Gov. Patrick favors unemployment extension
Gov. Deval Patrick said Monday he supports President Barack Obama in urging Republicans to approve an extension in unemployment benefits, despite GOP concerns about adding to the national debt.
Patrick, a fellow Democrat, said in a telephone call to The Associated Press that allowing people to exhaust their benefits "is wrong."
As for Republican concerns about the extension adding $34 billion to the national debt, Patrick said: "When the economy grows, when people are back to work, when people are seeing a way forward for themselves and family, then we can see a way forward to reducing the deficit. That's everyone's shared goal."
In a Rose Garden speech earlier in the day, Obama urged passage of legislation extending benefits to Nov. 30. A Senate bill that may be voted upon Tuesday includes a retroactive payment for those who have lost benefits.
The last extension expired at the end of May, leaving some 2.5 million people without benefits, with hundreds of thousands more - including an estimated 10,000 in Massachusetts - losing benefits each week.
"It's time to do what's right, not for the next election, but for the middle class," Obama said.
The governor and president share the same top political adviser, David Plouffe. He is now overseeing Patrick's re-election campaign this fall, as well as midterm congressional elections that will be pivotal in determining the fate of the remainder of Obama's legislative agenda.
The White House hopes to use the unemployment debate as a wedge issue heading into November, and Patrick pivoted off his support for the president to criticize his own Republican rival, Charles Baker.
The governor said Baker is "irresponsible" for proposing to extend from 15 to 20 weeks how long someone must work before gaining jobless benefits.
Patrick himself once studied that option but decided to reject it after concluding it would have cost 12,000 people their benefits in 2009. The governor previously criticized Baker for backing the proposal in June, when the former Harvard Pilgrim Health Care president unveiled it in a speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.
A Baker spokeswoman said the change would align Massachusetts with the majority of the states. Only 13 require 15 or fewer weeks to gain benefits.
"The only thing Gov. Patrick knows how to do is defend the status quo," Baker spokeswoman Amy Goodrich said. "Like taxes and regulation, this is another area where Massachusetts is way out of line with other states."
