Negotiators say they have a deal on a $150 billion bill to extend the payroll tax cut, some unemployment insurance benefits and the “doc fix” to the end of the year, a bill that will sacrifice some health care prevention money, several weeks of unemployment eligibility, and at the very end, pension contributions for new federal employees.

Democrats are planning to attach a veteran’s hiring preference, one of the original remaining pieces of the Obama Jobs Bill, to a House-passed bill that repeals a law requiring 3 percent withholding from federal contractors. These people aren’t serious.

At the time that the American Jobs Act was announced, it was clear that it would only have value as a rhetorical measure, to delineate between one side trying to put people back to work and the other side protecting millionaires. That does seem to be working in a broad sense. The White House even put it in infographic form. Of course, that doesn’t do much for the long-term unemployed.

Regardless of the strategy pursued by the White House and Democratic Congressional leadership, here’s what’s going to happen: there will be no jobs bills because of GOP obstruction, and Republicans will bring the country to the verge of a government shutdown. Again.

How facilitating tax cheating counts as a jobs measure is beyond me, but whatever the case, the bill and its offset go to the Senate. A 3% withholding bill got 57 votes in the Senate last week, with a different offset that just reduces expenditures across the board. That was before the Administration came out in favor of the bills, however. So surely, something incorporating 3% withholding is likely to pass Congress.

As expected, Senate Republicans blocked the state fiscal aid bill that would have put as much as 400,000 teachers and public safety officials back to work. All 47 Senate Republicans voted against cloture on the motion to proceed on the bill. In addition, three members of the Democratic caucus said no. We knew that Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson would be no votes, but Mark Pryor also decided that a 0.5% surtax on every dollar over $1,000,000 for Sam Walton and the Walton family wealthy Americans was too much to ask. This means that the final tally on the bill was 50-50. In a sane world where majority rules, Vice President Biden would have cast the tie-breaker and 400,000 teachers and fire fighters and cops would have jobs to look forward to. As it is, the Senate is an undemocratic institution, and states still suffering with depressed tax revenues will have to continue the rounds of layoffs that have been a lead weight on the economy.

As expected, the American Jobs Act failed to pass a cloture vote last night. The vote was 50-49. Democrats held the vote open so “New Englander of the Year” Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) could return from Boston and cast the final vote in favor, giving them the talking point that a majority supported the bill. Tom Coburn, under treatment for prostate cancer, missed the vote.

President Obama has been traveling the country championing his doomed America Jobs Act as his plan to address the jobs crisis. But during the same time Obama has been publicly flogging this dead show bill, his administration was actually implementing policies and pushing legislation through Congress that will destroy tens of thousand of jobs in this country.

Later today, Senate Republicans will filibuster the American Jobs Act, the $447 billion bill to add demand into the economy through infrastructure spending, payroll tax cuts, extended unemployment insurance and a variety of other programs, paid for by a 5.6% surtax on millionaires. That would stop the bill in its current form.

The proposed 5.6% surtax on millionaires, essentially the creation of a new tax bracket at the $1,000,000 income level, would raise enough money to pay for the American Jobs Act, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That pay-for will be used when the Senate attempts to pass a cloture vote this week on the bill.