How long should we continue to pay unemployment benefits? If 99 weeks is not enough then what is?

That fiddle music just gets louder and louder.

Repbulican in the general……

99 weeks is absurdly long. It used to be 26 weeks, and then kept getting extended more and more. If one hasn’t found a job in 26 weeks, he or she isn’t trying. Note that I didn’t say found a job comparable to what they previously held, or one in their field of specialty, or an ideal job. After 26 weeks one should be willing to sweep floors, or flip burgers, or whatever, while of course still pursuing their ideal job. I was always taught – you don’t work, you don’t eat.

Yeah, at least with the cliff you get:

1) Real spending cuts.. (Even though they’re not nearly enough)

2) The Clinton tax rates come back on everybody.. (Wanna shock America into taking taxes seriously? Let them see THAT on their pay stubs! Think anybody will be arguing that higher taxes help the economy then?)

3) Some appreciation for the Bush rate cuts to begin with.. (Because they’re portrayed as being solely for “The rich” And those cuts are one of the few bright spots of the Bush years.. May as well highlight them and remind people just how big a deal they were at the time.)

4) Failure highlights the differences in Congress and the significance of that… (May serve as a reminder that elections have consequences. So, be careful in the voting booth! It’s not a question of voting for the “cool guy” over the un-cool guy.. You’re voting your future here, so pay attention!)

Sadly, I can’t get real excited about the Bush cuts, though.. I appreciate the money, but I remember thinking at the time that we didn’t REALLY get a “tax cut” so much as a deferment.. Because any government that grows at the rate ours has is going to have to be fed eventually. In the back of my head, I was worried about this.. Concerned that cutting taxes without associated cuts in the size and scope of government itself would eventually push us to an impasse where pressure to raise taxes would be very great.. And now we’re here!

For Christmas I got the Wallstats “Death and Taxes” poster from Amazon.. I look at that thing and just wish that the Bush years were remembered as a time of absolutely massive cuts in government spending and to the size and scope of the federal government itself. Sadly, that didn’t happen.. There were attempts to reform entitlements, but they never got any real traction. Nothing else seemed to get scaled down either..

As it is, those years seem to be remembered for the lower tax rates and the wars..

Most of them. There are a few like Congressmen Amash, Huelskamp, Schweikert, and others who are willing to fight for true spending cuts. Unfortunately, they are the minority in the GOP party.

Speaking of the Clinton rates.. When I talk to people on the street about politics, Clinton invariably comes up.. and I can’t tell you the times (30?) that I’ve heard almost the exact, same verbatim reply regarding him.

It goes like this: “Well, all I know is that during the Clinton years everything was good!”

I just want to facepalm every time I hear it, but it seems to be engrained in the public consciousness as a time of prosperity.. and they don’t seem to remember Newt or the Republican congress… Or much of ANYTHING else.

It’s maddening!

Perhaps letting the Clinton rates return might help remind folks that it wasn’t all peaches and creme then?

You mean the way they fought valiantly and uncompromisingly to reduce the size and power of the federal government in the last thirty years? Wait! they have never actually done that!

There is another option…

Substitute H.R. 8 in its entirety, but with some minor* changes, and replace whatever ‘compromise’ the Senate sends to the House. Pass it with a majority vote, send the amended bill back to the Senate and make only one declarative, public statement to the press:

“The ‘negotiations’ are over. The House has fulfilled its constitutional obligation to the American people, and this legislation constitutes the ‘balanced approach’ that President Obama said was not possible under this Congress. The ball is now in President Obama’s court. This one critical decision is his, and it’s his alone. Does the president send our economy careening over the ‘so-called’ fiscal cliff and set in motion another politically manufactured economic crisis, or do we change course and follow the path toward economic reform and fiscal sanity this legislation represents and the American people deserve?”

Then shut up and let that single public statement stand on its merits. Refer any, and all, questions back to the statement or to the president.

(*) minor:
1. Make permanent the current marginal tax rates.
2. Make permanent the current capital gains and dividend tax rates.
3. Eliminate the punitive death tax.
4. Eliminate the punitive alternative minimum tax.

Republicans should vote yes or abstain. Why? Because stability is more important to the economy than what the tax rates are. The deal makes the Bush tax rates permament and, in effect, adds a new bracket that begins at $400K for individuals and $450K for couples. Everyone in the new bracket will still have the benefit of the rates that remain in place at lower income levels. Importantly, too, the deal maintains the death tax exclusion at $5M. This will be an enormous help to owners of family businesses. Voters will approve of the deal, and they will be thankful that the Republicans didn’t block it. It’s better to move on to the next battle than to die on the fiscal cliff battlefield.
Truth that must be faced: We will not see any spending cuts or entitlement reforms of any significance as long as the Democrats control the White House and the Senate, especially if the Democrats get rid of the filibuster. To punish the American people with higher taxes out of a misguided belief that Republicans can force the Democrats to cut spending is simply wrong–politically, practically, and morally.
The political future of Congressional Republicans hinges on the fact that voters still hate Obamacare, and they will hate it even more when all of its taxes and regulations take effect over the next two years. By the time the 2014 mid-terms roll around, voters will have forgotten all about the fiscal cliff. They will have had a chance to see House Republicans in action attempting to mitigate the effects of Obamacare, in contrast with a Senate that will refuse to do so. If Republicans handle these battles effectively, 2014 will be a repeat of 2010.
The courageous vote for Republicans is “yes,” not “no.” A few die-hards may vote no on principle, but the majority of “no” votes will be motivated by fear of a primary challenge. Thus, conservatives who believe their Republican reps should vote “yes,” need to tell them so.

Kipling,

How is this going to work? Do you agree that we are talking about around 2 million unemployed people here? Do you see the employment rate suddenly jumping up by over 0.5% next week?

Do you see McDonald’s going on the hiring binge while the stock-market is plummeting and many people who used to eat there no-longer get their unemployment checks?

The jolt would be instant and bad for the economy.

The other stuff we could mitigate.

A guy walked into the gym here showing everybody the Nikon camera he bought with “the money I get from Obama for not working.” Someone else in there said he was working as a bartender for a Mexican bar getting paid cash under the table. This is what the majority of our tax dollars goes toward. This country is so messed up and will get much worse when Ocare hits

“If sequestration happened concurrently, I’d say take this deal. It’s the best of a series of bad options.”

Erick, we (people concerned about the debt) are going to get nothing.

Republicans had the chance to get spending cuts (YES, SPENDING CUTS) in a grand bargain if they agreed to break the tax pledge. Then Boehner walked away to have a week long wrestling match with the Tea Party. He is going to be hard pressed holding his caucus together for the Farm Bill, let alone the debt limit battle.

Now, the McConnell Deal has no spending cuts, NONE. Sequestration is pushed down the memory hole, and the House is neutralized after half the GOP caucus votes for higher taxes and the other half doesn’t.

And if you buy this BS that when the Debt Limit comes up that the GOP will have “leverage”, think again. Defaulting on the debt is an all-or-nothing nuclear bomb. If the GOP can’t even face Pentagon spending cuts, do you really think they would default on the debt. Dems will simply say “if you want spending cuts then negotiate. If you want to default, do it.”

And the GOP will cave.

Had plan B passed, a stronger Boehner could have pushed a hard bargain and extracted more cuts. He could have bargained from strength rather than the fire sale McConnell is currently conducting. If you doubt this, remember that Boehner had Chained CPI in the deal he walked away from, where is Chained CPI now?

Had McConnell refused to pay ball, sequestration would have hit, lowering the deficit. Obama’s 250,000 tax rate would be passed by Senate and House Democrats (plus a few Rhinos) lowering the deficit.

Now, McConnell has made the GOP a full partner in the Tax Hikes so narrow that they do nothing to reduce the deficit and there are no spending cuts and no sequestration.

As it is, Obama has to be well pleased with the situation.

dfcord is right.. Unemployment is a stimulus to the economy, to a certain degree, due to these people not having the luxury to save their checks. Rent is due NOW, food has to be paid for NOW, other bills are due NOW. They have to spend that money, which in turn puts money back into the economy. Now I agree the system is screwy and something needs to be done to encourage long term unemployed to find something. Maybe there could be some kind of means testing for people who have sufficient money to go for a good period of time without the need for unemployment benefits, making sure the money goes to people who truly need it, and aren’t using it is subsidize other needs.

However, yanking it away suddenly from people who do need it, will do much more harm then good. Someone who has to pay rent and has a wife and two kids to feed isn’t all of the sudden going to just drop into a job because his benefits are pulled. I think it needs to be extended, especially is a terrible economy like this. When you take money from people who need it, with no other options, they’ll find someway to take care of themselves and family one way or the other. be it illegal or otherwise, and it will end up causing more problems then solving.

“The US will not default on its debt if the GOP does not agree to raise the debt limit”

Sorry, I don’t understand.

It is my understanding that if the treasury is not authorized to sell more bonds, then we as a nation cannot redeem bonds previously sold to finance our deficit spending. There is no other pile of cash laying around and selling all the gold in Fort Knox, aside from destroying the gold market, would not touch this problem.

Yeah, that’s a mystery to me, too…answered only by the fact that it’s McConnell doing the “negotiating” (to Mitch, “negotiate” means that he’ll bend over and take anything they give him)

Typical story. Unemployment has amounted to a 97 week vacation, with people getting money under the table for other work and coming out ahead.

One can hardly blame them. I blame those who created the climate for such fraud.