I wanted to highlight the Trade and Globalization Assistance Act, yet another progressive spending bill that's bottled up in Congress and that the President has threatened to veto. Its main provisions improve the unemployment insurance system and the trade adjustment assistance (TAA) program. The act costs about $9 billion over ten years- just a blip in the context of $3 trillion budgets, but a major deal for the workers who'd get better benefits. And it's a deficit-neutral bill, mostly paid for by renewing an unemployment insurance surtax. The changes to the unemployment system are well summarized by this Coalition on Human Needs' report . Essentially, the federal government would provide stronger incentives to states to expand their programs. Low and middle-income workers in particular would benefit, as unemployment insurance could better help part-time workers and people who are employed sporadically. It may also help people who leave work for family reasons and workers in a retraining program. As for TAA, the bill would expand coverage, increase benefits and provide more worker retraining. For a comprehensive summary, see the Congressional Budget Office's cost estimate. TAA is a pretty small program. Workers are eligible for TAA if they can prove they lost their job due to trade. In FY 2006, only 120,000 workers were certified eligible, and only half of them received benefits. This bill will give the program a much-needed expansion, though there's room for more. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research has written that the program does nothing to reduce the downward pressure that trade puts on wages. The House passed its version in late October, which the President threatened more or less to veto. The Senate's bill has been moving very slowly and looks less progressive than the House version. These programs' authorization expire on Dec. 31, so Congress will have to do something before the year is out.