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 Unemployment Insurance - White House Press Briefing by Tony Fratto 9/30/08 — Tuesday, September 30, 2008 —  MR. FRATTO: Paula.Q You mentioned repeatedly of frozen assets, assets that have value. But what about human assets? Because there's a lot of argument out there that people around that kitchen table might not be able to wait three or four steps along the way. As you know, unemployment insurance is running out mid-October, about three weeks before the election. The White House said it opposes that. There's supposedly a bargaining chip out there by Democrats for the President to drop his veto threat on the second stimulus bill. Are you rethinking any of these positions? MR. FRATTO: Which -- let me try to break down your question in a few different ways. You talked about unemployment insurance. We extended unemployment insurance. Congress put that forward for a 13-week extension of unemployment insurance, from 26 weeks-six months, for an additional 13 weeks extension. Q It expires in October -- MR. FRATTO: The additional 13 weeks for those people who have been on unemployment insurance already for six months, for them it does expire. But it rolls, depending on when you get on the program, so that if you are on the program today, if you go on this week, you have the original 26 weeks, plus an additional 13 weeks. So that's where it stands today. Congress may have ideas on things that they want to try to do with respect to unemployment insurance. They may try to find legislative vehicles to deal with them. We'll have those conversations with Congress if there are other efforts that they want to do. But with respect to this particular problem, if you want to help those people at their kitchen table, if you want to help the ability of their employers to keep them employed, then you want to fix the problem that we're trying to fix this week. And there will be -- there is nothing we can do that is more important for the U.S. economy, short term and long term, than to fix this problem with this frozen asset class. It is the single best thing we can do for the economy. That's our primary focus, and that's what we're going to be working on. We'll obviously continue to talk about other issues also if Congress has interest in them. Q But you have to acknowledge that one of the key issues here is also to get something that will pass. And if the bargaining chip is to drop the veto threat on a second stimulus package, would you reconsider it? MR. FRATTO: I think we will leave our negotiations for our discussions with members of Congress and not try to have me negotiate from here. Congress | Press Briefing | Tony Fratto | Unemployment | White House Press Corps Labels: Congress, Press Briefing, Tony Fratto, Unemployment, White House Press Corps
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 7:24 PM
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