Gridlock Central

As the Senate came into session on Monday, there were no hints of any kind of a breakthrough on the renewal of extended jobless benefits, which started running out for some Americans three weeks ago today.

The dispute is simple - Republicans want to find offsetting budget cuts to pay the cost of extending jobless benefits through the end of November - Democrats are not interested in doing that.

"This will be the eighth week since March that the Senate has debate" the jobless benefits issue, noted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who then launched into some sharp-elbowed jabs at Republicans, who were more than happy to fire right back.

"Our good friends on the other side still don't seem to get it," noted Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, who was only too happy to unload a number of broadsides on the Democrats.

Meanwhile, what looked like a ray of hope for progress on the Medicare "Doc Fix" issue has quickly evaporated, as House Democratic Leaders say they will not act on a Senate plan that was approved last week for a six month plan to address Medicare payments to doctors.

Like extended jobless benefits, which started running out on June 1, that was also the day that payments to doctors for Medicare services were to have dropped by 21%.

The Obama Administration has delayed that rate decrease, in hopes that Congress would have fixed the payment situation by now, but that hasn't happened.

It means doctor payments will go down for some as processing begins on payment claims made since the start of the month.

So what's next?  Democrats seem likely to try to peel off a few GOP votes, as they have done in the past, but it's getting more difficult each week.

One of those seemingly no longer interested in helping out is Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), who says Democrats are obviously not interested in fiscal discipline on the jobless benefits issue.

That leaves only three GOP Senators as possible vote switchers, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).

Two votes are in flux on the Democratic side, those of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE).

We'll see what kinds of changes Democrats might make in the days ahead. As the Senate came into session on Monday, there were no hints of any kind of a breakthrough on the renewal of extended jobless benefits, which started running out for some Americans three weeks ago today. The dispute is simple - Republicans want to find offsetting budget cuts to pay ...