Republicans once again block help for unemployed Nevadans
Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 16:26 It’s sometimes nice to be able to count on certain things as a ‘given’ in life. Unfortunately, always being able to count on parsimonious Republicans voting against the needs and best interests of the working stiff ain’t among those things.
For the third time, Senate Republicans have blocked extending benefits to economically hard hit American families here in Nevada and around the country - even after Sen. Harry Reid scaled the bill back nearly $22 million to please those who cannot be pleased even if it came on a silver platter.
Despite shaving another $22 billion off the price tag of H.R. 4213, the unemployment insurance, jobs and tax extenders bill, the Democrats this afternoon failed for the third time in three weeks to defeat a Republican filibuster. As a result, Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid [D, NV] is giving up and moving onto other legislative matters. “We can’t pass it until we get some Republicans… It’s up to them,” Reid said.
Not every part of this bill makes sense - worrying about sending low value American jobs oversees is a waste of time and resources better spent preparing Americans for high value jobs of the future that function on a global level. But I’ll be talking more about this distinction in the future.
But, blocking essential extensions of unemployment and related benefits by Republicans makes no sense at all - not even if you buy into the tired old argument of ‘ballooning deficits’ that - gasp- our grandchildren won’t be able to jump over. Sigh. See the previous post about that.
So, what are the Republicans on about? Beats me. When you strip away all the rational arguments, it does seem like the only remaining one is that they simply want to be obstructionist - at the cost of folks who are in dire need right now.
Here’s what Reid had to say:
