Via TPM:

In a surprising move Tuesday, six Republicans joined Senate Democrats to break a filibuster and advance a three-month revival of unemployment insurance that recently expired for some 1.3 million Americans.

On the off-chance that you’re wondering, Roy Blunt, our Republican Senator from Missouri was not among the Republicans who were at least willing to discuss putting the welfare of jobless Americans before partisan ideology – in spite of the fact that, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Tony Messenger points out, people don’t have jobs because there aren’t any to be had:

Both liberal and conservative economists point out that the long-term unemployment problem is as bad as it’s been since after World War II. Kevin Hassett, an economist with the conservative American Enterprise Institute and former adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, calls it “a huge emergency.”

So far, two days later, there’s no statement from Blunt – that I can find, at any rate – explaining his vote, so we’ll have to extrapolate for the time being from his past rhetoric and his predictable willingness to always toe the party line. My guess is that he’ll make some half-hearted statement that repeats one or the other of the strategies many in his party are adopting to try to take the sting out of their heartlessness: to wit, unemployment benefits somehow hurt the jobless, discourage full-employment, and that fiscal responsibility demands spending offsets.

The last reason, the demand for spending offsets, is especially risible. When Democrats in the House did, during the original budget negotiations, offer to pay for extending unemployment benefits by cutting agriculture subsidies – those very subsidies enjoyed by our Missouri Rep. Vicky Hartzler, incidentally – that wasn’t the type of spending cut that Republicans were willing to accept.

But there are, of course, other types of corporate welfare that could be cut in order to pay for extending jobless benefits. Oil subsidies, for instance. I’m going to be waiting with baited breath for Senator Blunt’s effort to excuse his vote(s). If I hear one word about fiscal responsibility from Senator “Big Oil” Blunt, the go-to guy for the energy industry who thinks oil subsidies, along with other types of corporate welfare are always just tickety-boo, I’ll spit. And if anyone buys this crap coming from Blunt, I might suffer cardiac arrest. Why not? Who wants to live in a world where folks are so stupid that they’ll buy Roy Blunt as a fiscal conservative?

In fact, who wants to live in a world where anyone buys the GOP as the party of fiscal responsibility? Spending offsets are simply a strategy designed to deflect disapproval and disguise a turnip as cake – as in let them eat cake. There’s a reason that the House leadership is trying to soften GOP rhetoric on the topic.  But no matter how they talk about it, it’s hard to make meanness attractive. As Brian Buetler notes in Salon:

But conservatives – even reform conservatives – are oddly indignant about the suggestion that they would support doing something that actually helps the poor. As always, for any given way of helping people, conservatives are against it because there’s some other better way. But they never actually favor helping.

Via TPM:

In a surprising move Tuesday, six Republicans joined Senate Democrats to break a filibuster and advance a three-month revival of unemployment insurance that recently expired for some 1.3 million Americans.

On the off-chance that you’re wondering, Roy Blunt, our Republican Senator from Missouri was not among the Republicans who were at least willing to discuss putting the welfare of jobless Americans before partisan ideology – in spite of the fact that, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Tony Messenger points out, people don’t have jobs because there aren’t any to be had:

Both liberal and conservative economists point out that the long-term unemployment problem is as bad as it’s been since after World War II. Kevin Hassett, an economist with the conservative American Enterprise Institute and former adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, calls it “a huge emergency.”

So far, two days later, there’s no statement from Blunt – that I can find, at any rate – explaining his vote, so we’ll have to extrapolate for the time being from his past rhetoric and his predictable willingness to always toe the party line. My guess is that he’ll make some half-hearted statement that repeats one or the other of the strategies many in his party are adopting to try to take the sting out of their heartlessness: to wit, unemployment benefits somehow hurt the jobless, discourage full-employment, and that fiscal responsibility demands spending offsets.

The last reason, the demand for spending offsets, is especially risible. When Democrats in the House did, during the original budget negotiations, offer to pay for extending unemployment benefits by cutting agriculture subsidies – those very subsidies enjoyed by our Missouri Rep. Vicky Hartzler, incidentally – that wasn’t the type of spending cut that Republicans were willing to accept.

But there are, of course, other types of corporate welfare that could be cut in order to pay for extending jobless benefits. Oil subsidies, for instance. I’m going to be waiting with baited breath for Senator Blunt’s effort to excuse his vote(s). If I hear one word about fiscal responsibility from Senator “Big Oil” Blunt, the go-to guy for the energy industry who thinks oil subsidies, along with other types of corporate welfare are always just tickety-boo, I’ll spit. And if anyone buys this crap coming from Blunt, I might suffer cardiac arrest. Why not? Who wants to live in a world where folks are so stupid that they’ll buy Roy Blunt as a fiscal conservative?

In fact, who wants to live in a world where anyone buys the GOP as the party of fiscal responsibility? Spending offsets are simply a strategy designed to deflect disapproval and disguise a turnip as cake – as in let them eat cake. There’s a reason that the House leadership is trying to soften GOP rhetoric on the topic.  But no matter how they talk about it, it’s hard to make meanness attractive. As Brian Buetler notes in Salon:

But conservatives – even reform conservatives – are oddly indignant about the suggestion that they would support doing something that actually helps the poor. As always, for any given way of helping people, conservatives are against it because there’s some other better way. But they never actually favor helping.

The transcript as provided by the White House:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

April 30, 2011

Weekly Address: Taxpayer Subsidies for Oil Companies are Neither Right, nor Smart, and They Should End

WASHINGTON – As oil and gas companies make tens of billions in profits and the government scours the budget for savings, President Obama called on Congress to stop handing them $4 billion annually in taxpayer subsidies. America’s oil production last year reached its highest level since 2003, but we need to invest in the energy of the future, instead of subsidizing the energy of the past.

Remarks of President Barack Obama

Weekly Address

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Washington, DC

After the worst recession since the Great Depression, our economy is growing again, and we’ve gained almost 2 million private sector jobs over the last 13 months. But I also know that a lot of folks aren’t feeling as positive as some of those statistics might suggest. It’s still too hard to find a job. And even if you have a job, chances are you’re having a tougher time paying the rising costs of everything from groceries to gas. In some places, gas is now more than $4 a gallon, meaning that you could be paying upwards of $50 or $60 to fill up your tank.

Of course, while rising gas prices mean real pain for our families at the pump, they also mean bigger profits for oil companies. This week, the largest oil companies announced that they’d made more than $25 billion in the first few months of 2011 – up about 30 percent from last year.

Now, I don’t have a problem with any company or industry being rewarded for their success. The incentive of healthy profits is what fuels entrepreneurialism and helps drives our economy forward. But I do have a problem with the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies we’ve been handing out to oil and gas companies – to the tune of $4 billion a year. When oil companies are making huge profits and you’re struggling at the pump, and we’re scouring the federal budget for spending we can afford to do without, these tax giveaways aren’t right. They aren’t smart. And we need to end them.

That’s why, earlier this week, I renewed my call to Congress to stop subsidizing the oil and gas industries.  Understand, I’m not opposed to producing oil. I believe that if we’re serious about meeting our energy challenge, we need to operate on all cylinders, and that means pursuing a broad range of energy policies, including safe and responsible oil production here at home. In fact, last year, America’s oil production reached its highest level since 2003.

But I also believe that instead of subsidizing yesterday’s energy, we should invest in tomorrow’s – and that’s what we’ve been doing. Already, we’ve seen how the investments we’re making in clean energy can lead to new jobs and new businesses. I’ve seen some of them myself – small businesses that are making the most of solar and wind power, and energy-efficient technologies; big companies that are making fuel-efficient cars and trucks part of their vehicle fleets. And to promote these kinds of vehicles, we implemented historic new fuel-economy standards, which could save you as much as $3,000 at the pump.

Now, I know that in this tough fiscal environment, it’s tempting for some in Washington to want to cut our investments in clean energy. And I absolutely agree that the only way we’ll be able to afford the things we need is if we cut the things we don’t, and live within our means. But I refuse to cut things like clean energy that will help America win the future by growing our economy and creating good-paying jobs; that will help make America more secure; and that will help clean up our planet in the process. An investment in clean energy today is an investment in a better tomorrow. And I think that’s an investment worth making. Thanks for listening, and have a great weekend.

Via TPM, in a fund-raising letter Senator Claire “Deficit Scourge” McCaskill pledges not to cut Social Security benefits:

I don’t think anyone is going to propose cutting Social Security benefits — if they do, I’ll vote against those cuts,” she writes.

Of course, the proof is always in the pudding and what people mean by “cuts” varies. Lots of politicians, for instance, don’t seem to realize that raising the age for social security eligibility is in effect a benefit cut.  Nevertheless, this is heartening, and I agree with TPM’s Brian Buetler that, given McCaskill’s weak position, “this suggests the poltiifcs [sic] of Social Security is still on the side of those who don’t want to see benefit cuts.”

McCaskill also deserves kudos for targeting her deficit cutting zeal toward some areas that really are wasteful and unnecessary. In that regard, she sets herself apart from our House GOP delegation which unanimously voted this week to preserve huge taxpayer subsidies for the oil industry. She says very succinctly:

One of the first items on the chopping block should be subsidies for big oil corporations which are among the richest and most profitable companies in the world.

To which I say … Amen lady!

Read the entire letter here. Lots of good-sounding stuff, but I’ve been misled by McCaskill in the past when she’s wanted money, so I’m still waiting to see what she delivers.

Freshman GOP House members Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long, back in Missouri last week after their grueling first few weeks of playing cut the tail off the donkey (a.k.a. blindfolded budgeting), had a chance to visit the Teople and pat themselves on the back. Miss Vicky declared cutting spending was fun, and ol’ Billy showed off his GOPer creative accounting skills when, speaking of the $61 billion in proposed GOP spending cuts, he observed that “We got the $100 billion cut!”

What they didn’t tell anyone, though, was that the magically mushrooming $61 billion worth of cuts was directed at discretionary spending which comprises only 14% of the budget, and as far as cutting the deficit or ongoing spending goes, will have as much effect as swatting a gnat – although it will worsen the situation of many of their poor and middle class constituents. It will cost our fragile economy 700,000 jobs, while Goldman Sachs economists predict that it will depress GDP by as much as two points – seriously endangering our economic recovery.

Nor should you expect our otherwise garrulous  Missouri GOPers to say much about one of the first votes taken after the House went back into session this week. After spending time back home squawking about how they all ganged up to beat back the dire deficit threat, each and every member of the Missouri GOP voted to retain massive subsidies that support the oil industry – oddly enough, an industry that pours tons of shekels into GOP campaign coffers.

So whaddya think? Is the GOP serious about deficit cutting? Steve Benen answers:

For the typical American, I suspect this will seem hard to understand. In the face of fiscal challenges, Republicans are ready to slash funding in education, health care, job training, and national security, but they’re not willing to end taxpayer subsidies — our money — for the oil industry? An industry that’s already enjoying extraordinary profits?

Also note, ending the subsidies would save the federal government tens of billions of dollars, making a significant dent in the deficit-reduction campaign that Republicans pretend to care about. It’s a reminder that the GOP’s commitment to fiscal responsibility is shaped in large part by who’ll suffer as a result of the cuts — working families can feel the brunt of the budget ax, under the GOP vision, but ExxonMobil can’t.

Personally, I just want to make sure, when the economy tanks again, that everybody knows who’s responsible: Todd Akin, Sam Graves, Vicky Hartzler, Billy Long, Blaine Luetkemeyer.

And, to give credit where credit’s due, here’s the list of folks who think that shared sacrifice means the fat cats share ante up as well: Russ Carnahan, Lacy Clay and Emanuel Cleaver.

UPDATE:  Perhaps the GOPers were so fearless in their votes defending oil subsidies because they knew they could depend on FOX news and other conservative outlets to obfuscate the issue and give them cover.