"We'll Approve The Unemployment Extension IF . . . "

The effort to extend emergency, temporary federal unemployment benefits for another three months won initial approval in the Senate.  That meant it could be debated on the floor and all the GOP Senators could try to add all their goofy amendments to what ought to be a small, straightforward task.  And they have not disappointed.

Trying hard to appear empathetic and to hide their true feelings (that unemployment income is a disincentive to work; a hand-out to the the lazy, shiftless 47% who'll never vote for us anyway; a program which therefore should be eliminated), the R's are taking pains to say that they're all for extending unemployment benefits, but only if it's "paid for" by cutting something else.

Mitch McConnell wants to pay for the 3-month extension by delaying Obamacare's individual mandate for at least a year.  Ohio's Rob Portman wants to outlaw simultaneous receipt of both unemployment and Social Security disability income (those damn double-dippin' disabled freeloaders.)  Congressmen in both Texas and Pennsylvania say they'll OK the extension only with a go-ahead for the Keystone XL pipeline.

Time out!  The cost of the proposed extension amounts to 0.3% of all budgeted federal expenditures. Temporary.  Emergency.  Three months.  Stuff like this used to be essentially automatic, not conditional.  Never before has one side demanded spending off-sets for something like this.  Especially for something like this.

How about some spending off-sets for GOP favorites like "temporary" tax credits?  Most of these tax breaks are renewed decade after decade without a peep or a second thought.  Some are worthwhile, some are pork.  We taxpayers routinely subsidize real estate developers, movie studios, rum makers, and racehorses, among other things.

Given that, it seems morally shallow for unemployment benefits to hinge upon budget cuts.  Quit messing around and approve the extension.  Jeez!