U.S. Senate breaks deadlock on jobless benefits

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday cleared the way to extend long-term unemployment benefits, breaking a partisan stalemate that has caused more than 2 million jobless Americans to lose the weekly checks that help them stay afloat.

By a vote of 60 to 40, Democrats overcame a Republican procedural hurdle and moved toward a final vote, expected later in the day. The House of Representatives is expected to approve the measure on Wednesday and send it President Barack Obama to sign into law.

With congressional elections looming in November, the Senate had been locked in a partisan standoff for weeks over how to pay for extending benefits for those who have been out of work the longest.

Democrats, eager to show voters they are doing all they can to bring down the 9.5 percent unemployment rate, tried to extend the benefits when they expired at the end of May.

But they were blocked by Republicans who said the $34 billion price tag should be covered by cuts elsewhere rather than more borrowing that would add to a trillion-dollar budget deficit.

“There’s no debate in the Senate about whether we should pass a bill -- everyone agrees that we should,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. “This debate is about whether in extending these benefits we should add to the debt or not.”

Nearly half of the 15 million Americans out of work have been jobless for more than six months, the highest level of long-term unemployment since the government began keeping track in the 1940s. Nearly a quarter of the unemployed have been out of work for more than a year.

Democrats broke the deadlock shortly after swearing in the new senator from West Virginia, Carte Goodwin, who gave them the 60th vote they needed to overcome the Republican procedural roadblock in the 100-seat chamber. Goodwin succeeds Robert Byrd, who died last month after 57 years in Congress.

Moderate Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe voted with the Democrats, while centrist Democrat Ben Nelson voted against the extension.

The fight over jobless benefits is the latest skirmish in a broader debate over whether Congress should spend further to stimulate the economy or start making the painful cuts needed to bring down record budget deficits, which hit 9.9 percent of GDP in the last fiscal year.