Jobless ‘99-ers’ Neglected in Obama’s $900 billion Grand Compromise

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6760/jobless_99-ers_whove_lost_benefits_neglected_in_900_billion_grand_comp/

Friday Dec 10, 2010 1:18 pm

By Roger Bybee

America's corporate-dominated economic and political systems both operate under a curious assumption.

The wealthy must be pampered in order to invest and generate jobs, while workers and the unemployed must be punished to keep them from slacking off.

In the Grand Compromise on tax cuts and extended unemployment benefits struck this week, President Obama was somehow unable to overcome the GOP's hostility to the jobless (despite the fact that, very significantly, "Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Wednesday that Republicans would have allowed a short reauthorization even without the tax cut deal.")

Reflecting the pervasive GOP animus toward unemployment insurance, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) openly stated his groundless criticism of supposed excess generosity to the unemployed. DeMint topped it off by proposing that the jobless pay back government benefits, showing both his cruelty and his rich fantasies about the realities of being jobless for months:

I don't think we need to extend unemployment any further without paying for it, and without making some modifications such as turning it into a loan at some point. It then encourages people to go back to work.

DEMINT, GOP DON'T UNDERSTAND LIMITS OF EXTENSION

DeMint seemingly reflected a widespread Republican view that the Grand Compromise offers a virtually endless extension of UI benefits.

In his mind, jobless families surviving on $350 weekly checks have nonetheless managed to keep living it up, unworried about losing their homes or paying for heat and food and Christmas presents.

Actually, the Grand Compromise entirely left the fate of nearly 2 million jobless and benefit-less "99-ers" living in some 30 high-unemployment states (many in the South, including South Carolina) that have hit the absolute 99-week ceiling on benefits.

The unemployment compensation benefits received in the Great Compromise deal were very modest: proving about $65 million up-front (eventual net cost to the feds: about $24 billion, according to the Economic Policy Institute) for people who had run out of benefits well before 99 weeks and who are newly unemployed and facing states with empty benefit coffers.

FULL story at link.

One person shoplifting may get caught and made an example of. Ten people shoplifting with ten people covering would be much safer.

No one speaks for them either