The Unemployed Held Hostage, Again

[Elmore Furth]

The same people who generated wealth for the past 20 years for the wealthy and corporations now are at risk for being discarded or used as pawns to get further tax cuts for the rich. Disgusting.

This time, tax cuts for the rich are bound to drive and distort the debate again. Republicans and Democrats will almost certainly link the renewal of jobless benefits to an extension of the high-end Bush-era tax cuts. That would be a travesty. There is no good argument for letting jobless benefits expire, or for extending those cuts.

Some opponents of unemployment benefits — mostly Republicans but a few Democrats as well — would have you believe those figures are evidence of laziness, enabled by generous benefits. They conveniently ignore three facts. One, there are five unemployed people for every job opening — a profound scarcity of jobs. Two, federal benefits average $290 a week, about half of what the typical family spends on basics and hardly enough to dissuade someone from working. Three, as unemployment has deepened, benefits have become less generous. Earlier this year, lawmakers ended a subsidy to help unemployed workers pay for health insurance and dropped an extra $25 a week that had been added to benefits by last year’s stimulus law.

Other opponents would have you believe that the nation cannot afford to keep paying unemployment benefits: a yearlong extension would cost about $60 billion. The truth is, we cannot afford not to. The nation has never ended federal benefits when unemployment is as high as it is now, and for good reason: Without jobs, there is inadequate spending, and that means ever fewer jobs. A wide range of private and government studies show that unemployment benefits combat that vicious cycle by ensuring that families can buy the basics.

Nor do jobless benefits bust the budget. Just the opposite. They do not add to dangerous long-term deficits because the spending is temporary. And because they support spending and jobs, they contribute powerfully to the economic growth that is vital for a healthy budget. Extending the Bush high-end tax cuts would be budget busting, because they are likely to endure, adding $700 billion to the deficit over 10 years. Tax cuts for the rich provide virtually no economic stimulus, because affluent people tend to save their bounty.



The Unemployed Held Hostage, Again

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Is this pre-emptive revenge by the republicans for letting the tax cuts for the rich expire

or were they going to punish the unemployed anyway?

[Lorien]

3. No, they oppose everything that would help average Americans for two reasons

1). Corporations fund their campaigns, not average Americans and 2). They want to destroy the Country so that they can rise to power again, and finally drive America into third world status.

[Lorien]

2. It's amazing that we're even having this discussion today. It would have been inconcievable

in the 1970's (when we still had a Fairness Doctrine). There would be no question whatsoever: tax breaks for the rich while allowing the unemployed to starve would have been viewed as pure evil by just about every American. Now, that's to 24/7 Right Wing propaganda and the Left's adoption of Rush Limbaugh's views of the Fairness Doctrine, pure evil has triumphed.

What the owners want most of all is for all of us to keep telling ourselves that there's nothing we can do about it.