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Senate Ends Republican Filibuster Against Jobless Benefits
Each day while Congress was on its two-week spring break, some 30,000 long-term jobless workers ran out of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits because of Republican Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.), who blocked a vote to extend UI benefits.
Yesterday, the Senate’s first day back from vacation—and with more than 400,000 workers now out of benefits—Coburn was at it again, taking to the Senate floor to continue the filibuster against helping the jobless.
But by a 60-34 vote, the Senate told him to shut up and voted to end his endless diatribe against workers who are desperate for work. Coburn was joined by 33 other Republican senators who voted to continue the filibuster and block extension of UI and COBRA, which helps jobless workers pay for health insurance. Four Republicans and all 56 Democrats who were present voted for cloture. Six senators did not vote.
The UI filibuster is just the latest example of Republican filibuster abuse. It was the 50th time this Congress, the “just-say-no” Republicans, has tried to talk legislation or nominations to death.
The cloture vote means the Senate will now be allowed to vote on a short-term, 30-day extension, probably Thursday.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka calls the delay “shameful” and says Congress needs to get down to the business of a long-term UI extension.
It is shameful that such a simple and humane step took so long to implement and that Republican senators tried to win political points by jeopardizing the lifeline of hundreds of thousands of working families.
Congress should act soon to extend these benefits for a full year, so working families don’t face Republican obstruction and uncertainty every single month. The House and Senate should move quickly to reconcile their competing bills.
More than two in every five unemployed workers in this country have been unemployed for more than six months. And the situation is getting worse. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) increased by 414,000 in March to 6.5 million. In March, 44.1 percent of unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more.
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3 Comments
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What is wrong with the Republican party? Why are they trying to hurt the jobless and discriminate against them? Evidently they are right in line with the big banks. Waiting for their cuts too from them. This a shame they were elected for the country not for their own gain. As one politician said (Republican) They need me now pertaining to congress. Never did I think this would happen. But they are placing the blame everywhere but on their selves. Greed is the one thing you can chalk this up to.
To all the Senators that supported the filibuster on UI extensions;
You have made too much salary and leached of the public payrol far too long. You can not call yourself statesmen and you don’t care about the people that put you in that “cushy” job. At a lowly puddle of cash from $ 174,000 to $220,000 a year and you are begging benefits from people who make less than $30,000 a year. YEP, it’s been heard before; Let them eat cake while w dine on veal
You are among those who would send millions to Haiti or any place in the world,yet you don’t think an American tax payer deserves a break. You are stil fluffed up from your pay raise which you did not hold up for a micro second.
Your distain for your fellow Americans is appalling to me. You are bureaucratic trash and do not deserve you pay or your office and I think your constituents wil take youto the dump on election day. A full third of our ( honorable? ) legislators wanted to see men and women struggle. Six of themdidn’t give a rat’s patute either way or perhaps they didn’t recall being in the “john” during the entire event.
When our Congress thinks about legalizing ILLEGAL ALIENS, but does not want to take care of its real ,tax paying American Citizens that tells me those cowards should be sent to frontal combat groups ,with a short stick ,poking for hidden booby traps. Yeah run your mouth ,but Lock and load ; stand your ground!
I wouldn’t trust your kind guard garbage. You won’t secure our borders and keep Illegal out, but you’ll allow us to shuttle them back at forth accross our border like yo,yo’s.
If there was vote to let you be or die of starvation, you’d be 40 pounds lighter already for my vote. You are traders to your people. Delayers, pork barrel butt heads that want to control the money and keep it out of the hands of the working man. Your place in hell is much more SECURE than our borders.
For over twenty years our Congress has mangled our Budget, created commissions,agencies and study groups that cost us billions and they achieve nothing. You are not giving Americans their money’s worth at all. Over one third of you think he should fend for himself, eat dirt and lose his worldly goods so you can pull down close to $ 200,000 a year for the little time you spend in session. For the great job of watching our economy and that surprize attack by our Honorable banking and loan embezzelers that hashelped create this Unemployment problem. You are thinking like President G.W. Bush in that factual statement that he started the game ,but now the ball is in our court, ADIOS!
This country is in troble and you can look to congresses past. The truth is you can look in the mirror . Are you a statesman patriot or a free loading,dangerous cancer in the body that controls and looks after MY security, pursuit of happiness and protector of the American way. Can you look in the mirror?
What good does this do to the people who have run completely out of their unemployment benefits? Many have run out of all 4 tiers of unemployment, they have just been forgotten and told good luck paying your bills, have a nice life, because as politicians we don’t care about you.