Ideology is a fine thing as long as it doesn't get confused about its place in regards to reality, when it does it becomes idiotology. The US Senate had a bill before it - several times - to, among other things, extend unemployment benefits that are expiring. It seems that there is a little matter of the Federal deficit and the bit about encouraging lay-abouts to go get a job rather than subsidizing their ... laziness.
The rather nasty contrast between wealthy Senators (you know of a blue collar income one?) and the recipients of unemployment checks might clue you into my general regard for these cretins (sure, who are the cretins he speaks of?). I suppose there'd be some kind of justification for the "market approach" if there were jobs out there. Employers are not going begging for employees who are laying around licking their nuts on the taxpayer dime.
The Federal deficit is a result of spending out pacing tax and fee income - it isn't rocket science. It costs money to extend unemployment benefits - the taxes paid for unemployment insurance aren't sufficient to deal with this kind of extended unemployment. There is a little matter that the Confederate Party of Republicanism and Plutocracy won't deal with and that is what happens to those benefits after they're issued. Unemployment checks don't offer a life of luxury and savings, they get spent on directly sustaining products and rents or mortgages. Somebody makes and distributes those products or depends on payments of obligations and those are taxable - they are government income and they are jobs which is something different than unemployment to come without those consumers spending. Adding to the roles of the unemployed and foreclosed properties is not a recipe for recovery.
This is a case of the interests of business and of workers coinciding and the GOP standing pretty much alone as assholes. There is even talk of the GOP gaining seats in November. I just can't talk myself into the proposition that America deserves even more of their asshattery and needs some real suffering as a lesson. I don't care whether it is left or right, idiotology isn't the way to go.
1 comment:
Something that occurred to me as I read your post is the irony of my own situation. I'm a public school teacher who was laid off last November. Now, here in CA (as in the rest of the country) we're having a terrible time finding the money to pay our teachers. We've cut every possible "extra" (you know, like school buses), packed the classrooms like sardines, and are still laying off more teachers.
Now, all this time my family and I have been enormously saved both by unemployment extension and the COBRA reduction in the stimulus ($300 instead of $900) is a lot better on a tight budget.
So, while the state has been laying off teachers because they can't afford them, the federal government has been paying me to sit at home.
But hey - my blog won't write itself, right?!!!! ;)
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