Pence and the unemployed

By Rick Yencer
MUNCIE, IN  - Congressman Mike Pence voted Tuesday to extend payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance in a measure that also supports a controversial oil sands pipeline currently being built from Canada to the United States. While Republicans would limit tax cuts and unemployment benefits, they insist construction of the pipeline opposed by environmentalists would create thousands of new jobs.  The House Republican measure set the stage for Senate Democrats to come up with another version while President Barack Obama threatened to veto the House measure. That plan extends payroll tax cuts from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent only a year, and would extend unemployment insurance, while gradually reducing the maximum 99 weeks to 59 weeks. It also prevents reducing reimbursement doctors receive for Medicare patients. Pence was quick to point out Congress had to get people back to work with unemployment nationally around 9 percent for the last 34 months. "Not only does this bill help get Americans back to work, it helps those currently looking for work during this holiday season by extending unemployment insurance through next year," said Pence. Limiting the tax cut to a year also prevents the Social Security Trust Fund from being harmed, Pence explained. The bill also would  create jobs by ending delays and completing the Keystone XL pipeline. And halting the regulations on industrial boilers would help save as many as 16,000 jobs in Indiana, Pence said. Only a few House Democrats suoported the bill and among them were Indiana Congressman Joe Donnelly, who is seeking the U.S. Senate seat now held by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-IN. "Even though this bill is far from perfect, I voted for it because of the tax relief it would provide to working families  in Indiana," said Donnelly who now represents the second congressional district in northern Indiana. Donnelly,  whose name not well known in eastern Indiana, acknowledged a compromise had to be sought on the tax cut and unemployment insurance benefit to continue those programs. IF Congress does not act, taxes will go up, Medicare reinbursement is cut and unemployment ends at the end of the year.