Earlier today, The Hill highlighted a statement by Rep. Lee Terry accusing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of "arrogance" for pushing an extension of unemployment benefits limited to those states with the highest rates of unemployment. Specifically, Terry wrote through his Twitter feed:
Arrogance of the speaker showed when she brought a 13-week unemployment extension for peolple (sic) in states w/over 8.5% unemployment...
...That excludes Nebraska. Why is an unemployed person in California more worthy of help than an unemployed person in Nebraska? I voted NO.
Terry cast his "NO" vote on Tuesday night against the bipartisan Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009, which passed 331 - 83 with the support of 104 Republicans. This begs the question of why Terry would attack Pelosi over a measure supported by 60% of his fellow Republicans.
Still, I would generally appreciate Terry standing up for the unemployed in Nebraska if he hadn't voted the exact opposite just one year ago. Last July, Terry showed no hesitation whatsover voting FOR a Republican motion to recommit the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 that would have ensured that bill considered "an unemployed person in California more worthy of help than an unemployed person in Nebraska."
The motion Terry supported in 2008 would have specifically limited the 13-week extension of unemployment benefits to those states with an unemployment rate of 5.0% or in which unemployment had risen by 20% during the last 12 months. At the time, Nebraska's unemployment rate was only 3.4% and was less than 10% higher than it had been a year earlier. The unemployed in Nebraska wouldn't have benefitted, and Lee Terry didn't give a damn because this was a partisan vote and he was just following orders from the Republican leadership.
Sadly, Terry isn't alone in this hypocrisy. Both of Nebraska's other Republican Congressmen - Jeff Fortenberry and Adrian Smith - also voted to block Nebraska from receiving extended unemployment benefits in 2008. Since his 2009 vote against the benefits extension, Smith has at least had the decency to keep his mouth shut rather than being a hypocrite and trying to play up its targeting for his own political advantage. The same can't be said for flip-flopping Fortenberry, who issued the following press release titled "House Bill Discriminates Against Suffering Nebraska Families":
Congressman Jeff Fortenberry today voted against H.R. 3548, the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009....
"This bill discriminates against people who are suffering in Nebraska," said Fortenberry. "If you are without a job, you are 100 percent unemployed, and it should not matter whether you are unemployed in Nebraska, Ohio, Michigan, or anywhere else. It's wrong. It's unfair."
Fortenberry didn't go as far as Terry using this vote to attack Nancy Pelosi (and the Democratic majority). But, the point remains that he, Terry, and Smith all voted just last year to "discriminate against suffering Nebraska families" and now criticize what they'd previously supported. For a Nebraskan without a job, it's not going to matter whether you're being discriminated against one year to the next. If it's wrong and unfair now, it was wrong and unfair then - when Terry, Fortenberry, and Smith each voted for limiting the extended benefits to exclude Nebraska's unemployed.
Of course, the rate of unemployment in our state has risen over the last 12 months - and some major plant closures announced this week suggest that number will continue to rise. Still, with 5% unemployment in August, Nebraska's unemployment rate is currently the third lowest in the nation - only higher than South Dakota at 4.9% and North Dakota at 4.3%. Meanwhile, the national unemployment rate is the highest it's been in 26 years at 9.7%.
With such a huge challenge facing our country, there are principled reasons for including or excluding Nebraska in this extension of unemployment benefits. But, Lee Terry and Jeff Fortenberry show a total lack of principle that only makes these challenges worse when they'll twist this issue and use the suffering of Nebraska families for their own political gain. This is sheer hypocrisy, and they should both be ashamed! |
