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No More Extensions of Unemployment Benefits

Let Democrats pay unemployment benefits from their own coffers as reparations for destroying jobs.

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 28th, 2011 at 08:11 AM  | 

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Amidst record long-term unemployment, Democrats are trying to extend unemployment welfare yet again.  Will Republicans continue to obediently follow them in accelerating more creeping socialism?  Or will last December serve as the Republicans’ final act to perpetuate unemployment welfare?

Beware the doomsday TARP coalition of Republicans.  Conservatives must be ever vigilant of those Republicans who are willing to vote for an entitlement program one last time with the alleged purpose of precluding an economic apocalypse.

These Republican lawmakers were agog in their support for TARP and the bailouts as a means of preempting the next depression.  As such, they lobbied fellow Republicans to support ‘one last bailout’.  They are the same members who continue to regurgitate Tim Geithner’s false premonition that we will default on our credit if we fail to raise the debt ceiling.  To that end, they seek to cajole conservatives into raising the debt ceiling ‘one last time’.  These same visionaries were also the ringleaders of the grand tax deal in December, which extended the Bush tax cuts (except the death tax repeal, of course) in exchange for Obama’s economic distorting redistributive projects.  Consequently, they agreed to extend the ethanol/green subsidies and unemployment benefits just ‘one last time’.

Unfortunately, too many Republicans are credulous enough to believe the vacuous predictions of the left, thereby perpetuating entitlement programs until they become immutable.  History has shown that once a government program is enshrined as an entitlement, it becomes impervious to change, much less elimination.

Hence, House Democrats are now pushing for a vote to extend unemployment benefits once again.  John Boehner and Eric Cantor have agreed to meet with Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Bobby Scott (D-VA) to discuss HR 589, the “Emergency Unemployment Compensation Expansion Act of 2011″.  This bill would extend unemployment benefits another 14 weeks even for the “99ers”, those who have maxed out on their benefits after 99 weeks of unemployment.  Originally, Lee and Scott were denied a meeting with GOP leadership because their bill would add another $16 billion to the deficit.  However, since they have offered to fund the $16 billion extension with spending offsets, Boehner and Cantor are willing to discuss the bill.  A spokesman for Boehner said that the Speaker is committed to keeping an open door policy for members of both parties.

While it is admirable that Republicans leaders are willing to listen to Democrat proposals, they should draw a line in the sand and categorically oppose this bill, irrespective of supposed spending offsets.  People who are receiving unemployment benefits for almost two years are no longer benefiting from anything commensurate to what they originally paid into the program.  Accordingly, why not extend unemployment benefits to the millions of young college graduates who cannot enter the workforce due to lack of employment opportunities?

Although Congress has previously extended benefits beyond the traditional 26 weeks during a recession, this time they are clearly attempting to establish unemployment as a permanent entitlement program.  The 73 week extension of unemployment benefits helped balloon the cost of unemployment compensation to around $160 billion in 2010 (see OMB budget p.79).  The cost of the extended benefits topped $100 billion; the entire sum of the GOP’s pledged budget cuts.  To put that in perspective, net interest outlays on the debt totaled $197 billion for the same year.    It has become a new mandatory unfunded liability that resembles more of a European style welfare plan than the insurance plan that originally characterized the program.

The debate should no longer revolve around the actual budget cost of extending unemployment benefits.  Republicans should oppose any future extension on the grounds that it would create a permanent entitlement and would perpetuate unemployment.  There are so many people approaching the 99 week status, as much as four million according to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, that the Labor Department is able to lower the unemployment rate by simply removing them from the workforce altogether!

Republicans constantly say that they cannot find enough spending cuts to balance the budget without touching mandatory spending.  Precluding the consummation of super long-term unemployment benefits as a permanent entitlement would be a good start.  Besides, if there really are $16 billion in extra expenditures, magically discovered by Democrats, they should be eliminated in a stand alone provision even without extending unemployment benefits.

Boehner and Cantor should use this meeting to promote a distinction of bold colors- not pale pastels- between the parties.  Populist liberal ideas such as price and wage controls and gratuitous unemployment benefits are the wedge issues that separate the men from the boys among Republicans.  It is relatively easy to be a Republican who supports tax cuts and opposes frivolous pork projects like the infamous “bridge to nowhere”.  It takes an intrepid conservative to oppose new welfare programs, especially those packaged as compassionate benefits for disadvantaged workers.

This is a quintessential opportunity for Republicans to distinguish themselves by showing how such market-distorting programs are inimical to the very people whom they were established to protect.  It is a teachable moment in which conservatives can show how perennial unemployment payments are a surreptitious means of exacerbating record unemployment and perpetuating government dependency.  Instead of promoting faux ‘compassionate conservatism’, Republican leadership should articulate unvarnished conservatism- the type that is inherently compassionate and would not perpetuate unemployment.

A true conservative employment benefit would take a radically new form; across the board personal and corporate income tax reductions, an abrogation of thousands of odious regulations in the federal register, welfare reform, a comprehensive energy production program, and a cessation of job killing, market-distorting subsidies.  Such a program would create new jobs, elevate personal income, and lower the cost of living for consumers.  It would exude true compassion.  It would embody true conservatism.

A spokesman for Eric Cantor was on the right track when he told the Huffington Post, “The point [of the meeting] was basically that the Leader believes that the best unemployment program in America is a job, so rather than only talking about extending benefits, we should be having a broader conversation about growing the economy, spurring investment, and allowing businesses to hire.”  However, he should make it clear that spurring investment is the only option because unemployment payments are counterintuitive to job growth.

If Republicans opt for pale pastels by acquiescing to the extension, albeit with spending offsets, they will lose the political fight.  The public will once again perceive that Republicans ultimately agree with the premises of the progressives, albeit less enthusiastically.  Consequently, they will side with the more enthusiastic and professional supporters of government dependency.

Call your republican House member and tell him/her to oppose the establishment of a permanent unemployment entitlement.  After all, there is no such thing as ‘one last vote’ to renew a redistribution program.  Just ask the Europeans!

Cross-posted to Red Meat Conservative

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  • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

    I’ll again assume my mantel of the Remorseless RS SOB. If we keep giving extensions to these benefits than they, not work, will become an engrained cultural norm.

    • http://redmeatconservative.blogspot.com/ dhorowitz3

      thing goes for 113 weeks, it’s hard to see them ever ending it. This is especially poignant given the fact that employment will not return to normal levels in the near future.

      Hey, if you take a cynical view, this might actually hurt Obama next year, as it will ensure high unemployment.

    • YnotNOW

      We have to get over the idea that pain-free, fraud-waste-abuse savings will make a difference in our spending addiction. Sure, there is some savings here, and we should attack them with gusto. But our spending problem is way beyond that – particularly entitlements. And those entitlements have a powerful and sympathetic constituency (especially elderly). Sorry, we have to cut there too.

      The more we get past the easy-is-possible siren song, the sooner we can get down to the real (and painful) cuts that MUST be done to make our country solvent.

  • horizon3

    When are these idiots on both sides going to figure out, that changing where a dollar is spent doesn’t save a flippin thing, it’s still spent!

  • carolina

    If they did that long enough…… we’d balance the budget eventually. (dems LOVE new spending)

  • smitch61

    and I agree as someone who just spent an incredible two years in Michigan without a full-time job.. I worked countless temporary positions in an attempt to ‘get in the door’.. I worked about 40 of them. I collected unemployment when my position ended until I could pick up another. I am finally ‘resting’ a bit in a full-time job.

    Temp positions are wonderful, keep you in a routine, but you are still constantly looking for full-time work, not for the slacker at heart for sure. In my humble opinion, it is the length of unemployment benefits that is impeding one’s ability to locate full-time work.

    It is a full-time job to look for full-time work.

    • TheHUTMan

      I read somewhere that people need to spend as much time looking for a job as they spent when they HAD a job. I give you a lot of congrats on actually doing this, as my sister-in-law (and her ex husband, and her friends) and the like spend all of a few minutes A WEEK “looking” for a job. Most of that time is spent filling out the form to get the money.

      In her mind, it’s up to someone else, a website, or the local workforce agency to find them work. Otherwise, why work when I can get money for nothing? Why work for low wages when unemployment fits the bill? And while I’m at it, I can get my kids on all kinds of benefit programs. She now lives w/ her parents who pay all the bills and yet she lives a life of utter laziness while totally mooching on the system. Another clone for the welfare state. And yet she complains about how “rough” it is out there … how would she know?

      There is work out there, just not the kind people want I guess.

    • clowngirl

      n/t

    • standingonhispromises

      My son just spent the last year on/off unemployment after getting out of the service. It was quite a shock to him that no one was hiring a mechanic proficient in fixing Humvees, strykers, “all wheel” vehicles…. so he did the temp thing over and over. He is now 40 hrs a week in a plastics company, its still temp, but he is on the list for a full time position. Now the real kicker: the army says he didn’t fulfill his contract so therefore they denied the unemployment a year and a half later, and Minnesota would like the money back, all $17,400. Only problem with that is he only collected $9400, they must be using that new Math….(BTW: he was discharged with an article 15 for sleeping on guard duty that he wasn’t supposed to be on with medical papers for pneumonia and lung infection and four medications, we got the dishonorable discharge dropped, but now they are saying he didn’t fulfull his contract, Nice.)

  • melissatx

    number one, over a year ago. I would cut like a madwoman on a coupon binge and gut every entitlement including unemployment and welfare.

    I think once these things are done and we can see who is milking and who is willing to find a job, any job, we can then properly address what to do with our south of the border problem. I do believe if you take away the carrot, better than 50% of THAT problem will resolve itself. If we take away freebies for weenies or parasites, another 25% will resovle itself.

    When we have what is left, they result will be either those than cannot work or those that will not work. I only have compassion for one of those.

    In fact, listening to WSJ this am, they repeated the lie to the moderator again, that farmers employ laborers that will do the work US workers will not.
    If you take away unemployment and MAKE them get out and work, only 3 things can happen. After the mass exodus of illegals, Americans will either take a job, any job, will be jobless, homeless and penniless, or will find creative ways to work. I only have compassion for two of those.

    If this were coupled with Az style immigration laws, the rest of the cuts would see benefits in MONTHS, not years.

  • johnt

    and on into infinity. It’s great having an opposition party. We should try it sometime.

  • harlan

    Dems are corrupt…Republicans are cowards.

    For America, this is a recipe for disaster.

  • thurman

    Make this debate public

    Say they will consider extending the unemployment in exchange for cuts we want to offset– defunding Obamacare, NPR, Planned Parenthood, the EPA, the NLRB, etc. Come up with billions in targeted cuts to make it revenue neutral.

    Pass the package bill and force THEM to vote against extending unemployment, to preserve their pet projects

    Spin the narrative and beat them up over it

    Rinse, repeat

    As much as I’m against extending the benefits, this would be one of the few ways to get the targeted cuts we want AND score political points in the process

    This would beat them to a pulp at their own slimy PR game, but we of course will cave and never dare something so bold

  • clowngirl

    Unemployment is becoming welfare without the stigma. Messed up as things are I expect there are still a lot of people who would do a lot to avoid taking something called “welfare” but who don’t even flinch at collecting unemployment — and some treat it as a paid vacation.

    I actually think Boehner needs to go further reform the existing legislation so that – if a person wants to have their unemployment extended past 26 weeks they need to provide thorough documentation that they’ve been looking hard for a job every week of the first 26. It’d be a mess and require more manpower to handle – but it’d save money – because those who look for a job are more likely to find one.

    • kpbenware

      because no one has ever checked out the documentation. It is already required to keep a work search record, yet it is never asked for, so nobody makes one. If it were asked for, all anyone would have to do is make up a record of the web- sites they applied through, because so many employers will now only take applications via the web.

      Requiring the state to check and verify a person’s work search history will only propel either the state or federal government into further growth by making it possible to add thousands more employees to their already over-bloated bureaucracies.

      • clowngirl

        I just think it’s disgusting to have people collecting on employment for nearly 2 years if they aren’t really looking for a until the last 2 months of it.

        The simple thing, of course, would be just to end the extended unemployment all together (simple from a bureaucratic point of view, but not a political one) but as a middle ground – they could start holding people accountable…

        You’re saying there’s already a requirement that people prove they’ve been looking for work but they never actually check to the point people don’t even bother. If they would just require proof be submitted (are unemployment checks mailed or picked up?) and they thoroughly checked at least some people – and there were a penalty (say losing the next week’s check) if their claim didn’t check out it might be enough.

        It’s kinda like traffic cops. For example, here in Colorado Kipling is one of the big streets that runs from the suburbs out by the foothills down towards downtown Denver. For most of last summer, at least in the fast line people routinely drove 8 or 10 mph over the speed limit. Sometimes 15. There never seemed to be any cops.

        Then one day I’m noticing everybody is going the speed limit. Sure enough – there’s a cop planted in the middle of the road. Since then they’ve send cops every now and then. And now people still tend to stay within 5 miles of the speed limit.

        My point is that they didn’t have to catch everybody and they didn’t even need to pay attention that often – people just needed to know there was the possibility of being held accountable.

        And there’s a moral responsibility to not be rewarding or enabling sloth…. even if it cost the same amount to pay more people to check documentation as is saved by people more quickly finding work – at least they’d be being paid for working as opposed to sitting on their bums.

  • drfredc

    The GOP Losership needs to be proactive on funemployment or they’ll get their clock cleaned again. But then, what are we to expect from the GOP Losership.

    IMHO, after 4 months (compromise to 6 if you must), funemployment should be done. However, there should be a clear and compassionate path for those in need to move onto welfare.

    Way too many on funemployments have full time working spouses and are using funemployment to keep one spouse at home with the kids instead of looking for a job, or doing what’s needed to make ends meet with one working spouse…

    FYI, as an small business employer who hasn’t had an employee leave or be fired in over 5 years, I’m paying about $600/month in funemployment insurance for my 5 employees. Funemployment is like paying half an employee for doing nothing — they don’t ever show up to work. Go figure why any employer would hire someone when funemployment costs go up and up according to how many employees you have.. Go figure why wages are stagnant.

    Stupidity like perpetual funemployment has consequences.

    • carolina
    • clowngirl

      Liberals probably aren’t considering that extending all this excessive unemployment is actually raising the cost to hire more employees – therefore preventing (at least some) new jobs.

  • kpbenware

    extending unemployment benefits ad infinitem, only furthers a person’s reliance on the government, and eventually demoralizes them into becoming the welfare slave that the government wants.

    The administration, with its continuing efforts to extend unemployment benefits, is demonstrating that what they want is, a substantial number of people who rely entirely on federal funds for their entire livelihood, thus making them subservient to the government. This will create an entire generation of a new type of welfare addict. One who, after leaving school, gets a job only to qualify for unemployment benefits that will them to spend years not having to work, without the stigma of going on welfare. While on unemployment, you get to have money in the bank, get to keep your assets, and have no required ‘spend-down’ monthly to keep your benefits. In the mean time, there are food stamps, medicaid, HEAP and other entitlements that could have you living almost the same as you did while working, but without the hassle of getting up every morning to go to a place where you actually have to DO something.

    By promoting this behavior, the left is continuing with its advance into socialism, and this transformation MUST be stopped.

    • clowngirl

      I thoroughly agree with you, kpbenware. And you’ve articulated the problem very well. Was curious about the term “Spend down” – I’ve never heard that before.

  • cestmoi312

    My son turned down 3 job offers that paid an hourly wage equal to what he was receiving from UI.
    His rational? Why work when you can get paid the same amount of money to stay home?
    Now his UI has run out and he is praying for an extension.
    His mother and I wanted to tell him to take one of those jobs, work hard and prove to your employer that you are an asset and can be counted on to fill in for others.
    As business picks up, employers will, more likely than not, pay overtime to existing employees rather than hire new help.
    It’s happening already.
    But, he’s an adult, married with a child and has never taken advice from the parents.
    What do we know?

    • clowngirl

      Whereas working – almost anywhere – can set the ball in motion. My brother, when he moved to Colorado, couldn’t find a full time job at first so he started tutoring a few hours a week just to have at least some money coming in and to be productive. One of the guys he tutored was impressed with him and recommended him for a “real job” which has worked out very well – and he’s since been promoted several times.

      I do a lot of freelancing — and MOST of my freelance relationships have come from someone seeing me in action or from me being recommended by someone else who has worked with me.

      People are much likely to hire someone they’ve met and like (and that they know is already holding down a job at least to some extent) than one of the (probably endless) applicants from the internet.

      That’s a big thing I think folks who look at the short term benefit (why work when I can get paid to listen to NPR) are missing.

  • charlie520

    Corporations have received the Crony Capitalist Benefits for over 100 years that go right in the pocket of CEO’s and Board Members. Let’s revive some TARP stories and the intent of sending financial center Scally Wags to prison for their collusion with government in creating this mess.

    Stripped of their power and spending time in a REAL prison just might encourage a few CEO’s to open the backroom doors of Congress and the Executive Branch for a thorough cleaning as well.

    How about a Red State story on Means Testing Congress? The top 10 members possess over $2 Billion in assets, the average asset value is $10 Million for all members. Yet, we are borrowing and debasing our currency to pay them a salary, provide their health care and fund retirement pensions. Does that make sense? And, I’m sure we’d all agree the value just is not there.

    Should members of the Executive Branch be Means Tested as well?

    Warren Buffet suggested we stop letting financial center CEO’s gamble with only house (citizen) funds..He said if we drained their bank accounts before we tossing them in the street with their families and the UI they would do a better job managing the risk and rewards. I like the idea.

    How about Welfare? I hear stories of $1,000′s in foster care benefits paid to families caring for their own children or grandchildren. They operate on the more babies more money principle. How long have they been receiving benefits? They need to start relying on family instead of government.

    I hope that as we contemplate these broad changes we remain willing to leave no stone unturned for government subsidies like the $6 going to commuter rail for every dollar paid by the Northeastern passenger.

    I have worked for 30 years in Florida and never taken UI until the past two years. I lived in the same house for 20 years and would still be living there, completely debt free, except for the uncompensated damage from Hurricanes.

    SO, HERE IS MY POINT. Keep the focus on our “political class” in Congress and the Executive Branch. They are both the source of the problem and the short-term solution. They prefer we turn our knives on each because they do not have to act. They move when their pain threshold is crossed and focusing on us lowers their pain.

    Class warfare is a dead end street.

    • silkywiley

      how those congressional member go to Congress on $175 thou and manage to amass such fortunes in so short a period of time. Not really, just watch Nancy Pelosi feather her husband’s nest without nary an investigation.

  • silkywiley

    The government has becoming a profligate sneering spending mate who we can’t divorce and we can’t get the credit cards away from her and can’t stop the Fed from putting more money in her account for which we are liable. Personally I’m waking up in the middle of the night in sweat worrying about what she’s doing to the children.

    The Tarrp was the biggest swindle ever perpetrated. It was bum’s rushed through Congress and signed by a credulous Bush.

    No hearings, no expert witnesses, no deliberation. What incredible stupidity or venality.

    Before you accept someone’s representation of impending doom, you should ask three questions.

    1. What evidence do you have that what you say is true?

    2. What alternative solutions are there?

    3. And will your solution cost more than doing nothing at all?

    The mendacity of the TARRP was breathtaking. The alternative solution were so numerous, we couldn’t list them all. McCain lost the election on his stunt of signing on to this monster, even Sarah Palin couldn’t save him.

    The TARRP was crony capitalism at it worst. And the precedence is now set. Likely this rape of the wealth of the American people will not cease until this profligate viperous generation has passed away.

    As Mohammad said on his death bed, God help those who come after.

  • edarnoldillinois

    If you wish to hand control of Congress and the White House back to the Democrats in the 2012 elections, continue attacking those Americans who are trying to stay alive on the Social Security and unemployment benefits that they paid for in their working years. Calling anyone who can’t find a job in our new postindustrial America a slacker will get you pats on the back from the hardcore “Government should never give anyone anything” crowd. Telling those on Social Security that they should starve and die because Congress ‘borrowed’ the money they thought was being invested for them will get you fist-pumping ‘Ourahs!’ from those who apparently either have trust-funds or don’t expect to get old.
    Try selling this as ‘fiscal responsibility’ to the rest of America, and watch the 2012 elections wash Republicans out of Washington like trash in the gutter.

    • charlie520

      Doug Schoen (Democrat Strategist expressing one of his many concerns for the country’s direction under the Democrats and Obama Administration, before the election) “If we don’t get this thing turned around we’re all going to be in trouble.”

      Well isn’t that exactly the problem?

      Some of us are in trouble by the actions of others and (as The Forgotten Man) are being sized up to pay the bill. Financial Institutions, Congress, Public Unions and Crony Capitalist along with their leadership are feeding at the public nipple without any regard for those who pay the bills.

      They’ve been eating our chickens without regard for the number of eggs being hatched. Now, with only one rooster and hen in the yard eating chicken is a bad idea they don’t understand.

      We must “unwind” the trouble caused by Congress over the past 50 years and ignored over the past 20. But it cannot be done on the backs of a few.

      Until everyone is in trouble, no solution exists. Until the solution is found that requires everyone to take a bite from the bitter herb, none will last.

  • bobandruth2416

    How would low interest loans work instead of weekly grants? Among some, it would create a sense of responsibility–others would vote Democrat.

  • Diogenes314

    There is so much nonsense here it’s hard to know where to start. Just a few points…

    These Republican lawmakers were agog in their support for TARP and the bailouts as a means of preempting the next depression. As such, they lobbied fellow Republicans to support ?one last bailout?. They are the same members who continue to regurgitate Tim Geithner?s false premonition that we will default on our credit if we fail to raise the debt ceiling. To that end, they seek to cajole conservatives into raising the debt ceiling ?one last time?. These same visionaries were also the ringleaders of the grand tax deal in December, which extended the Bush tax cuts (except the death tax repeal, of course) in exchange for Obama?s economic distorting redistributive projects. Consequently, they agreed to extend the ethanol/green subsidies and unemployment benefits just ?one last time?.

    First of all, I didn’t know the same secret GOP cabal was behind TARP, exploding the debt ceiling and preventing the December tax hike. At least they got one right.

    So letting the Dems raise taxes across the board in the middle of a recession (including doubling capital gains taxes right before Dec. 31-that wouldn’t have hurt the market at all) would have been a good thing? As in the kind of teachable moment when you demonstrate what happens when Republicans cut off the economy’s nose to spite their faces? As far as the “economic distorting redistributive projects”- there is currently no economic activity to distort. Unless you mean preventing the Stock Market from going back into free fall on Jan 1 when investors either would have had to sell or see their taxes double. Whereas unemployment benefits can have a negative impact in a normal economy, with 10 million plus unemployed it isn’t as if cutting off benefits will cause many to get off of their couches and go back to the non-existent jobs not out there.

    While it is admirable that Republicans leaders are willing to listen to Democrat proposals, they should draw a line in the sand and categorically oppose this bill, irrespective of supposed spending offsets. People who are receiving unemployment benefits for almost two years are no longer benefiting from anything commensurate to what they originally paid into the program. Accordingly, why not extend unemployment benefits to the millions of young college graduates who cannot enter the workforce due to lack of employment opportunities?

    Although Congress has previously extended benefits beyond the traditional 26 weeks during a recession, this time they are clearly attempting to establish unemployment as a permanent entitlement program. The 73 week extension of unemployment benefits helped balloon the cost of unemployment compensation to around $160 billion in 2010 (see OMB budget p.79). The cost of the extended benefits topped $100 billion; the entire sum of the GOP?s pledged budget cuts. To put that in perspective, net interest outlays on the debt totaled $197 billion for the same year. It has become a new mandatory unfunded liability that resembles more of a European style welfare plan than the insurance plan that originally characterized the program.

    The debate should no longer revolve around the actual budget cost of extending unemployment benefits. Republicans should oppose any future extension on the grounds that it would create a permanent entitlement and would perpetuate unemployment. There are so many people approaching the 99 week status, as much as four million according to the President?s Council of Economic Advisers, that the Labor Department is able to lower the unemployment rate by simply removing them from the workforce altogether!

    Okay, so first the budget offsets don’t count.
    Then we see an estimate of the effect of UI on the budget.
    Then it is claimed that UI ‘perpetuates unemployment’-for 10% of the workforce (20% in some places-and both estimates are generous).

    That’s a lot of lazy parasites out there.

    It is a teachable moment in which conservatives can show how perennial unemployment payments are a surreptitious means of exacerbating record unemployment and perpetuating government dependency. Instead of promoting faux ?compassionate conservatism?, Republican leadership should articulate unvarnished conservatism- the type that is inherently compassionate and would not perpetuate unemployment.

    A true conservative employment benefit would take a radically new form; across the board personal and corporate income tax reductions, an abrogation of thousands of odious regulations in the federal register, welfare reform, a comprehensive energy production program, and a cessation of job killing, market-distorting subsidies. Such a program would create new jobs, elevate personal income, and lower the cost of living for consumers. It would exude true compassion. It would embody true conservatism.

    A spokesman for Eric Cantor was on the right track when he told the Huffington Post, ?The point [of the meeting] was basically that the Leader believes that the best unemployment program in America is a job, so rather than only talking about extending benefits, we should be having a broader conversation about growing the economy, spurring investment, and allowing businesses to hire.? However, he should make it clear that spurring investment is the only option because unemployment payments are counterintuitive to job growth.

    Instead of a ‘teachable moment’ how about a usable moment. The portions in bold are the only part of this diary that make sense (creating jobs-you don’t read much about that here at RS any more), yet how exactly would you suggest enacting them? Are Reid and Obama going to just roll over and pass tax cuts across the board?

    The obvious thing to do (and I hope Boehner and Cantor see this better than some here) is to take the extension and take the offsets. Couple it with rolling back the 100 Billion plus set aside for Obamacare, and overturning the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations for starters. Toss in the 20% small business deduction and a mandatory cost/benefit analysis for all regulatory activity-with strict Congressional oversight. And since the Left loves the middle class so much toss in a 50% capital gains reduction for anyone making less than 300K a year.

  • truth18

    The Tea Party, The enemies of America wrapped in a flag spouting a hypocrits rehtoric. These people will be the death of us all. Friggin 21st century McCarthyists.