Republicans Who Are So Devoted To Guns Never Consider What That Might Mean To Angry Workers Whose Families They Are Destroying

Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown casts the deciding vote against unemployment insurance

Yesterday Annie Lowrey pretty much summed up the Republican Party jihad against unemployment insurance, a mine field Republicans in swing states and swing districts are extremely nervous about. Wednesday night, before leaving town on another long vacation, the millionaire senators again stamped their collective feet and vowed to filibuster an unemployment insurance extension. Although only 38 of the worst reactionaries in the Senate-- 36 Republicans plus Ben Nelson, along with Harry Reid so, under arcane Senate rules, that he can bring up the bill again-- voted against cloture. Democrats needed 60 votes and only managed 58 (which explains Speaker Pelosi's outburst about how undemocratic the hidebound institution is). (It would have passed if Byrd hadn't died.) Although Scott Brown (R-MA) bowed to pressure and threats from GOP leaders and his corporate donors-- voting against unemployed Massachusetts workers-- the two Maine gals changed their minds and voted with the Democrats this time. But to no avail... the filibuster goes on as nearly 2 million American families go without a check next week again, most;y because of job losses caused by failed conservative economic experiments and greed-driven financial gambling by the "Masters of the Universe." But I'm not advocating violence.

Meanwhile, the House guaranteed this would be taken up again, but repassing it before leaving for the 4th of July weekend. It passed 270-153, 29 Republicans abandoning Boehner and crossing the aisle to vote with the Democrats, while 11 of the worst Democrats in the House sent a big F-You to the working families in their districts, The 11 Democrats who deserve defeat in November, who should be treated exactly the same way as Republicans:

Brian Baird (WA, retiring)
Marion Berry (Blue Dog-AR, retiring)
Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL)
Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)
Baron Hill (Blue Dog-IN)
Betsy Markey (Blue Dog-CO)
Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA)
Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)
Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID)
Glenn Nye (Blue Dog-VA)
Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)

If Democrats withhold their votes from these characters in November they'll lose their seats, as they should. Worse Republicans will win those seats. So what? In 2012 there will be an opportunity for moderate-- real moderates, not drooling conservatives the media protects by calling them "moderates"-- Democrats to win them back.

So what is the GOP trying to accomplish? Back to Lowrey's piece in the Washington Independent:

Economists insist it should not be like this. Benefits for the jobless remain one of the most effective forms of stimulus. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys.com, estimates that they generate $1.61 of stimulus for every dollar spent. Moreover, expanding unemployment insurance is wildly popular, even among conservatives. Poll after poll shows that a vast majority of Americans support giving aid to the laid-off. And on Capitol Hill, even the most stringent deficit hawks do not object to the unemployment benefits themselves. They object to expanding the deficit to pay for them.

Democrats insist that the benefits expand the deficit, to put new dollars and fresh demand into the economy. Deficit reduction will have to happen, they say, but later. Having the government give with one hand and take with the other makes little sense. In this, they received support on Wednesday from Doug Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, who said that “[cutting the deficit] while economic activity and employment remain well below their potential levels would probably slow the economic recovery.” Republicans, however, have not been convinced.

So, the debate has dragged on. Yesterday evening’s failed cloture vote is just the latest in a long line of disappointments and failures around unemployment insurance, known as UI. For the past nine months, the Senate has devoted hours of floor time and hundreds of hours of behind-the-scenes negotiations to ensuring that the government continues to support those left unemployed by the worst labor-market recession since the Great Depression. And for the past nine months, every bill-- every extension, every jobs package -- has faced staunch opposition from Republicans. Repeatedly, the Senate has had to turn to short-term stopgap measures rather than more permanent extensions. In the words of one aide, “it is beyond frustrating,” particularly since the measures are so noncontroversial. “Frustrating” has become the touchword for advocates of UI-- and particularly for the unemployed.

It was last fall that Democrats in the White House and on the Hill started worrying that the extended unemployment benefits created by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act-- the $787 billion stimulus bill passed in February 2009-- were running out before any sign of a labor-market recovery. The stimulus bill both lengthened the number of weeks of benefits by 13 or 20 and made some more generous, by $25 a week-- enough to keep 800,000 people out of poverty, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has estimated.

But by the summer of 2009, the economy had not turned around. The September jobs report showed that the unemployment rate had edged up to 9.8 percent, a 26-year high. Joblessness had officially become a crisis in and of itself. And the stimulus’ expansion of unemployment benefits was due to expire on Dec. 31. President Barack Obama told the nation in a radio address, “[The] report on September job losses was a sobering reminder that progress comes in fits and starts, and that we will need to grind out this recovery step by step. That’s why I’m working closely with my economic team to explore additional options to promote job creation.” Democrats decided they needed to renew the benefits, and to expand them further.

...Reid broke the bill up, moving just the unemployment extension portion, along with a House-passed change to the filing deadline for the homebuyer tax credit. On Wednesday night, that last stopgap bill died, 58 to 38. Senate staffers say that this is not the end. They will wait for Byrd’s replacement, expected to be appointed within two weeks or so, and then move the bill with Snowe and Collins’ support. They will make the UI checks retroactive for the two million Americans who have been denied them in recent weeks.

But the anger is palpable after nine months of delays. “It’s not just Harry Reid or any other Democrat who needs brave Republicans to step up, for once, for what’s right and what’s needed. It’s the people we serve. We have Republicans ready to protect banks while sticking it to the working men and women of this country while opposing efforts to extend unemployment benefits,” Jim Manley, Reid’s spokesman, told TWI. “This is yet one in another series of cynical and brazen attempts by Republicans to position themselves as the party of ‘hell no’ in November.”

And the unemployed? They are confused and enraged. Yesterday evening, I spoke with Deb Martin, a 49-year-old Ohioan on the verge of losing her federally extended benefits. “I have kids,” she said. “I have a mortgage. It’s been years of this [garbage] and I don’t know what I’m going to do without those checks. Even if they make them retroactive, we might be living in the car by the time they do.”

The economic establishment stresses that the unemployment checks continue to be not only beneficial, but necessary. Testifying before the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, John Irons, the research and policy director of the Economic Policy Institute argued, “Unemployment should reach 6 percent or lower, and be trending downward, before any fiscal contraction should be seriously considered. In fact, with unemployment hovering near 10 percent and with projections putting unemployment at elevated levels for at least the next couple of years, further job creation is indeed necessary.”

But privately, Senate staffers whisper that if this unemployment extension makes it through, it will be the last one. There will be no more torturous attempts to grant unemployment benefits to the 15 million unemployed. There will be no bills to add a Tier V for the million who have exhausted all benefits and still cannot find work. The benefits will end in November.

One of the worst of the anti-family Republican senators is Richard Burr of North Carolina-- also the most electorally vulnerable of all the hardcore reactionaries. NC Secretary of State, Elaine Marshall is outraged that he voted against the state's half million unemployed workers again-- and she's not holding back. "Once again he's sided with CEOs over families. Burr's breaking the back of thousands of North Carolina families hard hit by this cruel recession. With one hand he'll spend hundreds of billions to bail out Wall Street and preserve tax cuts for CEOs, and with the other he snatches a lifeline away from millions of Americans just trying to make ends meet as they look for work." If you'd like to help Elaine replace Burr, you can do it on Blue America's Senate page.