Disgusting
by digby
Gerald McAntee president of AFSCME has a few choice words for the Republicans (and 12 cruel Democrats) in congress:
The U.S. Commerce Department reports today that corporate profits are at a record high, at a time when corporations are sitting on $1.8 trillion in cash reserves. At the same time, 15 million Americans are still looking for work.
Two years after the financial collapse caused by right-wing deregulation and corporate greed, Wall Street is handing out its biggest bonuses in history -- more than $144 billion. At the same time, millions of working Americans are struggling to feed their families, pay their bills and keep a roof over their heads.
And the situation is set to get even more painful in the months ahead. Millions of Americans -- 2 million in December alone -- will be cut off from unemployment insurance. Republicans in Congress blocked an extension of this emergency lifeline just before leaving Washington, DC, for their Thanksgiving recess.
Most laid-off workers desperately want to get back to work. But the jobs are just not there. Yet, while families are struggling, the U.S. House failed to pass a much-needed extension in unemployment benefits. The members who voted to make life more difficult for the unemployed should hang their heads in shame. Their vote, one week before Thanksgiving, was disgusting.
Disgusting is the word.
And by the way, this extension affects everyone who has exhausted their 26 weeks, which is a hell of a lot of people.
Currently, when an unemployed individual exhausts his or her 26 weeks of state benefits, he or she can claim federal emergency benefits for up to 73 weeks or 99 weeks, depending on his or her state’s UI rules. After Nov. 30, funds will not be available for the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program and the Extended Benefits (EB) program, which were enhanced and created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act), respectively. Without these funds, new exhausters of state benefits will not be able to join the programs, and those already claiming federal benefits will only be allowed to collect through completion of their current "tier," which means they will not be able to stay in the program for much longer than a month.
To stop federal benefits from expiring, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin (D-MI) introduced a three-month funding extension of emergency federal unemployment insurance. Even though the bill had more than a majority supporting it, it came up short, 258-154, since it was introduced under special rules requiring a two-thirds majority to pass. Eleven moderate Democrats, along with most of the Republican caucus, balked at the $12.5 billion cost of the extension.
Aside from the cruelty, there is a sound economic reason to extend them -- namely to keep the money flowing in this fragile economy. Republicans are adamant that the economy desperately need to give millionaires low taxes, lest they stop buying ancient art and taking foreign vacations, but unemployed people spending money on bread and rent is unaffordable and unnecessary. Keynesianism for chumps.
But perhaps the most disgusting aspect of this story is that it's almost certainly a political ploy to hold unemployment benefits at Christmas time hostage to these tax cuts for the wealthy which the entire Village apparently thinks is just a dandy gambit and that Democrats would be wise to make such a smart deal. Is there nothing from which these greedheads won't insist on getting a cut now? It's sick ... and disgusting.
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