The Wall Street Journal reported today that “the U.S. and European governments are moving toward a consensus on taxing large banks to cover the cost of any future bailouts rather than asking taxpayers to foot the bill.” This is welcome news, as various iterations of the bank tax have been kicking around for months — from the Obama administration’s proposal to recoup TARP funds via a bank charge to the $150 billion resolution authority tax included in the House of Representatives’ regulatory reform bill — with nothing officially becoming law.

But now that other countries are starting to voice their support, it looks more and more likely that such a tax will come into being, especially because wider implementation would alleviate the concern that companies would simply pick up and leave if any country were to impose a tax unilaterally. In fact, “officials in the U.S., Europe and the IMF say the bank-tax concept has gained so much momentum that it is likely to be on the agenda when of the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations meet in Canada in June.”

Of course, the banking industry is dead set against any form of bank tax coming into effect. “Global policy makers should be very cautious about advancing any public policy that removes capital from the system — be it in the form of a tax, a fee or otherwise,” said Rob Nichols, president of the Financial Services Forum, which represents the very biggest financial firms. But the real barrier to implementation is conservatives in Congress, who continue to go to bat for the banks, actively selling themselves as defenders of the regulatory status quo.

Remember, Republicans in Congress refused to applaud the bank tax during the State of the Union in January. They’ve taken to mischaracterizing the House’s resolution fund as a “permanent bailout fund,” which even CNBC’s right-wing anchor Larry Kudlow has said is nonsense. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the ranking member of the Senate finance committee, even decided to claim victory over a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the tax that essentially confirmed what the tax’s advocates have been saying.

There are plenty of good economic reasons for instituting a bank tax, including leveling the playing field a bit between large and small banks and protecting taxpayers from the cost of the future bank failures. Today, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Sheila Bair lent her support to the tax, saying that “it’s really a taxpayer protection fund.” “It will set up a mechanism going forward that doesn’t put the taxpayer at any risk for resolving one of these very large entities if they get in trouble again,” she said. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) will reportedly begin hearings on the bank tax next month.

So where will conservatives come down on this? If other countries move ahead with similar plans, the competitiveness argument goes out the window, leaving precious little in the way of opposition that doesn’t amount to straight-up shilling for the very largest financial firms.

Last month, Sen. Jim “tough sh*t” Bunning (R-KY) was joined by a cohort of Republicans in blocking an extension of unemployment benefits. And last week, the GOP decided to put together a sequel, with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) stepping into Bunning’s role. While Bunning was eventually worn down last time, Coburn had enough support for his stand that the Senate adjourned without extending benefits, which means that, for at least one week, some recipients of benefits will see them run out.

That their obstruction is actually going to have a concrete effect has triggered some introspection among Republicans. However, it hasn’t led them to rethink their current position. Instead, as Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) revealed, it’s made them decide that they should have lent more support to Bunning last time around:

“We didn’t give [Bunning] as much help as we probably should have,” Kyl said at a press conference…”I think the sentiment [over the growing deficit] has been there for a long time,” Kyl said. “It took an act of courage like Sen. Bunning’s to perhaps jolt people into the awareness of how bad it had really gotten.“

Kyl added that, while he’s not sure the entire GOP caucus will agree to continue blocking the benefits after Congress returns from recess, “the sentiment will be much stronger going forward than it has been in the past.” Coburn added that people whose benefits run out will actually appreciate the GOP’s obstruction. “Hopefully they’re not going to stay unemployed, and when they’re reemployed, one of two things is going to happen: Either we’re going to cut spending or somebody’s going to raise their taxes,” he said.

Of course, it’s not like support for Bunning was in short supply when he took his stand. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) called him a “national hero,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said that he respected Bunning’s for standing “like a solid rock,” and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) added that he admired Bunning’s “courage.”

According to the National Employment Law Project (NELP), one million people will see their benefits expire in April without an extension, while 212,000 are going to lose their benefits over the Congressional recess. “It is unacceptable that Congress has, for a second time, failed to extend the existing federal benefits programs with so many people counting on this assistance. We have been down this road already and seen the turmoil it caused. Congress cannot continue to play games with people’s lives,” said Christine Owens, Executive Director of NELP.

Of course, these numbers may not mean anything to Republicans, since they seem to believe that unemployment benefits create “hobos,” and “turn the ‘safety net’ into a hammock.” Earlier this month, 16 Republican senators from states with double-digit unemployment voted against an extension of unemployment benefits.