Saturday, January 4, 2014

As Usual - Dems Good At Posturing, Not Delivering!

The news that the US economy is losing up to a billion dollars a week because of the “fiscally irresponsible” decision to end long-term unemployment benefits,  ought to have any sane American's attention - especially those still invested in the bubble (stock) market. What it means is we are looking at a likely major impetus for a new recession and financial meltdown given the current market status is not disposed to any stability.


The news comes from a Harvard economist, Professor Lawrence Katz, who said his assessment is based on official forecasts of the impact to the economy of 1.3 million jobless Americans losing benefits. The benefits, which apply to people who are unemployed for longer than six months, expired last week after a bipartisan budget deal on federal spending for the next two years failed to include a reauthorization of the program.

As I earlier noted, this deal  (named the 'Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013')  was only "bipartisan" in the sense that it provided another opportunity for the Gooprs to do a "date rape" on the Demos - as anti-tax stooge Grover Norquist defined it. The misbegotten deal reduced the blanket sequester cuts by $63bn over two years, split equally between defense and non-defense spending, although Republicans also succeeded in negotiating a further $20-$23bn in  domestic deficit reduction.  In other words, the Reeps succeeded in raping the Demos to the tune of an additional $20-23b on their side, while not paying any new taxes!

Much of this comes by their refusal to extend unemployment benefits at the end of this month - leaving millions in the lurch at the worst time of year. Kids have done without Xmas presents, and now also food - since the SNAP program was cut, and  more food stamp cuts loom over the next ten years (amounting to $40b ). Reepos haven't budged from that.   The purpose was clearly to enable the Reepos to keep an additional $20-23 b for their pet defense projects while kids go hungry.

Of course, those who yap and complain that "any unemployed person who doesn't find work in 6 weeks doesn't want it" are certified idiots. They lack the necessary IQ to grasp that if there are 2.9 people chasing every job there won't be enough jobs to go  around. These are the sort of mentally backward people who can't process that 9 gallons will not fit into a 2 gallon container.

They'd also likely laugh at the plight of one letter writer to the press, who wrote:

"As one who lost his benefits I can tell you one thing, I will be homeless and spiraling downward without an extension. Place as much blame on me as you feel but remember the end result. Just because somebody gets themselves stuck in the mud, it does not mean somebody can't help them out! I've never in 38 years been on unemployment and I am shocked by the hard time I'm having getting a job. NO one will even hire me to dig ditches, collect garbage or clean sewers! What am I to do, starve?"

Needless to say, stupid pig GOOps would merely dismiss the guy's worries and insist he still "isn't trying hard enough".  (Interesting that many who say so are themselves sitting fat and pretty - gorging on gov't benefits!)


And what are Democrats doing about it? 

Democratic leaders in the Senate are planning to fast-track legislation to extend unemployment insurance, a move that would provide a lifeline to more than a million jobless Americans who lost their benefits five days ago.

The bipartisan bill provides a three-month extension the the federal benefits program, a temporary fix designed to allow Congress to work on a solution for the long-term unemployed, who have seen their support vanish.

And what are the chances of passing? Slim and None!


Though Democrats have launched "a sustained push"  to reintroduce the federal program, and a Senate vote on a bipartisan bill to restore the benefits for three months is expected early next week, there  certainly will be no passage in the Tea Party -contaminated House. The time to have fought for preserving the benefits was when the sequester and budget deal were being hashed out LAST month. What the Dems propose is roughly equal to trying to close the barn door after the cows have escaped.

It's stupid, and merely amounts to posturing after the fact, to try to show the unemployed that  this other corporate party still cares for them.  Meanwhile, on Friday, Democrats in the House of Representatives released a state-by-state breakdown of Labor Department figures, showing the number of people who lost federal benefits when they expired on Saturday. The 1.3 million affected Americans are losing on average $305 per week. In total, Democrats said $400m had been “taken out of the pockets” of job seekers across the country.

Dems should have fought for the little guys, the unemployed who likely will now lose homes and reap heartaches when they had the leverage to deal- LAST MONTH.

Now, all they have is  cheap, fulsome rhetoric - and that won't put food on the table!

 
 
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