Was extending unemployment benefits worth extending the tax cuts for the rich?

The Rs can always wait until POTUS has sighed tax cuts into law and then find an excuse not to extend unemployment.

or the unemployed in general who are just trying to scrape by and pay their bills and keep their houses with the meager unemployment benefits they are getting. It's easy for people with jobs to claim it was not worth extending the tax cuts for the rich to get the extension.

who literally cannot put any food on their table for their kids, who cannot buy them winter clothes, pay for gas and electricity?

Bush*/Republican fiscal policies. If we continue them we will just keep adding to the unemployment figures.. What is in the best interest of the nation?

Are we really willing to let millions and millions of Americans starve?

is not going to add/subtract to the unemployment figure....It has no effect at all...actually unemployment insurance can add jobs because people now will have money to spend anf therefore business will need to hire more people.

Hold him to it and start screaming if/when it doesn't happen.

Absofuckinglutely. And I am unemployed. Starting my 2nd go round

about the unemployed who receive a check and it still not enough to put food on their table for their kids, who cannot buy them winter clothes, pay for gas and electricity?

Combining a tax extension for the wealthy with an unemployment extension is not going to solve all the problems of the unemployed by a long shot. It is just going to create more problems even for the unemployed.

giving the unemployed some money every month is going to make more problems for the unemployed? That sounds like repub talk to me...

back our budget (which wasn't extravagant to begin with) we ended up using up about 60% of our savings.

Not counted in over 2 years so I don't show up on the published statistics either.

Unemployment benefits won't get the economy going, and won't create a slew of jobs. Taxing the rich more will, and I'd rather have a job than be receiving unemployment.

I understand that there are unemployed out there who have families and bills to pay and mortgages to pay so they don't lose their house who simply cannot afford to take a noble stand on the issue. With single people it's different, but those with families have an obligation to them.

is like eating our seed corn.

Those tax cuts for the rich are sucking us all dry ...

Democrats Seize On McConnell's Plan To Add $4 Trillion To The Deficit With Tax Cuts
Brian Beutler | September 15, 2010, 10:42AM

Bush Tax Cuts, Democrats, Mitch McConnell, Tax Cuts

While they're figuring out how to proceed themselves, Democrats are giddy about a damning new report: The tax cut plan proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (and backed by the vast majority of the GOP) to make all of the Bush tax cuts permanent will add about $4 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.

That's more than four times the cost of the deficit-financed stimulus bill, which Republicans cite as evidence of Democrats' fiscal recklessness.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/democrats-seize-on-mcconnells-plan-to-add-4-trillion-to-the-deficit.php

Our Social Security? Our Medicare? His children?

We now officially negotiate with terrorists.

We can debate tax cuts again in a year or two. DADT will be law for another decade if we fail at repealing it now.

The unemployment benefits extension was being held up in the Senate by obstructionist Republicans and conservative Democrats. If all Obama had to do to change this was post some angry semi-coherent bullshit in all caps on the internet, I'm sure he would have done so already. Unfortunately in the real world of politics you have to give things up to get things.

One can make a compelling case that over the past two years Obama hasn't been enough of a hard ass, but in this particular case I'm having a hard time envisioning a better outcome. What could the president have done to get conservatives in the Senate to change their mind and provide both an extension of unemployment benefits and a cancellation of tax cuts for the wealthy?

when we do it, there will be a group of Americans who will be hurt by that move. This time it would have been the unemployed, next time it might be Social Security recipients, those on food stamps or the school lunch program. When the Repubs want to help their wealthy donors, you can bet they will find some segment of the population to hold hostage in order to coerce the Democrats to fall in line.

and we don't make deals with terrorists. They are holding the 98% of America hostage so they can have their tax cuts for the 2%. It is blackmail, it is political terrorism

going on. The truth.

If not, then it is not a good idea to pretend that it has. The proper words are "Would" and "be" if it has not happened yet.

As far as I am concerned a $300 tax cut for me tied to a $3 million tax cut for Rush Limbaugh is not acceptable. It was not acceptable when Bush was President and it is no more acceptable now.

I am not a huge fan of permanent unemployment benefits either.

But to cut off folks after six months of unemployment insurance, as is customary in normal times, shocks the conscience.

if you believe that unemployment benefits should be cut off in the middle of a bad recession.

And that is the fucking point here -- to be pissed off as possible by the president.

It's not a fair trade off, but it was something that the Dems had to do. Republicans don't mind taking economic hostages in a standoff. It's scummy, but it was worth the price to those who won't be starving for Christmas.

I still think the opinions of the jobless on this subject carry more weight because they know and feel the cost. It's easy to claim that the unemployed should not get an extension if the wealthy get continued tax breaks if you currently have a job.

out of despair over her financial situation.

Responses on that thread feared what would happen if UI benefits expired for those who were hanging on by a thread.

The deadline came, and the Republicans voted it down.

The President put them back in play and they're reinstated.

So for those who were affected by that story and the possibility that it could happen many times over, making this deal was not worth preventing that?

Tell that to someone who wouldn't otherwise have anything to eat were it not for UI benefits.

I'm not rich and my unemployment benefits ran out long ago, so I won't be affected by either part of this grand bargain.

It's revolting that the Republicans engage in this extortion on behalf of their corporate paymasters. It's even more revolting to give in to it.

Unfortunately, sometimes life is like that. If the bad guys kidnap one of your loved ones and demand ransom, and the police can't find the kidnappers or the victim, and you can be confident that paying the ransom will get back your family member safe and unharmed... then you hold your nose and pay the ransom.

I'd feel slightly less bad about it if I thought the American people would get an accurate picture of what went on. That's too much to hope for, though. Whether it's because of Democratic timidity (and deference to this mythical "bipartisanship") or media bias, the Republicans' shameless whoring will be obfuscated.

. . . preserving the middle-class tax cuts was first and foremost in the President's justification. That defense of the incomes of the tens of millions of Americans, combined with the other tax related concessions from republicans, is what should make the compromise 'worth' it for a sufficient number of Democratic legislators. We'll see.