Senate Upholds Veto of Jobless Aid Bill

President Bush won another veto battle Wednesday when the Senate sustained his rejection of a $6.4-billion measure to extend jobless benefits for as long as 20 weeks for America’s 3 million long-term unemployed.

Senate Democratic leaders vowed to fashion a new pay-as-you-go version of the bill and send it back to the President as soon as Congress can act on it.

Before the 65-35 vote -- two votes short of the two-thirds majority required to override a veto -- Democrats and Republicans blamed each other for a three-month deadlock over legislation to provide additional jobless payments.

Democratic leaders, spurning GOP alternative proposals, said that they would try to develop a pay-as-you-go bill to meet Bush’s objections that the vetoed measure would breach the budget agreement and raise the deficit.

“It’s back to the drawing board for an adequate proposal that meets the needs of the unemployed in America,” said Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and chief sponsor of the vetoed bill, said that he would consult with House Democratic leaders soon on a new approach that the President might sign.

“It’s not going to be easy to come up with an alternative,” Bentsen told reporters.

All 57 Democrats and eight Republicans voted to override the President, but 35 GOP lawmakers supported him.

It was the 12th time that Bush has won an override vote in Congress. In addition, neither the Senate nor the House tried to override vetoes of 11 other bills passed by the Democratic-controlled legislature.

“This debate . . . has gone on long enough,” Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin said. “Arguments and rhetoric must give way to action.”

There seemed to be no consensus among Democrats on how to raise $6.4 billion over the next five years to offset the cost of the proposed extension of jobless benefits. The House has overwhelmingly rejected a plan to raise payroll taxes on employers to finance the payments, and Senate Democratic leaders showed little enthusiasm for a Republican plan to raise the needed revenue by auctioning radio spectrum bands and cracking down on tax cheats.

Democrats rejected a rival Administration-backed bill offered by Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) to extend jobless benefits for up to 10 weeks, calling it a sham that would provide only extremely limited assistance to unemployed Americans who have exhausted their regular 26 weeks of benefits.

Also, they blocked consideration of a GOP proposal sponsored by Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) that would authorize an extra 15 weeks of benefits in the states hit hardest by the lingering economic slump.

“Congress is holding the unemployed hostage while it plays a political game,” Durenberger, who voted to sustain the veto, complained. Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.), who also backed the President, accused the Democrats of playing “hard-ball, petty, partisan politics.”

However, Democrats blamed Bush for delaying extra payments to the estimated 300,000 persons who each month exhaust their regular benefits during the drawn-out recession.

“The President simply has a blind spot for the distress and suffering of Americans in need,” Sasser said.

Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.) invited Bush and Martin to visit his state, where he said 170,000 workers have exhausted their benefits and have virtually no chance of finding a job in the depressed auto industry or elsewhere.

“They are about as far removed from this situation as I have ever seen,” Riegle said. “They are out of touch. They have got an economic plan for every country in the world except this one.”

However, Dole challenged the Democrats to produce a different kind of bill. “Extending benefits is fine, but why not pay for it?” he asked.