Question about "nuking" the Senate

[Timbuk3]

Can anyone answer this for me?

If the Democrats put in a bill to extend unemployment benefits that's paid for by cutting oil company subsidies, would the GOP dare filibuster it? Which brings up the actual question; could the Democrats "nuke" the Senate to pass it, anyway?

I ask because:

A) I don't believe most Americans know that we subsidize oil companies to the tune of about $40 billion/year, and this would sure get it on the nightly news.

B) We don't really like BP all that much.

C) It's pretty easy to make an argument that extending unemployment is a good thing all around and the GOP is evil for opposing it.

Maybe the threat of "nuking" would be enough to get a few GOPasaurs off their holier-than-thou now that we have a Democratic President we shouldn't ever run our credit card shit stand.

[bluestateguy]

1. Is such a bill on the table?

Or is this just a hypothetical?

[Timbuk3]

3. Hypothetical

But, I'd like to know what I'm talking about before I call my Senator.

Not to mention, see if anyone here wants to help GET it on the table.

[Warpy]

2. It can also work short of nuking the Senate

if Harry Reid tells those old boys to get their fat asses down to the floor and start talking in front of the cameras if they want to keep cheating unemployed people they threw out of work out of their benefits.

Reid needs a backbone. It hasn't been a gentleman's club for decades and he needs to realize that or he really will lose to that nutcase Sharron Angle.

Republicans: bad for the country, bad for the planet, just plain BAD and people need to see it.

[Timbuk3]

5. I couldn't agree more

...that people need to see it. But that means getting it on the nightly news. Most people don't blog.

[Ozymanithrax]

4. Republicans would claim that ending subsidies will hurt...

(1) jobs
(2) be anti-capitalist
(3) and that increasing unemployment benefits will only encourage those lazy worthless workers to stay home on the tax payers dime.

[Timbuk3]

6. No Argument From Me

But "take the subsidies from the oil companies and give them to the unemployed" just has such a nice "Robin Hood" ring to it. ;->

[Ozymanithrax]

7. I agree with you 100%. I just don't think it will work as an argument against...

Republicans. They don't expect votes from the unemployed anway.