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U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-5), a senior member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, has reiterated his call for the House Majority to pass legislation extending emergency unemployment insurance.
Thompson said that approximately $64,858,382 was drained from California's economy – and $400 million nationwide – during the first week of expired federal benefits.
On Dec. 28, nearly 214,000 people in California lost an average $303 weekly benefit when the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation program expired, as Lake County News has reported.
The termination of federal unemployment benefits last month halted payments to 3,086 Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino county residents totaling about $936,000 in the first week, according to state figures.
Statewide, the cutoff affected 213,793 long-term unemployed people, who lost an average weekly benefit of $303, the state Employment Development Department said.
That adds up to a loss of nearly $65 million for the California economy in the first week since the cutoff on Dec. 28, Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, said Thursday.
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson praised the bipartisan Senate vote Tuesday that launched consideration of a three-month extension of nationwide emergency unemployment insurance.
Thompson, a Democrat and Benicia's representative in the House, is a senior member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
In a statement Tuesday, he said, "Today's bipartisan vote in the Senate is a positive step toward reinstating an important economic lifeline that millions of Americans depend on as they make the transition from joblessness to employment."
On Tuesday the US Senate voted 60 to 37 to consider extending emergency unemployment insurance to more than one million Americans for three months, a step lauded by the two congressmen representing Lake County.
US Reps. John Garamendi (D-Fairfield) and Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) also urged their colleagues in the House of Representatives to take up the legislation.
In a statement, the congressman – Democratic chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force – said two new executive actions made by the Obama Administration "will strengthen our criminal background check system and go a long way toward helping make sure guns don't get into the wrong hands."
Rep. Mike Thompson announced Friday that his bipartisan legislation to improve treatment options for active duty soldiers with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and post-traumatic stress (PTS) has passed in both the Senate and House and is expected to be signed into law by the president.
The legislation, which passed as a part of H.R. 3304, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2014, allows service members to access innovative treatments offered outside military medical facilities, including potentially the Pathway Home program in Yountville.
A year ago today, I was duck hunting in California when my phone buzzed with a breaking news alert. There had been a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. As the hours unfolded, more details surfaced. Twenty children – all of them 6 or 7 years old – and six adults had been gunned down in a senseless act of violence.
In the days and weeks that followed the shooting, we pledged to never forget. We said this time would be different. We said that something must be done.
One year ago Saturday, horror united us.
We froze in our pre-holiday tracks, stomachs and jaws dropping, at news that 20 first-graders and six educators had been shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. No matter our politics or feelings about guns, we all hugged our loved ones tighter that night.
But soon we parted ways again, as calls for tighter gun control were met with calls to protect constitutional rights, and accusations of hard-heartedness were met with accusations of political opportunism.
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, released the following statement on Vice President Biden's announcement of $100 million in additional funding made available to expand and improve mental health services.
Some $50 million will come through the Affordable Care Act to help community centers provide more mental health services. The second half of the money, made available through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will help finance rural mental health facilities.
This session of Congress is the first since World II that has failed to protect a single new acre of public land.
This year, however, bills supported by California lawmakers are getting action and a push from the Obama administration.
The House in July passed, by unanimous consent, a bill by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, to add the 1,660-acre Point Arena-Stornetta Public Lands along the Mendocino coast to the islands, rocks, and reefs in the California Coastal National Monument.