There’s a cloture vote scheduled today on the tax extenders bill in the Senate. It doesn’t look like it’ll pass. Bernie Sanders couldn’t get a repeal of fossil fuel subsidies into it last night to help pay for it, so the usual suspects are choking on the cost. And Senators on the Democratic side are already talking about how they’ll change the bill, literally nickel-and-diming the jobless by cutting the $25 boost to unemployment insurance checks, and pushing back the 19-month extension of the “doc fix” to 12 months. That’s almost certain to come into play, because as Kagro X said, “we all know nothing promotes cooperation on cloture like signaling ahead of time what concessions you’re willing to make when it fails.”
With all the uncertainty on the scope of the extenders bill, David Obey has decided to take a hostage. Basically, there will be no war funding until the extenders bill gets resolved.
Obey has been central to the fight over education aid and, in an interview, drew a direct link between war funding and progress on domestic priorities.
He said he would withhold action on the war funds until there was some resolution on a major economic relief bill extending jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and popular tax breaks for individuals and businesses <...>
“I want to wait until the extenders bill is resolved,” Obey told POLITICO of the separate war funding measure. “All I can do is sit and wait until reality strikes home, and then maybe we’ll get somewhere.”
That war funding bill may include $23 billion to save the jobs of up to 300,000 teachers facing layoffs. But Obey wants to see what else he may need to add after the extenders bill gets hacked up. Obey’s also upset that he hasn’t received an official budget request for the education jobs money
http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/06/16/obey-stops-war-funding-until-jobs-funding-passes/
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