The latest attempt by the GOP to block unemployment benefits is to finally agree to reinstitute/extend benefits, but only if the costs could be offset by reductions elsewhere in the budget. What a wonderful opportunity for Progressives. To restore benefits would require approximately $26 billion.
Where, oh where could we find that kind of money?
How about taxing money invested in foreign banks to avoid taxes? Foreign tax havens exist to cheat Americans out of paying a fair share of income. An estimated MINIMUM of $21 TRILLION is deposited by individuals and U.S. corporations into the banks of countries who create tax havens. Let’s say we impose a tax of 20 percent on these tax cheats. That would create $4.2 trillion, which would pay for unemployment benefits and the ENTIRE deficit.
How about defunding weapons programs for weapons the Pentagon doesn’t want or need? Defunding the MEADS air defense system, the engines for F-35 and C-17 planes and 13 other weapon systems that the Pentagon says do not work, or are unneeded would save approximately $640 billion.
There are probably many examples of where the offsets from restoring unemployment benefits could come from that would not only be moral, but also much more cost-effective.
How much do you want to bet that the money will come from a program in the social safety net?
How much do you want to bet that Democrats will, on the whole, agree to cutting more benefits to the poor?
FiegerTime - Geoffrey Fieger's Blog 
You are absolutely right. Maybe they could start by cutting their wages. Their constituencies pay have been cut.
As someone who has never ONCE in his lifetime EVER gotten so much as a penny in unemployment benefits I have absolutely no understanding of why in the hell unemployment benefits ever got extended so long in the first place!
I work hard like everyone else. I’m as poor as the next down on his luck minority or otherwise Democrat, yet I am not seeing anything in the ways of relief!
I constantly get pre-approval letters in the mail for financing up to $40k on a new or used car, but in trying to get the same amount of financing for a home and forget about it! You would think a home at the same price would be a no brainer for a bank, but they claim Fanny Mae is responsible for all the hoops and cost involved in closing a mortgage.
You complain all the time about the poor and from where I am sitting these are the only people making out in all this, except for the rich as usual.. But hey, they are rich! Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? Until they screw it all up and are back in the poor house?
Things are screwed up Mr. Fieger, but in ways you can’t even understand.