As Congress Debates Unemplyment Benefit Extension Yet Again...

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

Dean Heller

Given the continuing and relatively elevated unemployment figures, which we all know are really understated, it is understandable why the Federal Government is concerned with extending yet again unemployment benefits.

After all people need a safety net when they fall on hard times and unfortunate circumstances such has been the case for millions since what, 2008?

While most, but by no means all, will actively look for work, job retraining, and or both, some will sit it out and look to the continuing goodies from the tax payers they are confident the Democrats (progressives) in Congress will demand for them. This of course without any urgency to actually find work.

Now, before going further I am unequivocally saying that I AM IN FAVOR OF A TEMPORARY EXTENSION OF JOBLESS BENEFITS at this time and the three month time frame ks reasonable.

However, the question that needs to be asked is, what if circumstances do not change? Do we extend benefits further? Should there be a limit to the number of times and the maximum length benefits should be extended to? Is it even reasonable to have the discussion as to the effect a long eligibility for unemployment benefits has on a person's desire to work?

I certainly don't know the answers to these questions for certain. What I do know is that I, as well as most of you are possessed of common sense.

The Daily Beast - Dean Heller is no big spender, yet he talked five fellow Republicans into breaking his own party’s filibuster of extended unemployment benefits.

Before the Senate voted 60 to 37 Tuesday to end a Republican filibuster on a bill to extend jobless benefits for the next three months for the long-term unemployed, just one Republican senator went out on his own to speak in favor of it, the bill’s lone Republican co-sponsor, Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada. Republicans Kelly Ayotte, Dan Coats, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rob Portman joined Heller to move the bill forward, along with all Senate Democrats.

“Helping those in need should not be a partisan issue. Providing a limited social net is one of the responsibilities of the federal government,” Heller said. “Unfortunately, instead of planning ahead and figuring the best way to do that, we are now forced to decide whether or not to reinstate these benefits after they’ve expired.”

Heller’s push for the emergency aid makes sense, given Nevada’s 9.3% unemployment rate, the highest in the nation. But his willingness to champion the bill put the former stockbroker on the opposite side of nearly every Republican in Washington, including powerful conservative groups like the Club for Growth and Heritage Action, which announced Monday they would “key vote” against the measure.

His unambiguous push for the aid bill also highlighted the competing visions within his own party of how, and even whether, to help people still struggling in the nation’s uneven economic recovery, even as Washington Democrats push to exploit Republican opposition to aid measures going into the 2014 elections.

On unemployment benefits specifically, most GOP senators said Tuesday they would have supported the bill if the $6.5 billion cost had be paid for with cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.

Whatever the Congress, and the People of this nation decide, be prepared to pay the cost of a decision to extend benefits. Either in the form of spending cuts elsewhere in the budget or tax increases on those still working.

It is after all time to cut the bullsh*t and do what is right for the long term best interests of this nation. I'm quite frankly beginning to believe this may very well be fast approaching an impossibility.

Read the rest of the article below the fold.

Via: Memorandum