What in the fuck is the matter with the Senate?
The U.S. Senate won't vote on legislation extending federal jobless benefits to long-term unemployed people, a top Democratic lawmaker said Thursday, as a fight between party leaders drags into its fourth week.
The measure would extend federal benefits by 20 weeks for jobless people living in the hardest-hit states, and for 14 weeks for out of work Americans in all 50 states.
Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) said lawmakers wouldn't vote on the legislation until next week.
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The Republicans are stalling on purpose:
Almost two days after the H.R. 3548 survived its first cloture vote, there has been no major movement on the bill that would extend unemployment insurance for Americans who have exhausted their benefits. Why? Republicans keep throwing up new procedural barriers.
After reaching a bipartisan agreement to include an amendment extending the first-time homebuyer's tax credit, Senate Republicans agreed today to drop their efforts to weigh down the legislation with controversial amendments regarding ACORN and the E-Verify program. In exchange, they've turned to a new form of obstruction: demanding a vote on two new controversial amendments. The first would speed up the expiration date for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (a non-starter for Democrats who point out that a sunset date for the bank bailouts is already written into law). The second is yet another attempt to change to the way the extension is funded, by using "unspent" stimulus money, rather than the federal unemployment surtax, which amounts to 0.2 percent tax on the initial $7,000 of employees' wages.
They propose all of these stupid amendments because they REALLY don't want EUI to pass.
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