So of course the Senate GOP (with help from five Dems, including Russ Feingold) blocked a vote on the tax cuts for the middle class. And now, there's this news that says there's a compromise deal on the table.

I'm going to assume this is something close to the truth, because even Republicans realize that throwing a couple of million people off unemployment right before Christmas looks really, really bad. The part I have so much trouble believing is that Obama will get a good deal out of our Republican financial terrorists, but we'll see. There's still an off chance that Obama will actually let the tax cuts expire, and I hope he does. In the meantime, remember: Now it's war. We're supposed to pay a $700 billion ransom to the rich in order to get help during this national emergency?

And now they're going to turn around and try to take our Social Security? I. Don't. Think. So.

We (the people) will absolutely smash them (politicians, both parties) in the teeth with these tax cuts every time any of them dare to open their mouths about their laughable "fiscal patriotism":

WASHINGTON — At a meeting at the White House with Democratic congressional leadership Saturday afternoon, President Obama said he would oppose any compromise deal on the expiring Bush tax cuts if it lacked help for the unemployed and other provisions designed to aid the middle class.

Speaking with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) shortly after the Senate failed to pass his preferred tax cut package proposal, Obama drew sharp lines in the sand with respect to ongoing negotiations.

"The President told Democratic Congressional leaders today that he was open to compromise, but he would oppose even a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts if it did not include an extension of benefits for the unemployed and extensions of the other tax cuts that benefit middle class families," a White House official told the Huffington Post. "Without them, taxes would still rise for 95 percent of Americans."

The official did not have specifics as to what period of time the president would find acceptable for an extension of unemployment benefits. Nor is it clear if the president would be fine with those benefits being offset while tax cut extension remains unpaid for. Among the "other tax cuts" that the president is demanding is the Make-Work-Pay tax credit and "a bunch of others expire at the end of the year."

The remarks are, nevertheless, one of the clearest signs that the president is not only done ceding any more policy turf to the GOP with respect to tax cut negotiations but willing to let rates expire if Republican don't temper their demands.

Said one person with knowledge of what was discussed: "This was the kind of signal that the Hill has been looking for." The question, the person added, is "when is the president going to make this announcement and how is he going to do it."

If there's one thing I know about being poor, it's the cascading effect that even a week without cash flow can trigger. Late charges, reinstatement fees, bounced checks... it gets to the point where you're really behind the eight-ball. That's why it's always infuriated me that the people in charge are always so oblivious to the consequences of their indifference. I mean, how can they not know how many people are hurting?

Even as Congress debates whether to extend emergency unemployment checks for more than 6 million Americans who are approaching the 99-week-limit, some four million others are facing the certain end of their benefits over the next year, unless an entirely new program is crafted.

This is the sobering conclusion of a report released by the President's Council of Economic Advisers on Thursday. The study forecast that the exhaustion of unemployment benefits for so many will curb spending power enough to significantly impede an already weak economic recovery.

The typical household now receiving emergency unemployment benefits would see their income fall by a third should they lose their checks, according to the report. Among the roughly 40 percent of households in which the person receiving a check is the sole breadwinner, income would fall by 90 percent.

The existing emergency unemployment program, which extends benefits for nearly two years, expired on Wednesday. Without an agreement to extend the program, the economy will lose about 600,000 jobs, as the spending enabled by continued unemployment checks ceases. National economic output--which expanded at an annual pace of 2.5 percent during the summer months--would fall off by 0.6 percent.

That disturbing prospect does not even account for the roughly four million people who would exceed even the extended limits in the emergency program. Were that many jobless people left to fend themselves without unemployment checks, that would pose significant risks for the broader economy, say economists. They cite the fact that consumer spending accounts for roughly 70 percent of all economic activity.

I was talking to a friend today who's moving with his wife and kid to his father-in-law's house -- which is already in foreclosure. "What if the sheriff comes and changes the locks while you're gone?" I said.

"Then I guess we have to move," he said. "At least we can save a couple of months' rent, if we're lucky."

He lost his job a couple of months after I lost mine, and his unemployment ran out, too. Unlike me, he has a masters degree, and school loans. Fortunately for them, his wife's still employed. One of her relatives just offered them a car, but they don't have the $75 to change the title.

And the thing is, they're not at all unusual. So why are the Republican Lords and Ladies of the Senate so blithely ignoring the plight of the unemployed? How can they be so indifferent, or so uninformed? Not only are they refusing to help them by extending unemployment benefits, holding them hostage to get yet another massive tax break for the rich, they also insult them by accusing them of being too lazy to work. Shame on them! Oh, I forgot -- they have no shame.

If the Democrats had any spine at all, they'd let the tax cuts expire and let the Republicans deal with the fallout:

Marie Roth said she fell behind on house payments when Congress spent nearly two months dithering over a reauthorization of extended unemployment benefits last summer. Now that lawmakers are dithering again, she's worried she'll lose the house.

"I'm trying not to freak out. Just kinda praying and hoping for the best," Roth, 40, told HuffPost. "I keep looking for work and it's just not happening. There's nothing there."

Roth said she'd worked all her life when she lost her job as a property manager in June 2009, two months after the birth of her daughter, Alannah, and three months after she bought a home in Hemet, Calif.

She said she's currently receiving unemployment benefits under the fourth "tier" of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program created by Congress in 2009 to fight the worst recession since the Great Depression. She said her tier ends right before Christmas, and if Congress doesn't act, she'll be ineligible for the 20 weeks of benefits available in California under the federally-funded Extended Benefits program, which picks up where EUC leaves off. Together the programs provide up to 73 weeks of benefits on top of 26 weeks of state benefits.

Both programs lapsed on Wednesday because Congress has not reauthorized them. The Labor Department estimates that 800,000 people will be dropped from EB within a week, and another 1.2 million will be dropped from EUC by the end of the month (though people on EUC, like Roth, will get to finish benefits in their current tier).

Over the summer, Roth was one of 2.5 million people who had their benefits interrupted while the Senate wrangled over the reauthorization. One Democratic senator told HuffPost Tuesday that another lengthy lapse is entirely possible. "We're used to having a series of votes on this before we get it done," Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.) said.

Roth is used to it, too. She thinks Congress is oblivious to the havoc it creates for people laid off through no fault of her own such as herself. "I think they understand but they just don't care," she said. "They care more about the issues that affect them, like the Bush tax cuts."

Citizens, do your part. Die!

Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Bob Casey (D-PA) want the Senate to take up and pass a one-year extension of unemployment insurance benefits from 26 to 99 weeks, but they did not sound hopeful on a conference call that this could get done before the extension lapses at the end of November.

Getting jobless benefits passed in the lame duck session is going to be a tough road. Congress has always passed emergency funding for extended unemployment benefits in a time of high joblessness, any time the topline rate is over 7.2%. But even with 59 votes, the Senate has faced an arduous series of votes to extend it out month by month this year. The last attempt in April needed multiple cloture votes, with several failing before the final success. At the time, Republicans like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins said that would be the last extension they would vote for that wasn’t offset with some other revenue or spending cut. Ben Nelson (D-NE) has joined them, making it virtually impossible to find the votes.

Adding to this is the fact that the House and Senate will not be in session at all next week, meaning the deadline for getting this passed without a lapse in benefits for the jobless is Friday. Sen. Reed said that with respect to any vote on this, “at this point it’s not been scheduled… I can’t point to a specific time it would come up for a vote this week.” Two million Americans could lose their benefits by the end of the year if this doesn’t get extended, according to the National Employment Law Project. And after that, with an incoming Republican House and more Republicans in the Senate, it would seem virtually impossible to get UI benefits passed.

At the same time as this is happening, Republicans want to extend the high-end Bush tax cuts, at a cost of $700 billion dollars, without paying for them. So they want to allow tax cuts with little stimulative effect to go unpaid, and then insist on paying for UI extensions with major stimulative effect. “It’s like someone on a diet who orders a Diet Coke and a Big Mac simultaneously,” Reed said. “Republicans are trying to rewrite economics and reality.” Extending unemployment benefits gets money into the hands of people who need to spend it, while tax cuts for the rich often lies fallow. Economists have shown that UI extensions are far more stimulative; one report said that failure to pass an extension would shave 0.5% from GDP growth, and reduce consumer spending.

A coalition of the national groups (including unions) working on UI extensions and tax cuts have a call in day tomorrow – two call in numbers: 888-340-6522 and 866-606-1189 or click to call www.usaction.org/call

Here’s what AFSCME is asking members to say:

I’m calling to urge you to stand up for regular people by supporting a year-long extension in unemployment benefits and by opposing more Bush tax cuts for the richest.

This is no time for Congress to turn its back on working families. Unemployment insurance serves as a critical lifeline for Americans struggling to get back to work. We should lend a hand to working families, but cutting taxes for the wealthiest is unnecessary and will choke off funding for critical government and community services.

Please stand up for regular people by supporting a year-long extension in unemployment insurance and opposing more Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Not to keep beating a dead horse, but what about all the people whose benefits ran out in March? They're just as unemployed as everyone else, and they're still facing the same hopeless job market. It's as if all those unemployed folks simply fell off the face of the earth:

With the votes in hand to break a GOP filibuster against an extension of jobless benefits, President Obama stepped up pressure Monday on Republicans in an attack that has become a staple of his midterm election political strategy.

The Senate plans to vote Tuesday to overcome Republican refusal to vote on new aid to an estimated 2.5 million unemployed Americans whose jobless benefits have lapsed because of the length of time they have been out of work.

Once Senate passage of $33.9 billion in extra funds is also approved by the House, a step expected this week, money will begin flowing to jobless workers across the country. California, New York, Florida and Illinois are among the states with the highest numbers of jobless whose benefits have expired. The benefits would be retroactive to June and last through November.

The defeat of the GOP filibuster is considered assured. The move requires 60 votes, a mark Senate Democrats will reach Tuesday after their newest member, Carte Goodwin of West Virginia, is sworn in to take the place of the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd. A key vote will take place minutes after Goodwin takes his place in the Senate.

(Scene from Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story.)

A new report predicts more than 1 million American households will lose their homes due to foreclosure:

Nearly 528,000 homes were foreclosed in the first six months of 2010. As lenders work through a huge backlog of borrowers behind on their mortgages, even more home repossessions could occur before the end of the year.

According to RealtyTrac, Inc., a foreclosure listing service, the number of households facing foreclosure in the first half of the year climbed 8 percent when compared to the same time frame last year. In June, 1 in every 411 households received a foreclosure filing.

The fastest growing group of foreclosures involved homeowners with good credit who took out conventional fixed-rate loans. Many of these borrowers have fallen behind in their mortgages due to unemployment or reduced income.

It takes about 15 months for a home loan to go from being 30 days late to the property being seized and sold. Between January and June of this year, about 1.7 million homeowners received a foreclosure-related warning. At the time of this writing, more than 7.3 million home loans are in some stage of delinquency. The states experiencing the highest foreclosure rates are California, Florida, Michigan, Illinois, Arizona and Nevada.

As Atrios points out, the HAMP program has been worse than a failure, because it prolonged the agony for homeowners and most of them lost their homes, anyway. "All carrot and no stick," as this blogger calls it. (Which seems to sum up the adminstration's attitude toward bankers in general.)

I was in the neighborhood pizza restaurant last night, and several of the diners were talking about unemployment extensions. Like most people, they're confused about the difference between next week's vote on unemployment extension, and Tier 5 benefits -- which Congress won't touch. They're hoping "someone will do something," because the alternative is too unthinkable.

The staff is worried, too. The pizza cook is an accountant with three kids who can't find anything above minimum wage. "When I've gotten an interview, I'm going up against people with ten years' experience and MBAs -- for jobs that pay $10 an hour," he told me. "I just don't know what I'm going to do."

And the delivery guy, a former IT programmer, is worried sick about his wife, who has COPD and internal bleeding they can't locate. They've been going to the local federally-funded public health center. "The doctors there are good, but they get a little antsy when you need a specialist," he said. "My unemployment runs out in September, and she's the only steady paycheck coming into the house."

He told me he has this idea for an invention, that when he was working, he invested $1000 in getting designs made. But now? "I need another ten thousand to move forward, and there's no way in hell I can ever afford that without a job," he said.

He paused. "Let alone a house. I just don't know what we're gonna do."

And in stark contrast to the burdens carried by these decent, hard-working people, Americans who got the education and prepared themselves to be self-sufficient, stand the just plain mean denizens of Beck Nation. A friend of mine was looking in a store yesterday and told the owner she wouldn't be buying anything just yet because she was unemployed. The woman snapped, started wagging a finger in her face and told her she "shouldn't be here, you should be out looking for a job!"

"Practically snarling at me," my friend told me. "Can you imagine?" Yes, I can.

How are we ever going to bridge this divide? You just can't leave this many people without help, but the politicans are mostly spineless. What is going to happen to us?

Of course, the rank hypocrites in the Republican party are lining up to try to force retention of the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts in exchange for support on extending unemployment benefits. (And the deficit worries suddenly fly out the window, just like that.)

In other words, it will be at least another week before we see a vote:

Senate Democrats will remain one vote short of the 60 needed to reauthorize unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless at least until the end of the week, as West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin says he wants to wait until the state legislature has cleared up the law on how to fill the Senate seat left behind by the late Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.).

Manchin previously said that he could name a replacement as soon as the beginning of the week, but on Monday his office told HuffPost he'd make his announcement by Sunday at the latest and Friday at the earliest.

"He intends to make the appointment by week's end," a spokesman said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has repeatedly said that Senate Democrats need Byrd's replacement to break the filibuster by Republicans and Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, whose approval -- had he decided to give it -- would have ended the endless debate that has already cut off unemployment checks to some 2.1 million people.

By the time Byrd's replacement is sworn in, more than 2.5 million people who've been out of work for longer than six months will have missed checks they would have received had Congress reauthorized the stimulus programs it allowed to lapse at the end of May. President Obama's 2009 stimulus bill and subsequent legislation gave the unemployed up to 99 weeks of benefits in some states. With the federally-funded extended benefits lapsed, in most states the unemployed are eligible for only 26 weeks of state-funded benefits.

They need to beat him like a rented mule. Shame on him, and shame on the spineless Democrats who let this mean old snake go home to take a nap and then rolled over for his blackmail, adjourning for the weekend and letting desperate families hang:

Retiring Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) late Thursday launched a one-man crusade to block an extension of unemployment and COBRA insurance benefits, vowing to allow the benefit programs to expire Sunday unless Democrats agreed to pay for them with unused stimulus funds.

Bunning’s quixotic pursuit of deficit offsets at the potential expense of payments to unemployed or uninsured citizens enraged Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and other Democrats, who vowed to keep the chamber in session until Bunning relents or collapses.

Yes, last night the brain-addled Bunning complained about missing a college basketball game, and responded "Tough sh*t" when Sen. Jeff Merkley begged him to drop his opposition.

A senior Democratic leadership aide said Durbin would ask for unanimous consent to pass the extensions without Bunning’s payment scheme every half hour for the foreseeable future. “We’re going to keep doing it until we break him,” the aide said.

Break him, huh? David Waldman:

So they had him to the point where he was shouting obscenities on the Senate floor and decided... to let him go home for a good night's sleep.

Awesome!

He probably slept a hell of a lot better than the Kentuckians who are out of work and depending on those benefits, I can tell you that. No word on whether Senate Democrats actually tucked him in.

This morning, the fight resumed, presumably after a nourishing breakfast which some of those Kentucky families would probably have liked to have had themselves. The unanimous consent request to pass the extension was made, Bunning objected, gave a short speech, and then suggested the absence of a quorum, which you may recall is often used as a stalling tactic to avoid conducting an actual filibuster.

[...] UPDATE: Never mind! The Senate appears to have adjourned for the weekend. Bunning has won for the day, and Durbin's threat has shockingly failed to materialize at all. The extent of Bunning's punishment: he missed prime time TeeVee last night.

Oh, and when the DSCC calls you for a donation? Refer them to this. You can also let Sen. Bunning know how much you appreciate his politicking over benefits for the neediest in the worst economy since the Great Depression. Flood his offices with faxes and phone calls.

From the excellent Working In These Times, Roger Bybee writes quite movingly about the growing despair of the unemployed.

It's important that we keep the heat on Congress about this, because it looks like the only unemployment politicians care about is their own:

"[Layoffs] are the opposite of life-giving; they literally deplete life… Layoffs diminish the ability to restart. You can have all kinds of people like spouses and friends say you are terrific, ... but in the core you say, I am not, and I have big evidence that I am not."

—Prof. Kim Carmon, psychologist, University of Michigan

For anyone who has ever been out of work, Kim Carmon's statement captures your innermost feelings of worthlessness that "literally deplete life." Unemployment exacts both an enormous toll on both one's self-esteem and physical health, as Prof. Peter Dreier and Dr. Harvey Brenner have documented, respectively.

When I wrote last week about the plight of America's 4.8 million unemployed, it triggered some powerful responses from unemployed workers. They're excerpted below.

The economic situation is especially dire for the 1.2 million jobless Americans who face a loss of benefits if long-term unemployment benefits are not extended beyond February 28. Many people, like this man who responded to my column last week, have already exhausted their benefits and are barely managing to scrape by:

I lost my job through no fault of my own when the economy went south. It’s a spit in the face to move up the ladder and then go from making $800 a week to $350 before taxes. My benefits recently ran out and I’ve still had no luck finding a job.

The frustration of the jobless is now being intensified by Congress' inability to accomplish four relatively simple things:

1. Develop a jobs bill commensurate with the massive problem unemployment crisis we face.
2. Extend unemployment compensation benefits due to expire on February 28, along with the provision where the federal government covers 65% of otherwise-unaffordable COBRA health insurance payments.
3. Provide aid to state and local governments that are looking at a combined deficit of $142 billion for next fiscal year, starting July 1.
4. Remove the outrageous federal income tax on unemployment benefits, which kicks in after $2,400 in benefits. For many of the unemployed, that means the tax starts being collected after just six checks.

However, as Art Levine wrote on this website, the Democrats—particularly in the Senate—seem to be on a suicide mission as they're fumbling the opportunity to merely pass am appropriately-sized jobs bill and extend unemployment and COBRA health benefits.

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