The argument I have heard from those who have tried to talk me down from my position that Obama is a pussy is that Obama did it so that the unemployed wouldn’t have to starve during Christmas or something like that.
We have a welfare system with lasts 60 months. it seems to me that we are giving up a lot to preserve the pretense that the 100th week of unemployment benefits is anything more than welfare.
During the Bush presidency when he had a majority in both houses, they couldn’t get an estate tax reform bill passed because the Republicans couldn’t get both an increase in the exemption amount PLUS a reduction of the estate tax rate past a Democratic filibuster. They could have gotten one or the other but you had the heirs to the Mars family fortune pitted against all the folks with 5 or 10 million dollars.
Fast forward to last week, the Democrats in the senate overwhelmingly vote to give them both the 10 million dollar exemption per couple AND the lowering of the estate tax rate to 35%.
And admit we’re in an L-shaped downturn? Not in a democracy, kids, they have to win elections. Keep smiling, pretend to those who still have jobs that everything’s fundamentally sound, & hope those people vote for you. It might just work so long as unemployment stays below 15% or so.
And if we can keep the jobless from voting somehow, even finer!
Naw, just keep up the vewy scawy stories and innuendo that the end of the world is coming (or the downfall of the US economy due to outsourcing/evil republicans/The Rich™/Peak Oil™/Global Warming/whatever meme is popular this week), toss out dire predictions about how hopefully unemployment will (somehow, someway) ‘stay below 15%’ (as if this offhand statement is actually likely and we are heading for it as we speak), then toss in some cheese for the mice about disenfranchising the jobless to protect the system! I’m thinking that all this will get more traction with the base than smiling and pretending that nothing is going wrong.
Fear…fear is what gets the base voting and riled. And the left has the whole fear thing down nearly as well as the right does…hell, maybe better. The focus of the fear is different, the the tactic? Classic.
I’m not so sure xtisme, what I see mostly coming from the current leaderships is the mantra of “don’t worry, be happy” that tactic is the one that I see most often applied so then legislators and governments only need to do less efforts than what are needed to solve an issue.
And it seems to be the one tactic that is most successful.
I don’t really understand what the OP is getting at. Do you think it’s just a matter of marketing to get Congress to approve extending unemployment benefits? “Welfare” is a dirty word in US politics, so if better marketing is needed, then you’re moving in the wrong direction by employing (pun intended) that word.
Besides, isn’t most unemployment money handled at the state level? I’m a bit confused about what the federal role is in this in the first place. Maybe I need some of my ignorance fought.
States have unemployment programs, which they fund from a tax on employers, for up to 26 weeks. With the economic crisis, the federal government has set up an emergency programs giving federal unemployment money for people for whom the state money has run out. Total unemployment that’s provided now, combining both the state and federal programs, is up to 99 weeks. I’m oversimplifying, but…
In general, all the unemployment benefits beyond the traditional 26 weeks are being federally funded. Still administered by the states, though.
This seems like a good place to note that this extension does not allow anyone to go past 99 weeks. Those who have already reached that limit or will reach that limit in the next year will lose benefits at the 99 week point. There seems to have been some confusion about that.
I guess I’m still a bit sore that Obama gave away so much just so that we could call the money the federal government gives to people who haven’t had a job for two years “unemployment insurance” rather than “welfare”
Because if we did we’d have to face the reality of adding 10 million people to the welfare rolls for 5 years. It would be a far, far better investment than tax cuts both for GDP growth and for humanitarian purposes, but it wouldn’t go over well with people.
But $350/wk for 10 million people is 3.5 billion a week. That is about what we spent in Iraq when we had a bigger presence there.
Plus, I don’t think people are ready or willing to accept that the jobs may not come back for 5 years or more. Even if we add something like 300k jobs a month (we aren’t), it’ll take 5 years to get the U3 down to 5% again. And the reality of our unemployment situation is easier to deny by pretending unemployment is a short term solution to a short term problem. Long term welfare would be admitting how messed up the situation is.
There has ever been any truly significant difference between the “right” and “left”. In the end they are only opposing factions of the rich with differing methods of deception. I don’t see right vs. left as any different than coke vs. pepsi. both sell you crap that is bad for for you, and although one may taste better to you, in the end, its still just sugar water no matter the label. And people wonder why I a laugh so hard when I get flamed for calling it all a sham.
The only thing this whole tax-cut/unemployment debacle proves is how much of a farce this supposed democracy really is.
I fail to see how this issue means anything. Extending unemployment or welfare or whatever you wish to call it is a completely ineffectual solution to the nation’s economic troubles, The only thing that will work is creating employment for the unemployed. Jobs need to be created that people can jump right into, make their paycheck, spend it, and pump some life into the system. Am I missing something here? To stimulate the economy, people need to spend money. But having a government that is already deeply in debt just give it away is stupid. Its the proverbial ostrich sticking its head in the sand.
But For all the rhetoric that the right faction spouts about job creation, i don’t see their masters actually creating any jobs for anyone here. Their true colors show, they are simply greedy and the “let them eat cake” attitude is plainly obvious. As for the left faction, they seem to be happy utilizing the desperation of the people to stay in power. In the end all the rich factions get what they want, and the other people have to suffer for it. The shroud of democracy is lifted as the feudal lord screams “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”. Things have not changed nearly as much in the last 1,000 years as we may want to believe.
I have no problem with longer limits on unemployment. My problem is that we seem to be giving the Republicans everything their twisted little hearts desire because they are willing to hold unemployment benefits hostage (along with tax cuts for 98% of Americans and a few other things). My point is that they aren’t holding very much hostage if what we really care about is the welfare of those people whoa re running out of unemployment benefits because we have other forms of welfare.
So we cave on the tax cuts for the wealthy because we think that is going to go over better?
I’m concerned about cost but I am not proposing cutting these people off. I’m proposing that the money we put in their hands should come from additional tax revenues.
THIS!!! Obama seems to be betting big that the economy will be in much better condition in two years. That he will be in a better position to negotiate. He won’t. The economy will slither along for at least a few more years before we absorb all the excess capacity in the system.
Are you proposing a works project? Yeah, Democrats tried that and they didn’t have the votes.
Well America is less than 300 years old so we can’t really take credit for stuff like the Spanish Inquisition but we did start western style democracy, we did eradicate slavery and then segregation, we did create social security and medicare, we did a lot of stuff.
It’s been awhile since I was on unemployment, longer since I was on any kind of assistance. But when I was on unemployment, my benefit was based on my previous earnings. When I was on ADC for a month, it was not.
You can scrape by and maybe keep a middle class mortgage going on unemployment. Go on welfare and the first thing they do is look at your assets. If you’ve got equity in your house, the house must go first. If you’ve got too much equity in your car, it has to go. (It was $2,000, back in the eighties.) Got retirement savings? Not any more.
And your benefits will be the same as anyone else’s benefits, no matter what you used to earn. So if you were flipping burgers and completely spending each paycheck, maybe welfare would pay the same as unemployment. If you had a decent job, you’re going to take a big cut. And you won’t get a dime until you don’t have a dime.
Welfare is not the same as unemployment. It’s a very different benefit.
We could pay for unemployment by taxing the rich. They are making out like thieves on this tax break . The top 15000 of the Americans are getting at least 1.2 million each off the tax break the Repubs filibustered for. Why is that good?
It has been proven clearly they don’t create jobs. They are not investing in American business. They are just gathering more and more money in the hands of the few.
Giving tax breaks for corporations that move jobs abroad is stupid. Closing corporate tax loopholes would be beneficial and impact the deficit.
I think it is more that we are in denial about how bad our economic situation is. UI is temporary, welfare is seen as more of a long term thing. Whatever jobs that are being created are temp/contract and part time jobs. Benefits are disappearing. People with degrees and experience are stuck making $11/hr with no benefits and no real hope of anything better on the horizon, and they are lucky to even have a job. This is the consequence of 30 years of reaganomics, and it will take a decade or more to dig our way out even with good legislation and leadership. And I think that fact scares people, that it won’t get better tomorrow or even the day after tomorrow. It will take years and years for many of us.
The point is that for all the talk about how expensive UI is, it is a program that makes life bearable for millions of people. And it costs the same as the Iraq war. Plus it doesn’t hurt anyone, plus it creates more GDP growth than the Iraq war. My point was that the people who I have seen talk about how we ‘can’t afford it’ never said that about the Iraq war. Despite UI being more humane, more necessary to policy (it is a policy of necessity, not choice) and doing more to grow GDP and creating more jobs
My only question is that with the Feds extension programs, will they still try to nail the employers for the funding through increases to the employer’s unemployment insurance rates?
And what will happen when the rich leave to avoid paying for your dream of higher taxes? Can anyone answer that? I for one left the country as soon as it came time to retire. My taxes aren’t going into paying for people who won’t adapt to the changing economy. If it was easy for me to depart, it’ll be even easier for the really wealthy to do so.
So you put a heavier tax burden on the corporations… and they close down completely. Then what have you gained?