Doktor ZoomMarch 05, 2021 04:59 PM
Jamie gave you this Sleepy Kitten The Senate s consideration of the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill appears to have gone off the rails this afternoon, with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) apparently giving serious thought to a really bad Republican amendment on emergency unemployment that would almost certainly be unacceptable to most other Senate Democrats. Jesus Christ, Joe, we thought we already told you to just pass the goddamned thing. You never listen to us. Is it personal? As we noted earlier today, Senate Dems had already accepted one change from the House version of the stimulus bill. Instead of increasing the emergency supplemental unemployment insurance to $400 a week until the end of August, the compromise would keep the payments at $300 a week (on top of whatever state unemployment insurance benefits someone s getting), but keep the benefit running until the end of September.
problems at home from the crisis at the va to the continued fallout from edward snowden s nsa leaks, two areas where the administration did accomplish some goals this year, one is on health care. after botching the rollout, the white house managed to turn the problem around and ended up with more sign-ups than expected. and two, the epa has taken significant action on climate change issuing rules calling for cutting carbon emissions from existing power plants by 30% within 15 years. the president has put his rhetorical shoulder into the issue of climate change. but let s turn to congress. the year began with unexpectedly smooth negotiations on a compromise on the budget. but then things deteriorated very quickly into gridlock. on tuesday, the senate blocked two proposals to extend emergency unemployment benefits that expired last month. the question is if congress can t pass unemployment benefits, what will it be able to pass? there you go. six months later, the newest version of the j
1.3 million americans lost a vital economic lifeline while they looked for work. remember that? since then, that number has risen to 2.3 million americans. in the mean typtimmeantime, hou boehner has stone walled any attempt to bring that extension of a lifeline to the house. i made clear to the president last december that, you know, if they wanted us to consider an extension of emergency unemployment benefits, would have to be paid for and would have to include things that would help get our economy going. fortunately for speaker pain, a bill to do all those things has already passed the senate. it is fully paid for through a combination of offsets including exotic sounding pension and custom fees. that includes things like getting the economy going it the cbo estimates restoring people s unemployment insurance would create 200,000 jobs in 2014, not
mr. boehner is not one of them. seven house members, house republicans wrote a letter to boehner last week asking him to consider the senate legislation reauthorizing long-term unemployment benefits. thursday when asked directly about the issue, he punted. listen, i made clear to the president last december that, you know, if they wanted us to consider an extension of emergency unemployment benefits, it would have to be paid for and it would have to help include things that would help our economy get going. they did not put forward anything with regard to how we would create more jobs. the ball is still in their court. a reporter pressed administrator about what specific job provisions the speaker would like to see. again, boehner deflected. you ll have to ask the administration. i made clear what it would take for me to consider it. they have not had any suggestions. the mount of the united
step percent of the federal budget everything blows up. and senate democrats started off extending the bill for the emergency unemployment benefits. and cantor, the majority head in the house said that is not going to happen. at least in the house that will not be extended. the debate starts tomorrow and it will be a heck of a week. very interesting. thank you. and tornado warnings and flash flood watches in affect for parts of the southeast and one twister touches down and heavy rain and obama hard hit and meteorologist, janoise dean looking at this. janice, what is happening. the pictures are heart breaking. it came overnight when people were sleeping. they were in the darkness with all of that damage and the flooding. over seven inches of rain for