Senate approves jobless aid legislation

WASHINGTON (AP) - After buying time by resolving an impasse over jobless benefits and other programs that had briefly lapsed, the Senate is returning to a $100 billion-plus bill reviving popular tax breaks and extending longer and more generous jobless benefits through the end of the year.

Tuesday night's vote to approve stopgap legislation extending a host of programs, including highway funding, generous health insurance subsidies for the unemployed and benefits for the long-term jobless, gives Congress time to consider the far larger measure covering most of the same programs.

But the daunting price tag on the longer-term measure guarantees more complications and a rougher path through the Senate than experienced by the bill passed Tuesday.

Kentucky Republican Jim Bunning held up action for days. He wanted to force Democrats to find ways to finance the bill so it wouldn't add to the deficit, but his move sparked a political tempest that subjected Republicans to withering media coverage and cost the party politically. Bunning's support among Republicans was dwindling, while Democrats used to being on the defensive over health care and the deficit seemed to relish the battle.

Once Bunning gave in, the stopgap bill — which passed the House last week — passed the Senate by a 78-19 vote. President Barack Obama signed it into law late Tuesday.

"During these difficult economic times, supporting American workers, their families and our small businesses must be everyone's focus," Obama said in a statement. "I'm grateful to the members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle who worked to end this roadblock to relief for America's working families."

Rather than winning the fight over funding the bill, Bunning eventually settled for a vote to close a tax loophole enjoyed by paper companies that get a credit from burning "black liquor," a pulp-making byproduct, as if it were an alternative fuel. The amendment failed.

Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, said Bunning was accepting an offer he had rejected for days.

"As a result ... unemployment benefits were cut off for thousands of people across America, assistance for health care was cut off across America, thousands of federal employees were furloughed," Durbin said.

Doctors faced the prospect of a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments, and federal flood insurance programs had also lapsed with Monday's expiration of an earlier stopgap bill that passed late last year.

Democrats promised to retroactively restore unemployment benefits and health care subsidies for the unemployed under the COBRA program. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood ordered furloughed employees back to work Wednesday.