Why won’t Congress reauthorize unemployment benefits for people who’ve been out of work for longer than six months? For the past several weeks, Republicans in the Senate, with an assist from Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, filibustered bills to reauthorize the benefits due to concerns about adding the cost of the aid to the deficit. Beneath the deficit concerns, however, there’s something else: the suspicion that the long-term unemployed are a bunch of lazy drug addicts. It’s not an opinion openly shared by most members of Congress, but a handful of senators and representatives from both parties have said this year that they suspect extended unemployment benefits actually discourage people from looking for work.
This isn’t the first time I’ve written this…nor do I harbor any illusions that it will be the last. This one’s personal. Though I usually try (not always successfully, mind you) to argue things at least somewhat dispassionately, I have a very simple message for Congressional Republicans (and Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska):
F—K YOU.
How is it that y’all willingly pour billions into two wars that are bankrupting this country, yet you react with revulsion at the idea of authorizing the relative pittance it would take to provide millions of Americans with extended unemployment benefits? Are you heartless ideologues really so blind that you cannot see what’s happening outside the Beltway? Are you blindered, clueless millionaires really so devoid of compassion that you would deny Americans the assistance so many need to survive in an economy with so few jobs to be had?
Not that any of these idjits have ever been in a position where they were uncertain when or how they were going to be able to put food on the table, of course. To Republicans, unemployment is the fault and sole resonsibility of the poor sot unfortunate enough to lose their job. It matters not that their employer may have gone out of business, they may have been “right-sized”, or that their job was outsourced overseas. All Republicans see is a worker who now wants to suck at the public teat while he (or she) lounges around in their underwear, drinking beer on their couch while they watch Jerry Springer.
Today, American workers face the worst job market since the Great Depression, with five job seekers for every job opening, with the average spell of unemployment now at 35 weeks. Yet the Senate went home for the holiday weekend without extending benefits. How was that possible? The answer is that we’re facing a coalition of the heartless, the clueless and the confused….
By the heartless, I mean Republicans who have made the cynical calculation that blocking anything President Obama tries to do — including, or perhaps especially, anything that might alleviate the nation’s economic pain — improves their chances in the midterm elections. Don’t pretend to be shocked: you know they’re out there, and make up a large share of the G.O.P. caucus.
By the clueless I mean people like Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for senator from Nevada, who has repeatedly insisted that the unemployed are deliberately choosing to stay jobless, so that they can keep collecting benefits. A sample remark: “You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job but it doesn’t pay as much. We’ve put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry.”
The new- and very disturbing trend of Republicans blaming the unemployed simply goes to demonstrate just how clueless, vacant, and morally bankrupt today’s GOP is. Lacking any ideas, programs, or solutions, they’ve simply resorted to blaming the victims and thinking they can balance the budget on the backs of the unemployed.
Yes, that’s right; we’re all just spoiled and addicted to our entitlements. We’ve become thoroughly and completely hooked on the lazy perks of being on the dole. We’ll happily continue collecting our oh-so-large unemployment checks as we ride around in our Maybachs snorting high-grade Bolivian coke off the ass-cracks of Brazilian supermodels. Oh, and don’t get me started on the joys of sipping Cristal from Gucci pumps as a high-end call girl works her magic on me. Whatever….
Unemployment benefits do help in reduinge the sense of desperation, which I’d have to say is a good thing. I’m fortunate in that I’m the only mouth I have to feed. If I was the primary breadwinner with four children, though, stress and desperation would likely be nipping at my heels.
What this really comes down to is class. The out of touch millionaires in Congress and the self-absorbed millionaires who fill their campaign coffers simply and clearly lack the compassion and the perspective to understand that not everyone lives as they do. Some Americans live hand-to-mouth under the best of circumstances. Take away their income, and unemployment is very often the only option separating them from complete financial ruin. Listen to Republicans, though, and the unemployment are really nothing more than a cabal of shiftless drug addicts concerned only with where the next meth fix is coming from. Well, that WOULD explain the shakes, eh? Damn….
How bad have things become? So bad that there are now companies advertising for open positions with the explicit proviso that they will not hire anyone who is currently jobless. Americans without jobs have become the new pariahs…and Republicans are blaming the unemployed for their plight? Not only do extended unemployment benefits NOT discourage job-seeking, but the impact is quite the opposite. Extended unemployment benefits, in a time of severe recession can be a lifeline for families struggling to make ends meet.
How is it that Congress can drop another $30 billion on the war in Afghanistan with no real debate, but the idea of dedicating a few million to supporting Americans in real trouble revolts Republicans? There is simply no good or rational explanation for such craven disrespect and lack of compassion. I cannot fathom how a heart can be so black as to refuse a helping hand to so many who so desperately need it. Then again, that’s GOP “leadership” for you, eh?
You’d think that if Republicans were so all fired up about cutting the deficit, they’d look in the obvious place where serious cuts can be made and savings be found: the defense budget. But it’s so much easier to demonize the unemployed, eh?
And to think that all of this Sturm und Drang could have been avoided if Ben Nelson had voted with fellow Democrats. When I meet Ben Nelson in Hell, I’m going to have a VERY special gift for him….
I’m one of the fortunate ones, thankfully. Yes, I’m unemployed, and I have been for more than five months now. Still, I’m the only mouth I have to feed, and I’m OK financially for the foreseeable future. I continue looking for work, but I don’t yet have to live with the desperation of knowing that the metaphorical Sword of Damocles is hanging over my head. Nonetheless, for all those Americans who are and will be adversely impacted by Republican (and Ben Nelson’s) intransigence, I have a very simple message for you:
F—K YOU. And Ben Nelson. May all y’all slowly roast in the Hell y’all are surely destined to spend eternity in.
