Mitch and Rand to Unemployed Kentuckians: Fuck Off and Die In A Fire

Refusing to extend unemployment benefits will cost 140,000 jobs beyond the unnecessary hardship to more than 1 million families, but that's just fine with Mitch and AynRandy.

By the narrowest of margins (60-37), the Senate headed off a Republican filibuster and proceeded to consideration of legislation extending unemployment insurance for another three months without budget offsets.

Ed Kilgore at Political Animal:

Greg Sargent has been carefully watching Republicans squirm on UI, and is convinced the party is trying to reframe its opposition as totally about fiscal responsibility rather than a sort of glowering hostility to the long-term unemployed as a bunch of bums and UI as a disincentive to employment:

[T]he GOP party-wide position is now one of fiscal responsibility. Never mind that multiple Republicans have repeatedly said extending UI is a bad idea because it will dissuade the jobless from seeking employment.

There are two main problems, of course, with the “fiscal responsibility” argument and the demand for “offsets.” The first is that offsets are likely to be deflationary (e.g., additional cuts in appropriations), and will neutralize the positive macroeconomic impact of the UI extension. And the second is that at present the public favors a UI extension as a simple matter of fairness, with or without offsets. It’s not at all clear, then, that the “fiscal responsibility” argument will completely protect Republicans from the suspicion that they really think of the long-term unemployed as riff-raff who need to shape up or die—a sort of “tough hate” attitude. 

It's even worse than that.

Down with Tyranny:

Now McConnell is demanding that he'll still prevent to from passing unless Obamacare is stopped and other Republicans are insisting that the extension must be paid for-- but ONLY out of money that would otherwise go towards programs that help working families, like Medicare or Social Security, not by cutting subsidies and tax benefits to the wealthy. Next week the debate will love to the House-- controlled by the Party of Greed and Selfishness, where Boehner is looking to make a deal to further the Republican efforts in their relentless war against the poor.

On the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty, repugs have turned it into the War on the Poor.