NEARLY ONE MILLION US WORKERS CUT OFF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS
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Posted By: Siebra Muhammad on June 20, 2010 With 12 Democrats joining a unanimous Republican bloc, the US Senate voted Wednesday to defeat a proposed extension of unemployment benefits for workers who have been jobless for nearly two years. The bill would have extended unemployment benefits for those out of work more than six months, until November 30. In the two and a half weeks since June 1, when the last extension expired, some 903,000 workers have seen their benefits cut off. By June 26, that number will top 1.2 million. Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported that the number of new claims for unemployment compensation jumped to 472,000 last week, the highest figure in several months. The result is that a Congress that rushed through a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street in October 2008 in a matter of days, and authorized a further financial windfall to the banks and speculators five months later, cannot bring itself to support even the most meager subsistence for the unemployed workers who are the victims, not the perpetrators, of the economic crisis. The vote was taken under Senate rules, not to pass the legislation itself, but to “waive budgetary discipline” and allow passage by a simple majority rather than 60 votes out of 100. The result was 45 in favor and 52 against, with three senators absent. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had already abandoned an effort to adopt a cloture motion, closing debate, for lack of the necessary 60 votes. Three months ago a similar extension bill passed the Senate easily. The unemployment extension is part of a larger bill that includes additional aid to state governments to cover Medicaid, the healthcare program for the poor, and to offset a potential 21 percent cut in reimbursements to doctors who treat Medicare patients. The House of Representatives passed a version of the bill May 28 costing $113 billion, but without the Medicaid assistance to the states. The Senate version includes the Medicaid support, and costs a total of $140 billion, which sparked the unanimous no vote of the Republicans, as well as the opposition of the 12 Democrats, mainly conservatives, but including liberals like Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. According to press reports, leading Senate Democrats are seeking to win votes from the bill’s opponents by eliminating a $25 a week increase in jobless benefits that was part of the 2009 stimulus package. In other words, either all 10 million jobless workers would see a $25 cut in benefits, from checks averaging $309 a week, or benefits for the 5.7 million long-term unemployed would be cut off completely. Either way, those deprived of work by the economic crisis of capitalism, the most vulnerable section of the working class, will be made to pay. One of the dozen right-wing Democrats who voted against the bill, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, reiterated his opposition to Capitol Hill reporters. He cited concerns about the federal deficit, after rejecting a new version of the bill that would cost $20 billion less. “Borrowing and deficit spending at the point of an economic crisis—and we were in a severe one in late 2008 and early 2009—is one thing,” Nelson said. “But when you’re in an economic recovery, as we are today, borrowing and deficit spending is another thing.” Another Democratic “no” vote, Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, told Fox News through a spokesman that she was particularly opposed to a provision in the bill that would have raised taxes on the oil and gas industry from 8 cents a barrel to 49 cents, raising $18.3 billion to replenish the Oil Liability Trust Fund. Besides the oil industry tax, there is enormous business opposition to a proposed increase in the tax on the compensation of hedge fund managers—much of it currently taxed not as income but at the much lower capital gains rate—as well as a tax increase on investment partnerships. Lobbying against this provision was said to be especially heavy on the part of companies like Blackstone. A Republican alternative, introduced by Senator John Thune of South Dakota, would have extended jobless benefits and selected tax credits for business, but at the price of a 5 percent across-the-board cut in all federal discretionary spending (with the military-intelligence apparatus excluded, of course). This was defeated by a 41 to 57 margin. Big business politicians of both parties have expressed their disdain for the unemployed, suggesting that extended unemployment benefits, now set at 99 weeks, are encouraging jobless workers to stay home and not look for work. Georgia Republican Congressman John Linder said that extended benefits were “too much of an allure.” Senator Diane Feinstein, a multi-millionaire Democrat from California, complained, “We have 99 weeks of unemployment insurance. The question comes, how long do you continue that before people just don’t go back to work at all?” California has a 12.6 percent unemployment rate, with 880,000 workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more, and receiving extended benefits. Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat with particularly close ties to the White House, voted against the unemployment extension and backed the $25 a week cut. “This is not something that can go on indefinitely,” she said. Otherwise, “it begins to look like a brand-new level of entitlement program, which is something that we really can’t afford to do right now.” Reports in the corporate-controlled media invariably cite mass popular opposition to higher federal deficits as the reason for the shift by a section of the Democratic Party to opposing extended unemployment benefits. However, the claim that working people are up in arms over deficit spending is a spurious one, identifying the media-promoted antics of the Tea Party and other right-wing groups as a genuine popular movement. The same polls that document overwhelming popular hostility to the bailout of Wall Street and the Obama administration’s kid-glove treatment of BP show that the vast majority believe that jobless benefits should be extended and that emergency measures should be taken to provide jobs for the unemployed. While the White House and Congress wrangle over the smallest of subsistence measures for the jobless, neither party nor the corporate elite as a whole propose to do anything to provide jobs for the unemployed. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that American corporations have increased their cash reserves to $1.84 trillion, the highest figure in history. In other words, big business and the banks, after an unprecedented bailout by the public treasury, are hoarding the funds that could put millions back to work. The cash reserves of major corporations have jumped 26 percent in one year, the largest percentage increase in nearly 60 years. The cash reserves of working people, and particularly the unemployed, have not been so fortunate. While the treatment of the unemployed is the most glaring expression of the callousness and indifference of the wealthy, the opposition to the Medicaid assistance to the states is not far behind. Medicaid, which pays for medical care for the poor, is the largest single budgetary item in most states, with 80 percent of the cost borne by the federal government and 20 percent by the states. Most US states must balance their books for a fiscal year that ends June 30, and many have already included the promised Medicaid assistance as part of their financial planning. After the House stripped the Medicaid spending from its version of the bill, Obama sent a letter to House and Senate leaders on June 13, urging them to restore the aid to the states and warning that without it there would be “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters.” According to the National Governors Association, total state government spending has dropped for two years in a row, the first time such a decline has been recorded. State governments eliminated $300 billion in cumulative deficits over this two-year period, through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, usually in regressive sales and excise taxes. A report issued by the Center on Budget and Policy Planning, a liberal Washington study group, warned that without federal aid, as many as 34 states could impose drastic and unprecedented budget cuts beginning July 1, cutting as many as 900,000 jobs in education and other public services. Already, 28 states have ordered across-the-board budget cuts, 22 states have imposed payless furloughs on employees, and 25 states and Puerto Rico have laid off state workers. If you enjoyed this article, Join HBCU CONNECT today for similar content and opportunities via email! |
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Siebra Muhammad
A Registration Clerk/Specialist, New Orleans Public Schools Other College... class of 2001 Member Since November 2008 |
Comments
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To quote Min. Farrakhan: ACCEPT YOUR OWN AND BE YOURSELF!!!
Sunday, June 20th 2010 at 4:52PM |
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Thanks Butterfly for keeping us aware. So much is going on. Job losses and benefits are always hitting close to someone we know and love.
Monday, June 21st 2010 at 12:20PM |
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Thanks for these kinds of post my lovely daughter. We need these kinds of postings so that we can put these things in our oral history about how our president is from a race family that is unique...therefore most in America much less in political worlds has no way to be able to know what our presidesident is going to do /not going to do eventhough so far he has yet to do any things that these so call experts on the angry Black man has expected in the first place... another gift in knowing our president comes with a back ground of local community activism and, not by way of the highest big business lobby. My faith is not in policital business as usual, but the C-H-A-N-G-E that our president's administration has and is bringing to America.(smile) NOtice how he is being rated on speeches and not what he is doing for main street in standing up to wall street...have you ever seen another president do this in your life time??????!!? ..."I" know "I" have not. lol (smile) Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM |
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To quote Ron Paul, " An empire falls when it can no longer afford to keep its empire going". The poor's never ending quest to prevent their children from starving to deat has brought down every empire since recorded history... In the 21st century we have the powers of the individual vote as our weapon to protect our children from the best Congress / laws against main street that there has ever been... OR WE CAN CONTIUNE TO WAIT FOR SOMEONE- ANYONE BUT US THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT TO COME AND DO IT FOR US!!!! (smile) Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM |
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We must not over look that Feinstine and her husband own t-w-o banks ,!!! Yes not one ,but two banks and her lobby funds are out of sight.lol , but "I" repeat, we have the power of the vote which surely can't do any more harm than it already has done...right?!? But, my child, life has taught me to not look this 'gift horse' of 'N-O' from all political partys when it comes to helping out main street...what are they going to say when our president starts talking about the money and lives in HIS ENDING BUSHES FALSE INFO WAR IN IRAQ will save???... CAN THEY THEN SAY THIS 8 yrs. WAR COST NOT ONE RED CENT OF TAX PAYER'S MONEY...HAVE YOU HEARD ANYONE In CONGRESS TALKING ABOUT USING THE MONIES IF THEY STOP PAYING BP WITH TAXPAYERS MONIES, HOW MUCH MONEY THIS WILL SAVE AND WILL BE ABLE TO HELP PAY FOR OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS- UNEMPLOYMENTS... TRUST ME YOU WILL BEFORE THE 2012 ELECTIONS SO JUST KEEP THE FAITH...( and why "I" said the gifts taht will keep on giving to the voters... WHAT CONGRESS DOES/ DON'T DO IS GOING TO BE A FORM OF OVER DUE...EDUCATION!!!EDUCATION!!!EDUCATION!!!! AND C-H-A-N-G-E IN HELPING US TAKE OUR GOVERNMENT BACK IF WE ARE WILLING TO COME TO THE AIDE OF OUR PRESIDENT...NOTICE HOW ISRAEL IS REGRETING TRYING TO TURN THE WORLD AGAINST OUR PRESIDENT...??? they right need his help badly...and, Israel has not done what it usually does, declare open war on the others...when has this ever happened before our president???..and, does the average Amerian even know what is going on with our president's having put Iarael in its place past calling him a secret MUSLIM???? LIFE IS A LESSON IN ITS SELF...AND, IT MUST BE ALL AOBUT THE NEXT GENERATION BEING MADE BETTER FOR THEM BY THIS GENERATION... "K" AND THIS GENERATION IS DOING A HELL OF A BANG UP JOB. (SMILE) LOEASE TRUST MY GENERATION ON THIS MATTER THAT YOU ALL ARE THIS BEST..."YOOOOOOO"... and, thanks so much for just listening my child... "I" believe I must come to defend mankind once and a while from the land of the O-L-D peoples (otfl) (smile) Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM |
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