- Senate cuts to recession relief bill favor special interests, By Janet Hook, June 23, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “As the Senate scrambles to scale back a $140-billion recession relief bill, the poor, the elderly and the unemployed are bearing the brunt of the squeeze. But NASCAR track developers, movie producers and other special interests are likely to escape unscathed. Those businesses stand to gain $32 billion in tax breaks as part of the bill, which has been stalled for weeks because of rising complaints about deficit spending. In the hunt for ways to cut costs, neither party has proposed curbing the panoply of narrow tax preferences, which Congress has routinely extended each year. Instead, Senate leaders have proposed a $25 cut in weekly unemployment benefits; temporarily allowed a 21% cut in Medicare fees for doctors; and are planning to withhold or scale back $24 billion in payments many states expected to help pay for Medicaid for the poor…”
- Cutting off the unemployed, Editorial, June 22, 2010, New York Times: “It was bad enough when the Senate left town for a long Memorial Day break without passing a bill to extend expiring unemployment benefits. It’s worse now. Back in session for nearly three weeks, the Senate still has not acted. That means that 900,000 jobless workers have already lost their benefits, a number that will swell to an estimated 1.6 million people if an extension is not passed by the July Fourth holiday. Lost benefits – the average check is $309 a week – deprives struggling Americans of cash they need for buying food, paying the rent or mortgage and other essentials…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty