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StumbleLETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Jobless benefits are a key stimulus tool
Sunday, July 18, 2010 | 2:03 a.m.
In his Wednesday letter to the editor, Bernard Mesco makes a compelling case that extending unemployment benefits does little harm to the deficit because of the resulting taxes generated. But the advantages to our economy don’t end there. One of the unfortunate hallmarks of recessions is that they tend to be self-sustaining: Economies in recession tend to spiral down. Unemployment benefits can deter this effect. For example, unemployment money spent for groceries prevents grocery workers and agricultural workers (not to mention truck drivers and accountants) from being laid off and having to go on unemployment.
As economic stimulus goes, unemployment benefits may be the most effective tool the government has, because, as Mr. Mesco points out, the unemployed spend most of the money they receive. Money spent in America equals economic stimulus. The downward spiral is arrested. The upward spiral begins.
Contrast this with Republican dogma: Tax cuts for the rich are best because the rich will invest the money to create new jobs. Common sense tells us this is nonsense. One of the side effects of an economic bubble is that too many goods are produced as businesses scramble to take advantage of perceived “positive economic conditions.”
When the bubble bursts, these businesses are left with huge inventories that can’t be sold because the economy has turned sour. Until these inventories are brought to reasonable levels, businesses can’t afford to invest to create new products. Demand for new production isn’t justified, so investors seek safe havens for tax cut money. They can’t prudently invest in job-producing ventures.
Yet, Republicans in Congress are sticking to this ludicrous idea, blocking attempts to extend unemployment benefits. The Republicans seem to be willing to block these benefits and prolong high unemployment to score political gains in the fall. Time will tell if the voters fall for this cynical ploy.
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Give a man a fish and he will be fed until tomorrow. Teach a man to fish and he will be fed for life.
Like many well meant social programs unemployment comp was to help the worker search for a job. With so many extensions the hunger pains are not there. This has been the same story with almost all the other social payouts that have been put in place. I am all for social worker programs, like these unemployed could work on a government owned farm, that food could be used to feed the other social services peoples. Throwing good money at bad is not the answer. Creating an asset with the liability is. The non working mothers could be cleaning the homes and helping with upkeep of senior citizens in exchange for thier monthly check for instance. The check to the senior could be cut slightly for payment in kind. Everyone wins.
IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID!!
Are we going to extend unemployment benefits forever?? Just slide all the out-of-work people over to the welfare rolls and we'll have a huge welfare class like we did back in the 60's 70's & 80's until Clinton passed welfare reform so people were forced to get a job beacuse they no longer received the government money they were living on.
Obama, Reid & Pelosi think higher and longer unemployment benefits are good for the economy. That's nonsense.
Jobs are good for the economy. The business of America is business! -- FDR said that. When you have strong and thriving businesses they create jobs that pay the taxes that keep government running.
Obama and Reid have done NOTHING to help business. Just look around. Businesses everywhere are hurting even more now than in the past. That's because Obama slapped them with more regulations -- that's just as costly as taxes to a business.
Obama and Reid have done NOTHING to help the economy.
On November 2nd, "It's the economy stupid!" That's what will drive the votes. It's time for a change. The folks in charge don't know how to fix the economy.
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So, So Manny Mistakes By The Talibon Party Of No
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Not agreeing to a jobless benefit extention was a major error among many as the Talibon Party attempts to regain seats of office and the White House. This will be well recalled at election time.
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The Tolibon Party's anti health care reform stance will also be well recalled at election time. Although no public option is in it, it was a big improvement to what it used to be and also the AWOLBush donut hole will phase out over a few years.
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The Tolibon Party is not where they say they are and they will be shocked at what they come up with this next election phase. RightPantyBinderAngle has no shot at beating Harry , none at all, even though Nevada has put her as thier Toloiban candidate, she's a loser as all know when hearing her words of stupidity and idioticasy. Sue "the chicken woman" Lowden is yet another candidate of stupidity by her very own words. They are in the same class as OilSpillSarah just blasting out the same old idiotic jargon over and over again without any specifics whatsoever to back it up.
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Thanks For Reading Factual Postings America
All the Dems have to do is produce a clean bill and pay for it with unspent Stimulus money
Why are Obama, Reid and Pelosi playing politics with Unemployment benefits.
//////////////////////////////////////////////
But more important is why did Obama, Reid and Pelosi not produce at Jobs Stimulus bill back when they had that money to spend.
They wasted $856 billion on stuff that did not produce a jobs environment for private sector jobs or help small business.
Obama, Biden, Reid, and Pelosi don't get it.
When businesses are uncertain about the future and see higher taxes, higher energy cost, higher health insurance cost, higher capital formation cost, and higher regulatory cost they are not going to expand and hire.
Now that they have squandered our Stimulus money they want MORE to spend guess what on so called small business stuff that will not work.
Where were they 18 mouths ago? They need to lead or get out of the way
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Stimulus plans and schemes do not work. Private investment does. Probably the best way to generate work is to give investors 5 years moratorium from paying taxes. Let them hire workers to run new businesses. The workers will pay the taxes. They will be happy to pay the taxes. They will be happy in their work.
How do you take money away from one person (and the subsequent spending and taxation that would have occurred with them) and give it to another person and think that spending and tax revenues go up? That is mental magic to me.
Future - "
All the Dems have to do is produce a clean bill and pay for it with unspent Stimulus money
Why are Obama, Reid and Pelosi playing politics with Unemployment benefits."
The "Party of Hell No" put a stop to that idea, also when TARP was brought up to help aid the economy. Stop blaming Dems for trying when the other party has put a halt to almost everything on the Hill.
The extension is $35 billion, 0.3% of the deficit. Do you all think this actually about money? It's part of the "Obama Waterloo" program.
John Boehner and Mitch McConell both warned the GOP not to run on issues, because they don't have any. Remember the GOP health plan that catered to corporations insuring only 3,000 people that was bogus? How about the 9 page GOP stimulus with pretty pictures but no numbers both Boehner and Cantor squawked about?
If you allow the GOP to regain control of the White House and Congress, what makes anyone believe they will change. They are doing absolutely nothing at all now with this country in serious trouble.
JanK says: "That's because Obama slapped them with more regulations -- that's just as costly as taxes to a business."
Please feel free to name some of the new regulations on businesses.
Thanks
JanK, a Republican, writes:
"Jobs are good for the economy. The business of America is business! -- FDR said that. When you have strong and thriving businesses they create jobs that pay the taxes that keep government running."
Gee, that's really a stroke of genius on your part. However, your idea has one hole in it--the 8 million jobs that were lost as a consequence of the economic implosion in 2007-2008 will take many years to reappear. It took 10 years and WWII for the nation to dig itself out of the 1929 stock market collapse.
Jan's and her party's prescription for the 8 million unemployed? "Go back and get those jobs that don't exist anymore--and stop whining! You know, the ones that were lost as the consequence of the last administration?"
"Oh, and pardon me while I vote for the party that is going to get you lazy people out of the way and give the wealthy the tax cut they deserve! There's enough tax money for THEM--but just not for YOU!"
Thanks for your advice, but no thanks.
AP
Right on AmericanPatriot, JanK obviously knows little about FDR and what he did for the economy.
When FDR was elected unemployment was a resounding 25%. He did what Obama was attempting, but Obama was handcuffed by the GOP. FDR spent his way out by creating jobs such as the TVA. Unemployment dropped from 25% to 10% by the time we entered WWII.
Under FDR regulation was strictly placed upon banking so we didn't need to repeat what happened causing the Great Depression.
Now with those restrictions removed on banking and insurance why would anyone think it wouldn't happen again?
Of course the Fox dolts wouldn't know these things. I ask, if FDR was so bad, why was he elected 4 times? I'll bet many of those dolts don't even know that.
Not long ago Alan Greenspan thought the market would self-correct. When it didn't he was surprised, why? Greenspan didn't count on the greed factor. Now Greenspan has admitted the Bush tax cuts helped shove us into this situation, Greenspan, the designer of the Bush tax cuts.
If the GOP had let Obama do what he wanted, and if Obama wasn't so damn naive thinking he could work with them, we would be far better off on a road to recovery.
The GOP has been acting like spoiled brats who lost the game, regardless of the damage done to this great nation. I am talking about a party that continues trying the same things over and over with the same failing results, most would say that's insanity, at best.
Thanks to Bart Atwell for a well written and objective letter.
Many thanks to the Progressive bloggers that defend the truth, not only today, but everyday.
Real American Patriots All!
Progressives are actually Regressive Nanny Staters. They embody everything that can be and is wrong with Socialism.
Teach them to fish; pfft, they want you to fish and GIVE them a fish to claim as their own.
The constant Progressive drumbeat these Hooligans espouse is the dying breath of a once great Nation.
Where were all these pseudo-patriots when Bush was President; I'll tell you, they were throwing stones at him and proclaiming how "dissent is patriotic." Now that the shoe is on the other foot; dissenters of Obama are miscreants at best and brain addled dwarfs at worst. Vexing and disturbing.
Progressives are the latest Pandemic to reach our shores. Individualism is dead and "give me, give me" is the new rallying cry.
Heaven help us.
I work for a very large company. I've witnessed numerous people this year (at least 40 people) who deliberately took the necessary steps to get themselves fired - they bragged about it. All of them wanted to stay at home with the kids while collecting unemployment.
It's a welfare program and, as with all of them, it's filled with fraud. Thanks Harry - soon you'll get to apply. No wait, you can't collect while you're in prison, can you?
getalife - "Where were all these pseudo-patriots when Bush was President"
Better yet, where were the fiscally conservative when Bush used the two wars, tax cuts and a pharma deal ($450 billion) to help drive the economy into the toilet? Including borrowing from a communist country we now are into hock over that debt.
If anyone drove this great nation into the ditch it was the Bush administration. Even Troll Cheney openly stated, "what's debt?", we'll worry about it later. Just like he said "So?" when asked about our troops dieing in Iraq.
All of the above stats were not included into his budget, and including the surplus he blew off, adds to a neat sum of $2.2 trillion.
Fox won't tell you these nifty details. Keep believing the crap you do, that'll get this country headed in the right direction, duh?
You people really should head over to You Tube and watch our recent history about what these clowns did while in office. The videos don't lie, and then as now, they seem to forget these comments were recorded.
Over the last year Republicans have done squat to work out anything to help us all. They made amendments to a bunch of bills then voted against almost all of them. Geez people, don't you know anything?
larry5, I do not believe you when you state you know 40 people that deliberately got themselves fired.
Please print their names.
Unemployment Insurance is paid for by the employee and the employer. It is not welfare.
If you know definitely there is fraud, why do you not call the FBI, or the NV Department of Unemployment? Just type in FBI/Las Vegas, NV and you can get their address and phone number.
"Contrast this with Republican dogma: Tax cuts for the rich are best because the rich will invest the money to create new jobs. Common sense tells us this is nonsense."
Very, very true.
And regarding tax cuts for the rich, the madness continues even today on the news.
McConnell, the Republican from Kentucky, was interviewed on a CNN news show. He was asked a total of THREE times how is it possible to cut the deficit without letting these tax cuts expire.
And THREE times he skirted the issue by saying falsely that the taxes are being raised. And not the truth of the matter in that the rich have gotten away with paying their fair share for at least a decade now.
And THREE times he deflected an answer by pointing at the spending must stop.
This whole agenda of trying to pander to the rich has been going on for a couple of weeks now. And they are clearly trying to turn it into some kind of campaign issue to get back in power in November.
But the reality of it is avoided by them. They DO NOT want to answer truthfully this question: How is it mathematically possible that tax cuts and the deficit can both be said in the same breath?
The clear cut answer is those tax cuts WILL expire. And once they do, the American Government stands to put at least a few trillion towards whittling down the debt.
But Republicans want to pander to the rich for campaign money. And they continue to use some kind of bizarro math to try to convince people that the tax cuts for the rich must continue.
Put a fork in it, Republicans. That's not going to work. Stop sucking up to the rich and corporations. Start serving the American people. Like you were elected into office to do.
larry5: That was from a dream you had of watching a Glenn Beck show with an unemployment dream theme.
Real believable!