Seven Days for Unemployment Extension

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Congress has blown reauthorization deadlines for extended unemployment benefits three times already this year. The first two lapses were brief; they happened because of obstruction by Senate Republicans. The third lapse lasted for nearly two months, however, as Democratic leadership in the House and Senate fought Republicans and a handful of deficit hawk Dems over whether or not the $33 billion cost of the reauthorization should be offset with spending cuts.

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HuffPost asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday if she expects the upcoming reauthorization to be less difficult than the last one.

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“Well I hope so, because it’s certainly going to be harder for the people whose benefits are expiring,” Pelosi said. “So many people have come up to me to say ‘thank you,’ whether it’s in airports, or just working people in different situations or not-working people saying, ‘We’re professionals, we’ve always worked. We were desperate, and then we got that unemployment insurance.’ They weren’t even people who were used to getting unemployment, but it really saved a lot of people.”