LAWMAKERS
1983 - LAWMAKERS - Jobs Bill
Host Paul Duke introduces report on progress of jobs bill for unemployment relief; Cokie Roberts in FG. (March 3) U.S. House Representative Frederick Boucher (D-VA) arguing for a jobs bill on the House floor to fund employment. House Minority Leader, Rep. Robert Michel (R-IL) says the bill passed through committee is mediocre. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) says the bill is inadequate to address the sixteen to twenty million people that are unemployed. VS of Congressmen complaining about deficiencies in the jobs bill: rural areas ignored, mimicking old New Deal programs, benefit areas where there is low unemployment anyway. Rep. Delbert Latta (R-OH) calls the committee bill a big hunk of pork that benefits a few committee members on appropriations committee.
1983 - LAWMAKERS - Jobs Bill
U.S. House Representative Robert Walker (R-PA) criticizes the jobs bill that includes unrelated infrastructure projects such as bus shed and a moving sidewalk. Rep. Mark Siljander (R-MI) argues that the bill isn't helping areas with the worst unemployment. Rep. Silvio Conte (R-MA), speaking from the House floor, notes funding for programs he has never heard of and funding for "tree planting" which not what his constituents want. Rep. Jamie Whitten (D-MS) argues that his bill is not pork. Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-TX) reads a poem to argue that the bill is necessary and not pork. Rep. Conte argues that only the people on the Appropriations Committee and in the leadership were able to secure funding for their districts, and scraps were unfairly given to the rest. Rep. Abe Kazen (D-TX) says his district has some of the worst unemployment in the country and isn't going to be helped by the jobs bill.
1983 - LAWMAKERS - Jobs Bill
U.S. House Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), from the House floor, says the bills priorities must be made to coincide with places with worst unemployment rates as she names some of the cities in need. Side view of the House Rostrum with Congressmen walk around; Paul Duke, voiceover, stating that the decision in the end was that there was too much pork in the bill, eliminating transit projects, focusing more in high unemployment areas of the country, but it still felt like a largely symbolic start. Rep. George Miller (D-CA) says there is more work to be done. Duke provides an update on the jobs bill that has passed the House of Representatives and is now undergoing "major surgery" in the Senate to align it with U.S. President Ronald Reagan's priorities which would include sending money to states rather than to district areas.