Longer jobless benefits as center:

A PAI Exclusive: Labor,

 Dem Leaders Agree On Second Stimulus Package

By Mark Gruenberg

PAI Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (PAI)--Saying the nation is in recession, union presidents and 

leaders of the Democratic-run 110th Congress agreed on the afternoon of April 10 

on the contours--if not all the details--of a second economic stimulus package, 

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney 

announced.

The centerpiece of the package will be extending jobless benefits from their 

present 26 weeks to 39 weeks, with an extra 13 weeks for jobless workers in 

high-unemployment states, they said. The package will be brought to the Senate 

floor “within the next month,” Kennedy said in late afternoon. 

“We have to make sure working families get the security they need and have 

worked hard for,” he added. Workers pay into the unemployment benefits trust 

fund and should be able to use those dollars in hard times, Kennedy said. “We 

heard the calls of working families who need help, and help is on the way.” 

“The administration has said ‘no.’ We say ‘yes,’” Kennedy declared, referring to 

anti-worker GOP President George W. Bush.

Other sections of the second stimulus package would include infrastructure money 

to repair the nation’s roads, bridges and airports, sending more money to states 

for Medicaid so they can pay for medical care, more money for food stamps, and 

“tax rebates for low-income and moderate-income people,” which Kennedy and 

Sweeney both mentioned. 

“The agenda of priorities in the short-term is unemployment insurance, food 

stamps, the rebates and a number of other measures,” Sweeney said. “American 

families are suffering with this recession and it’s about time we get under way 

to solve some of their problems.”

Kennedy was not specific about the rebates, and aides said a senator--they 

didn’t say which one--floated the idea in the closed-door meeting between 

senators and union leaders. Though Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Labor 

Committee, made the announcement, he added the package garnered support from Senate Majority Leader Harry 

Reid (D-Nev.) and other leaders. 

Sweeney later told Press Associates that, in a separate closed-door session, 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) agreed to push it, too, but gave no 

timetable. 

The discussion on the House side went beyond the stimulus package to encompass 

the congressional agenda for both this year and next year, Sweeney told PAI, the 

sole print media representative at the session. A camera from Fox was also 

present.

“We got into trade, infrastructure, the Employee Free Choice Act and the rest. 

We knew we had similar positions on most of them,” Sweeney added. “They didn’t 

get into a schedule,” Sweeney said of House Democratic leaders, “but they 

realized some of these things are urgent.”

The second stimulus package would be similar to Democratic-proposed measure 

dumped from the first package--approved earlier this year--in the face of GOP 

opposition, Kennedy aides said afterwards. Extending jobless benefits was one provision that led Senate Republicans to threaten to filibuster the 

original stimulus package.

Besides Sweeney, other union leaders at the closed-door sessions with Reid, 

Pelosi and other lawmakers were Change to Win Chair Anna Burger, Steel Workers 

President Leo Gerard, Communications Workers President Larry Cohen, Service 

Employees President Andrew Stern, Machinists President Thomas Buffenbarger, 

Flight Attendants President Pat Friend, Fire Fighters President Harold 

Schaitberger and AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department President 

Mark Ayers.

Other senators at the session were Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Joint 

Economic Committee Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and 

Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), whose state has the highest jobless rate in the 

nation.