House Democrats prepping for fight over proposed cuts to jobless benefits

House Democrats are critical of GOP proposals that make sweeping changes to the federal unemployment benefits program, but are holding back specifics on how they intend to work out those differences as both sides line up for a battle over extending jobless assistance.

The two sides face a deep divide on what to include and how to cover the $200 billion cost of jobless benefits legislation that is expected to extend the policies through the 2012 elections.

On the cusp of early talks between House and Senate conferees over how to pass a yearlong payroll tax cut extension — which includes a reauthorization of federal unemployment benefits and a Medicare “doc fix” — Democratic leaders would only say Friday that “there will be time to get to those specifics” and that there “are differences between the two parties and they will have to be addressed.”

{mosads}House Ways and Means ranking member Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) said Friday that “those differences have been expressed before and they’re significant ones that need to be worked out” putting Republicans and Democrats on widely divergent paths over how to overhaul the unemployment benefits system.

Levin has been particularly critical of the House Republican proposal to cut benefits by 40 weeks from a maximum of 99 weeks to 59 weeks within six months. The plan, included in the House-passed payroll tax bill, called for an immediate 20-week cut in January followed by another 20-week reduction in the summer.

He also said last week that drug-testing and GED requirements were off the table in earlier negotiations. But that could change as both work towards a compromise.

Levin also expressed frustration on Thursday, saying that House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) didn’t vet the GOP proposal by discussing the plan with Democrats on the committee.

“Camp never talked to Democrats on the panel,” he said.

He got some support from House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who questioned on Thursday why House Republicans hadn’t held hearings on their added components of the measure, including the proposed reforms to unemployment benefits.

Hoyer said Friday that he also wouldn’t discuss specifics on how Democrats want to proceed on the bill’s issue during the conference but told reporters that the two-month “agreement reached today gives us is the opportunity to do that.”

Before House Republicans signed off on Thursday on the two-month payroll tax deal, they continued to hawk their bill, including the changes to the unemployment benefits program — some called egregious by Democrats on both sides of the Capitol and most non-starters at best.

The House GOP argued that the differences were minor between the two parties and could be worked out quickly, while Democrats called the stance a case of “make-believe.”

House Republicans, including Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), who was named a conferee by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), called the drug-testing provision justified because he has heard from small businesses in his district that can’t hire because applicants aren’t passing drug tests.

The plan doesn’t call for mandating drug tests in states, instead allowing states to set up their own system.

Georgia Republican Jack Kingston has introduced a bill that would require drug screening assessments in the form of questionnaires approved by the National Institutes of Health. Those identified by the assessment as having a high probability of drug use would be required to pass a drug test and would be subject to random screenings as long as they receive benefits, according to the legislation. Applicants who fail would be responsible for the cost of the test and could take one additional retest at their own expense.

Kingston argues that screening applicants, rather than testing each one, is less expensive and has been upheld by in the judicial system.

Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch gave the issue a thorough airing in June 2010, eventually backing off the idea because it lacked support in the Senate.

Ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee Chris Van Hollen (Md.) blasted the GOP proposal to allow states to drug-test benefits applicants as “insulting” in an interview that aired on C-SPAN Sunday.

“We’re willing to look at reforms,” said Van Hollen, “but the Republican rhetoric has been insulting to a whole lot of working Americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own.”

“The reality is that people are not out of work because they have substance abuse problems, people are out of work because there are four people looking for every job that’s available in America,” he said.

Meanwhile, advocates of extending unemployment benefits for 99 weeks for another year acknowledge that there will probably be a compromise on how many weeks to provide states — 73 is the maximum number of federal weeks on top of a maximum of 26 weeks provided by the states, for 99 total.

Under President Obama’s jobs proposal, the program would likely gradually drop the maximum number of weeks to 79.

Advocates for 99 weeks estimate that the number will fall somewhere between 79 and 99 and could allow for waivers to states facing double-digit unemployment — eight states exceeded 10 percent in November, two fewer than in October, according to recent figures from the Labor Department.

The government expects the cost of benefits to fall as unemployment drops in the states.

The vast majority of states — 43 in all — saw their unemployment rate decrease in November, a month that saw the biggest decline in the national rate in nearly a year.

With the unemployment rate dipping to 8.6 percent last month, only three states — New York, Rhode Island and Wyoming — saw a rise in unemployment, each by one-tenth of a percentage point, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In addition, Judy Conti, federal advocacy director with the National Employment Law Project, said the unemployment benefits program needs an overhaul that better addresses the modern workforce. But those changes need to go through more congressional hearings before pushing them through Congress with little examination.

Republicans also have argued that their plan closely resembles ideas included in Obama’s job’s bill — but advocates have called those assertions a “gross mischaracterization” and said the changes included in the bill are a veritable “wish list” that proponents don’t consider a serious starting offer.

“Reforms need to be enacted but not the ones in the GOP bill,” she said.

The Republican plan could attract some support on a proposal to eliminate unemployment benefits for millionaires, which would reduce federal deficits by $20 million over 2012-2021, according to the proposal.

Still, supporters caution that an overhaul of the federal unemployment benefits system needs to be carefully reworked.

“We have to solve the larger issues that relate to a one-year extension,” Levin said.