The GOP hate the unemployed
From the Center for American Progress in an email:
For the second time in a month, a Senate Republican is blocking an extension of unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits.
Senate Democrats sought to approve a 30-day extension before the Easter recess as emergency spending that "does not need to meet pay-as-you-go requirements."
The current extension expires April 5, and swift passage of the measure would have protected the "approximately 212,000 unemployed Americans [who] would lose benefits in the first week," and the further one million who "are now newly at risk of losing benefits in April," according to the National Employment Law Project.
But Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) refused to allow a vote on the package before the start of the two-week recess, insisting that he would not support the extension unless it was paid for. To make his point, Coburn presented on the Senate floor a "poster of a young girl wearing a placard stating her share of the national debt."
Unlike last time when Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) held up a vote on extending unemployment protections, the Republican leadership has rallied to the obstructionist cause.
Senate Republican Whip John Kyl (R-AZ), who has argued that "unemployment compensation is a disincentive for people to seek new work," appeared with Coburn at a press conference Friday to support the hold. Kyl said he regretted the lack of public GOP support for Bunning last month, and added that "when Sen. Coburn stepped forward to provide that leadership a lot of us felt this was the time to do it."
