That Mouthpiece of the Beltway Mob,

the Washington Post, notices what everybody else in the country who has followed the jobless issue knows, and that's our illustrious Congress will not do jack shit about the exhaustees, or "99ers," preferring we all drop into a black hole someplace and never come out.

Since the recession began in December 2007, lawmakers have passed several extensions that stretched the normal 26-week limit for unemployment benefits to as long as 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. In the Washington area, only workers in the District, where unemployment is 10.4 percent -- well above the 9.5 percent national rate -- qualify for the longest-term unemployment benefits. Virginia and Maryland residents can receive benefits as long as 86 weeks, including 60 weeks of federally financed benefits. The Labor Department has no statistics on the number of workers in each jurisdiction who have exhausted their benefits.


With the federal extensions now up for renewal, Congress has shown decreasing enthusiasm for them amid increasing concern about the ballooning deficit.

There's that bullshit about the "deficit" again. Nobody will talk about those "austerity" measures beloved by the neoliberals worldwide which are designed to screw over the masses in order to pay for the elite's fuck-ups. That's another explanation as to why Congress is acting like a bunch of assholes regarding the unemployed. THEY and their backers screwed up and bailed out their crooked benefactors, yet they won't do diddly-squat about people who are in financial free-fall.