A tiny victory for the social safety net was achieved today, as the House passed the Senate’s version of a bill that will extend unemployment benefits for an additional 14 weeks in the states, and 6 more weeks in those states with unemployment rates over 8.5%. The bill also extends and expands the homebuyer tax credit from the stimulus (qualifying people who buy homes worth up to $800,000) and offers $10 billion in business tax breaks. Overall, to acquire $2 billion for the unemployed, Congress added $20 billion in benefits for businesses and those wealthy enough to buy homes. It’s a small stimulus attached to what amounts to a giveaway that props up housing prices slightly and lets businesses avoid taxes. The whole bill is paid for.

As for those whose benefits have already run out:

The measure would apply to those whose benefits run out by Dec. 31, which is nearly two million people, according to Senate estimates. Those whose checks have already stopped would be able to reapply for another round.

That will not help them regain the several weeks of unemployment benefits they lost when they lapsed in the interim, while Republicans in the Senate obstructed and delayed the bill.

The President plans to sign the bill on Friday morning.

UPDATE: Ryan Grim has some backstory on just how the business taxes and homebuyer’s tax credit will be “paid for” – which sheds a lot of light on why the House added that biofuels rider as a revenue raiser in the manager’s amendment.

As the Senate Majority Leader attempted to move an unemployment-benefits extension through his chamber, he sugared the brew to make it more palatable to the GOP, adding the tax breaks and credit. But he needed money to pay for the billions being spent. In legislative lingo, he needed a “pay-for.”

He found it across the Capitol in the House health care bill. To help pay for her bill, Pelosi was proposing a complicated change to the tax code that involves interest expenses and foreign tax-credit limits. A summary of it follows this story for the curious, but the short of it is that the House had found a way to raise $20 billion over ten years. That was just about what Reid (D-Nev.) needed.

Basically, Reid took a $20 billion dollar credit from the health care bill and applied it to his business tax breaks and homebuyer’s tax credit. This forced Pelosi to find another $20 billion somewhere. And that’s where the biofuels rider comes in, closing the loophole that allows the paper industry to use exactly the same fuel to power their plants (runoff from the paper-making process called “black liquor”), add a bit of diesel to it, and claim a huge tax credit based on using “alternative biofuels.”

That pretty much explains the rider, although a separate part of it increases access to tax credits for companies trying to turn algae into fuel. Emily Waltz wrote a long article about this for Mother Jones, revealing that big energy players like Exxon were moving into the algae market and could qualify for tax credits under this rider. Also, a House aide explains that removing the “black liquor” loophole might make biofuels generally more popular inside Washington, helping industry producers. And lots of biofuel industry producers, particularly of ethanol, are clustered in rural farm areas, many of them represented by Democratic Blue Dogs.