Lawmaker Group: No Unemployment Benefits

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17  -- The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the nation's largest nonpartisan, individual membership association of state legislators, recently passed a Resolution Opposing Federal Mandates on Unemployment Insurance. The resolution opposes the required federal changes which would expand eligibility of unemployment insurance and move the system toward a federally controlled social welfare program.

Governors of several states, including Alaska, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and South Carolina, have already indicated they will reject federal stimulus funds because the American Recovery Reinvestment Act, ARRA, required changes to state laws which will increase spending, result in increased taxes, and create future budget liabilities. ALEC legislators strongly oppose forcing states, as a condition of federal funding, to change state unemployment insurance laws.

The federal government's meddling in state unemployment insurance eligibility is a misuse of stimulus funds, and a violation of the powers explicitly reserved for the states in the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.