One of the first votes the Senate plans to take when it returns Monday is on restoring unemployment benefits to 1.3 million people who lost them on Dec. 28. It's hard to imagine a more important action for those who have been out of work the longest and for the economy.
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And what's at the top of the House's agenda? Yet another vote to undermine the health care reform law. (In this case, a bill to impose unnecessary security requirements on the health care website, though there is not the slightest indication of security problems.)
Nothing could show the priorities of the two chambers — and the slog that lies ahead this year — better than these votes. At one end of the Capitol, lawmakers are actually trying to help people in deep financial distress, continuing a vital Washington practice. The other end is holding a meaningless symbolic vote, designed solely to embarrass the Obama administration and continue its politically motivated attacks on the health law.
The jobless benefits wouldn't even be an issue if Republicans had agreed to extend them last month, at the same time that the budget agreement was being negotiated. The bill proposed by Senate Democrats would extend benefits for three months to those who lost them, at a cost of $6.5 billion. It is not clear that it will get the 60 votes needed to defeat the expected Republican filibuster, and its chances are even worse in the House.
But it is still worth trying. As Gene Sperling, director of the White House's National Economic Council, noted recently, it's been more than 50 years since the government cut off emergency unemployment insurance when the rate of long-term joblessness was even half the current level.
Republicans are insisting the cost be "offset," which means they want some other program cut to pay for the benefits. (They would never consider offsetting it by reducing a tax loophole for the rich.) But with the deficit falling sharply, this benefit does not need to be offset because of the positive effect it would have on the economy. Extending benefits through the end of 2014 would help create 200,000 jobs, the White House estimated — one reason the House would rather change the subject.
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