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GOP Caves on Unemployment Bill
Republicans caved on Wednesday night, ending their opposition over a bill that would extend unemployment benefits, after holding the process hostage for several weeks. The bill in question extends unemployment benefits for an additional 14 weeks across the board—and for 20 weeks in states with ultra-high unemployment. The extension passed 98-0 and wasn't itself controversial, although the difficulty of its passage demonstrates how a minority party in the Senate has the power to make the majority's agenda extremely difficult. Republicans had filibustered the bill, they said, to stand up for their right, as the minority party, to add amendments to bills. While the bill was stalled, 200,000 people actively looking for work lost their unemployment benefits.
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That's too bad. This is the type of thing I like to see them opposing, along with medical care for the unemployed. That's when they show just how "populist" they really are.
Waited until after the Nov vote but before the new job numbers. Nice way the GOP plays politics with the nations unemployed.
mcmchugh99:
Yeah. We shouldnt ever give anyone any kind of help. We are a strong, proud, "Christian" country. As such we should look never, ever offer any sort of aid to fellow citizens. If they just, you know, "worked harder" they wouldn't be in such dire positions, right?
I'm with you, fuck the poor, sick, and unemployed.
Its no different then Obama stalling the troop decision until after elections. ITs deplorable, but i suppose its how this continue to work.
that's quite a stretch...explanation please....
Oh, come on. You really don't think it takes a month to approve or deny troop deployment. Not with all the golfing he put in. The way I see it, either he is an indecisive fool, or he was waiting to after election. His party has a strong antiwar component, and he was campaigning for his party's candidates, thus I do not think its so much of a stretch to say he delayed the decision. I may disagree with the man on many things, but I neither think he is a fool nor so unaware of the political consequences of whatever decision he makes. And at this point, no decision is hurting more than either choice.
As usual, Republican leadership is opportunist, never really looking at how to help the electorate as much as Big Business and Billionaires.
And the cliches just keep on coming!!!! So very predictable and typical, your politicians are just as calculating, conniving, underhanded, slippery, two faced, deceitful, opportunistic, and pandering as any of ours. Of course you would never agree with that, because you're such a bunch of lame hypocrites, that you can't see straight!!!!
I suppose one could say your right osea, but let's look at the issues....
Republicans are trying to stop domestic initiatives aimed at helping americans get affordable healthcare and with lost jobs.
Right now, the dems are faultering on sending troops to Afghanistan
Cynical comment...the GOP votes for a bill to help extend unemployment benefits and somehow liberals still have an issue with them?? Just keep up the negative commentary and you'll soon feel the change boot in your ass in 2010. Have you forgotten the lessons of two days ago already?
As the republicans dither, 200,000 middle class americans and their children lost unemployment benefits and are going hungry today..
Republicans need to come clean on what part of america they represent. The tax paying middle america who pay their salaries, or the crony capitalist who line their campaign coffers.
The headline is just a tad off-base. You headline refers to jobs, the story is about unemployment benefits.
you are correct, but they need to try to equate the GOP with jobs as the new numbers come out tomorrow and Barry is left trying to spin 10% unemployment after he saved and created sooooo many jobs.
Here's a reason to trust 0bama on his job numbers from the AP:
President Barack Obama's economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there....
About two-thirds of the 14,506 jobs claimed to be saved under one federal office, the Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services, actually weren't saved at all, according to a review of the latest data by The Associated Press. Instead, that figure includes more than 9,300 existing employees in hundreds of local agencies who received pay raises and benefits and whose jobs weren't saved.
makes you really trust the numbers on health care and cap & tax don't it.
you know how to tell when an 0bama administration official or liberal pundit is lying..... their lips are moving.
In general, people just are losing confidence in the Obama administration for the reasons you just cited. The numbers just don't add up. Mark Twain said there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Uh huh, and the government is the ONLY institution that can claim to have created American jobs other than independent and small business. We have lost net jobs from corporate entities, which seem to benefit the most in Washington, (as most representatives ARE corporate entities).
And what health-care numbers? The government numbers have been less suggestive in favor of health reform than many independent studies.
nice try, baadchild, that AP story you cite was based on a incomplete information and came out days before the government released the full statistics with corrected numbers. it's fine to be critical of the administration but at least get your facts straight.
and, yes, i do note the irony of Righties citing numbers from the "liberal media" when it suits their agenda but dismissing them when they don't.
Exactly baddchild,
The government gave SGCAC money, which they used to give raises to current employees and further education. So perhaps they didn't save exactly as many jobs as reported, but when a company takes the money and spreads it around to current employees instead of using it to employ more, then it should totally acceptable for the government to say that it is creating/saving jobs even if the companies aren't using the money for that.
So you see, it is a little off-base to blame the government for not creating jobs....because the money they are giving to create jobs is really being used to prop up those individuals who still have jobs.
Old jobs will not come back as companies are now eliminate the positions they don't need. In other words, technology advanced so much, but the workforce never fully accomodated these advancements and many people kept being paid for jobs that were no longer truly necessary to a companies bottom line.
The government should have been putting money in the green job sector as these would be truly new jobs
The headline refers to 'unemployment bill', not jobs.
this will happen if the Gov is running health care then we wont be talking cash we will be talking lives.
You hit on the next 0bama spin, the number of lives saved or created from health care reform... wait, we know how much those wacky dems love abortion so I gues he'd have to drop the "lives created" part.
What an ignorant statement. "wacky dems love abortion".
Enlightened people believe that it is none of government's business or anyone else's for that matter, decisions a woman makes concerning her body.
If the government wanted you to have a daily enema, and all the dems supported the idea, how would you feel?
Come on Bad... I dont support abortion or the death penalty, but by your analysis I woud be considered a whacky liberal...I on the other hand consider myself to be consitant with my belief system.
Like you, I dont want the government telling me or my neighbor what to do, therefor I cant support politicians who wish to restrict the freedom of women to do with their body what they chose, regardless of how repugnant I think it is.
God, biggest abortion provider period. Ever.
You cannot logically argue against abortion and argue FOR a benevolent monotheistic god simultaneously, although the believers will regardless.
Isn't using someones religious beliefs to insinuate that their political belief is invalid a little unclassy?
Unfortunately the core opposition to abortion is almost never politically based. I think the original point is that people have confused their own religious beliefs with political belief, or more specifically what they feel is enforceable by the government. Do you see any irony in the difference in logical base between the Conservative Right's argument for the freedom to bare arms (which kills a lot of innocent people) vs the argument against the freedom to choose to have an abortion (which kills a lot of people)?
The Grand Ole Party is also holding Veterans Benefits hostage.
They do it every year. When the Medicare spending bill comes up the GOP will stall on it too.
Obama won't be happy until every American is standing in a line waiting for some kind of government hand-out.
He has no intention of helping anybody get a job, he won't even send our troops help.
He wants to break America and rebuild it as a communist country. Government will be your God! That is his plan. Obama wants absolute power.
X2
I know you don't ever read what anyone else has to say or even the article, but the Republican Senator from Oklahoma is holding up an important Veterans Bill because of, what else, money. You have a nerve blaming the President when facts show otherwise.
We can't hold up one benefit for veterans!
What is wrong with congressional Republicans? There is no need to declare war on the unemployed!
What happened to Christian charity and compassion in America? It is unacceptable to leave Americans without jobs, without unemployment, without health care, without housing, and without hope. There are children attached to the unemployed. The idea that those down on their luck can fend for themselves while bank execs are pulling down outrageously huge salaries and mega-bonuses is just unacceptable. When did the Republican Party become the party of greed, spite, and meanness? I cannot accept this from members of our GOP.
"a government strong enough to give you everything you want is a government strong enough to take everything you have" Thomas Jefferson
"comes a point, when compassion becomes counter-productive" Ben Franklin
These quotes come from two men who lived when almost everyone had a garden or they could live off the land. Everyone was self-sufficient and opportunities were as plentiful as the deer in the woods. They lived in an agrarian society. Since then, we had an industrial revolution.
It is easy to ignore these simple facts when you are looking for an excuse to be greedy and look away from the suffering of your fellow Americans. You must be proud!
Great quotes rhonda, very poignant, thanks!!!!
"If though wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and though shalt have treasure in heaven."... Jesus of Nazareth
"Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all they heart, and with all they soul, and with all they mind. This is the first and great commendment. And the second is like unto it, Though shalt love they neighbor as theyself.
On these two commmandments hang all the law and the prophets." ... Jesus of Nazareth
"For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirst, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came to me.
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. " .... Jesus of Nazareth
This is the basis of charity.
A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog when you are just as hungry as the dog.--Jack London
cbeenthere, i like your choice of quotes. Bravo!
Politics should not be a war against the American people.
Extending unemployment benefits for 20 weeks (five months) is a confession by Obamacrats that the stimulus didn't work.
Btw, just how long CAN one collect unemployment benefits now -- Is it up to a year now?
And while we're at it, just how long CAN Democrats claim that with massive majorities they still can't pass their bills? I can't recall a single time during the Bush years that the GOP complained that the Democrat minority was stopping them from passing THEIR bills.
"The vote was 98-0 ... We barely overcame that minority opposition!!"
No. It is an admission that good jobs were lost to outsourcing during the Bush Administration to increase profits. Those jobs will never return.
Let's get it right the first time!
Funny how under Bush the economy was doing great until the 2006 election of the Democrats to power in Congress. Then it started tanking. In fact, the stock market peaked exactly eight days(!!) after the first Pelosi budget took effect in 2007.
Funny how Clinton had exactly the opposite experience: The economy was going nowhere until the Repubs took over Congress in 1995.
But don't let facts get in your way.
Filibusters
The Democrat majority is filibuster-proof.
Is ignorance a requirement to be a Democrat, or merely helpful?
Besides, maybe if Democrats had not threatened from 2005 to 2007 to filibuster the reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, those politically-connected banks (and who were the largest recipients of their political contributions?) would not have collapsed and we wouldn't have all this unemployment now.
That's because the only bills that were passed were tax breaks..You cant fillabuster tax breaks nor does it require 60 senate votes. What the dems are attempting to do is give middle class america an hand up....
Politics is war against anybody or anything that is in their way of getting exactly what their twisted minds desire!!! Imagine, no matter how bad and self serving that sounds, it is endlessly better than any dictatorship, because an opposing side is allowed and even encouraged to fight it!!!!!
RomeoHotel, what happened to Fannie Mea and Freddie Mac also happened to other banks. The problem comes from deregulation, which allowed banks to make easy money w/o looking at the consequences. George W Bush and Obama are not to blame--the blame belongs to Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress for removing some laws.
In punishing the victims of failed GOP policies, under Bush, the present GOP elected members are simply demonstrating how venal they are and lacking in morals.
Thank you.
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