You Scratch Our Back, We'll Deign to Care about Unemployed Workers

The Senate is reportedly close to a deal that will extend expired unemployment benefits. Republicans negotiated a compromise that will garner their votes to keep unemployed workers from falling off the edge in exchange for extending the Bush tax cuts, even to the wealthiest USians.

Democratic Senators first proposed excluding tax cuts for people making over $250,000, which Republicans shot down. They then proposed excluding tax cuts for people making over $1 million, which Republicans also shot down.

So in order to provide a safety net to working people, Democrats had to agree to extend tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the nation, even as the national debt continues to explode.

Senator and former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry called out this bullshit for what it is:

"I hope Americans will understand how craven and empty and hollow and contradictory the Republican position is," veteran Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, told CNN.

..."What we've seen is a Republican Party that's absolutely prepared to deny unemployment insurance to people who have been laid off, who can't pay their bills, who want to, you know, put food on the table for their families," Kerry said. "They (Republicans) have said, "No, we're willing to hold that hostage so we can give the wealthiest people in the country a bonus tax cut."

In other news, 100,000 more workers just got laid off from the bootstrap factory.