About a half-hour ago, the Senate voted to clear a procedural hurdle and end debate on a bill that would extend unemployment benefits by at least 14 weeks in all states. The vote was a lopsided 85-2, with only Kit Bond (R-MO) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) voting no. Interestingly, South Carolina has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, sitting at 11.6%, but that wasn’t enough to persuade DeMint to give those workers a break.

The final passage on this bill couldn’t come before Wednesday, under Senate rules. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) spoke on the floor urging a final vote for passage sooner than that. And after that, the House would need to reconcile with the Senate’s bill, which includes unrelated measures like a homebuyer’s tax credit and business tax breaks that cost $20 billion dollars, as opposed to the $2 billion that extending unemployment would cost.

Nevertheless, despite spending 10 times as much on well-off homebuyers and businesses, Republicans continued to whine that their non-germane amendments weren’t considered on the floor. And then they promptly voted to end debate anyway.