Solid centrist package

A column by officers of the Greater Bangor Area Central Labor Council (BDN, Dec. 19) erroneously implies that we are not working to meet the needs of Maine’s and the nation’s unemployed workers and their families. We can assume only that the writers have not followed the debate in Washington on economic stimulus and worker relief legislation and therefore are unaware of the benefits we worked very hard to try to bring to unemployed workers through the only means possible: principled negotiation and compromise.

Following an impasse in bicameral negotiations with the White House, we worked with centrist senators of both parties as well as the White House to develop an economic stimulus package that had the support of the president, the House of Representatives and a majority of Senators. Unfortunately, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., would not allow this bipartisan, bicameral bill to come to a vote in the Senate. Instead of acting to bring extended unemployment and health care benefits to families who desperately need them, the majority leader moved to adjourn – a motion to which we objected, along with 38 other senators, because we believed adjourning for the holidays without passing legislation to help unemployed workers and stimulate the economy was wrong.

Millions of hard-working Americans have already lost their jobs and many more could be out of work in the coming year as a consequence of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the downturn in the American economy. We need strong medicine, and the stimulus and worker relief package we crafted with our centrist colleagues would have provided it.

This bipartisan bill would have provided immediate relief to hundreds of thousands of Americans who have exhausted their unemployment benefits and have not yet found work. Over the duration of the program, approximately three million Americans who are out of work and looking for a job would have received extended unemployment benefits. The proposal would have provided approximately $60 million in assistance to unemployed workers in Maine alone. These are our neighbors, our families; the very

people who have been hurt the most by the economic downturn.

Anyone who is serious about helping our unemployed workers or stimulating our economy should have looked favorably on this package. And in fact, a majority of the Congress did. We find it hard to understand why any of our colleagues would leave for the holidays without taking this step to extend our safety net for unemployed workers, as Congress did during economic downturns in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

For the first time in history, we were poised not only to extend unemployment benefits, but to help with health insurance costs as well.

Since most Americans get their health insurance through the workplace, the loss of a job can also mean the loss of critically important health benefits for these workers and their families. It is therefore imperative that any plan to stimulate our economy and get Americans back to work include meaningful provisions to help unemployed workers maintain their health care coverage.

Ours did. Our plan provided $21 billion in health care funding for displaced workers – almost $5 billion more than the approach favored by Democrats, and seven times the funding the administration originally suggested. Health insurance not only ensures continued access to health care services, but it also provides these families with a measure of protection from medical bills, debt, and even bankruptcy during these difficult times.

Hard-working Americans who have lost their jobs cannot wait six, nine or even 12 months for the federal government to set up a new bureaucracy so they can get their health insurance. They need help right now, which is what our proposal would have delivered. Our proposal would have paid for 60 percent of the health insurance costs of unemployed workers. Since many of these workers do not qualify for COBRA coverage – either because they worked for small businesses that are not subject to COBRA requirements or because they worked in jobs

that did not provide health insurance coverage – the credit could have applied not just to COBRA

premiums, but to other health insurance plans as well.

Moreover, the credit would have been immediately available through the same state offices that unemployed workers go to for their unemployment benefits. In addition, our proposal would have

provided $5 billion in National Emergency Grants so states could provde further assistance to displaced workers. Finally, our plan provided $46 billion in emergency Medicaid funding to the states.

This package also contained proposals to stimulate the economy advocated by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, such as powerful incentives for businesses to invest in capital assets, including an increase in the expensing limits that apply for small businesses. The bottom line is that the centrist plan we negotiated provided the last, best chance for a strong stimulus and worker relief package to move through the Congress and to

the president’s desk prior to the Christmas holiday.

It’s truly disappointing that this package – which provided fully one-third of its benefits to lower-income and displaced workers in 2002 – was stopped in the Senate despite majority support. We hope the judgment of Democratic leaders will improve when we revisit the stimulus when Congress resumes in January.

Olympia J. Snowe is co-chair of the Senate Centrist Coalition; Susan M. Collins is a member of the coalition.