The Senate will in all likelihood finally put together a plan to extend unemployment insurance benefits for millions of jobless Americans, after months upon months of Republican obstruction. However, the bill will not be solely confined to that. Two other provisions will be grafted on to it, both of which cost much more than extending unemployment, with a vote probably scheduled for Monday.

What are those provisions? According to a Senate release, the bill will include an expanded version of the homebuyer tax credit that appeared in the stimulus package and was set to expire at the end of the year. For a cost of $10.8 billion dollars to extend it until April 2010, the credit would be available to families making up to $250,000 a year, and would offer $8,000 to first-time homebuyers and $6,500 for homebuyers who have simply stayed in their current residence for at least five years. It’s a poorly-targeted stimulus that appears to be designed to modestly prop up housing sales and prices to service ancillary industries.

But that’s not all. Because no Congressional bill would be complete without a tax perk for businesses, the bill extends the “carryback” provision of net operating losses, from the stimulus, that will allow business to use current losses to refund past tax assessments. That would also cost $10 billion dollars. So for $2.4 billion dollars for the poor and unemployed, the Senate had to throw in $20 billion for rich homebuyers, the real estate industry, and businesses (which is all fully paid for, but still). And this is the bill that everyone can point to and say that they helped out the needy!