UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION UNPAID FOR

HR 5618, Restoration of Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 2010, was passed by the House on 07/01/10. A previous vote was taken on 6/29/10 but did not achieve the required 2/3 majority vote to pass onto the Senate. However, the House vote on July 01 only required a simple majority. Interesting how the same bill, with no amendments can be passed in Congress under a different set of majority rules, than when it was voted on the first time under more stringent majority rules.
The major contention as to why fiscal conservatives from both parties were voting against HR 5618 was due to how this bill was going to be paid for. Under this resolution, the federal government will cover each states' cost by 100%. The question for fiscal conservatives was where were the funds to cover this cost coming from. This bill, which extends unemployment compensation till April, 2011 for those whose compensation ended several months ago, is to be funded by the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008 which, according to the latest CBO analysis report, is no longer fully funded. This bill states that it is subject to the "pay as you go" principle, but the questions still remains unanswered: Where are the funds to pay for this bill? Fiscal conservatives from both parties were lobbying for delegating funds from the unspent portion of last year's budget stimulus to pay for the compensation claims to come. However, the liberal "spend as you go" Socialists in Congress would not consider this option and passed this bill which is forecast to cost over $24 Billion by 2011, per the CBO estimate on 6/28/10.
Now this editorial is not intended to not extend a helping hand to the unemployed who are still looking for work since being layed off or released from work a minimum of three months ago. This editorial is directed at the typical approach by the House to spend tax revenues and supplement with newly printed money, as opposed to using over $200 billion in unused stimulus funds to pay for the unemployment compensation extension.
In addition, in both votes, 29 RINOs (who have voted irresponsibly on fiscal legislation, as researched in the past 24 months) voted for this bill. One RINO (Anh Caro, LA-2) recorded a "NO VOTE" on June 29th, then voted for the bill on 07/01/10. For sake of space, the reader can research HR 5618 on govtrack.us/congress to see the vote tally and the names of the RINOs who voted for this legislation on both occassions. You will see the typical RINOs from Florida [GUS BILIRAKIS (9),LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (21),MARIO DIAZ-BALART (25),
BILL POSEY(15),ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN (18)and BILL YOUNG (10)] and those from Pennsylvania [CHARLES DENT (15),JIM GERLACH (6),TIM MURPHY (18), and
TODD PLATTS (19)]. You will find some interesting names with the remainder of RINOs who voted Aye for HR 5618.