Think Progress reports:

Yesterday, the House of Representatives failed to pass a (far too short) three-month extension of unemployment benefits. If Congress does not act to extend benefits by the end of the month, 2.5 million Americans will lose their benefits, right in the midst of the holiday season.

At the same time, Congress is intensely debating whether or not to extend the Bush tax cuts for the richest two percent of Americans, at a cost of $830 billion over the next decade. Earlier this week, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) called for a permanent extension of the tax cuts for the rich, while deriding extending unemployment benefits as “some new massive spending.”

And in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio, the incoming chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, Rep. John Kline (R-MN), pronounced that extending benefits is not a priority for the incoming Republican Congress because “we can’t fund everything.” “We just don’t have the money,” Kline said...

Kline also supports extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. So in his world, $830 billion to finance tax cuts for the wealthy is fine, but $12.5 billion to extend unemployment benefits for three months is too expensive.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) is also a part of this crowd, supporting a full extension of the Bush tax cuts, but saying today, “we’re facing a fiscal crisis. If we’re going to choose to extend unemployment, we’ve got to find a way to pay for it.” Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) added, “we can both provide this help and pay for it by cutting less effective stimulus spending. That’s what we should be debating today.”

In the last forty years, the U.S. has never allowed extended benefits to expire with the unemployment rate above 7.2 percent, far below today’s rate of 9.6 percent. Plus, there are currently five unemployed persons for every job opening in the country. In fact, there are so few job openings, that even if every open position in the country were filled, four out of five unemployed workers would still be out of work. But for Kline and the other House Republicans, extending tax cuts for the rich is much higher on the priority list then ensuring that these households have an adequate safety net.

The Center for American Progress reports on why these benefits are so important:

These benefits provide critical assistance to unemployed individuals and their families while they find a new job. They kept 3.3 million people out of poverty in 2009, and they enable those out of work to keep putting food on the table and pay their bills.

There’s a strong economic case for continuing these benefits, too. Unemployment benefits are one of the most effective and efficient ways to boost demand, which is exactly what our economy needs right now. Economists estimate that the economy grows by $1.61 for every dollar spent on unemployment benefits because recipients typically spend all of their benefit payments quickly.

UI benefits further stabilize the economy by keeping customers coming into small- and medium-sized businesses. Small businesses in particular are concerned about sales, and they would see fewer customers buying their goods without unemployment benefits because the jobless would have no money to spend. These businesses would in turn have less income they could invest and make purchases at other establishments. This cycle lowers overall demand.

Opponents of unemployment insurance like to argue that these benefits are just a giant welfare program that allows people to collect income without having to look for a job. But San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank researchers discovered that “extended unemployment insurance benefits have not been important factors in the increase in the duration of unemployment or in the elevated unemployment rates.”

To abandon the unemployed while giving the richest Americans tax breaks would be a sin.

Click here and send a message to Congress demanding that they extend benefits.