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Bush wants unemployment benefits extendedDemocrats: President's economic policy has basic flaws
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush Saturday took his first public stance on stalled legislation extending unemployment benefits beyond a December 28 expiration date, urging Congress to pass a bill and make it retroactive "so that people who lose their benefits this month will be paid in full." The House and Senate passed separate bills in the final days of the last congressional session in November. Bush remained silent throughout the debate, but in Saturday's weekly radio address, the president asked congressional leaders "to make the extension of unemployment benefits a first order of business" when the new Congress convenes in January. "No final bill was sent to me extending unemployment benefits for about 750,000 Americans whose benefits will expire on December 28," Bush said. " ... They need our assistance in these difficult times, and we cannot let them down." Bush emphasized in his weekly radio address a focus on greater job opportunities, a more energetic economy, and a cleanup of "corporate corruption" exposed in a series of Wall Street scandals over the past year. But he also used his radio address to stress the qualifications of his newly nominated economic team, named this week in a reshuffle of the top economic posts. Bush tapped CSX Corp. CEO John Snow to replace Paul O'Neill as treasury secretary, and Wall Street veteran William Donaldson to replace Harvey Pitt as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Both positions must be approved by the Senate. (Full story) Bush also named Wall Street veteran Steve Friedman as his top economic adviser after Larry Lindsey resigned from the post under White House pressure. "These leaders will assume their duties at an important moment for our economy," Bush said. "Many Americans have very little money left over after taxes. ... Investor confidence needs to be strengthened in practical ways. And the nation's rate of unemployment is now 6 percent, and significantly higher in some parts of America." But the Democratic caucus, which will lose its majority in the Senate when the next Congress convenes in January, countered that Bush has changed his economic team but failed to address underlying problems in his policies. "Firing one team, only to hire the next one with the very same policy goals in mind, will not improve the lives of average Americans," said Democratic Caucus Chairman Bob Menendez, a congressman from New Jersey, in the Democratic radio address. "In fact, things will only get worse." Menendez said Bush needed to make radical changes to revive the U.S. economy. "There's no question that the president's policies have failed miserably -- by firing his economic team, he was forced to admit this to the entire country," Menendez said. "The president must change his misguided economic policy now and focus on the economic insecurity of American families." Menendez said Democrats were working on a new economic proposal that would stress tax relief for middle class Americans. "It should be a patriotic sacrifice and duty for the wealthiest in our country to sit out further tax cuts," he said.
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