Thread by @sarahdwire

Millions of Americans lost unemployment benefits today.

Congress waited until the last minute, but passed a bill to extend unemployment for those people through mid-March. The president hasn't signed it.

Congress attached the unemployment benefits and a $600 check for most Americans to a bill that funds much of the government through the federal fiscal year that ends in September. Without the president's signature on that bill, the government largely shuts down Tuesday

Government shutdowns are bad, and they cost a lot of money, but that aside, those millions of Americans who lose unemployment today still wont have money for rent, food, gas, you name it until the argument between the president and Congress gets resolved PLUS a few weeks

See, unemployment is run by the states and every state system is different. It takes time for federal agencies to write rules to implement bills passed by Congress and for states to apply those rules to their own systems and get checks out the door to people who need help

Even if Congress and the president could resolve their disagreement Monday (something that is highly unlikely) most states wont be able to turn around the new rules quickly enough to get unemployment checks out by Jan. 1

Dems passed a bill in May they knew had no chance w/ Republicans. The GOP didn't even consider it.

Neither side spoke for months. It wasn't until millions of people were about to be harmed that they came back to the table. So yes, all of Congress waited until the last minute

McConnell wouldn't negotiate for months. Pelosi and Mnuchin tried repeatedly over the summer. I wrote about it a lot. It was pretty clear there was no middle ground that could get decisionmakers together to make a deal until Americans realized they were going to lose a lifeline

Nonetheless the point of this thread is that millions of Americans are losing their unemployment insurance