Durbin: "It's Time to Pass These Benefits Now" (Extended Unemployment Benefits)

[tonysam]

Run time: 06:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmMGqDlyKHI   Posted on YouTube: October 21, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: October 21, 2009 By DU Member: tonysam Views on DU: 809

 
Durbin puts the GOP on the defensive on the UI extension, but we will see what happens.

[SlingBlade]

1. K & R Extended Unemployment Benefits....NOW !

[SandWalker1984]

2. What people really need is to bring the jobs back that went off shore

Extending unemployment benefits in states with high unemployment is necessary, I think most of us would agree. However, unemployment benefits are like putting a small bandage on a large wound. It helps a little, but the wound won't heal without proper care.

What we are now seeing are the results of corporations shifting the good paying jobs off shore to cut costs, boost the bottom line and award CEOs big bonuses for a job well done. Service jobs, for the most part, do not provide the income necessary to support a family. NAFTA started the process. Congress contributed by giving corporations tax breaks for off shoring jobs and profits.

Extending unemployment benefits does not address the main issue -- many of the jobs lost are not coming back. They're gone. Corporations won't bring those jobs back until/unless Congress passes legislation that makes it more expensive to move/keep the jobs overseas, until Congress eliminates the tax breaks for offshoring those jobs AND profits.

I live in an area that currently has an official unemployment rate of over 11%. Many people I know are looking for jobs. Jobs. Not handouts, not unemployment benefits. They want jobs that pay a living wage.

The unemployment problems in our country are not going to be fixed easily or quickly and it's doubtful Republicans will get on board to work with Democrats to do what's necessary to start us back as a country on the road to recovery.

[V_Byl]

5. It's time to ditch some of these trade agreements.

Nothing changes until we put tariffs on goods coming into this country. Protective tariffs on goods coming from China, so our workers don't have to compete with slave wages. I'm talking about 300%+ tariffs, not the 2-3% we see on a lot of these goods now.

I am sick of the term 'free trade' and I'm tired of people thinking that off shoring labor is the same as trade. If a product is being made here, and an American company realizes it can escape paying a living wage to people, not to mention environmental regulations so they close down their factory and put it in China - that is outsourcing, not trade. This needs to be pounded into the heads of these stupid free trade republicans and blue dog democrats.

Trade occurs when another country imports a product that fills a need here (a product we can't make), or is so vastly superior to what is being made here, that a protective tariff (basically just to keep wages on par) can't stop demand for that product.

Unions need to spend some of that strike fund advertising this and pressuring politicians to start protecting the American worker IMO.

[Royal Sloan 09]

3. K & R nt

[ProgressOnTheMove]

4. This clip has to get out there so folks know who's obstructing once again..

with unemployment at high levels everyone knows someone just hanging on. Unemployment benefits are in the end an insurance against a complete breakdown of society. It's just the way the world turns out that in hard times it requires more generosity than less as it's the main leverage out of a bad economy.