West Coast Connection Forum
Lifestyle => Train of Thought => Topic started by: Matty on March 01, 2010, 11:58:05 AM
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Depending on extended unemployment benefits to see you through the Great Recession?
You'd better not: The Senate failed to push back the Feb. 28 deadline to apply for this safety net.
Starting Monday, the jobless will no longer be able to apply for federal unemployment benefits or the COBRA health insurance subsidy.
Federal unemployment benefits kick in after the basic state-funded 26 weeks of coverage expire. During the downturn, Congress has approved up to an additional 73 weeks, which it funds.
These federal benefit weeks are divided into tiers, and the jobless must apply each time they move into a new tier.
Because the Senate did not act, the jobless will now stop getting checks once they run out of their state benefits or current tier of federal benefits.
That could be devastating to the unemployed who were counting on that income. In total, more than one million people could stop getting checks next month, with nearly 5 million running out of benefits by June, according to the National Unemployment Law Project.
Lawmakers repeatedly tried to approve a 30-day extension this week, but each time, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., prevented the $10 billion measure from passing, saying it needs to be paid for first.
"Right now, the 1.2 million workers who will lose benefits in March are being held hostage by partisan attempts to delay and block this critical legislation," said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project.
0:00 /3:58The challenges facing job growth
Senate Democrats plan to introduce legislation this week that pushes back the deadline as much as a year, an aide said. The House approved a bill in December that extended the deadline to the end of June.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said on "Fox News Sunday" that Republicans will support a temporary extension of the deadline this week. But he said there would be debate over how to pay for a more long-term extension, saying Republicans want to know how the government will pay for the extended benefits.
Of course, once the measure is approved, the jobless would be able to reapply for federal benefits, though they would not receive missed payments.
Critical checks
About 11.5 million people currently depend on jobless benefits. Nearly one in 10 Americans are out of work and a record 41.2% have been unemployed for at least six months. The average unemployment period lasts a record 30.2 weeks.
The unemployment rate, which now stand at 9.7%, is expected to rise in February as snowstorms in many states disrupted the economy and stalled hiring.
While unemployment benefits now run as long as 99 weeks, depending on the state, not everyone will receive checks for that long a stretch if the deadline to apply is not extended.
Those extended benefits are vital, experts said. While the economy is slowly recovering, hiring is expected to remain slow in coming years. The unemployment rate is expected to remain at about 10% this year, according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and won't fall back to its 2008 level of 5.8% for another seven years.
"Those benefits will expire, but the need to heat their homes and put gas in their cars doesn't expire," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Friday. "Those benefits will expire, but the need to take their medicine, or support an aging parent, or take care of their children doesn't expire.
Congressional gridlock
The jobless have anxiously watched from the sidelines as efforts to push back the deadlines took many twists and turns in recent weeks.
The extensions were included in an $85 billion bipartisan job creation draft bill that was unveiled in the Senate earlier this month. But then Reid decided to introduce a slimmed-down version that stripped them out, forcing lawmakers to vote on them as a stand-alone measure this week.
In order to speed the process along, the House on Thursday passed a bill extending the deadline to apply for unemployment insurance to April 5 and for COBRA benefits to March 28. That way, the Senate could have just approved the legislation and sent it directly to the president's desk.
However, Bunning's continued objection blocked Senate approval of the bill Friday.
This is not the first time unemployment insurance benefits -- which enjoy wide bipartisan support -- have fallen prey to politics. Last fall, the House approved adding up to 20 weeks to the federal benefits period. But it took seven weeks for the Senate to send it to the president's desk, during which time more than 200,000 people stopped receiving checks.
When lawmakers finally took up the measure, it passed by a 98-0 vote.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/26/news/economy/unemployment_insurance/
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Senator Jim Bunning is a dick.
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He may be a dick, but there has to be someone on this forum that thinks what he did was good. I mean we have a lot of Ron Paul people.
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He may be a dick, but there has to be someone on this forum that thinks what he did was good. I mean we have a lot of Ron Paul people.
I didn't have time to read the article, but as a Libertarian I definitely don't support the government being given the power to steal from people who do work to pay people who don't work.
See, MDogg seems to believe that Barack Obama and them just reach into their pocket and give because they are so generous, and that the money that the government gives is out of generosity and for the common good of everyone. And if the government would only just give more, more in health care, more security, give more jobs, and just give and give and give, the world would be a better place.
The problem is, the money doesn't come out of the politicians pockets and it doesn't come from the sky, it is THEFT, it is STEALING and we all pay for it one way or another.
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What sucks is that the smallest fucking entitlement programs are the ones that keep on getting fucked over and debated the most. Meanwhile, you have god damn fighter jets being made over the limit just because the Representative in that district fought for the right to keep people employed in his district. That's a bigger concern in my opinion.
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He may be a dick, but there has to be someone on this forum that thinks what he did was good. I mean we have a lot of Ron Paul people.
It's a start, but first we need to cut military spending (tell your boy Obama to reverse the troop surge he ordered), then get rid of Federal government bureaucratic nonsense like the Department of Education, then we can worry about federal assistance programs.
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He may be a dick, but there has to be someone on this forum that thinks what he did was good. I mean we have a lot of Ron Paul people.
I didn't have time to read the article, but as a Libertarian I definitely don't support the government being given the power to steal from people who do work to pay people who don't work.
See, MDogg seems to believe that Barack Obama and them just reach into their pocket and give because they are so generous, and that the money that the government gives is out of generosity and for the common good of everyone. And if the government would only just give more, more in health care, more security, give more jobs, and just give and give and give, the world would be a better place.
The problem is, the money doesn't come out of the politicians pockets and it doesn't come from the sky, it is THEFT, it is STEALING and we all pay for it one way or another.
^^^^Prefers getting robbed...
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What sucks is that the smallest fucking entitlement programs are the ones that keep on getting fucked over and debated the most. Meanwhile, you have god damn fighter jets being made over the limit just because the Representative in that district fought for the right to keep people employed in his district. That's a bigger concern in my opinion.
You can thank MDogg's man Obama for that too. In his state of the Union address he proposed the idea on a spending freeze of everything BUT MILITARY SPENDING. lol
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What sucks is that the smallest fucking entitlement programs are the ones that keep on getting fucked over and debated the most. Meanwhile, you have god damn fighter jets being made over the limit just because the Representative in that district fought for the right to keep people employed in his district. That's a bigger concern in my opinion.
You can thank MDogg's man Obama for that too. In his state of the Union address he proposed the idea on a spending freeze of everything BUT MILITARY SPENDING. lol
You really can't blame the President though, the MIC has become way bigger than any President can change basically. Obama is an integral thinker and it's difficult to fuck with military spending and not have a huge backlash from the majority of the American people.
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You really can't blame the President though, the MIC has become way bigger than any President can change basically. Obama is an integral thinker and it's difficult to fuck with military spending and not have a huge backlash from the majority of the American people.
453 Billion- Bush Sr. Military Budget
377 Billion- Clinton's Military Budget
496 Billion-- Bush Jr.'s Military Budget
^^^So Clinton was able to reduce military spending. So now tell me why can't Obama?
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You really can't blame the President though, the MIC has become way bigger than any President can change basically. Obama is an integral thinker and it's difficult to fuck with military spending and not have a huge backlash from the majority of the American people.
453 Billion- Bush Sr. Military Budget
377 Billion- Clinton's Military Budget
496 Billion-- Bush Jr.'s Military Budget
^^^So Clinton was able to reduce military spending. So now tell me why can't Obama?
Because Clinton was elected as the Soviet wall was falling and there was the thought that we might actually not need as much military. Now Obama is elected in the middle of two wars, trying to pull out of one without looking like a pussy.
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It has nothing to do with public opinion, the lobbyists control the policies inside Washington, do you think they would lobby hundreds of billions each year if it wasn't successful in their aims?
However as for benefits, infinite it's bullshit if you honestly think that social spending is the cause of the plight, the amount that is spent on benefits etc is small fry compared to what is stolen. The people are being fucked, if it wasn't for food stamps for instance then millions would die of starvation and if you think that's liberty, well give me tyranny.
For if your viewpoint was taken literally it would mean liberty for the few and hell for everyone else.
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It has nothing to do with public opinion, the lobbyists control the policies inside Washington, do you think they would lobby hundreds of billions each year if it wasn't successful in their aims?
However as for benefits, infinite it's bullshit if you honestly think that social spending is the cause of the plight, the amount that is spent on benefits etc is small fry compared to what is stolen. The people are being fucked, if it wasn't for food stamps for instance then millions would die of starvation and if you think that's liberty, well give me tyranny.
For if your viewpoint was taken literally it would mean liberty for the few and hell for everyone else.
It has everything to do with public opinion. Lobbies money buys public opinion, Without public opinion, things don't get done. People are sheep, you know it and I know it, and people believe commercials that scare them. It's proven, it's a fact and it's what drives Washington today. No one person can change that, no matter how many gray hairs they get trying.
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Right, but it's the lobbyists who then drive everything we and see and hear as far as policies are concerned
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Right, but it's the lobbyists who then drive everything we and see and hear as far as policies are concerned
I think we agree on this one... I'm scared, are you, because I truly agree.
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my take is that nothing comes for free in the long term and that the chickens will come home to roost in the form of currency devaluation/inflation. most americans with their head screwed on should realise this by now. same over here in the uk, this debt and spending binge to delay the pain is just compounding the problems and guaranteeing a worser outcome.
and m dogg sounds more and more like a pure liberal apologist/socialist ;D
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That's me... ^
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Matty, it's the literal looting of the economy which is bringing the chickens home to roost, it is the deliberate implosion of credit, exercised through the popping of the housing bubble which is doing so, not the scape goats which people like to point the finger at i.e. some single mother with kids getting a council flat. The proportion actually spent on social spending is very small fry, over 2 trillion was "unaccounted for" in the pentagons budget alone prior to September 11.
And yes M Dogg, it seems we do actually agree, by the way that's not to say that I don't recognise the dangers in welfare, the people have to be offered the best opportunities for jobs, but when the financial elite caused this crash (which is still only in it's infancy) then they took away those opportunities and created the dependency. However it would be equally immoral to then take it away from them on the basis of we can't afford it, I mean shit, no one knows what the future holds, but even if they took away all social spending, it would barely register on a seismometer compared to the deficit.
Remember, msnbc has stated banks have access to some 24 plus trillion, this is an unprecedented power grab and so while robbing the population blind, getting some scraps back is hardly tipping the scales.
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it's a viscious circle, but social liabilities add up over time, they add up to astronomical amounts. criminality is at the very heart of the problem, but handouts to people are not productive either. this doesn't mean they are not 'neccesary', but the structural inbalances that remain unaddressed will become more and more obvious the longer the game continues - physical reality.
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damn real talk infinite
He may be a dick, but there has to be someone on this forum that thinks what he did was good. I mean we have a lot of Ron Paul people.
I didn't have time to read the article, but as a Libertarian I definitely don't support the government being given the power to steal from people who do work to pay people who don't work.
See, MDogg seems to believe that Barack Obama and them just reach into their pocket and give because they are so generous, and that the money that the government gives is out of generosity and for the common good of everyone. And if the government would only just give more, more in health care, more security, give more jobs, and just give and give and give, the world would be a better place.
The problem is, the money doesn't come out of the politicians pockets and it doesn't come from the sky, it is THEFT, it is STEALING and we all pay for it one way or another.
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Because Clinton was elected as the Soviet wall was falling and there was the thought that we might actually not need as much military. Now Obama is elected in the middle of two wars, trying to pull out of one without looking like a pussy.
Ohhh yeah.. those two wars. You mean the 1984 style (The Book) perpetual war for perpetual peace? Those wars on terrorism? How long have we been fighting those now, MDogg? The Afghan war for almost 10 years now? Damn, it's almost going to be longer than Vietnam. And what's the other one, ohhh yeah, Iraq for 7 years now? And what has Obama done? He expanded the war in Afghanistan!
When are you guys going to start backing a real politician like Ron Paul? Ron Paul would of removed the troops on his first day in office, not only from Afghanistan and Iraq, but from 100 other countries around the world where US troops are stationed.
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infinite they wanted change they got it....nuthin and thats what they voted for
even the black people are mad at obama the same black person they were screamin for, please help us were bein treated like slaves, that was before he got elected...lol
and now well they hate him....lol
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peter schiff spoke about this issue today, starts at around 2:00:
http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/2FWPvQr9pRw
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He may be a dick, but there has to be someone on this forum that thinks what he did was good. I mean we have a lot of Ron Paul people.
I didn't have time to read the article, but as a Libertarian I definitely don't support the government being given the power to steal from people who do work to pay people who don't work.
See, MDogg seems to believe that Barack Obama and them just reach into their pocket and give because they are so generous, and that the money that the government gives is out of generosity and for the common good of everyone. And if the government would only just give more, more in health care, more security, give more jobs, and just give and give and give, the world would be a better place.
The problem is, the money doesn't come out of the politicians pockets and it doesn't come from the sky, it is THEFT, it is STEALING and we all pay for it one way or another.
you know there's no give give give. as matter of fact...fuck it..people are being sodimized by high premium pay. they're playing monopoly. I'm with the progressive.
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Matty, it adds up because of the debt based economy, it is the money system which prompts governments to get into more debt to finance the exist debt, more debt, equals more new money. That is the reason why things spiral out of control and it's by design.