“The same people who didn’t have any problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are now saying we shouldn’t offer relief to middle-class Americans,” said U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday during an appearance in the Rose Garden.
Republicans are blocking the extension by insisting the $34 billion in costs not be added to the deficit.
“The president knows that Republicans support extending unemployment insurance, and doing it in a fiscally responsible way by cutting spending elsewhere in the $3 trillion federal budget,” Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told The New York Times. “At a time of record debt and deficits made worse by Washington Democrats’ massive spending spree, that’s the right thing to do and the right way to do it.”
Republicans believe standing against mounting national debt will energize their voters and help them regain power.
“At what point do we pivot and start being concerned about our children and our grandchildren?” Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) told CNN on Sunday. “There is no way in the world on a trillion-dollar budget this year we can’t find the money to pay for an extension of unemployment insurance, something we’re in favor of.”
