It sucks to be unemployed, but it just got a whole lot worse thanks to a Republican filibuster in the Senate. Republicans are under the impression that there are millions of jobs out there that unemployed Americans are simply too fat and lazy to accept; they're too soft and have no incentive to get a job.

They would rather, some say, live off the government teat. So Republicans successfully killed a jobs bill yesterday that would have extended unemployment benefits to more than one million out of work Americans.

According to most reports, it's taking anywhere from six months to a year for the unemployed to find a new job.

Extending benefits to the unemployed is considered by most credible economists the right thing to do in a deep recession even though it requires deficit spending. Why? Because the money almost certainly goes right back into the local economy on bare necessities: food, housing, and car payments.

It also prevents people from falling deeper into poverty, which inevitably leads to more costly problems - foreclosures, defaults on car loans, loss of health care, and homelessness - expenses the taxpayer picks up down the road.

These are the same expenses that pull down a recovery and lead to a double-dip recession, economists are warning. Even President Obama warned European leaders last week to take it easy on Draconian budget cutting because they'll make their economies worse.

But Republicans see this as a time for tough love. I see elections around the corner which tells me it's more about tough luck.