Congress Passes Extended Jobless Benefits : Economy: Vote is nearly unanimous. The $2.7-billion bill is first recession-relief measure of the year. Bush is expected to sign it immediately.

Acting with near-unanimity on the first recession-relief measure of the year, Congress on Tuesday approved and sent to the President a $2.7-billion bill that would extend long-term jobless benefits for another 13 weeks.

President Bush--who blocked legislation twice last year to extend unemployment benefits before finally signing a compromise bill--asked for the new legislation during his State of the Union address a week ago. He is expected to sign it immediately.

Bipartisan support and the lagging economy combined to speed the measure through the House by a 404-8 vote. Soon after, the Senate gave its approval to the House bill on a 94-2 roll call and sent the measure to the White House.

“We need to bridge the jobless gap until a genuine recovery occurs for families in every state of the union,” said Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.). “Unemployed men and women face a grim job market where job layoffs are outpacing job creation. There are no indications that unemployment will recede quickly.”

The prospect that Congress will be asked to extend the jobless benefits again this summer was raised by Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, during the brief debate on the measure.

“This will probably not be the last time this year the House is asked to deal with this problem,” Rostenkowski said before the vote.

Some Democrats said that an “election-year conversion” had changed Bush’s opposition to extending unemployment benefits. As House Majority Whip David E. Bonior (D-Mich.) put it: “I wish this meant the President has seen the light. I’m afraid it’s just that he’s felt the heat.”

Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), however, said that it is the Democrats in Congress who switched to meet the President’s demand that the additional benefits be funded by revenue-raising measures and not swell the federal government’s deficit.

Both Democrats and Republicans agreed, however, that they prefer a growing economy and more jobs to additional benefits for those out of work.

“The bill . . . is like aspirin to relieve pain,” said House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.), a co-sponsor. “It eases the symptoms but doesn’t cure the illness.”

Under the extension passed in November, jobless workers who have exhausted their regular 26 weeks of payments receive an additional 20 weeks of benefits in the states with the highest unemployment rates and 13 extra weeks in all others.

The new bill would extend those provisions from the current June 13 expiration date through July 4. It also would provide an additional 13 weeks of benefits to all long-term unemployed.

The legislation would make jobless workers eligible for 33 weeks of extra benefits in a dozen states with the highest unemployment rates and a total of 26 weeks of extra benefits in all other states.

The 33-week states are Alaska, California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Counting the basic 26-week period, long-term unemployed persons would be eligible for a maximum of up to 59 weeks.

At Bush’s insistence, the additional benefits would be paid for by tapping a $2.2-billion surplus created when pay-as-you-go-measures enacted last year raised more money than needed to cover outlays and by a speed-up in payment of corporate taxes.

Despite the President’s assurances that the legislation met the requirements of the budget enforcement act and would not add to the deficit, Sen. Hank Brown (R-Colo.) disagreed and tried to prevent passage of the bill in the Senate by raising a parliamentary point of order against it.

The Senate brushed aside his objections, however, and voted 88 to 8 to waive the budget act provisions before approving the bill on a near-unanimous roll call.

Only Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and Sen. Steve Symms (R-Ida.) voted against the measure in the Senate. In the House, eight Republicans opposed it, including Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Rockland).