0 so the catch would be, if it's unlimited, they would have to prove that they have gone to school, they have taken some training, they have tried to better themselves. and we would show a great deal of passion as a country if we were to do that. now, i have given a solution. i haven't heard any solutions from anybody in congress on what we're going to do, other than to extend. it wouldn't be a handout. you would have to go make sure that you're trying to better yourself. and you could prove it through documentation, through any county commissioner that's elected in any county in this country where you live. it's really not that hard to do. the easy thing to do is just vote and protect your rear end so you can go home and say i didn't raise your taxes, we didn't close the loopholes. and, of course, we're never going to have a shutdown again for the next two years, so we've got the tea partiers all in the corner now and all quiet and this is the deal. well, here's the bottom line. what we need is a big move by people that they're not worth it. it's the perfect time to do it. paul ryan knows the brand of makers and takers politics isn't popular right now. but here he is on fox news earlier this week. >> guess what, sean? elections have consequences. we're going to have to win a couple of elections to actually pass the kind of budgets you and i are in favor. >> did i not tell you last night on this program that this is not about a budget. this is about winning elections so they can get exactly what they want. and if they can take ted cruz and put him in the corner and shut him up for the next two election cycles, it's a grand bargain. because nobody likes the government shutdown. paul ryan, basically what he's doing is retreating. he's right. elections do have consequences. this is why the senate needs to fight back and help these unemployed americans immediately. let's break it down for you, with a famous "ed show" chart. here it is, folks. $1 trillion. that's the 2014 federal budget. the ryan/murray plan allocates roughly $1 trillion of the federal spending. this little sliver right here -- just that little bitty bit right there. $25 billion. gosh, that's 2.5% of the budget. the unemployment extension would be that. $25 billion is roughly 2.5% of the budget. so let's take a look at defense spending. the budget has $500 billion for -- defense spending. heck, that's more than half the pie. it's roughly half the federal budget. there is no way that anyone can look at this chart and say that taking unemployment insurance away from 1.3 million americans is the right thing to do. you mean to tell me, we just couldn't -- just maybe couldn't trim back just a little bit there? you know, just couldn't find it? we could find it. we find it for countries all over the world. we find it for the oil companies. we find it for the farmers. we find it for everybody. but people who are falling out of the economy, that's 26 weeks. that's what the republicans want. and if it goes beyond that, the republicans think that, well, we're really doing you a disservice. maybe you should turn in your citizenship. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. should the senate force the house to vote on unemployment insurance? text a for yes, b for no to 67622. you can always go to our blog at ed.msnbc.com. leave a comment there. we appreciate it. we'll have the results graphiced up later in the show. for more, let me bring in eugene robinson, "washington post." >> good to be here, ed. >> why is harry reid not fighting for unemployment in the budget? what senate rule would hold him back from putting it right back in there and saying you guys over in the house have got to rethink this thing? >> you know, senate rules are terribly arcane. i confess, i'm not aware of what the senate -- don't put unemployment in the bill -- rule. if such a bill exists, i don't know why. >> it seems strange to me. it just sounds so strange to me. the congress can find a way to do whatever the heck they want to do. >> well, yeah. of course. you know, but look, step back for a second. i think a decision has been made that it's not going to be fought for in this bill. i do take him at his word that democrats are going to fight to do it, which, as you said, attaching it to something that republicans want or feel like they can't turn down. but the calculation seems to have been made in the house and in the senate. that this -- that this is an advance. that this is -- it's a lousy budget in many ways. but that this represents an advance beyond the sort of republican total -- total resistance that we have seen in the last few years. >> you know, i think these guys wanted to go home and say, you know what, all this bad stuff you're hearing about in congress, heck, i could work with the other side. i voted for this budget deal. i do think that's part of it. but isn't this a leap of faith? to say that john boehner is going to bring an unemployment extension bill to the floor for passage? i mean, the democrats, they really believe that a guy who has voted to take away health care from millions of americans, over 40 times, that he's a guy you can really count on when it comes to unemployment benefits? >> well, i wouldn't -- i wouldn't call him a guy you could really count on, ed. i don't think you can. i think you could argue, and i'm not sure if this is correct. you could argue that republicans can, in fact, be pressured into doing the right thing on unemployment benefits, that they have been in the past. but that requires some public mobilization. requires people speaking out, like you are doing now. it requires getting their constituents involved. every member of the house, every member of the senate, has constituents who are affected by this. who are going to lose what little income they have coming into their household, because of this. and that point, i think, has to be driven home. >> the democrats seem to have voted for this, and if you notice the vote yesterday, they waited for the republicans to vote. because they didn't want to go home holding this thing, holding all the eggs in a basket. they wanted this to be real bipartisanship. so that tells me that there was a real calculation on the part of the democrats as to how this was going to politically play out. well, how is it going to politically play out when they run around the country saying they support the middle class, but when it comes down to, you know, cutting to the chase, they don't have the vote. they won't stand -- 94 said, you know what, we're looking out for americans that are having a hard time. the rest want the deal. >>, well, it's going to be a problem for some democrats. and i think it's also going to be a problem for some republicans, at least i hope it is. because remember, those republican members of congress have constituents who are going to be suffering as a result of this. and those constituents have neighbors, some of whom are republican, and who are going to be questioning this. but how do we get from here to there? and that's -- nobody has drawn that path for me yet. >> that's right. >> you can say, okay, fine, this is what happened yesterday. this is what's going to happen next week. we all know that that's kind of wrapped up in a bow. but at least tell us how you're going to get from where we're going to be when this thing has finally passed to where we need to be, which is making those 1.3 million households whole again. or as whole as our relatively meager unemployment benefits attempt to make them. >> this erodes democratic principles, is what it does. it erodes them from the stand point that they have -- the democrats throwing people on hard times under the bus. and there's no real commitment for any jobs package that would bring that 7% unemployment down. there's protection, what i call election protection, because there's not going to be a shutdown, which the republicans know is terribly unpopular. so i'm trying to figure out, where is the victory here for the democrats? i mean, in a deal there is always winners and losers. there's people that go in the back room and start high-fiving one another. i just don't think the democrats are high-fiving one another right now. >> well, you know, maybe not a high-five. maybe a high one or two. because there are sequester cuts that are being renewed. >> yes. >> and so, you know, there's people who are not going to get their unemployment benefits, and that's awful. there are some kids who are going to be able to go to head start who weren't able to go in the past. and so some -- you know, these programs, and we've written and talked about what was taken out of there, is not all restored. but some good was done from this. and i think there definitely is a sense here in washington that just getting the point where we can say there is not going to be a shutdown, there is not going to be, you know, one of those terrible sort of ridiculous episodes in the next 21 months, is a good thing for the country. it's at what cost, i think, you can ask. >> gene robinson, you have done a great job of trying to cool me off. >> ed, i don't know if that's possible. but -- you have a good weekend. >> good to have you with us tonight. eugene robinson, "washington post." remember to answer tonight's question at the bottom of your screen, share your thoughts on twitter at ed show and facebook. we want to know what you think. tweet out, should we have unlimited unemployment benefits if people prove they are trying to better themselves? coming up, we'll have an update on this afternoon's shooting in colorado at that high school. stay tuned. you're watching "the ed show" on msnbc.