Nancy Pelosi took aim at the Senate on Friday for once again failing to a jobs/unemployment extension bill.
"The House has repeatedly sent jobs-creating bills to the Senate since December -- Build America Bonds, small business hiring incentives, and importantly, summer jobs -- and yet Republicans continue to block approval of jobs legislation," said Pelosi in a statement. "What is it that Republicans in the Senate and House don't understand about the need for jobs in America?"
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On Friday, Senate leaders congratulated each other profusely after agreeing to spending offsets to preserve Doc Fix for six months without adding to the deficit, but it was too late: Moments later, Medicare announced that after holding off for weeks, it would begin processing June claims at the reduced rate....
Despite the Senate's action, which would retroactively make doctors whole for Medicare work, there's still no relief in sight: Pelosi said she saw "no reason" for the House to pass the Senate's six month Doc Fix until the chamber got its act together on the rest of the package. (The version the House passed, after much deficit wrangling, included a 19-month Doc Fix.)
"The bill Senate Republicans allowed to pass is not only inadequate with respect to physician fees, but it ignores urgent sections of the House bill to provide jobs," Pelosi said. "I see no reason to pass this inadequate bill until we see jobs legislation coming out of the Senate."
If Pelosi's refusal to pass the inadequate doc fix can force the Senate into action on the larger package, which includes unemployment insurance extensions for the more than 900,000 people who've lost their benefits because of Senate dithering, then it's a good threat. As of this Friday, if the Congress doesn't act, the number of people losing those benefits will be 1.2 million.
Pelosi has an assist from AFSCME and Americans United for Change, who teamed up for a six-figure television advertising campaign targeted on the Maine twins. The ad will run in Maine and D.C., and urges Snowe and Collins to stop blocking the bill, focusing on the extended unemployment insurance for Mainers and the $84 million that would go to the state to help it avoid massive new layoffs. Here's the ad.