This shouldn’t be particularly complicated. Two key policies keeping working families afloat—a temporary cut in the payroll tax and an extension of the time people out of work can draw unemployment insurance—are set to expire in a matter of days, pulling money out of the pockets of millions.
Congress had an easy choice available. Since our economy continues to struggle with high joblessness and low consumer demand, our elected leaders should have simply renewed these policies. But never underestimate the hostility of the House Republican majority to simple governance and their indifference to the economic condition of working-class people.
On Saturday, the U.S. Senate passed—after a lot of negotiation—a bipartisan compromise that would extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance in the short term. It’s not perfect, but it would at least avoid pulling the rug out from under 160 million workers and millions of unemployed people. House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, asked Senators of both parties to come to a compromise, which passed 89-10, on the assumption that the House would vote on the same bill today.
But since nothing can be simple with this Congress, not even the most no-brainer extension of basic economic relief, House Republicans may very well defeat the compromise bill tonight. The political-journalism term of art for this might be “playing hardball,” but the more accurate term is “throwing a tantrum.”
It’s worth noting that the House Republicans’ strategy here is to bundle together the important payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance extensions with unrelated riders aimed at scoring political points. This is sure to upset people who signed this pledge, right?
We will end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with “must-pass” legislation to circumvent the will of the American people. Instead, we will advance major legislation one issue at a time.
Once the authors of that pledge hear about the House Republicans’ violation of that principle, they’re sure to…oh. Wait.
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent nails it: the caucus that controls the U.S. House is “extreme, intransigent, self-indulgent and hostile to basic norms of governing.” To that I’d only add “clearly completely uninterested in the real-world effects of their decisions.”
Terry Miale, a communications systems engineer, lost nearly everything when she lost her job.
My whole life is gone. My retirement is gone. My house is gone. For a period of time, I lost my mental health because I went into a deep depression.
Even though she worked 30 years in her field, it took Miale four years to get re-employed. So Miale can’t understand why Republican leaders in Congress just won’t extend unemployment insurance (UI) to long-term unemployed workers who can’t find jobs in an economy in which there are more than four workers for every one job.
When I needed unemployment benefits, they were there. I really think that it isn’t fair to pull a lifeline out from under people that are just now having to collect unemployment benefits. It’s hard enough to live on unemployment benefits, let alone live with none.
Unless UI is extended this month, 2 million jobless people will lose their lifeline. Those in Congress blocking the UI extension should be made to feel what it’s like to be unemployed.
It bears repeating, every day: if Congress doesn’t act, six million people will lose unemployment insurance benefits at the end of the year. That’s six million people who will find it harder to make ends meet, and six million fewer people who can support their community’s economy.
Half of America is poor or low-income and wide majorities say that our economic and political systems are unfairly tilted towards the rich. It’s time we start listening and responding to the voices of the people who are actually impacted by our political decisions—not just the politicians, pundits and lobbyists who set the agenda in Washington. Here are two.
Shonda, a Working America member from Ohio, has been unemployed for nearly two years, and has relied on her unemployment insurance to help care for her ailing mother.
Karen, a Working America member and a former bank teller from Pennsylvania, has been unemployed for 13 months.
So many people in this country are unemployed—including half a million of our members—and House Republicans are offering up a bill that would end unemployment insurance for more than 3 million people. How can you claim to be concerned about the economy when you’re fighting to pull back the unemployment insurance so many families, including people like Shonda and Karen, are counting on to make ends meet?
In Washington, they’re really making their priorities clear. Either their idea of how the economy works is totally backwards or they’re just not interested in policies that actually help working-class and middle-class people like Karen and Shonda.
“The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 3630. With only days left before taxes go up for 160 million hardworking Americans, H.R. 3630 plays politics at the expense of middle-class families. H.R. 3630 breaks the bipartisan agreement on spending cuts that was reached just a few months ago and would inevitably lead to pressure to cut investments in areas like education and clean energy. Furthermore, H.R. 3630 seeks to put the burden of paying for the bill on working families, while giving a free pass to the wealthiest and to big corporations by protecting their loopholes and subsidies,” the administration said in a statement of policy.
Added Carney definitively: “If the president were presented with H.R. 3630, he would veto the bill.”
Cue the feigned shock and anger from Speaker John Boehner, whose office said the veto threat was “legislative malpractice,” based on “fictitious reasoning.”
We’re going to once again disagree with the Speaker: there’s nothing “fictitious” about the economic pain and suffering that will result if H.R. 3630 becomes law.
With the average length of unemployment at a record high, it is cruel and selfish to cut 40 weeks off of federal unemployment benefits.
With millions of Americans out of work through no fault of their own, it is cruel and selfish to require applicants to be tested for drugs just to get the funds to buy groceries and fill their gas tanks.
With the unemployment rate in states like Michigan still over 10 percent, it is cruel and selfish to end Tier IV unemployment compensation and cut aid from states that need it most.
With state governments faced with impossible budget choices, it is cruel and selfish to override their ability to make decisions on unemployment benefits – and from the same Congressmen who were elected on the promise of “smaller government.”
With 80 percent of Americans begging the two parties to work together for solutions, it is cruel and selfish to treat unemployed Americans as pawns in the Speaker’s political chess match with the President.
Memo to House Republicans: It’s not a game to those outside the Beltway. It’s not a game to the people at home having to decide between food and medicine. We aren’t fooled or amused by Rep. Dave Camp writing a bill that insults our dignity and hurts our wallets, and then putting a bow on top and calling it “The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act.”
Why don’t they get it? Why do they think less money in the pockets of Americans translates into “job creation?” Why do they think the inability to pay for food and housing is good for the economy?
We’re far from agreeing with everything the Obama Administration does. But if this bill gets to the President’s desk in its current form, a veto is the least he could do. If I was President, I might rip it up, or set it on fire.
We’re tweeting all day about the importance of unemployment insurance to millions of Americans and the economy at large. Join in by tweeting with the hashtag #ExtendUI.
If you closed your eyes and tried to imagine a piece of legislation that could inflict the most damage on the pocketbooks and dignities of working Americans, you couldn’t get much better than H.R. 3630.
Introduced by Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), fresh from driving the bipartisan “Supercommittee” into the ground with his intransigence, H.R. 3630 is a Frankenstein of poison pills, deceptive language, and punishment for the unemployed.
A report from the National Employment Law Project lays out the tenets of this bill:
H.R. 3630 shortens the federal unemployment benefit period by a whopping 40 weeks, even as the average length of unemployment is at its highest since 1948.
H.R. 3630 overrides the power of the individual states to determine eligibility for unemployment benefits.
H.R. 3630 eliminates Tier IV of unemployment compensation, removing a vital lifeline specifically from those states with the highest rates of unemployment.
H.R. 3630 charges unemployed workers for the cost of their own reemployment.
H.R. 3630 imposes the requirement of a high school diploma or GED to be eligible for benefits, an unfair burden on those with less access to education.
And in an insult to the millions of American who are unemployed through no fault of their own, the bill allows states to test every UI applicant for drug use.
It’s titled, unbelievably, the “Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011.” George Orwell doesn’t hold a candle to Rep. Dave Camp.
H.R. 3630 would protect the most privileged one percent of all Americans from having to pay one more penny in taxes, and it would do so by demanding still more sacrifice and pain from jobless workers, federal employees, and low- and middle-income families. The authors of H.R. 3630 obviously have more sympathy for millionaires than for the victims of the economic crisis caused by Wall Street. We urge you to vote against this cruel and selfish piece of legislation.
Tomorrow, starting at 11am, we’ll be having an #ExtendUI Tweet-a-thon to get the word out about the importance of a clean extension of unemployment insurance. If you haven’t, sign our 9 Demands for the 99 Percent petition, which includes a demand for Congress to extend this vital lifeline.
It can’t be said often enough: with the jobs situation as bad as it is, we need to keep unemployment insurance flowing to the millions of households who need them. There are more than four job seekers for every job opening, and the average unemployed person has been out of work for some 40 weeks. Unfortunately, the extension of unemployment insurance that would support those struggling with long-term unemployment is set to expire at the end of the year.
And now, to add insult to injury, the Republican caucus in the U.S. House is pushing a new bill that would slash weeks out of the unemployment benefits that those out of work can draw on.
That means that families hardest-hit by the economy are going to have less money in their pockets to spend on their food and their home. It means that they can’t contribute as much to the local economy. The new bill is short-sighted and cruel in its impacts.
In addition to the new reductions on the length of benefits, the bill is riddled with proposals that would punish the unemployed, make the system less efficient and undermine the guarantee of unemployment insurance.
As economist Jared Bernstein notes, “The whole thing makes no sense…we’ve never failed to extend with the jobless rate this high. It’s bad for families who need the money, and it’s bad for the macro economy, since they spend the money.”
As usual, the Republican leadership in Congress is showing where its priorities are—and making things better for working families doesn’t seem to make it onto the list.
House Republican leaders unveiled a budget plan Friday in which they “once again rushed to the rescue of the 1 percent” by insisting that millionaires should not have to pay one penny in taxes, according to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Instead,
the House Republican proposal would cut benefits for jobless workers, cut pay for public employees, cut preventive health services, reduce premium assistance for low- and middle-income individuals buying health insurance, and raise premiums for many Medicare beneficiaries. House Republicans obviously have more sympathy for millionaires than for the jobless.
AFGE President John Gage also blasted the Republicans leaders” Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, introduced by House Speaker John Boehner.
This is just another attack on the 99% on behalf of their good friends—the 1%. They are targeting a small segment of people who make $30,000 to $70,000 a year, rather than asking their millionaire and billionaire supporters to pay a little more. It’s not right, and the American people should be outraged.
Mark Stewart has worked his entire life, paid his taxes, and served proudly in the United States Navy. But if Congress doesn’t act to extend unemployment insurance by December 31st, he could lose the only lifeline he has.
Mark and his wife Judy are searching for new work full time, and are barely making ends meet. Judy is diabetic, and the couple cannot afford health insurance now that they are out of work. Along with Working America members, Ohio AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Petee Tally, Rev. Les Stansberry, and others, they paid a visit to the office of Senator Robert Portman (R-OH) in Columbus. Mark and Judy are two of the 77,000 unemployed Ohioans who could fall off the unemployment rolls as early as January if politicians like Senator Portman don’t act before their Christmas vacation. “I’ve worked for the system all my life,” Mark told us, “I think this once the system should work for me.”
The group also delivered the 9 Demands of the 99% Petition, a plan to get America’s economy back on track that includes the extension of unemployment insurance. They did not get to see Senator Portman, but spoke to several staffers. “We added a big red bow,” said Working America Ohio State Director Dan Stewart. “We said we hoped that they all had a nice holiday, and that we hoped the Senator wouldn’t forget those without jobs this season.”
Senator Portman, who previously served as Budget Director under President George W. Bush, told the Toledo Blade that he “assumes” Congress will pass the extension of unemployment benefits by the end of the year, but that he is concerned about how to pay for it without adding to the deficit. He did not express similar concerns about his plan to cut the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. When members of our staff wanted to discuss this with their staff, they were told that they didn’t have time to talk.
In September I wrote about states that were considering forcing people receiving welfare or food stamp benefits to undergo urine testing for drugs, in order to qualify for their benefits. Florida actually tried it, and has found that it isn’t exactly working out the way they’d hoped. In fact, it’s costing the state a lot of money. But, this hasn’t deterred those who are determined to wage war on the poor.
The bill by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) would require unemployment claimants to pass a drug test if they are identified in an initial screening as having a high probability of drug use.
Yes, that’s right. He wants people who are collecting unemployment benefits from a system they’ve paid into, to take mandatory drug tests.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said Wednesday that Republican legislation would “reform” unemployment insurance. “We are working on a bill to stop a tax hike, protect Social Security, reform unemployment insurance and create jobs,” Steel said.
It doesn’t seem to occur to these folks that if there were jobs, there would be fewer folks who are unemployed. They really work hard at having it both ways; decrying the lack of jobs, then blaming the unemployed for not working.
Kingston cited an overwhelming number of job applicants flunking drug tests as the rationale for his proposal.
“I had an employer tell me of an overwhelming response for job openings,” Kingston said in a statement. “There was just one problem: half the people who applied could not even pass a drug test.”
Last year Governor Nikki Hailey of South Carolina made a similar claim. It proved to be bogus. Governor Hailey had to admit that she’s made those comments based on erroneous information. Representative Kingston is refusing to provide the source for his claims.
At a series of listening sessions with business owners throughout the First District conducted earlier this year, Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA) heard repeatedly about barriers to job creation. While he heard many of the issues he expected like overly burdensome regulations and the pervasive uncertainty in the economy, one issue that was brought up in every meeting surprised him: abuse of unemployment insurance.
So, because people are allegedly abusing unemployment insurance business owners can’t create jobs? That doesn’t even make sense.
“My proposal strengthens the safety net and ensures it will be available to those who use it as a stepping stone back into the workforce,” Kingston said. “It does so without increasing federal spending or placing new, unfunded mandates on the states.”
So, preventing people from collecting unemployment benefits from a fund that they’ve paid into is his definition of strengthening the safety net? Ensuring that kids go hungry and may become homeless is a function of the safety net?
I vote we drug test Congressman Kingston. At about 8 pm, on any given night.
