As if we need­ed fur­ther proof that Repub­li­cans aren’t inter­est­ed in help­ing cre­ate jobs and strength­en­ing eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty for Amer­i­cans, the Noto­ri­ous G.O.P (which stands for Grave­yard of Progress these days) has blocked Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray’s vet­er­ans jobs bill from com­ing up for a vote in the U.S. Sen­ate, effec­tive­ly killing it for the year:

Eager to shoot down Pres­i­dent Obama’s leg­isla­tive agen­da just weeks before the elec­tion, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans on Wednes­day blocked a mea­sure that would have pro­vid­ed $1 bil­lion over five years to help vet­er­ans find work in their communities.

The mea­sure, which would have poten­tial­ly cre­at­ed jobs for up to 20,000 vet­er­ans, was blocked on a pro­ce­dur­al point by Repub­li­cans, who argued that the bill was unpaid for. Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray, a Wash­ing­ton Demo­c­rat and the bill’s main spon­sor, said the bill would have cov­ered the costs in part with fees on Medicare providers and sup­pli­ers who are delin­quent on their tax bills.

Repub­li­cans in Con­gress con­tin­ue to act as if the Bush error nev­er hap­pened. They would like us all to for­get that while they were in charge, they repeat­ed­ly sent George W. Bush leg­is­la­tion that increased our nation’s debt. There were the Bush tax cuts, which pri­mar­i­ly ben­e­fit­ed the wealthy. There were the inva­sions of Iraq and Afghanistan. And there was the Medicare Part D over­haul. Repub­li­cans had no prob­lem vot­ing for those things dur­ing the ear­ly 2000s. But now that a Demo­c­rat is in the White House, and they’re in the minor­i­ty in the Sen­ate, they have become uncom­pro­mis­ing obstruc­tion­ists. And no won­der: their num­ber one pri­or­i­ty is the defeat of our cur­rent pres­i­dent, not the bet­ter­ment of the nation. As Repub­li­can Minor­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell freely admit­ted a cou­ple of years ago, “The sin­gle most impor­tant thing we want to achieve is for Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to be a one-term president.”

Accord­ing­ly, Repub­li­cans are unwill­ing to coop­er­ate with Democ­rats in pass­ing a jobs mea­sure for our vet­er­ans, who have served our coun­try with dis­tinc­tion and deserve to have jobs to come home to. Their shame­less obstruc­tion­ism is a slap in the face to all of the mil­i­tary fam­i­lies who have sac­ri­ficed so much.

“It’s both shock­ing and shame­ful that Repub­li­cans today chose to kill a bill to put America’s vet­er­ans back to work. At a time when one in four young vet­er­ans are unem­ployed, Repub­li­cans should have been able, for just this once, to put aside the pol­i­tics of obstruc­tion and to help these men and women pro­vide for their fam­i­lies,” Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray said in a state­ment express­ing her dis­ap­point­ment regard­ing the outcome.

“But this vote is stark reminder that Sen­a­tor McConnell and Sen­ate Repub­li­cans are will­ing to do absolute­ly any­thing to ful­fill the pledge he made near­ly two years ago to defeat Pres­i­dent Oba­ma. It doesn’t mat­ter who gets in their way or which Amer­i­cans they have to sac­ri­fice in that pur­suit, even if it’s our nation’s veterans.”

We’d quib­ble with one aspect of Mur­ray’s state­ment: In light of how Repub­li­cans have behaved over the last few years, it is not shock­ing that they would fil­i­buster a jobs bill for vet­er­ans. When Repub­li­cans say they are for cre­at­ing jobs, what they real­ly mean is that they are the­o­ret­i­cal­ly for increas­ing employ­ment. In real­i­ty, they could­n’t care less about Amer­i­ca’s mid­dle and low income fam­i­lies. Their objec­tive is to sound good so they can win elec­tions and seize pow­er. They are not inter­est­ed in gov­ern­ing just­ly or responsibly.

A few Repub­li­cans did break with their par­ty and vote to allow the bill to move for­ward. That almost got Democ­rats to the six­ty-vote thresh­old… the final tal­ly on the pro­ce­dur­al motion end­ed up being 58–40.

The roll call for the Pacif­ic North­west was as follows:

VOTING AYE: Pat­ty Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell of Wash­ing­ton, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Ore­gon, Mark Begich and Lisa Murkows­ki of Alaska

VOTING NAY: Mike Crapo and Jim Risch of Idaho

The Repub­li­cans who broke with their par­ty were Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Lisa Murkows­ki of Alas­ka, Dean Heller of Neva­da, and Scott Brown of Mass­a­chu­setts. No Demo­c­rat sided with the Repub­li­cans to block the bill.