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Democrats urge extending jobless benefits
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democrats accused congressional Republicans of "leaving American workers out in the lurch" Saturday by refusing to extend unemployment benefits for jobless workers. In the party's weekly radio address, Sen. Maria Cantwell said benefits for more than 800,000 laid-off workers will expire December 28. The Democratic-controlled Senate voted for an extension in last month's lame-duck session of Congress, with bipartisan support, but the GOP-run House of Representatives adjourned without voting on the bill, she said. "Sending laid-off workers into the holiday season without unemployment insurance is like playing Scrooge at Christmastime, giving American workers a lump of coal in their stocking instead of the economic security they deserve," said Cantwell, D-Washington. Cantwell said more than 2 million jobs have been lost in the past two years, and home mortgage foreclosures are at a 30-year high. Her home state has seen a recession in high-tech businesses and more than 30,000 jobs lost at aerospace giant Boeing. The comments follow Friday's ouster of Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Bush's top economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey. Their resignations coincided with the release of figures showing the nation's unemployment rate hit 6 percent in November, the same as April's figure, which was the highest since August 1994. Democrats said the figures and resignations demonstrate the weakness of the Bush administration's economic policy. She said former presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton both supported the extension of unemployment benefits during the recession of the early 1990s, and urged the current President Bush to do the same. "Democrats are going to make temporary unemployment benefits a top priority when Congress reconvenes," Cantwell said. "The president has an opportunity to provide leadership on the economy and put compassion into his compassionate conservatism by backing this legislation for early adoption in January."
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