Conservatives Right Again on Extended Unemployment Benefits

A day barely goes by without an example where a conservative assertion is vindicated and a liberal idea crashes and burns.  Does anyone remember the debate about extended unemployment benefits for the recalcitrant?  Oh yeah, tea partiers and conservatives were called heartless bastards by every newspaper editor across the country.  We were accused of stealing food out of the mouths of children and throwing people out on the streets. 

How dare we demand people get a job in an economy like this?  Well guess what?  The job creation rate Barack Obama took credit for had nothing to do with his policies.  It happened because we took away the teat.  The Washington Examiner reported the following:

Sixty percent of job creation in 2014 was caused by the expiration of unemployment benefits, according to a new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In late 2013, a standoff between Republicans and Democrats led to the abrupt expiration of long-term unemployment benefits. Democrats warned that the expiration would have disastrous ramifications, but Republicans had long argued that allowing Americans to collect unemployment benefits for an indefinite period of time provided a disincentive for them to work.

The new new working paper found that the expiration of benefits was responsible for the creation of over 1.8 million jobs. Nearly 1 million of those jobs were created by workers who would have otherwise stayed out of the labor force if unemployment benefits had been extended. Overall, almost 3 million jobs were created in 2014

“The negative effects of unemployment benefit extensions on employment far outweighs the potential stimulative effects often ascribed to this policy,” the study said.

It found that "the dominant impact of the benefit cut on employment was not driven by a contraction in the labor force —unemployed dropping out of the labor force because they were no longer entitled to benefits — but instead by those previously not participating in the labor market deciding to enter the labor force."

So 60% of job creation was caused by people getting off the public dole and getting a job.  Well, who’d a thought that?  Not the Observers that infest the state of North Carolina.  Here is an excerpt from the News and Observer:

 The unemployed searching in a still tight job market will have less time to find a job in their field or one that suits their skills. When their shrunken unemployment checks run out, they’ll have to take whatever job they can find, usually at a pay level well below what they previously earned.

This is a Dickensian level of callousness toward North Carolinians facing an income crisis, but what makes it particularly irksome is that Republicans are hailing it as a jobs program. In July 2013, Republican lawmakers began punishing the jobless who were fortunate enough to qualify for unemployment benefits. The federal government was offering to pay for extended unemployment benefits so long as states didn’t change their unemployment programs. North Carolina’s lawmakers changed the program anyway, cutting off about 70,000 people from the federal benefits. North Carolina was the only state to do so.

And this one:

Surely there are some in the tea party movement who have at one time been unexpectedly unemployed or have known people who were. And yet the “movement,” such as it is, continues to lead the Republican Party down a hard-line and, yes, hard-hearted path.

Specifically, tea partyers don’t like a federal program that extended unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. The anti-attitude was that people were goofing off and not looking for work because they could stay on the unemployment compensation dole. In North Carolina, Republican legislators altered the benefits, lowering the time people could receive help and cutting the maximum payment, on the misguided logic that if people ran out of benefits, they’d be more motivated to seek work.

It looks like they were motivated to seek work!  Is that Dickensian?  I would say more like Ayn Randian.  How many strikes does it take for a liberal to admit they are constantly wrong?  Definitely, not three. 

Source:

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/20/3718292/nc-needs-extended-unemployment.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/24/3883741_ncs-unemployment-policy-get-a.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/study-60-percent-of-2014-job-growth-caused-by-expiration-of-unemployment-benefits/article/2559267?custom_click=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Hilda Solis is Secretary of Bizarro World

H/T: Weasel Zippers

Illegal Aliens Get Unemployment Benefits

Just when you think you’ve heard it all, a new report shines the light on more government corruption. It seems that illegal aliens and are getting paid unemployment benefits. I find this particularly amusing since I’m a contractor and am ineligible. Judicial Watch reported the following:

It turns out that in one year alone, the federal government and states overpaid about $14 billion in unemployment benefits, according to a DOL report featuring Unemployment Insurance Improper Payments. The eight-page document also includes “strategies to get the rate down.” Evidently the DOL has “an aggressive strategic plan to work with states to control unemployment payments.” This includes “a number of robust strategies,” according to the report.

The bottom line is that the damage has been done, even though—get this—last year’s $14 billion in fraudulent payments was actually an 11% decrease compared to the previous year, according the DOL. That’s why the agency refers to the $14 bil as an improvement though American taxpayers may view it somewhat differently.

Corruption has plagued the nation’s out-of-control jobless benefits program for some time and the problem has only gotten worse under the Obama Administration. As far back as 2010, there were reports of unemployment checks going out to illegal immigrants in at least one state as well as other unqualified legal residents and citizens.

I wonder if anyone is keeping track of the amount of fraud that is being committed on all of these federal government programs. The numbers are astounding! And we’re going to nationalize health care? God forbid!

Source: http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2012/07/oops-u-s-overpaid-14-bil-in-jobless-benefits/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Charlotte Observer Pimps Welfare for Chronically Unemployed

The editors at the Charlotte Observer have bought into this nonsense that unemployment benefits helps the economy. They quote the voodoo economics of the Congressional Budget Office, a supposed non-partisan entity created by Congress in 1974:

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that every $1 spent on jobless benefits generates up to $1.90 in economic growth. Further, the nonpartisan CBO analyzed 11 options for generating short-term growth - including reducing income taxes - and found that extending jobless benefits was the most effective. (Cutting income taxes was least effective.)


So why hasn't the lame-duck Congress gone ahead and extended the benefits, as it has routinely done in the past? Some 2 million Americans face the end of unemployment checks. More people now have been jobless for longer than 26 weeks (when regular unemployment runs out) than any time since at least 1950. That isn't counting the millions whose checks have already ended, which happens in North Carolina after 99 weeks

I would like to know how the $1.00 in jobless benefits generates $1.90 in economic growth. That makes absolutely no sense to me. You have to take away money from those of us who actually work in order to pay these people.  The Disturber continues:

The answer is that Republican leaders need a bargaining chip with which to pressure Democrats to extend the Bush-era tax cuts permanently, for all income levels, even the wealthiest. Never mind that doing so is expected to add $3.7 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.


Yes, the same deficit hawks who don't want the government to spend $56 billion through 2011 for the unemployed are happy to pile trillions onto the long-term deficit. Apparently not all deficit-creating measures are created equal.

The Charlotte Observer believes that taxing the rich is the answer to all our problems. They fail to see the outrageous spending by the Federal Government coupled with burdensome regulations as the real culprit to our economic woes. No they would rather attack the people who actually create jobs. I’ve never been employed by a poor person; nor have I heard of industries forged by government bureaucrats.

The Republicans are willing to extend unemployment benefits as long as there are cuts somewhere else in the budget. The editors at this august paper fail to mention that; instead they parade out a “victim” to demonstrate the callousness of the GOP. I personally do not trust the main stream media. ABC was just busted for lying about just such a victim, when in fact she is an activist:

Good Morning America's Claire Shipman on Thursday tried to disguise a Democratic activist as just a jobless American who would be hurt by Republican failure to extend unemployment benefits. Shipman sympathetically recounted that Edrie Irvine, who she didn't explain spoke at a Nancy Pelosi press conference on Wednesday, "never thought her very livelihood would depend on a political debate in Congress."


A graphic reading "unemployed" appeared onscreen as Irvine complained, "They are talking about tax cuts for the rich and are holding people like me hostage." Who is Ms. Irvine? According to her bio on the leftist Democracy For America web page, she's a "tree-hugging, bleeding-heart, ACLU-card-t progressive liberal and damn proud of it!"





The Observer ends it pity piece with this rhetorical flourish:

Extend the unemployment checks. All this dithering over whether they should be linked to a permanent tax cut for millionaires is unseemly.


The nation's jobless rate remains painfully high at 9.6 percent. Joblessness in the Charlotte region is even higher: 10.2 percent, highest among the state's large metro areas and higher than the 9.1 percent N.C. rate. For anyone to hint that most jobless workers don't want gainful employment is unconscionable.


Extending the jobless benefits will boost the economy and help 2 million suffering households. Congressional leaders have no credible case for not doing so.

I’ve got news for you Observer; there are people who would rather game the system than have a regular job. What is unseemly is that we have people like you that want to create a perpetual underclass dependent upon government largess. Let's call the extension of unemployment benefits for what it really is:  welfare.

Source: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2010/12/02/abc-disguises-democratic-activist-victim-mean-spirited-gop#ixzz173m44F8P

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/12/02/1879756/help-the-economy-by-extending.html#ixzz173fU76DL

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