Unemployed? Mitch McConnell Says Tough Shit

Senate repugs are stopping Democrats from extending unemployment benefits for people run over by the Great Recession.

For decades, extending unemployment benefits has been a bipartisan achievement, mostly because there is no downside. It saves people from destitution, allows workers to survive until the job market improves, injects needed cash into the economy, and pleases voters.

But Mitchie-poo's minions are so bound and determined to stop President Obama and the Democratic Congress from doing anything at all that they're willing to ruin American families - more than 7,000 that lose benefits every month.

Wonkette isn't amused:

Now that the New American Economy’s only path to profitability hinges on major corporations slashing as many salaries as possible, it would be nice of the government to extend unemployment benefits a little longer for starving permanently unemployed people who will probably die soon. (7,000 new ones a day!) A few Dems introduced a simple bill to do just that a few weeks ago. It hasn’t passed, though, because the Republicans attached numerous, unrelated amendments that more or less heckle ACORN and Mexicans for existing in White America.

Jon Kyl doesn’t understand — well, he does, but pretends he doesn’t — that unemployment benefits for every human do not all start on one day and end on another. Not everyone lost his or her job on the exact same day. Too bad, because that would do much to simplify things!

Moments ago, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) took to the chamber floor with a strange claim about the urgency surrounding legislation to extend unemployment insurance.

“The benefits haven’t run out yet,” Kyl said. “We’re going to pass this before the benefits run out.”

It’s tough to decipher exactly what he means. Roughly 400,000 folks exhausted their federal unemployment benefits in September, with another 200,000 projected to do the same by the end of October, according to a recent study by the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group. By the end of the year, NELP estimates that 1.3 million Americans will have exhausted their benefits unless Congress steps in with an extension. Each day the Senate dallies, another 7,000 people go off the rolls.

The Republican amendments include at least two provisions related to ACORN; one related to the E-Verify program; one to pay for the UI benefits with unspent stimulus money; and one providing tax relief.

Hooray for the existence of “easy rules to circumvent some random racist amendments” in the Senate! Hey, unemployed welfare losers: just eat your own poops for a few weeks, there are IMPORTANT CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES about like ACORN to work out here. There is no margin for error.

Also, nice work with the enabling, Democrats. Remember last month or whenever, when the vast majority of you immediately caved to conservative demands to strip ACORN of funding after some wacky racist Andrew Breitbart video showed up on YouTube? Did you think that would somehow not encourage the GOP to be even more annoying about ACORN, seeing that it worked at first?

Digy wants to know how the repugs sleep at night:

I've been writing about this for the past two weeks and I can't believe it's still going on. They just don't give a damn about actual human beings. And neither do the village media who never seem to find room to mention this atrocity. (Maybe the Democrats could get it passed if they told the Republicans they were giving the benefit to fetuses.)

I don't know about you, but I've needed extended unemployment in my life, back in the 1981 recession. When you are desperately looking for a job and you can't find one, and then your unemployment runs out, you are on the verge of panic. It's a very scary position to be in. And these jackass Republicans are holding up this vital lifeline over some political bullshit that even the teabaggers have long since lost interest in. Some things you just don't screw around with in an economy like this and unemployment insurance is one of them. It's a crime and they are going to go to hell for it.

More from Digby:

I guess Kyl thinks these lazy bastards should just tap into their trust funds. isn't that what everyone does?

And in case anyone doubts that the Republicans are holding a gun to the heads of the unemployed purely for political purposes, put them away:

SNIP

If the Democrats want to help these unemployed people all they have to do is pass a bunch of bills declaring ACORN a communist organization and bashing immigrants and they can have it. They only have themselves to blame if the people suffer.

SNIP

Yes, it's an inspiring thing to see "the minority" literally take the food out of people's mouths and then brag about it. Makes you proud to be an American.

Earlier in the day, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) offered his own theory about why some lawmakers seem content to crawl toward passage of the unemployment benefits extension: they’ve simply been sheltered from the crisis.

“Not very many of our colleagues really know any unemployed workers,” Brown said. “We don’t spend our time with people who are really suffering.”

Hey, Kyl's manservant brought him a tepid cup of coffee this morning. Don't ever say he doesn't know about suffering.

I wish I knew why the Democrats weren't making a big deal out of this. I know they are dealing with health care, but they aren't going to get any Republicans on board, so there's no need to play nice nice and this issue illustrates the painful results of the Party of No strategy perfectly. If they are afraid of the ACORN stuff then they need to get a grip. Nobody even really knows what ACORN is, but hundreds of thousands of people are suffering due to no fault of their own. There are no jobs. These Republicans are playing Russian Roulette with their lives and the public should know about it. It's a perfect depiction of everything disgusting about the conservative philosophy.

There are no jobs. Wall Street is recovering, but only by eliminating jobs. There are no jobs. And the repugs think that's just fine.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....