The Senate failed to overcome a Republican filibuster today.
In a 57-41 vote, the Senate failed to end debate on the legislation.
The failure to move the tax extenders package, which also would have renewed scores of individual and business tax breaks, illustrates the extent to which fears about the deficit are now dominating the legislative process five months before a midterm election where Democratic control of Congress will be on the line.
What this means is:
1) that hundreds of thousands of unemployed people will lose their last financial lifeline every week. Eventually it will mean millions of people with no source of income.
2) $24 Billion for matching Medicaid payments. This means that states like California and New York just saw an extra $2 Billion hole in their budgets.
It is estimated that the failure of this bill will cost 200,000 jobs.
do you know midtowng
did the corporate tax changes, to stop the incentives to offshore outsource jobs....was that in the latest defeated Senate version?
If so, that's a major multinational corporations agenda to get tax breaks to offshore outsource U.S. jobs....so our bought and paid fors of course would defeat that.
Welcome to the rest of us, no income, never got any, that's 52% of the workforce...
I think all of America is up in arms, realizing both parties are corrupt as hell. Unfortunately we don't have much alternatives to turn to as representation.
But these @&*)$@ are going to pay, but the reality is they should have passed a direct jobs program over a year ago, maybe even 2 years ago. Direct jobs are the government manages the projects, possibly farmed out to the military and so on and it's a "bottom up" direct jobs, direct hire stucture. Aka WPA, CCC, etc.
Gee, now what projects are a disaster....let me see....something about oil....
what other things are a mess....let's see....anyone recall that buzz word superfund?
To put it simply - yes
the corporate tax change, which would have stop the incentives for offshoring jobs, was in the tax extenders bill.
It was defeated.
I never imagined that when I wrote about June being a "perfect storm" for the unemployed, that I had underestimated the situation.
On a related note, on Monday the state appeals court ruled in favor of Gov. Schwarzenegger.
You see, the Governator wants to pay all state workers minimum wage until there is an agreement on the state budget. That's $7.25 an hour, starting with the August 1st paycheck.
Since most budget fights typically go into September before any agreement, that means hundreds of thousands of workers in the Sacramento area are going to be getting paid less than enough to afford their rent or mortgage payment alone for two months in a row.
What do you think that is going to do to the economy of Sacramento this summer?
And this was before we factor in the $2 Billion budget hole from today's Congressional stupidity.
GOP wants to offshore outsource American jobs
We should scream this one from the rooftops as the reason.
GOP is doing their corporate masters bidding. I read through the house version and it was pretty tame. How can someone argue against giving a corporation $$ to offshore outsource American jobs. They can't! So they hide it with some other sort of B.S.
I think we should let it be known, loud and clear the GOP wants American jobs to be shipped offshore.
Outsource the Senate
It will probably put hundreds of thousands into the street, homeless, with only food stamps available.
Do you know the same millionaire creeps (most of Congress are millionaires, especially in the Senate), claimed Americans are lazy, druggies, bums.
If anyone should be stripped of their income and savings it should be these Senators. Let them try living on food stamps for awhile. Let's do it. Let's outsource Congress. Hell, China and India are in part running our government anyway. Let's make it official.
The Ultimate Joke on US...
These clowns are rich, many of them rich enough to self-finance their campaigns, yet they have no qualms about calling you and me up to ask for $500 or $1,000 (or even the max) so they can keep their jobs and keep screwing us. In Florida there are at least two candidates who are self-financing (Greene for Senate and Scott for Governor) and taking on their party machines with money. Not a bad idea -- if enough near-billionaires get into our system, and if they have any awareness of what the country really needs, they can tell the pundits and the lobbyists to take a hike while they get about the process of real reform. It's worth considering. I can imagine some analogue of Bloomberg saying "Screw you, Glen Beck. Out of my office Goldman Sachs. America has some real work to do and decent people have lost too much and I am going to help the country, not you."
Frank T.
Campaign reform is the only
Campaign reform is the only real way to fix this.Every day citizens are asleep at the wheel,the whores in office know this and hope they don't wake up.But it is going to get real bad and real quick and before this falls election.What amazes me the polititions don't realize whats coming and how informed we are getting with all thanks and gratitude to sites like this one.Frank The Tank
Campaign reform, Congressional reform
They block campaign finance reform. Even worse, even in the primaries people will not boot these people out of office. Take Barney Frank. He clearly needs to go, but his district will never boot him out. Anyone who wants to represent the people cannot generate enough funds to run. Both parties put up millionaires for candidates.
So, I would say not only do we need campaign finance reform, we need reforms within the Congress itself. Right now, when someone gets a committee chair, they can lock out pretty much any meaningful reform. Say deal with leadership. They refuse to bring bills up to a vote, even when they have an overwhelming majority in co-sponsors.
Then, the "conferee" game. We just saw yet another bill get shredded (financial reform) and this is after it passed both houses. That's ridiculous to allow a bill to be shredded or seriously altered after it passed both houses.
Then, the seniority game in Congress. Why should seniority weigh in on assigning committee chairs? That means the same corrupt bought off Congress representatives can lock out any change.
No Welfare?
Wouldn't anyone cut off from unemployment qualify for welfare etc?
I realize its not the same but I know people who have lost benefits and are working 4-5 part time jobs to make ends meet rather than go on welfare. The lower payments were an incentive to taker anything that was available.
Regarding the rest - like I have said a few times we had 60 Dems in office the first year and no attempt to raise taxes on the wealthy were made. I have read where Obama wants Cap Gains taxes to go to 25% rather than be bracket based. We are still spending huge amounts overseas fighting where no one can win - huge waste of time, money and not the least - blood.
where ya been?
You cannot get welfare unless you have kids and kids of a certain age. Plus you cannot have something like < $2500 total in assets. Therefore, owning of a car disqualifies you.
Remember "welfare reform" in 1996? It's a joke, about the only people who can get it are those who know how to work the system.
Single, healthy, ready to work adults can go homeless and get some food stamps. Food stamps won't cover enough to eat.
State by State Basis
We fired someone 4 months ago and they were denied unemployment but got on welfare as a single male. He may have lied about assets and such I can't speak on that.
He's back to work now but he did get it.
Those rules are probably state by state since states administer that program. So where have you been?
In RI I believe thats true that people can't get it.
Just to add though that unemployment benefits for 99 weeks is only 5 weeks short of the limit for families on welfare in this state.
After say 26 weeks with no success finding work people on unemployment should be made to work part time for government projects.
ABC news lying about the GOP refusal to extend UI too!
Unreal! They tried to claim it was about the deficit! It's not about the deficit, it's about closing tax loopholes so corporations get tax rebates for offshore outsourcing U.S. jobs.
They don't want that stopped. It has nothing to do with deficits as evidenced by their refusal to do anything about Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or pick a money hemorrhage issue.