Stormy Monday, 1/6/14

[DemocratsForProgress]

Jeff Rosenzweig: Stormy Monday, 1/6/14

Will the 1.3 million people stripped of unemployment benefits by Republican callousness get them restored this month? Doubtful, but Congressional Democrats are trying to make it happen, while the President is pitching in with repeated appeals for legislative action and a Tuesday event at the White House featuring people whose benefits were terminated.

This week the Senate will take up a bipartisan proposal by Senators Reed and Heller to restore and extend Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits for three months. Some Republicans have signaled a willingness to support such a measure, but only after offsetting the $6 billion cost of a three-month extension by slashing other spending they hate. Harry Reid has in turn described the idea of an offset as “foolishness” (a word many people automatically associate with Congress already). Meanwhile, Harvard economist Lawrence Katz has calculated that the expiration of unemployment benefits will cost the economy a billion dollars a week; naturally, there’s no word from the GOP about offsetting that.

The House of Representatives will get back to “business” Tuesday. So will cokehead Republican Congressman Trey Radel, who will make his first attempt to do his job since November. Radel is fresh off what he described as a “life-changing” 28 days in rehab and a return to regular church attendance. With those fig leaves firmly affixed, he released a statement about how eager he is to help his constituents fight the challenges of “the burdens of Obamacare, a jobless recovery, and a federal government that continues to spend more than it takes in.” He said nothing about the challenge of being represented by a dim, sanctimonious hypocrite, but they’re probably all used to that by now.

House Republicans will start the new year pretty much the same way they ended 2013: with an unhealthy obsession with the Affordable Care Act. This week’s follies include a bill requiring the government to inform consumers of any breach of their personal data on healthcare.gov (notwithstanding that such a breach has not occurred) and a bill requiring the administration to provide weekly public reports on user traffic and the functionality of the website. There is some method to this madness, though. If Obamacare is the success Republicans fear it will be, they can take some of the credit by crowing about their pointless legislative tinkering around the edges. And if it fails, they can tell the nation that they tried to polish the turd, but it was hopeless. How they would reconcile either stance with their loud and sweaty series of attempts to defund, cripple, undercut, end run or repeal the ACA, I have no idea. I suspect they don’t either...

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2014/01/05/stormy-monday-1614/