Well, that's it. No more unemployment extensions. No more COBRA subsidies. And the Republicans are entirely to blame.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday that Democrats are giving up on trying to break a Republican filibuster of a bill to reauthorize several expired domestic aid programs, including extended unemployment benefits.
The Republicans like Rand Paul think you should just go out and get a job. Just get one. Out there. Somewhere.
This detail should make everyone lose their shpadoinkle:
Reid and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), in an effort to mollify a handful of conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans, have spent the past several weeks trimming the bill to reduce its deficit impact. But after jettisoning several provisions to help the old, the poor and the jobless, reducing the bill's ten-year deficit impact down from $134 billion to just $33 billion, the bill is still sinking. Not a single Republican is willing to lend support and Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson is still holding out, leaving Democrats two votes short of the 60 needed to overcome the GOP filibuster.
$33 billion. Do you remember the dollar amount of the annual subsidy paid to Big Oil? $38 billion. That's right, the Republicans voted to continue paying corporate welfare to companies like BP, but they filibustered a bill of nearly equal dollar value paid to unemployed Americans. The Republicans. $38 billion to oil companies? YES! $33 billion to unemployed Americans? NO!