April 10, 2009

Rep. Hinkle's floor speech on today's passage of controversial unemployment insurance bill

Rep. Bill Hinkle, R-Cle Elum, made the following speech on the floor of the House of Representatives today regarding Senate Bill 5963, the unemployment insurance bill:

"Today, we book one more piece of evidence in the wrongful death case against employers in Washington state.  This is not a tax break, Mr. Speaker.  There's no such thing as a tax cut in UI.  There's refunds, but not tax cuts. There could be tax referrals, or prepaid taxes, but no cut.

"Let's say I paid $50,000 to the IRS; if I got $10,000 at the end of the year, is that $10,000 a tax break or a refund? I think we all know the answer to that.

"The proponents of this bill want to tell us what's good for business.  I don't know how we do things down here but this is my seventh year down here and what I like to do is listen to employers and people who create jobs.  And they are all asking us to put this bill down.

"We had the bill they wanted earlier, but we can't seem to keep it, Mr. Speaker.  Deals are broke down here all the time -- this is nothing new as far as I'm concerned.  Everybody used "hope" in our campaigns last year.  We "hope" that somehow things would be different in the way our political process works.  But I'm afraid the people back home aren't going to see that this year, and they haven't seen it yet.

"The anxiety at home with my constituents, even with people who have good jobs right now, is unbelievable.  I've never seen this kind of anxiety.  And what do we do?  We come up with a piece of legislation like this and we tell the businesspeople what they really need.  Here, this is what you really need.

"Our focus needs to be on creating jobs; giving people hope – real hope.

"Mr. Speaker, what this is, is a classic quote from the book of Proverbs: 'Hope deferred makes the heart sick.'  And my heart is sick today that we are passing this bill as it is.  Please vote no."

Senate Bill 5963

The state's unemployment compensation system provides partial wage replacement for workers who are unemployed through no fault of their own.  Most covered employers pay contributions, or payroll taxes, to finance benefits.

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