Unemployment Insurance Breakthrough
Senate strikes deal to extend unemployment insurance for long-term unemployed. W. Post: "...the five Republican supporters of the legislation provide just enough votes to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to pass the legislation ... the legislation would create a five-month extension of the federal benefits plan for the jobless, backdating the extension to late December ... through the end of May."
Compromise struck on cost offset, program reform. NYT: "The cost would be paid for in part by extending certain fees levied by United States Customs and Border Protection as well as by temporarily changing the way private corporations fund their pensions ... one provision would require an assessment of why a person unemployed more than six months has been unable to find work. 'That may mean that individuals will be directed to a job-training program or to a different occupation than he or she has traditionally held,' [Sen. Susan] Collins said .. The agreement also calls for an end to unemployment payments to anyone whose adjusted gross income is more than $1 million ... The long-term unemployed would also have expanded access to services like workplace skills assessments and referrals to re-employment services."
No deal yet with House. The Hill: "The bill will likely see floor action later this month, after the Senate returns from a one-week recess ... Even if the bill gets through the Senate, it faces hurdles in the House. Still, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said he would consider an unemployment bill that was fully paid for and included reforms to the program."
Obama To Reconsider Deportation Strategy
Obama orders review of immigration deportation policy. NYT: "[Obama] is under increasing pressure from Latino advocates to all but suspend aggressive efforts to deport illegal immigrants. Activists and Hispanic lawmakers say the government is ripping families apart by deporting people whose only crime was coming to the country illegally. Some groups said Thursday that a review ... would not go far enough ... Many Republican officials have said they already do not trust Mr. Obama to adequately enforce the security of the nation’s borders, and early reaction to his new order was sharp."
GOP outreach to Latinos hampered by opposition to reform. W. Post: "The risks of the current GOP approach were apparent Thursday morning, when Boehner was ambushed by immigration activists while eating breakfast at a Capitol Hill diner ... the RNC has launched 'Hispanic engagement field teams' in nine states, with 20 paid staff members on the ground ... But the party apparatus has focused most of its outreach message on the Affordable Care Act,"
Ryan Backtracks
Ryan pleads "inarticulate" for comments blaming "inner city" culture for poverty. The Hill: "'After reading the transcript of yesterday morning’s interview, it is clear that I was inarticulate about the point I was trying to make,' Ryan said in a statement. 'I was not implicating the culture of one community — but of society as a whole.' Democrats accused Ryan of making racially charged remarks when describing what he called a culture of people not working or learning the value of hard work. Ryan said it was the 'culture in our inner cities in particular.'"
But doesn't apologize, notes ThinkProgress: "Ryan’s office initially sought to substantiate the Congressman’s claims by pointing to research conducted by Harvard’s Robert Putnam, whose research has found that lower-income Americans are more distrustful of others and more disconnected from society’s important institutions than their middle or higher-income counterparts. However, the research doesn’t examine whether poor people are unwilling to work."
"Ryan's anti-poverty push has produced more problems than solutions" headlines CNN.
