Obama GPO Unemployment:US President Barack Obama took aim at Monday congressional Republicans, accusing them of holding the public hostage to Washington's policy by blocking the extended unemployment benefits for millions of unemployed Americans. "It is time to do what is right, but not at the next election, but for the middle class," Obama said in a statement the President jawboning in the Rose Garden on Monday morning.
Legislators have struggled for a week over the legislation, expansion of unemployment benefits to workers who have been unemployed for a long time. The last such extension expired at the end of May, resulting in about 2.5 million people without benefits, with hundreds of thousands more loss of benefits every week.
The Senate is set to take up the measure again on Tuesday, immediately after the swearing-in replacement of the late Senator Robert Byrd. Filling the site will give Democrats 60 votes needed to block Republican obstruction.
The argument Mr. Obama has become a familiar one, but Democrats are trying to use the Republican blockade of unemployment benefits as a wedge issue heading into November's midterm elections.
On Monday, he tried to throw his Republican opponents as hypocrites for having voted for the extension of unemployment benefits, when his Republican predecessor, President George W. Bush was in the White House, but not now. He accused Republican leaders subscribe to what he called erroneous that unemployment assistance for people, reduces the incentive to carefully examine the work.
"Such a position, I think, reflects a lack of faith in the American people," Obama said.
He noted that out of the people he hears from "not looking for handouts. They desperately want to work. Just now, they can not find work."
"They are honest, decent, hardworking people who have fallen on hard times, not her own fault."
$ 34 billion needed to extend the benefits to be borrowed, adding to the growth of the country's debt. Republicans tapped into public anger and concern over public debt, arguing that it would support the extension of unemployment benefits only if the account was paid.
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