"GOP wants benefits for wealthy, not jobless." Chicago Sun-Times editorial

[DailyGrind51]

" GOP wants benefits for wealthy, not jobless
Comments

June 28, 2010

The economy is still in the dumps. An election is around the corner. People are hurting bad.

You'd think extending unemployment benefits for millions of jobless workers for another six months would be a no-brainer for Congress.

Instead, the extension was killed Friday in the Senate by Republicans who argued that it, along with tax provisions included in the package, would have added $33 billion to the federal deficit.

Earlier this month, the GOP used the same argument to justify stripping $24 billion for increased Medicaid funding.

As we said then, lawmakers are absolutely right to want to control deficit spending. But the more pressing need right now is for continued economic stimulus.

That's a lesson as old as 1937, when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to trim the deficit in the midst of the Great Depression and made bad times worse.

We fear the same will happen if Congress fails to restore unemployment benefits to 1.2 million people whose emergency jobless benefits expired June 2. By the end of the year, more than 2 million people will have lost their benefits.

Republicans' resistance to deficit spending is especially offensive considering how little concern they show about generating tax revenue to slow or reduce the deficit. On the contrary, the GOP just can't seem to wait to reduce -- or kill -- an estate tax on the wealthiest Americans when a one-year lapse on the tax ends next year.

On Friday, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) raised the possibility that Republicans might play ball if the extension on unemployment benefits were presented as a stand-alone bill without the tax provisions.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Snowe rightly noted that "unemployment checks inject money directly into the economy, invariably assisting in the economic recovery we all agree must be accelerated."

A spokesman for Reid, however, said Snowe's letter wouldn't change his decision to abandon all efforts to extend unemployment benefits and move on to other matters.

We hope Reid will reconsider. On this one, he's on the right side of history and ordinary people.

Millions of Americans are unemployed through no fault of their own during the worst economic times in generations. All they're looking for is for a little more help in weathering the storm -- something for the groceries and the mortgage.

Meanwhile the GOP, while stiff-arming ordinary Americans, runs to the defense of the wealthiest Americans and -- for that matter -- an international oil company responsible for destroying the economy and environment of the Gulf.

Why are so many Republicans so outraged that President Obama has compelled -- not forced -- BP to set aside money for legitimate claims?

Extending federal jobless benefits won't free up a check from a lobbyist. It's just the decent thing to do."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/2438950,CST-EDT-edit28a.article

[liberal N proud]

1. More are realizing the GOP is the party of the rich

I have always said, I don't have enough money for the GOP. I am just a nuisance to them that they think should be eradicated.

[Stuart G]

2. K and R ...I don't have enough either..nt

[mrcheerful]

5. The problem seems to be the truly independent voters who choose rhetoric over

party and vote for the R's with little concern about they really stand for, until after the election with the ideal that if they don't turn out to be what they say they can be voted out the next election. D's will vote for D's, R's will vote for R's, it is the independent voter that ends up deciding who gets elected and most times they choose the person because they like one better then the other because of what they said while running.

These are the people who complain about D's running dirty ads against their R opponent yet then claim they voted R because the D didn't fight back hard enough against the R's dirty tactics. They often ignore R 1/2 truths and lies but expect the D to run an honest campaign based on truth and fact, as we see in the current cycle where the D was raked over the coals for a untruth he claimed yet an R who did the same didn't even get an honorable mention.

The independents really don't care who the party sides with, to them its about who promises them the best deal at the moment they vote. Often they have very little ideal who will get their vote until they get to a name on the ballot in the voting booth. Most of the time they are uninformed and for the most part whoever was in office when things got bad, they vote for the other guy.

[DailyGrind51]

7. The Chicago Sun-Times continues to support Progressive positions on issues.

It also does not severely edit my "letters to the editor" before publishing, like the Chicago Tribune usually does. Since I complained to the Trib regarding their tendency to over-edit, they have not printed any of my submissions.:grr:

[Hannah Bell]

3. kr

[xchrom]

4. recommend

[IOKIYAL]

6. Snowe is a Liar and a Flake - don't trust anything she says

[Dragonfli]

8. So Reid says he will not.

"change his decision to abandon all efforts to extend unemployment benefits and move on to other matters"

Why does he also hate the unemployed?