{"id":281,"date":"2003-12-09T01:12:25","date_gmt":"2003-12-09T06:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2003\/12\/benefit_extensions_ending\/"},"modified":"2003-12-09T01:12:25","modified_gmt":"2003-12-09T06:12:25","slug":"benefit_extensions_ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2003\/12\/benefit_extensions_ending\/","title":{"rendered":"Benefit Extensions Ending"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/story.news.yahoo.com\/news?tmpl=story&#038;u=\/ap\/20031208\/ap_on_go_co\/jobless_benefits\">Merry Christmas<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Citing the improving economy, Republicans decided Monday against extending federal unemployment benefits before Congress leaves for the year. Democrats said it would mean a joyless Christmas for tens of thousands of jobless Americans.<br \/>\n&#8220;It&#8217;s almost inconceivable to me that Republican leaders are poised to play the Grinch again,&#8221; said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.<br \/>\nDemocrats raised the benefits issue Monday in a vain effort to block a vote on a $373 billion spending bill for the 2004 budget year, the House&#8217;s final major act before it ends this congressional session.<br \/>\nFederal unemployment benefits, which supplement state payments to the jobless, have been extended three times since March 2002. Without legislative action, they will be phased out beginning Dec. 21.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>At least the jobless have a nice fat GDP number to plunk in their stockings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2003\/12\/benefit_extensions_ending\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to Benefit Extensions Ending\"><p>Merry Christmas: Citing the improving economy, Republicans decided Monday against extending federal unemployment benefits before Congress leaves for the year. Democrats said it would mean a joyless Christmas for tens of thousands of jobless Americans. &#8220;It&#8217;s almost inconceivable to me that Republican leaders are poised to play the Grinch again,&#8221; said House Democratic leader Nancy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}