Senate Advances Bill To Renew Jobless Benefits

[okaawhatever]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - The Democratic-led U.S. Senate agreed by a voice vote on Monday to begin debate on a bipartisan bill to renew expired jobless benefits for 2.2 million Americans.

The action cleared a second Republican procedural roadblock in as many weeks and moved the bill toward anticipated Senate passage later this week.

But the White House-backed measure is expected to die when it reaches the Republican-led House of Representatives.

House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, has called the bill "unworkable," citing concerns by state administrators.

Boehner and other Republicans also oppose the bill because it does not meet their demands that it include provisions to create jobs.

Backers of the legislation reject the criticism and note that such emergency relief in the past routinely received strong bipartisan support.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/31/senate-jobless-benefits_n_5065915.html

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Boehner and other Repus oppose the bill because it doesn't include provisions to create jobs. Give me a friggin' break. They can add any number of jobs bills the Repbs have blocked.

[Purveyor]

2. So what? It will never get through the House so these efforts are

meaningless and a waste of 'copy'.

[Andy823]

3. It force them to show their hand

Yes the house will not pass it, it may not even make it to the floor, but it does force them to kill the bill that has passed the Senate, with republican support, and it will force them to explain themselves to the voters back home. A lot of the people that need help, and need this bill to pass, are republicans. It's not just democrats that are unemployed, and if the House wants to play games with their lives, then the politicians should have to face up to what they are doing.

[Purveyor]

4. They have already showed their hand and they are quite proud of it, indeed. eom