Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins defied their party leadership and voted FOR the extension. More than kudos — my heartfelt respect and gratitude — to them for this.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. One senator’s death and another’s cupidity have ensured that almost two million Americans who have been jobless for six months or more will have their only source of income cut off (emphasis is mine):
The Senate rejected Wednesday — for the fourth time — a bill that would have reauthorized extended benefits for the long-term unemployed, by a vote of 58 to 38. Democrats will not make another effort to break the Republican filibuster before adjourning for the July 4 recess.
By the time lawmakers return to Washington, more than 2 million people who’ve been out of work for longer than six months will have missed checks they would have received if they’d been laid off closer to the beginning of the recession.
Only two Republicans, Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, crossed the aisle to support the measure. That gave Democrats 59 of the 60 votes they needed to break the GOP filibuster, but without the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson’s nay vote was enough to kill the bill.
[…]
We will vote on this measure again once there is a replacement named for the late Senator Byrd,” Reid said in a statement after the vote. …Already, more than 1.2 million people out of work for longer than six months have missed checks since federally-funded extended benefits lapsed at the beginning of June.
“Senators had a chance to put election year posturing aside and one too few rose to that challenge,” said Judy Conti, a lobbyist for the National Employment Law Project. “It’s a sad night, especially for the over one million workers and their families who will have little cause to celebrate this holiday weekend. It is a disgrace and an absolute slap in the face to basic human decency.“
I feel like screaming out loud; I feel like crying my eyes out. I know what those families are going through. I also know that I could open my Bible at random and be almost certain to have my eyes fall on a passage that indicts every faux-religious sentiment men like Ben Nelson and his Republican colleagues (with those two notable exceptions) have ever thought or uttered. And I say that, not because this unemployment benefits extension should be passed on religious grounds, but only because I know how vast are the stores of phony, empty religiosity in these corrupt hearts.
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