Barney Frank: "Unemployment shouldn't be considered a concession...we should have kept fighing"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

December 10, 2010 04:00 PM
Barney Frank: Unemployments Benefits Aren't A 'Concession'
53 comments
By Susie Madrak

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/barney-frank-unemployments-benefits-a

Now that I understand this was just the standard UI extension renewal, I'm mad as hell that Obama's trying to give away the store for this. If this was the extraordinary step of adding an additional year of benefits, I could see it. But it wasn't, and Barney Frank is right -- they didn't need to extend those tax cuts:

WASHINGTON -- A senior House Democrat suggested Thursday that Congress could have reauthorized extended unemployment benefits even if President Obama hadn't cut a deal with Republicans to attach 13 months of jobless aid to two years of tax cuts for the rich.

"It's totally unbalanced. I think unemployment shouldn't be considered a concession they give to us," Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told HuffPost after Democrats symbolically rejected the tax deal. "I think we should have kept fighting them on it."

Senate Democrats fell seven votes short on Saturday of the 60 needed to break a filibuster and reauthorize jobless aid along with middle-class tax cuts. The Saturday vote set the stage for the White House to strike its deal with Republicans on Monday. Without such a deal, the thinking went, there was no way to get around Republicans and conservative Democrats who would filibuster unemployment if its $60 billion cost wasn't offset with spending cuts.

Frank reminded HuffPost of how it was when Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) blocked a renewal of jobless aid in February. The media treated it as an outrage, and members of his own party begged Bunning to stop. Gradually, though, his insistence on "paying for" federally-funded benefits became a mainstream GOP position. Frank said Democrats should have made an effort to have that fight again.

"I don't know what the end would have been but I don't think we tried hard enough to make it clear that they were the ones obstructing," he said. "I think we should have had that debate for a couple weeks."

[mdmc]

1. r

[DJ13]

2. &k

[femrap]

3. That photo.......

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

And Barney Frank said on TV today that he thought the The Bill for the Rich would pass.

They all suck.

[eleny]

4. It's like the "shock doctrine" being used against us by our own

The deadline is coming so this has to be done *now* and by the way - thi$ i$ what we want in exchange.
And our side goes for it.

[redirish28]

5. Thank you Bernie

:applause: :applause:

[Waiting For Everyman]

6. Exactly. This is such a scam.

And a huge one. A TRILLION dollars spent to authorize 60bn. Just no. If they do it, there will be an uprising, because people are NOT as stupid as they think.

[BzaDem]

7. It wasn't just unemployment. It was the middle class tax cuts, which Republicans would never have

voted for if they didn't include everyone.

The unemployment concession wasn't unemployment benefits generally -- it was the 13 month length of which they were extended. If no tax bill passed, they Republicans probably would have passed a bill that got them through Christmas (that avoided bad publicity), and then phased out the rest of the benefits for people beyond 26 weeks.