JANUARY 8, 2014
Six Senate Republicans vote to expand unemployment benefits
FAIRFAX, Va. – Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens issued the following statement condemning Senate action to extend unemployment benefits by $6.4 billion for 3 months, including the votes of six Republican senators, Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), Bob Portman (Ohio), Dean Heller (Nev.), and Dan Coats (Ind.) who helped Democrats get to the 60 votes necessary to invoke cloture:
"These six Senate Republicans that voted with Democrats to extend unemployment benefits are doing nothing to lift the economy out of its continued doldrums, and are only feeding the Obama Administration's class warfare agenda. Instead of treating the symptoms, it is time to begin undoing the policies that are really holding the economy back and preventing people from finding work.
"It has been six years since the financial crisis and the recession that followed, and yet here we are still acting as if it is 2008. In total unemployment benefits have been extended 11 times since 2008. Meanwhile, the government has done nothing to get out of the way of the economy and let it grow.
"Instead, Washington, D.C. has piled on an excess of regulations via the EPA's carbon endangerment finding, new industry takeovers via Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, and a diversion of investment resources away from the private sector to government bonds by running such high deficits."
