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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUnemployment insurance extension hangs in the balance
This issue is getting me riled up not only against Republicans, but also against Democrats.Seriously, 3 months and no serious reforms that would help long term unemployed find a job. Frankly, I am tired by this notion that we should just continue keeping people in these programs and get more and more the feeling that we are just used as a way to show Republicans are bad (and that Dems would prefer keeping the question open until the election, like the GOP wants to keep Obamacare, rather than actually helping). The only way this is not true is if they truly believe that people just want a check, or if they believe they have no power on the economy. Seriously, this is the best they can do.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/01/03/unemployment-insurance-extension-hangs-in-the-balance/
Next week, as early as Monday, Senate Democrats will move to vote on a three month extension for unemployment benefits for the 1.3 million people who lost them just after Christmas.
But the chances of passage for the measure are hanging in the balance, the Democratic Senator who is taking the lead on rounding up Senate votes for the legislation tells me.
...
Frankly, Matt O' Brien sums up the idiocy of this debate, between the GOP who thinks that cutting these benefits will magically solve these problems and Democrats who somehow seems to believe that just adding jobs will help long term unemployment. Get out of your bubble. We are sinking and we cannot even find these jobs at $8.00 an hour. Do something. And stop behaving as if you believe that sending checks is what we want. We want jobs. Benefits are just a stop gap measure and dems should be focused getting people out of these programs, something I do not see.
I know I am probably ranting here more than anything else, but when I hear Dems and articulate Republicans speak, I find the GOP rethoric a lot more appealing. I wished I could believe them (I obviously do not).
But theres still no indication Republicans will vote accordingly. As the Atlantics Matt OBrien put it:
Republicans are refusing to extend these extended benefits any longer. They think we have to get benefits back to normal even if the economy isnt that taking benefits away will give the jobless a needed swift kick in the you-know-what to go get a job companies wont even look at the resumés of the long-term unemployed. So the only reason they had to keep searching was to qualify for benefits that required them to. Take those benefits away, and you take those people away from the labor force.
And BTW, note to some Democratic politicians. Before you talk on a talk show about unemployment insurance, learn how it works. It stopped being 99 weeks a while ago and its maximum length is depending on the state. Or do they think we are too stupid to notice?
"stop behaving as if you believe that sending checks is what we want" ...Dems see this as an inferior solution to the Republicans refusal to consider a jobs bill
but
the mythical "free market" does not work in today's world (for us 'little people')
"...A liberal is a libertarian who has been mugged by the invisible hand. Someone who recognizes the government needs to step in when the private sector won't. Like when people who want a job can't find one, because they lost their old one at a bad time in the business cycle. Extending unemployment insurance is just about the least we can do for them. It gives them a reason to keep looking for work. Gives them barely enough money to stay afloat. And gives the economy a little stimulusthe CBO calculates that extending benefits would add 200,000 jobs this year."
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/rand-paul-couldnt-be-more-wrong-about-unemployment-insurance/282144/
it is all interconnected and at least unemployment keeps the pump primed so the system doesn't all freeze up (or so says my wise SO)