The unemployment benefits extension was successfully passed on to a final vote that will take place on late Thursday. The cloture vote of 97-1 passed on Wednesday which ends a four week “argument” between Senate Democrats and GOP leaders over the extension. Even though the cloture vote passed with flying colors there were still some Senate Republicans who were unhappy with the bill.

The Republicans feel that the Democrats held them from debating many of the amendments that they felt were important. The GOP initially proposed nine changes but the Democratic party forced the Republicans to only three amendments. The most important amendment was an edit to have Congress to pay for the unemployment extension through unspent TARP money rather than an extension of an unemployment tax on employers.

On Tuesday, prior to the final cloture vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the statement, “”They are only trying to delay and stall things. We have done more legislating on voting on nongermane, nonrelevant amendments this Congress I think than any time in the history that I’ve been around. And we’ve done it because the Republicans said that’s what they wanted, and I wanted to be fair.”

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