Republicans and a few Democrats have prevented passage of an extension of unemployment benefits. The bill did not come to the floor for a vote today and 2,000,000 will lose their benefits in December. Merry Christmas.
The opponents of the extension are generally the same clamoring for the continuation of the Bush tax cuts for the rich. So let’s get this straight - a one year extension of unemployment benefits would cost $60 billion dollars of short term deficit. The Bush high-end tax cuts will cause a structural deficit of $700 billion over the next 10 years. Hmm - this somehow makes sense to a deficit hawks.
For every dollar in unemployment benefits there are two dollars pumped into the economy - more economic activity means more jobs. The unemployed will spend the money, not hoard it. One thing appears quite clear - the Bush high end tax cuts suck at job creation.
Some Congressman oppose the benefits because they claim it keeps people from looking for a job. I guess living high on the hog is easy when you get $290/week.
We have never cut off benefits when the unemployment rate was this high. The jobless rate is 9.6% - if we factor in the underemployed, the figure is closer to 17%.
How these people can sleep at night is beyond me.
Obama met with the leaders of the Party of No today and they made some progress on, you guessed it, compromising on the tax break extensions for the rich. While the President doesn’t pass legislation, he can use his bully pulpit to get the public behind what makes sense and he can twist arms in the halls of Congress to get the Democrats on board. They still have a majority in both houses.
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