I know a number of individuals who lost their jobs in connection with the on going economic meltdown and who after months of job seeking are still unemployed. Now they either have losted their unemployment benefits or are faced with their unemployment benefits ceasing. Why? Because the GOP has repeatedly killed the extension of unemployment benefits citing the need for fiscal responsibility and fighting the deficit. Pork for pet projects and throwing billions of dollars (and thousands of US lives) down the toilet in Iraq and Afghanistan doesn't count and isn't even on the table for discussion. Truth be told, Republicans seem to care nothing about the unemployed and seem to have a mindset that anyone unemployed is in that status through their own fault. As for the Christianists in the GOP base, they conveniently ignore the Gospel message to help the poor and feed the hungry. Instead they chant a no tax mantra and prefer to leave the unemployed to wither and die. Thus, the "party of family values" cares nothing about financially desperate families - nor do self-congratulatory, self-anointed Christians who care only about themselves. Paul Krugman has a column in Sunday's New York Times that properly takes the GOP to task for its hypocritical and heartless mindset. Here are some highlights:*
There was a time when everyone took it for granted that unemployment insurance, which normally terminates after 26 weeks, would be extended in times of persistent joblessness. It was, most people agreed, the decent thing to do.
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But that was then. 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?
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The answer is that we’re facing a coalition of the heartless, the clueless and the confused. Nothing can be done about the first group, and probably not much about the second. But maybe it’s possible to clear up some of the confusion.
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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.
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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. . .One doubts, however, that any amount of evidence could change Ms. Angle’s view of the world — and there are, unfortunately, a lot of people in our political class just like her.
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[A]s you may have noticed, right now the economy isn’t booming — again, there are five unemployed workers for every job opening. Cutting off benefits to the unemployed will make them even more desperate for work — but they can’t take jobs that aren’t there.
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[A]id to the unemployed creates jobs quickly — while allowing that aid to lapse, which is what is happening right now, is a recipe for even weaker job growth, not in the distant future but over the next few months.
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is there any chance that these arguments will get through? Not, I fear, to Republicans: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something,” said Upton Sinclair, “when his salary” — or, in this case, his hope of retaking Congress — “depends upon his not understanding it.” But there are also centrist Democrats who have bought into the arguments against helping the unemployed. It’s up to them to step back, realize that they have been misled — and do the right thing by passing extended benefits.
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