It continues to astound me that the gentle members of Congress have no sense of urgency about the millions of people whose lives are hanging by a thread right now. None whatsoever. And of course, the Republicans will block any attempt to help them because, well, that’s what they do.
I actually feel sorry for those politicians. Imagine being the kind of person whose accomplishments are all about blocking other people’s solutions to actual problems – in other words, choosing the dark path of destruction every time. What empty souls they must be:
WASHINGTON — President Obama took a question on the campaign trail Monday from a little boy who asked if his father, an unemployed construction worker, would find a job before his unemployment insurance runs out.
The president responded that he hoped the boy’s father would find work, but that if he doesn’t, he hoped the unemployment benefits would still be there.
“Now, we tried to extend unemployment insurance beyond normal right after the recession hit,” Obama said. “We were able to extend it again in 2010. It’s been harder now to get Congress to extend it further.”
“And so we’ll continue to negotiate with Congress to make sure that unemployment is there,” the president added. “But the most important thing I want to do is make sure your dad can get a job.”
Two million people will be cut off from benefits when federal unemployment insurance expires the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, according to the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group based in New York. But Congress is not ready to worry about it. The Huffington Post asked lawmakers on Tuesday if preserving unemployment insurance in 2013 is on their radar.
“No, it’s not,” Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of Senate committee that oversees unemployment insurance, said as he boarded a Senate elevator. “Not yet.”
No, because none of the banking lobbyists have asked for it, Max thought to himself!
“I have not heard any discussion about what we can do there,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who has made a lot of noise lately about safety net programs like food stamps and Social Security Disability Insurance. “I have not given thought to what precisely we ought to do, whether it’s phasing down or what. The fundamental thing is we need to create more jobs … and everybody has got to be out hustling to find work. There’s just no other way to make America productive.”
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, you can kiss my ass. “Hustling to find work?” You are truly an affront to human decency, and to the men and women struggling to survive. Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.
But in Congress, unemployment insurance is overshadowed by other financial matters, including the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts, the end of a 2 percentage point reduction in the Social Security payroll tax, and scheduled cuts to defense spending that Republicans are desperate to avoid. Lawmakers call it the “fiscal cliff.”
“It’s unfortunate,” said NELP senior staff attorney George Wentworth. “You’re talking about 2 to 3 million Americans for whom losing unemployment insurance is their fiscal cliff.”
Three million Americans losing their sole source of income? Nah, no economic effects there!
Everybody knows that the poor don’t vote. So the easiest way to reduce the number of people who go to the polls in November and on into the future is to make more poor people. Shrinking the Democratic voting base by forcing people to present an ID is lame when compared to making 50 million more people so poor that they couldn’t care less about voting. Besides if you make ALL the people so poor that they can no longer pay taxes or contribute to Social Security and Medicare you can bring the whole damn system to its knees. You know, “drowned it in a bathtub.” Don’t you just love the Capitalist 1%?
Solution to the ongoing problems: reverse the process, let the 99% govern and drown the 1% in a bathtub, the numbers will prevail!
@Imhotep: Do you believe in self love? Do you believe that people should have incentive to do what they do best (pursue their comparative advantage)? Then you’re a capitalist. You’re just not successful enough in your current system to be part of the 1%. There is no reason to believe that Marx was right and humanity will progress toward a more perfect/less selfish state in a communism and we have very little evidence that as a nation we are progressing toward a Malthusian trough. What are your valid objections to capitalism?
There are a few easy fixes that would solve the problems you’re talking about but clearly don’t understand. First, eliminate billions in dead capital and wasted spending by legalizing and regulating “drugs”. Second, open up free trade. In one market American consumers are paying about $160,000 per worker per year employed in the manufacture of steel products. Replace unemployment compensation with better funded retraining and relocation programs for displaced workers. Fund it by putting capital gains up to $250,000 in line with the marginal tax increases previously ascribed to income associated with labor. Eliminate corporate tax. More funds will be channeled into productive corporate capital by businesses both small and large. There will be more incentive to grow and less incentive to cash out NOW. Reduce the minimum wage while maintaining strong unemployment benefits. This will allow workers to go back to work, generate a product, and yet continue to bring home and earn something close to what they were previously earning. It will also allow their unemployment benefits to be extended because working at any wage will offset the quantity paid out in unemployment. Increase support for student-work programs. Overall this will generally increase our deficit. However the shift in growth rate over the next 7 years will allow the credit agencies to return our country to an AAA standing. Job continuity will allow workers to get back into homes, relieve downward pressure on a depressed housing market, and the actions of high powered money from the FED will be able to be enjoyed by more people.
The biggest problem after a shock like the home equity crisis is assessing loan risk. There has to be about 7 years of increased and prolonged stability for owner occupied home sales to effectively increase from low lending rates. Even if the monetary policy changes took effect immediately you wouldn’t see the results for AT LEAST that long.
Both parties buy your vote with campaign promises. The negative effects of deficit spending are offset by economic growth. The negative effects of monetary quantitative loss in net import-exports is offset by strong positive investment from other countries!
What does this mean for the 99% (or whatever the % of the population is who do not have a credit score worthy of a rate that allows them to afford to move into a home on their income)? It means get out and VOTE! Vote for the politicians who are interested in long term stability of both production and consumption. Ignore the party lines. Is that Democrat in support of reducing corporate tax so businesses can hire more Americans? Vote for them! Is that Republican in favor of reducing minimum wage while maintaining or even increasing unemployment benefits? Vote for them! Vote!