Dem says it’s wrong to celebrate Christmas if unemployment benefits not extended

Examiner ^ | December 4, 2010 | Marc Schenker

[fightinJAG]

I agree with much of what you said except for your premise that extended unemployment benefits “help” people.

It’s true there are not jobs out there. But that’s freeing up the process of job creation is the only way out of this mess. And paying extended unemployment benefits HINDERS job creation and INCREASES unemployment in several ways.

So, in the end, this isn’t so much about bootstrapping, but about actually, compassionately helping people. Yes, sometimes it hurts to get well (or better), but it must be done.

Sometimes I think we forget what a generous and decent people Americans are. I do think that many would find help and support from friends, family and their fellow man — not to mention within themselves — if they stopped looking to government as the be-all and end-all of the provision for their needs. (Emphasis on NEEDS.)

[fightinJAG]

This is why Libs hate private charity: it inherently has an element of accountability.

[The Comedian]

Celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, has nothing to do with what the Government does or does not do.

Actually, it does.

Jesus survived Herod's state-sponsored abortion-on-demand (his demand) to be recognized only by 3 foreign kings and the local non-union labor.

Jesus learned the law in private, non-government school.

Jesus challenged the proximate Vichy bureaucracy (Pharisees), dismissed the state's position in victimless crime (prostitution), and eventually was murdered by government for the crime of challenging its ultimate authority.

Merry Christmas. Final score: Jesus 1, State 0

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[mo]

What the Dems are scared to death of is that as bennies are curtailed....the real unemployment levels will start to surface as whatever jobs in the community were being supported by that subsidized spending start to go away.

Now if the Pubbies had had any stones at all .... they would have blocked benefits extension last June....and the 12%-13% unemployment number by October WOULD have translated into Senate control...and Dingy Reid’s retirement. But that’s asking a little much of cretures with little spine and no testost....

[Walmartian]

May I quote you?

[Vision]

Thanks.

[Vision]

Consider it yours. Let’s get the American people to realize it.

[Truth29]

"Unemployment! BAH HUMBG! Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?"

Welll, maybe we should require some form of public service in exchange for unemployment benefits. Work for value received.

[who knows what evil?]

Young people would benefit from the initial job training that even burger-flipper jobs provide. How to show up. How to show up on time. How to show up on time dressed propertly. How to follow business protocols. How to cooperate with others. How to achieve goals. How to run a business. Plumbers would hire apprentices and train them. Construction people would train carpenters, roofers, electricians.

Outstanding! Too many skilled people go to the grave without an opportunity to pass their skills on to others...a great way to cut back on educational expenses. There ARE solutions out there...and they don't involve standing outside an unemployment office collecting petition signatures to extend UI benefits...

[hattend]

I was offered a minimum wage job for $8 an hour. I was making $8+ an hour AFTER TAXES sitting on mmy unimployed butt. I had to turn down the job.

Thankfully I’m employed now.

You’re point rings true.

[who knows what evil?]

...so we extend UI benefits another year...then what?

[chris_bdba]

This is the wrong argument....the republicans already said they wuld extend them if the dems find the money to pay for them the problem is that the dems don’t want to use their slush fund(unspent stimulas) to extend them.It is a false arguement that the tax cuts aren’t apid for because the largest amount the treasurary ever took in whas 2003 and 2004 after the tax cuts were passed in the first place.Perhaps someone should aks the dems why they are not willing to use stimulas funds to extend unemplyment?

[fightinJAG]

Exactly. And I’m quite sure you’re not a slacker or a deadbeat. The fact remains that everyone makes decisions that are financially beneficial to them, balancing the short-term and long-term potential and effect.

If that employer wanted to hire you, they had to pay you more than you were getting on unemployment. Since they couldn’t do that for some reason, they lost an employee to their competitor, the government.

[fightinJAG]

P.S. Great news you got a job!

[dalereed]

Go back to cutting it off at 26 weeks as written!!!

[dalereed]

“Time for the State govts to man up and expand the welfare roles.”

Eliminate welfare and make people work for whatever they can get or lie down and die!

[The Citizen Soldier]

When originally implemented the goal was a 'safety net' for six months (26 weeks). Assuming one started on the program around Christmas, they would be off it by the 4th of July.

Today, if extended, it will mean some people have been on it for the THIRD Christmas in a row!

Damn, what was I thinking, getting up and going to work all these years???

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

This is not so much about “helping” people than permitting them to tread water until circumstances change. Unemployment tends to have an increasingly erosive effect, the longer it lasts, as more resources become exhausted. This leads to depression and despair.

And political vulnerability. More and more such people are willing to vote for anyone who offers them a way out. The best example was Lenin, who became hugely popular by saying just three words: “peace, land, bread”, to desperate people.

It almost makes me wince to see several people, bootstrappers, even after I explained what a disaster we could all face out of being miserly. Indeed it is penny wise and pound foolish.

Is it worth it that Obama gets reelected, just to show those damned lazy unemployed people a thing or two about responsibility?

Hell no. We MUST get our priorities straight.

$58 billion to extend unemployment benefits is *nothing* compared to the vast amounts being wasted right now on utterly useless crap, and yet this $58 billion could make or break the Republican or Democrat parties for 50 years!

And all the Republicans are asking for is that this money comes from less spending, instead of increasing the deficit.

Give the unemployed their money! The vast majority of them WILL get work when they can. They are not multi-generational welfare babies. They are normal, hard working people who got fired, and have not been able to get work since. They do not like their situation, and they are terrified that their lives will go to hell unless they can hold things together.

These are millions of scared Americans who vote. Do not sneer at them and curse them. What they want is tiny, but can change the future of our country. For better. Or much, much worse.

[BelegStrongbow]

Perhaps someone should aks the dems why they are not willing to use stimulas funds to extend unemplyment?

Given the question is asked, do you expect them to tell you something that might bear any relationship to the truth? Have we any assurance the Dems even would know what the truth would be? The only way to overcome this is to continue to vote them out. At the moment, it appears that the only way to stonewall their continued assault on the Treasury is to require that any new spending be paid for by applying unused prior authorizations. It creates a paralysis, but has the advantage of doing so in a positive sense: the Reps are trying to help but by requiring that the help be correctly accounted for, the Dems are put in the position of saying 'no'. And making them say 'no' is the entire exercise. Every day the decision is not made, some people are incented to take jobs that pay, even if they were greatly inferior to jobs they once had. Every one who does that improves the situation and drains power from Dems. I don't see a downside, though the LSM would make the whole experience as painful as they can.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

You make many excellent points, all of which point to one thing - human nature. Man is by nature self-centered. That is why free enterprise and “the market” work so successfully. Central planners, who think they know what is best for everyone, the “elite”, are impatient with free choice because some people make bad choices or choices that are not in sync with their plan. Some do, of course, but the consequences of individual bad choices are self-correcting. (Validating that statement will take more space than I intend to take here.) Central planners are faceless and far away so they just pass off bad choices as unintended consequences and the correction rarely takes place. The phrase unintended consequences is also a convenient way to hide their deceptions.

A strong belief in God, not a false prophet like Mohammed, is the glue which holds a free society together. That comparison is another example of why one works and the other does not. Our God, embodied in Jesus, leaves the choices up to us, as well as the consequences of those choices. Muslims are governed by earthly religious leaders who determine their course of action and exact vengeance on those who they feel are wrong.

Christianity and free enterprise are natural allies as are Islam and tyranny. Christianity and free enterprise have built the most successful, most generous, and most powerful nation ever. Islam and tyranny have frozen civilization in time, the time of Mohammed. Modern tyrannies, such as socialism and Marxism. also stifle innovation and eventually die.

The average citizen would choose free enterprise and Christianity were they to make an INFORMED choice. Unfortunately, those who would control the rest of us have for 100+ years MISinformed the average citizen and have done their best to eradicate Christianity. They will fail.

The obvious thing we must be aware of, (if it is obvious I guess we would be aware of it, huh?) is that those who want to control are also operating from self-centeredness. They want power and privilege but they don’t want to earn it fairly, they want to take it by force. They use lies and deception to accomplish their goals because us “victims” don’t want to give power to them.

During a time of monarchs I suppose the appeal of Marxism had a basis. The divide between the haves and the have-nots, the masses, was wide and there was no logical and honest way for the have-nots to improve their positions. Therefore a revolution made sense. That time and those circumstances are long past, yet, those seeking to take and keep power strive to maintain that deep divide in order to foment a revolution. They are Evil and must be stamped out!