Isn't it interesting, how Republicans pick and choose which moral positions they decide they want to support? Too bad they don't knuckle under to pressure from the Catholic church on policies like this - and that the church doesn't work quite as strenuously to push social justice issues as it does with those having to do with reproduction:

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has been quietly lobbying Congress to keep extended unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless. It's common for faith groups to lobby Congress on economic issues. Catholics, however, are better known politically for their strong opposition to abortion.

On Monday, Bishop Stephen E. Blaire sent a letter to members of the House of Representatives urging them to focus on the economic security of workers at year's end.

"When the economy fails to generate sufficient jobs, there is a moral obligation to help protect the life and dignity of unemployed workers and their families," Blaire wrote. "Therefore, I strongly urge you and your colleagues to find effective ways to assure continuing Unemployment Insurance and Emergency Unemployment Compensation to protect jobless workers and their families."

Democrats and Republicans are battling over legislation that would reauthorize federal unemployment insurance for people who exhaust six months of state benefits. Since 2008 the federal government has provided extra weeks of benefits, eventually totaling 73 in some states. Democrats have said they want to keep the extra weeks, while Republicans have pushed a plan to cut extended compensation down to 33 weeks. Both sides say want a reauthorization; without an agreement of some kind, as many as 1.8 million workers will be left hanging in January.

Blaire's letter doesn't specifically endorse either approach, though it does note that the average jobless spell duration topped 10 months in November.

Rev. Paul Sherry, director of the Washington office of a religious labor advocacy nonprofit known as Interfaith Worker Justice, said his group opposed the Republican approach, which in addition to shortening benefits would allow states to drug test the jobless.

It's infuriating. My state's been taken over by the wingnut shock troops, and the voters aren't even really paying attention yet. As difficult as it is to get a job in this economy, the same old Chamber dirtbags are insisting the unemployed just aren't trying hard enough:

HARRISBURG -- Thousands of Pennsylvanians will see their federally funded unemployment benefits expire after this week, with legislation to extend those checks lingering in the state House of Representatives.

A pending measure, which passed the state Senate last week, would offer 13 additional weeks of benefits to the state's jobless residents. The federal funding was approved by Congress in December but requires the state to tweak its unemployment compensation rules in order to receive those dollars.

That bill is awaiting consideration by a House panel, which has a vote scheduled for Monday. Legislative staffers say the belatedly approved benefits would be retroactive, but pressures to also enact broader changes to the state's unemployment compensation system could further hold up that assistance.

Approximately 17,000 residents would be affected if the benefit extension is not approved, according to the state's Department of Labor & Industry.

It's unclear whether House lawmakers will quickly vote on the bill, which would then go to Gov. Tom Corbett's desk for his signature, or insert additional changes. The General Assembly approved a sweeping overhaul of the unemployment compensation system in June, when it also extended federal benefits by 13 weeks.

Those changes, which required the unemployed to actively seek work to receive their benefit checks and froze the maximum amount of weekly benefits, should be expanded further, says the state's Chamber of Business and Industry. Those business leaders wrote to lawmakers urging them to insert provisions to help address the insolvency of Pennsylvania's unemployment compensation trust fund.

(H/T to maymay)

In the words of Emily Litella, "Never mind."

Never mind that I thought the rest of the tax cut deal was worth swallowing, because that was when I thought there were 13 months' additional unemployment benefits in the picture. There aren't. It only maintains the status quo.

According to Calculated Risk, this is just the same kind of "bridge" legislation we've seen before, in which people who were eligible for the next level of extensions (but couldn't get them because they expired) are now eligible to move on to the next extension level.

It's not another tier. There are no new benefits. You still can't collect any more than 99 weeks. All it does is maintain the same system that was already in place.

This deal isn't worth a bucket of warm spit, as my mother used to say.

Arthur Delaney at Huffington Post:

The programs provide up to 73 weeks of federally-funded benefits for workers who exhaust 26 weeks of state benefits. The average weekly benefit is about $300, and the total cost of a yearlong reauthorization is roughly $60 billion. Republicans and conservative Democrats ostensibly concerned about the deficit impact of the benefits have blocked several attempts to renew them in the past couple weeks, but they've signaled they will relent if the benefits are attached to the even-costlier tax cuts for the rich.

Some 800,000 laid off workers have already received cutoff notices, and another 1.2 million will stop receiving benefits by the end of the month unless Congress reauthorizes the recently-lapsed programs..

In other words, please curl up in your cardboard box and die. We wouldn't want to upset the bond market, would we?

It's simply amazing that the White House is allowing the press (and the voters) to think otherwise. I mean, does Obama think they won't notice when their checks are shut off?

This is the same trick they pulled back in March. The 99ers weren't able to rally the troops because the media (and the general public) thought Congress had approved additional aid, when all they did was fund the existing extensions.

Yes, it preserves the existing benefits. Well, why the hell shouldn't they? Obama expects applause for this? In the name of common decency, this shouldn't even be an issue. And in exchange for this emergency support, basic humane aid, we're supposed to give away the store so that millionaires and billionaires can make even more money?

All this money for war, for banks, for big business, and nothing for the people getting buried by the economic fallout.

Bah, humbug.

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Note: I'll be on Nicole Sandler's show sometime between 10:30 and 11 a.m. EST today to discuss this agreement.

Senior administration officials talked to bloggers tonight after President Obama addressed the nation on the results of the extortion negotiation with the Republican leadership, and I have to tell you, I'm not all that unhappy with the results. This is an actual compromise deal. (And, as I've said before, giving tax cuts to the rich is the best insurance policy we can get for Social Security.)

First of all, the unemployed who are still collecting benefits get to heave a sigh of relief, because they're covered for the next 13 months. (I did ask about the 99ers. Sorry, nothing. Apparently we're still invisible. I also said if they were still in negotiations, they might want to considering exempting unemployment benefits from the income tax, the way they used to before Reagan.)

But that's not all. The package includes a shiny new one-year 2% payroll-tax cut for employees, which will stimulate the economy because the people who get it are the ones most likely to spend it. Thumbs up on the payroll-tax cut, which by the way, will be revenue-neutral for Social Security via a credit for the amount that would have been otherwise collected.

It also includes a fix to the Alternative Minimum Tax.

The aforementioned millionaires and billionaires do get their tax cuts -- but only for two years. (That will cost us $95 billion, by the way, and will be financed by borrowing from China.) But they'll have a merry Christmas anyway, because of the jingle in their pockets from (you knew this was coming) reinstating the estate tax with a $5 million exemption. (The officials said that issue will be fought again at a later date.)

If the president had his way, one of the officials said, they would only be making the middle-class tax cuts permanent, but it "wasn’t possible to get through. If there was a compromise, though, he wanted lots of other pieces included."

Bottom line, as the officials pointed out, if he didn't deal with the Republicans, they would have dragged this out for "months and months and months," and there was a good possibility they wouldn’t get any UI extensions at all.

Honestly, I don't care that he promised not to raise these taxes. With a gun to his head, he didn't have much choice. But Obama needs to learn that an occasional piece of cheese from the Republican rats doesn't mean a new era of understanding.

Good news for those of you left hanging by a thread by the fight over unemployment extensions -- they finally passed them yesterday, thanks to a new Senator. For those of you hoping and praying for Tier 5 benefits? Sorry, even though your situation may be even more desperate, you're plain out of luck. But do feel free to call your elected representatives and let them know what you think:

The Senate voted 59 to 39 Wednesday to restore emergency jobless benefits to millions of people who have been out of work for more than six months.

House leaders said they will ratify the measure Thursday and send it on to the White House, where President Obama plans to immediately sign it.

The bill would authorize states to provide retroactive support to an estimated 2.5 million people whose unemployment checks have been cut off since federal benefits expired June 2. It would also make available up to 99 weeks of income support through the end of November to millions more who have exhausted state benefits, which typically last for 26 weeks. Advocates for the unemployed say it could be several weeks in some states before the checks are in the mail.

The vote comes after a months-long battle over whether to pay for the $34 billion measure or add that sum to the nation's mounting national debt. Both parties have agreed in the past not to pay for emergency jobless benefits during periods of high unemployment, in part because cutting spending or raising taxes to cover the cost could depress economic activity.

While two million people have run out of unemployment benefits, the Senate Republicans are insisting they're just protecting us from deficit spending by obstructing another extension. They weren't worried about deficit spending when Bush wanted massive tax cuts, and they weren't worried when Bush started two wars. But while 25 million people are unemployed with many of them clinging to their unemployment checks just to survive, Republicans are playing partisan games.

Will one brave Republican stand up for those hit hardest by this recession?

Congress is poised for another partisan showdown over extending unemployment insurance, as concerns about the growing budget deficit have complicated the path forward for an otherwise popular program.

On its first day back in session following a two-week recess, the Senate is scheduled to vote Monday on whether to end debate on a measure extending jobless benefits, subsidies for the COBRA health insurance program and federal flood insurance through May 5. Democrats will need at least one Republican supporter to get the 60 votes necessary to proceed.

The Senate failed to agree on the bill in late March, after Republicans rejected an attempt to expedite the measure's passage. Because of the impasse, beginning April 5 more than 200,000 unemployed people who had already exhausted their states' jobless benefits could not apply for additional benefits from the federal program, according to estimates by the National Employment Law Project, a liberal advocacy group.

Each party has been eager to blame the other for the cutoff.

Democrats point out that they easily moved an extension through the House and were primed to do the same in the Senate before Republicans, led by Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.), stood in the way.

"The fact is, an extension to help American families was passed unanimously in the House before it was blocked by a handful of Senate Republicans," said Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "The only point some Senate Republicans have succeeded in making is that they are out of touch with the harsh reality that some families all across America are facing today."

Republicans respond that they're not opposed to extending unemployment benefits but want to offset the $9 billion cost with spending cuts elsewhere.

"We both want to extend unemployment benefits," said Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), the GOP's No. 3 leader. "The Democrats want to do it by adding to the debt. Republicans don't want to add to the debt."

I don't think this mean old snake is used to being under the gun like this. I'm glad it's finally over:

Sen. Jim Bunning’s (R-Ky.) one-man filibuster ended on Tuesday.

Bunning agreed to stop blocking legislation to extend benefits and COBRA health plan subsidies to the unemployed after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) agreed to allow him a vote on an amendment to pay for the $10 billion bill.

It’s the same deal Bunning was offered last week, but Bunning at the time decided to continue his fight. He’d been holding up an extension of the benefits since Thursday.

However, 205,000 households will now face delays in their unemployment checks. Thanks, Jim!

Is it really as simple as "I don't know anyone like that"? Because this is a huge crisis for millions. The longer the Republicans bottle up the unemployment benefits extension (for no other reason than they can), the more people without other options fall off the unemployment rolls.

You'd think someone in the media might see that as an important story. But maybe when journalists started getting hired from Ivy League schools, they lost any interest in what happens to the paycheck class.

Gee, I hope not. But I'd love to see some evidence to the contrary. The media should be out front, shaming these people:

In a conference call with reporters today, three Democratic Senators charged Republicans with obstructionism in all aspects of public policy, particularly stopping the Senate from passing a bill that would extend unemployment to millions of Americans, at a time when 7,000 Americans a day are losing their benefits.

Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) vowed to move forward with a motion to proceed on the unemployment bill, tied up with non-germane amendments (about things like ACORN funding and E-Verify which have already been voted on in the Senate in other forms) from Republicans that “amount to a political agenda” in Stabenow’s words, as soon as tomorrow. “The votes are there to pass this bill,” said Shaheen. Stabenow said that the bill could have passed a few weeks ago.

Asked by Mike Lillis of the Washington Independent, who has a writeup on this up, why the Senate cannot just plow forward on this bill, given their 60-vote majority in the Senate, Stabenow answered that “you can only do this one at a time.” She countered that Republicans have slow-walked practically all critical legislation since 2007, forcing cloture votes on ordinary measures to take up floor time and generally obstruct the legislation. Obstructionism in the Senate is not limited to filibusters, but also procedural actions when filibusters can be overcome. The result is a slow crawl that creates anxiety among Democrats and liberals and emboldens Republicans to claim that Democrats are running a “do-nothing” Congress. It’s a neat trick.

Democrats hope for a final vote on this bill by the end of the week.