Charlotte Observer Believes in Endless Unemployment Benefits

The Charlotte Observer’s op-ed piece on the extension of unemployment benefits is typical for this sorry excuse of a newspaper. They bemoan the budget deficit, yet want to add to it without making cuts elsewhere. Never mind that this very Congress passed a “pay as you go” law to ensure that the big spenders wouldn’t get out of hand. The Disturber began the article:

You’d think with a 9.5 percent national unemployment rate, the traditional extension of federal unemployment benefits – which the president signed into law Thursday, would be a no-brainer.

The national unemployment rate is actually 21.5 percent (see the reference below). The Disturber then goes onto list the joblessness in the local area:

N.C. figures Friday showed the Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill regions June unemployment was 11.1 percent, second highest among N.C. metro regions behind the Hickory area’s 13.1 percent. That means about 120,000 people in the Charlotte and Hickory regions are seeking work.

Many of those unemployed are construction workers. I wonder how many jobsites the editors of this rag have been on. Had they been on one, they would notice an inordinate amount of illegals working. But forget about that, Americans are unemployed.

The Disturber doesn’t care how long you’ve been collecting a check, or the fact that many able bodied people is turning down lesser paying jobs. They just want those government benefits to keep coming:

Slashing benefits that help people will only make the deficit even harder to conquer, since people whose unemployment benefits run out can’t stimulate the economy if they can’t afford to buy anything.

And of course the Disturber’s misguided position that tax relief for corporations and the extension of the Bush tax cuts hurt the deficit, which is patently false. It is government spending that is the real culprit for the deficit; not tax relief.

Here is an astonishing statement:

Many economists say the rich spend a smaller proportion of their income, so giving money to the poor stimulates the economy more.

So the Disturber believes confiscating money from productive citizens and giving it to the poor stimulates the economy? You couldn’t be more wrong. What stimulates the economy is an environment that is conducive to producing wealth. Government intervention and programs are an impediment to prosperity. This whole economic disaster can be laid at the feet of the federal government.

There was a time in America when the people in the local community took care of their own. They could judge best who was in need and who was gaming the system. The editors at the Charlotte Observer have lost faith in their community. They trust the judgment of a federal bureaucrat over their neighbors.

Source: http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/the-real-unemployment-rate-215_07022010