Job-Creating Stimulus Program Comes to an End, Auguring Thousands of Layoffs

[babylonsister]

Where's the beef, where are the stories highlighting rethug culpability? Yet this will all be blamed on Dems. :grr:


http://washingtonindependent.com/99277/job-creating-stimulus-program-comes-to-an-end-auguring-thousands-of-layoffs

Job-Creating Stimulus Program Comes to an End, Auguring Thousands of Layoffs
TANF Emergency Contingency Fund Employed 250,000 Previously Jobless Americans, Extension Blocked by GOP
By Annie Lowrey 9/30/10 4:33 PM

snip//

It is a stimulus success story: Federal funding targeted to a small business led to a previously unemployed worker finding a permanent job. The worker is better off, and so is the business. But as of midnight tonight, the federal program that once funded Bush’s worker is gone.

At midnight on Sept. 30, the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund (TEF) — considered one of the most successful stimulus programs, having created 250,000 jobs for previously unemployed workers — expires. The Obama administration and Democrats had requested $1.5 to $2.5 billion to keep it going for another year. The House has passed two extenders, but yesterday, legislation failed again in the Senate. That means employers are now faced with laying off the TEF workers, as many as 100,000, into an economy that already has 14.9 million unemployed.

“Without federal funding, most states and localities won’t be able to continue to provide support for these jobs,” Larry Summers, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said in a statement today. “Governors from both parties have called for the extension of the program and some will try to keep it going for a couple of months with state funds, buying Congress time to act. But the reality is that many states will be unable to fill the gap, and those that can, only temporarily. A commitment to extending this program will give more governors the confidence not to end it now and could save up to 100,000 jobs.”

The program did not need to end in this way. Senate Democrats tried numerous times to extend the legislation — in provisions moved in March and blocked by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), and in versions of the tax extenders legislation. This week, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) tried to move a three-month extension, to give Democrats some time to work a fuller fix for the program into another bill. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) objected to Durbin’s unanimous consent request, killing it on the grounds that it expands the welfare state and costs too much.

TEF’s end has led to howls from progressive think-tanks, Republican and Democratic governors and the thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of workers the program has aided.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, for instance, looked at the programs states created — 36 of them, plus a program in Washington D.C. — and summarized their achievements. One county in Tennessee brought its unemployment rate from 27.3 to 18.6 percent in just eight months. North Dakota helped create jobs for parents without the means to pay their child support. South Carolina targeted parents who would otherwise collect welfare. Alabama aided job-sapped rural areas. CBPP’s analysts described ending the fund as “walking away from a win-win-win.”

more...

[leftstreet]

1. If only we had the majority n/t

[madrchsod]

2. we need 100 democratic senators....

that should be enough to pass something.

[USArmyParatrooper]

4. Willfully ignorant snark.

To break a filibuster you need 60 Democrats IF you don't have one single Senator breaking ranks. But of course you knew that already, but going after Republicans for there unprecedented abuse of our political system wouldn't fit your agenda.

[leftstreet]

5. Willful, check. Snark, check. Ignorant...not so much

60 votes is a myth

But then you know that

[flyarm]

6. well then force the GOP into a fillibuster..call their hand! ..this is bullshit!

for once in our lifetimes..would the dems call their fucking hands?????????

ohhhhhhhhh noooo..that won;t do..we must be nice..we must be the good guys..we must be impotent!

Nothing is allowed on the table with these dems..

Let's just put another 250,000 out of work..to lose their homes, and cars and who won't be able to put food on their tables for their hungry kids..yeah thats the fucking ticket! Wouldn't want to make the repukes look bad by forcing a fillibuster!

what a bunch of bullshit!

wimps and cowards!

[USArmyParatrooper]

3. Funny. A thread attacking Republicans gets Unrecs?

Of course it's not very suprising.

[Scurrilous]

7. K & R

:thumbsup:

[rve300]

8. Successful?

If it was successful it would not need continuous funding. If the private sector company can't sustain it without government funding then it was never a permanent job. Those jobs were funded, not created.

[babylonsister]

9. I take it you have a job; it's funny, you sound like a rethug

who doesn't give a damn for us 'little people' in dire economic times.

[rve300]

10. I do now...

But I was laid off in Feb of 2009 when the company I worked for collapsed. I was out of work for a few months and had to move my family half way across the country after I found a new job.

None of that changes the fact that a truly successful stimulus program that created permanent jobs would not need continued funding from the federal government.

Thats alright, you call names and pretend that you know someones background and motivations from a few words you read over the internet.