The vote in the California Assembly was one vote short of the super-majority needed to accept the money. All Democrats and 2 Republicans voted for the measure.
The Republicans swear that they love the idea of helping the unemployed. They were just afraid that there might be flaws in the bill or, in my favorite comment, worried that the aid for people hurting NOW, "might raise costs for employers by eventually forcing a hike in payroll taxes."
Yes, let's not help families eat today when there is a maybe possible, in-the-vague-future, potential for higher business taxes .
Horse manure. Tax increases are a completely different subject -- and would require their own impossible to get super-majority.
The Republicans seem fixated on blocking programs that will help the economy. I struggle to come up with a motivation. I suspect that Republicans really don't want President Obama and the Democrats to get political credit for fixing the economy. They're sabotaging everything they can so they can roar back into power saying "We told you so."
But, their actions are evil. Evil. Straight out of the Bible, or directly from humanist philosophy, Evil.
Read a more impartial news story.