Washington, D.C. -- After several weeks of public meetings, Congressional Democrats made public today their long-awaited proposal to extend the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits through the end of the year. Members of the Republican negotiating team, including Texas Congressman Kevin Brady, were left scratching their heads.

“It’s puzzling. Democrats offered no ideas on how to pay for all the new spending, rejected all of the job-ready reforms and barely changed the unemployment weeks to 93," said Brady. "That’s actually to the left of President Obama who has called for scaling them back to 79.”

In a brief one-page offer, Democrats also rejected out of hand provisions by Republicans to reform the unemployment program by requiring workers to search for a job from day one and allowing states to drug test and help low-educated workers pursue a GED. 

“We want a 21st century unemployment system that does more than simply send a check," said Brady. "We want our workers to be job ready from day one and to allow states to create innovative programs to more quickly match workers with new jobs. These common-sense reforms are long overdue.”

With the clock ticking to an end-of-month deadline, Brady wonders if Democrats on Capitol Hill are even serious about meeting the deadline.

“Time is running out so we expected something more substantive than this," he added. "The House bill remains the only bi-partisan bill to extend the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits through the end of the year which doesn’t add to the deficit. Unless Democrats get serious that’s the only solution that ready to go today.”