For months, Republicans in the Senate have blocked an extension of the currently expired Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Contingency Fund, a successful jobs program that has created more than 250,000 subsidized jobs for low-income workers through grants to states.

The Emergency Fund has the support of a slew of governors — with conservative darling Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) saying that it provided “much-needed aid during this recession by enabling businesses to hire new workers, thus enhancing the economic engines of our local communities” — but it has been sitting idle since September, causing states to terminate or greatly scale back their employment programs.

The TANF program itself is the nation’s basic welfare program, and before departing for the weekend, the Senate reauthorized TANF while leaving the Emergency Fund on the sidelines:

The bill did not revive an emergency fund, passed as part of the 2009 economic stimulus law, that enabled states to place adults with private employers and youths in summer jobs programs. That funding expired at the end of September after Republicans blocked attempts to extend it.

“This program delivers exactly what my colleagues say they want — jobs — yet time and again, they have put up a unified wall of resistance against reinstating it,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). In fact, House Republicans named the expired program as one of the first things they would cut from the federal budget (saving exactly zero dollars).

As the Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen wrote, “in a sane political world, the death of the TANF Emergency Fund would be a pretty big scandal, and Republicans would be afraid to kill an effective jobs program with an unemployment rate near 10%.” Not only was the program incredibly successful, but it is supported by a huge majority of the public, according to a new poll conducted by Hart Research Associates:

A new poll conducted by Hart Research Associates reveals strong public support for human needs programs that aid low-income and jobless Americans. The poll, commissioned by the Half in Ten campaign, shows overwhelming support for the TANF Emergency Fund, with 79 percent of respondents answering in favor of continuing this successful job-creation engine.

And this favorability is bipartisan, as the TANF Emergency Fund “receives nearly unanimous support from Democrats (90%), as well as strong support from both independents (77%) and Republicans (70%).”

The basic TANF reauthorization was a golden opportunity to extend the Emergency Fund and get a highly effective jobs program back on its feet. Instead, Congress seems content with shrugging at nearly ten percent unemployment.

Two weeks ago, the co-chairs of President Obama’s debt commission released a report proposing, among many other things, raising the Social Security retirement age. According to the co-chairs, such a move is necessary to ensure Social Security’s continuation as a program. “As you all know, Social Security runs out of money in 2037. We’re not making it up. That’s the law,” said co-chair Erskine Bowles.

This sort of rhetoric has been repeated by members of both parties, with Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) saying “We’re going to have to raise the retirement age slowly, in a slow way that doesn’t affect folks 50, 55. But this is just math. We’ve got to do some of these things.” In an interview published today in the Wall Street Journal, the next House Majority Leader, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), agreed:

THOMSON: Are you in favor of increasing the retirement age over the short to medium term?

CANTOR: I think the discussion has to be: There is a difference between those nearing retirement and those who are seniors right now. And those who are younger are not going to see the benefits that seniors today are just by virtue of application of the statute. The formula is such that benefits will be reduced. So if we do not do something to extend retirement age, if we do not do something formulaically in terms of the top end or the top tier of income earners, you’re not going to have this program. You’re just not going to have it. That’s reality.

The “reality” espoused by Cantor and the others actually has no basis in reality. If nothing — nothing! — is done to Social Security, it will pay full benefits until the year 2037. After that, the program is still projected to pay out 75 percent of benefits until 2084, which is close to full benefits once inflation is accounted for. There are certainly progressive changes that could be made to further guarantee Social Security’s solvency, but Cantor’s house-on-fire rhetoric is simply inaccurate.

Plus, of all the policy steps available to Social Security reformers, raising the retirement age is the most regressive, and is pushed due to a faulty understanding of America’s increasing life expectancy. Average life expectancy has been rising, but largely as a result of increases among upper income earners. Middle- and low-income workers have not seen the same increases. As the Center for Economic and Policy Research put it, “there has been a sharp rise in inequality in life expectancy by income over the last three decades that mirrors the growth in inequality in income.”

As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman asked, “you’re going to tell janitors to work until they’re 70 because lawyers are living longer than ever?” For Cantor, the answer is clearly yes.

A handful of incoming Republican lawmakers — including Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R-UT) and Reps.-elect Jeff Denhem (R-CA) and Tim Scott (R-SC) — have said that they will not vote to increase the debt ceiling, even though the U.S. government will reach its borrowing limit early next year. “I’m going to vote against raising the national debt ceiling. We simply can’t continue to mortgage the future or our unborn children and grandchildren,” Lee said.

Plenty of Republican freshman besides these three also ran on opposition to a debt ceiling increase, and according to Rep.-elect Bill Johnson (R-OH), many of them have agreed to stick to their guns when the vote comes:

Rep.-elect Bill Johnson of Ohio said those who ran on such messages didn’t intend to reverse themselves now. “Most of us agreed that to increase the limit would be a betrayal of what we told voters we would do,” he said. GOP leaders hope to package a debt-limit vote with significant spending cuts, making it easier for Republicans to vote for it. But it isn’t clear that will be enough for many of the GOP freshmen.

Incoming Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) has been talking to the GOP’s freshmen about the debt ceiling, telling them “we’re going to have to deal with it as adults.” “Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations, and we have obligations on our part,” Boehner said. And he’s correct that raising the ceiling affirms that the country will pay off the debts its incurred. As the Center for American Progress’ David Min pointed out, failure to raise the debt ceiling could be disastrous:

The financial markets are on edge today, with U.S. Treasury bonds being the safe haven for most investment capital. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling would recklessly disrupt the sale and purchase of new Treasury bonds, and could potentially cause a run on outstanding Treasurys as well, as investors sought other investments. This could have catastrophic consequences for our economy as well as the economic stability of the rest of the world.

Such a move will also increase long-term deficits and debt, while cutting off Social Security and Medicare benefits for millions of seniors. But if Johnson is to be believed, many incoming Republican freshman will put that second to their Tea Party ideology.

Cross-posted on ThinkProgress.