The U.S. Senate is expected to pass legislation today that would extend unemployment benefits and enact popular tax breaks, despite protests from conservatives who say it adds too much to the $12.5 trillion national debt, the Associated Press reported.

Compassion for the jobless and the political power of an annual package of tax breaks is likely to produce a bipartisan vote to pass the measure, even though it would add more than $130 billion to the budget deficit over the next year and a half.

The bill would provide unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks to the jobless in many states as the economy slowly recovers from the worst recession in decades. The measure easily cleared a procedural hurdle Tuesday by a 66-34 vote, with eight Republicans voting with Democrats to break Republican stalling tactics.

The measure illustrates the great extent to which direct help for the jobless and the poor makes up a large portion of the Democrats’ election-year agenda on jobs, and threatens to squeeze out other items amid concerns about a budget deficit projected at a record $1.6 trillion this year.

The sweeping bill cleans up a host of unfinished congressional business from last year that languished as the Senate focused on health care.

It would also prevent doctors from absorbing a 21 percent cut in payments from the federal Medicare program, and extends through December a generous 65 percent subsidy of health insurance premiums for the unemployed under the COBRA program at a cost of $10 billion.

Democrats also hope this week to finish work on a separate, far smaller job-creation measure blending additional highway spending with new tax breaks for companies that hire the unemployed. The Senate could clear the measure for President Barack Obama’s signature by Friday.

Wednesday’s larger bill also provides the annual extension of $26 billion worth of tax breaks for businesses and individuals that are popular with senators in both parties.