday as lawmakers sought a way to pay for it. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid postponed a procedural vote on a three-month bill to buy time for negotiations over an offset. “I could live with that,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said of offsets during an interview Wednesday on The Ed Schultz Show. If Republicans want offsets, Sanders said, Congress could come up with the money to pay for the benefits by reining in corporate tax dodgers or cutting wasteful military programs. Unemployment Insurance: “While there has been some modest improvement in the overall economy, there still are three job applicants for every job opening … As Sen. Sanders has noted, unemployment insurance kept 2.5 million Americans, including 600,000 children, out of poverty in 2012. … Now is not the time to turn our backs on the long-term unemployed,” the Bennington Banner editorialized. Global Warming: “The scientific community, those responsible for protecting our national security, the American public and corporations increasingly are recognizing that climate change is happening now and that carbon pricing is likely to be part of the solution. It is time for Congress to act,” Sens. Sanders and Barbara Boxer wrote in an op-ed published Thursday by the San Francisco Chronicle. The Fed: Change lies ahead as Washington begins 2014 with more gridlock, austerity and partisan posturing, Katrina vanden Heuvel writes in The Washington Post. In the Senate, an emerging caucus of aggressive progressives has begun to challenge the status quo. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown and Jeff Merkley joined Sen. Bernard Sanders in leading the revolt that blocked the nomination of Lawrence Summers to head the Federal Reserve in an indictment of the so-called “Wall Street wing” of the Democratic Party. Continue reading here: sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/newswatch/010914
Posted on: Thu, 09 Jan 2014 14:15:34 +0000