This guy is an idiot:

[The Straight Story]

In good times, state unemployment benefits last 26 weeks and are financed by a tax on employers. In hard times, and these are very hard times, it's not unusual for the federal government to add 13 weeks. Because this is an extremely tough jobs climate — nearly 40% of the unemployed have been out of work for more than 27 weeks, by far the worst number since those statistics began in 1948 — that is certainly justifiable.

Not only is that compassionate, it is the most efficient kind of stimulus because the administrative cost is negligible and the unemployed pump all the money right back into the economy, saving or creating jobs that they themselves might one day fill.

But endless unemployment benefits are also a disincentive to find work. A sensible balance needs to be struck — and soon because all the extensions are set to expire at the end of the year.

An easier call is to extend subsidies that help the newly jobless pay for their health care by subsidizing 65% of so-called COBRA premiums. This is essential to keep families from losing their health care when the breadwinners lose their jobs. At a cost of $15 billion, families can get the benefit for nine months — the same benefit people laid off this year have received.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/12/debate-on-unemployment-our-view-99-weeks-of-jobless-pay-is-a-bridge-too-far-4.html#more

Disincentive to find work?? So he thinks people just like sitting around on a fixed income making only a percent of what they used to? That we enjoy feeling depressed, that we like to answer the question a prospective date asks us "so, what do you do for a living" with "I'm unemployed".

Instead of extending benefits he wants those benefits to run out but give us a discount on health insurance???? How the FUCK do you pay for it even at a discount of your income is now ZERO and unemployment is 10%???

Dumbass.

[L0oniX]

1. ...much less make a co-payment or meet a yearly deductible.

[Stinky The Clown]

2. I agrue with the premise that "endless unemployment benfits is a disincentive to work"

It may well be true for some small number of the unemployed, but collecting unemployment benefits is hardly a way to live and grow. It is simply a way to minimally survive.

There is no pride in it. Most of us take satisfaction in working and self sustaining. Not all. Most.

There is little chance to actually improve one's lot while collecting unemployment benefits. One simply marks time. There is no new car. There may not even be new tires for the old car.

In short, I disagree with your fundamental premise

[tjwash]

3. Reagan called UI a "safety net for the lazy" and tried to do away with it.

Same with welfare, food stamps, and any other social programs designed to keep people fed and not starving to death so that the dead bodies keep from piling up. You would think that after 2500 years, the ultra-rich in any society would figure out the "keep people relatively healthy and you won't keep getting plagues" angle in a society, but they haven't.

Then the assholes would probably complain about having to pay for the "bring out your dead" carts.

[Vincardog]

4. Dumb A$$es like this are constantly working so save us from becoming dependent on the Nanny state

Why is socialism only good for parasitic corporations?

[safeinOhio]

17. Ayn Rand took it a step father and thought it evil

to help a relative out with money. That would include your children and parents.

[asdjrocky]

5. Sometimes I'm really afraid to click on links with that kind of headline

because part of me is convinced that once I do, I'll see a big picture of myself.

Now, about the piece- This guy has never known hard times. It's like the rich guys sitting around in Monty Python making up how bad it was for them in their youth. This guy has never know adversity.

[Cerridwen]

6. It's part of the mindset that says homeless people are homeless by choice,

and poor people are poor because they're lazy and only "rich," "successful" people have God's Grace™; that is, everyone "else" is NOT one of God's Chosen™.

[JVS]

7. Oh god. Sorry, I accidentally unrecced!

[The Straight Story]

8. NP, now if I were getting paid by the rec it might be a problem

:rofl:

[JVS]

12. Well, it's a good post and I wanted it to go up, not down.

[tjwash]

9. I went and balanced it back to zero

I accidentally do that all the time BTW...maybe they need to work on where those rec-unrec links are situated :freak:

[JVS]

11. Thanks

[JVS]

10. This is why tying health insurance to employment is a stupid and outmoded idea.

Employer paid health insurance was conceived in an era of life long work by a single company. For 20 years now we have been told to expect a life with more changes of employment. Even without the problem of unemployment, continuing this system is stupid.

[dysfunctional press]

14. yep.

and there's not always a lot of consistency between employer's plans....if someone IS lucky enough to find re-employment any more.

a single-payer system would be extremely liberating to employers and employees alike- but it's the 'employees alike' part that bothers the business world.

[dysfunctional press]

13. my wife got approved for 52 weeks right off the bat when her job went away in sept.

but i also know a couple of people who'll be losing their benefits come january.

something is going to have to give...soon.

all that they seem to be doing is waiting and hoping that they can inflate the same bubble all over again- but with lower wages for the proles- because maybe that can make it work.

2010 is going to be a more interesting year than it was a movie.

[Bitwit1234]

15. And the depression you feel because you don't have a job and

knowing your benefits will soon expire. He is nuts. That health care money would go to his buddies, the insurance industry. And the republicans they have a good way to end this economic horror THEY and bush caused. They want to put a moratorium on tax hikes til the economy is back to where it should be and to give tax cuts. What in the hell good are tax cuts, if you have no salary to take tax cuts for.

[StarfarerBill]

16. Thanks for this.

This guy wants to give us incentive to work? Give us effing jobs, eff-face!

From my own perspective: if it weren't for UC extensions, I'd be a lot further up the financial creek than I am now.

But I still can't afford health insurance...:(

[seeinfweggos]

18. spoken like a man who has never had to deal with hard times

[safeinOhio]

19. I think we could require recipients to spend 40 hrs

a week picketing bank CEOs homes.

[unblock]

20. it IS a disincentive to find work. but the reich wing specializes in oversimplified partisan dogma

first, as you point out, they ignore that the INCENTIVES to find work vastly outweight the disincentive of unemployment compensation not to find work. they do the same thing with taxes. yes, income taxes are a disincentive to earn income. but, uh, INCOME is a vastly huge incentive to earn income and that vastly outweighs the taxes disincentive, at nearly ANY marginal tax rate. people still earned income when top tax rates were 90%!

second, their arguments have a quasi-religious eternity to them, they completely ignore the economic circumstances of the day. taxes are ALWAYS too high and NEVER need to be raised, no matter what level they're currently at. if the top tax rate were 90%, and they wanted a cut to 80%, they might have a case. but if the top tax rate were 3%, they'd will be screaming for cuts. similarly, WHAT'S THE POINT IN GIVING PEOPLE A GREATER INCENTIVE TO WORK WHEN NO ONE'S HIRING? we've got 10% official unemployment, there are plenty of people out there looking. no one's hiring, and the layoffs keep coming. so what good would it do to make the unemployed look harder?

[elehhhhna]

21. this is another way to funnel fed $ DIRECTLY to insurance companies