Congress should extend unemployment insurance instead of focusing on politics of spending

Posted on Fri, Jul. 02, 2010
Kansas City.Com ---Star
Two million Americans stand to lose their unemployment benefits because Republicans in Congress have suddenly decided deficit spending is a bad thing.
The refusal by enough GOP senators to move a measure forward doomed the latest attempt to extend modest benefits to the long-term unemployed. The Democrats, meanwhile, refused to shift previously committed stimulus dollars, a move that would have convinced two Republicans to back the plan and provide enough votes to block a Senate filibuster.
To Republicans, the vote was a clear political statement: “We’re against government spending.” To the Democrats, the other side’s refusal to compromise was also a clear political message: “The GOP is heartless.”
Playing politics with the lives of others is hardly victimless.
Americans remember Republicans not too long ago were all in favor of deficit spending to pay for tax cuts under George W. Bush. Those have meant $2.48 trillion less in federal coffers — with most of the money going into the pockets of the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, also approved in the Bush years, have now cost more than $1 trillion.
The public also remembers, not so far back, Democrats were willing to move stimulus funds around to meet pressing needs. Auto bailout, anyone?
There are few things Congress can do that will have a more direct and positive effect on lives and the economy than extending unemployment benefits, as virtually every dollar allocated would quickly be spent on living expenses.
The long-term unemployed are not bums or “hobos,” as at least one GOP congressman has cruelly suggested. Many of them are people who worked for years and are desperate to work again but find themselves cast into a job market that has shed nearly 8 million positions in the last 2½ years.
Extending unemployment insurance until job prospects improve is the best thing Congress can do for them and for the nascent economic recovery.
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com