OldSchool Loc: Moving to the Red State of Utah soon!

This is a classic example of Democrats wanting to have their cake and eat it too. Democrats cannot honestly argue an unemployment benefit extension is necessary because jobs aren't available for the unemployed while also touting a successful economy and growing jobs.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/01/06/the-dishonesty-of-democrats-push-for-unemployment-benefits-n1772591

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Mr. OldSchool, you know very well that the economy is slowly recovering. That does not mean that a lot of workers are not lost in long term unemployment.. If they have no money for paying bills, the economy loses even more momentum..No consumers, no growth...As for the 9.5 million mentioned as leaving the work force, this is nothing new. It goes on all the time.. Can not find a job? May as well retire now rather than later.. Start that biz that always dreamed of. No way does it mean they are sitting on the couch and watching 30 year old repeat TV shows or conservative terror news....

OldSchool Loc: Moving to the Red State of Utah soon!

The economy is not recovering! The GDP growth numbers they are using, to make it look like it's recovering, is skewed...for political purposes. GDP is Gross Domestic Product. GDP is everything we produce plus the balance of trade. This includes services, manufacturing, mining, farming and other things like this. IT IS NOT BORROWED AND SPENT MONEY. Get that last sentence? Borrowed money is not produce, it is debt. If we take the government debt out of our GDP figure we entered a very deep recession in 2008 and have never left since. We have an actual negative growth number around -.8%.

As for your explanation of the 9.5 million workers who have left the work force, you explanation is also bogus. I happen to know a lot of those people, and trust me they still want to work. Some are drawing "the new permanent entitlement" unemployment compensation, and simply won't take a job that pays less than their benefit. Some can not get a job due to age discrimination, which is a big reason why SS disability applications have skyrocketed. Even an official with the Obama Administration admitted yesterday that there are 3 people seeking employment for every new hire. That $865 billion stimulus package was suppose to be used to create jobs, instead it was squandered as payback to democrat cronies and the unions. BTW, the U6 number is a far more accurate unemployment number calculation, and it is around 14.3%.

So, you're using Pelosi's asinine theory that "unemployment benefits create jobs?" It's nothing more than wealth distribution....socialism. Take from the taxpayer and give it to the non-worker...yeah, that is really going to improve the economy.

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

I know what GDP is and the current situation..

Your second paragraph has some correct points but I will stand on the points that I made..

It is not true that unemployment benefits are wealth redistribution, nor are the intended to replace a job. They are and do make a difference in keeping money moving into the economy and slowing a recession. Non-worker emplyes that the unemployed do not wish to work, and while I have also know some of those, it is not the norm. I recollection are right, the benefits are based on what pay a person received at the job that disappeared. So the person would have incentive to regain a job equivalent to his past job.. The need is to keep cash flowing into the marketplace..

OldSchool Loc: Moving to the Red State of Utah soon!

Spoken like a left-wing socialist...I disagree.

grace scott

if you did not have, and could not find a job, unemployment benefits could keep you out of a shelter for the homeless. I agree with the republicans that these benefit should be paid for. If we raise the minimum wage to $15 a hour (not the pitiful amount Obama wants), the money the government saves on food stamps could pay for it. Sure, some employers would object; but how many millions can you spend.

rumitoid

The average time for finding a job in this economy is 35 weeks. The economic impact of cutting off all purchasing power of these individuals will cost the nation a nominal but hurtful impact. Many economist see deeper deleterious effects to ending these benefits. Yet who cares about all the gobbledegook.

These people are bottom-feeders, part of that thoroughly loathsome, and probably un-American (maybe anti-American), 47% that is sucking the very life-blood out of America.
Let them starve or go elsewhere: that many less leeches.

The presumption always seem to be by the Right to make their point about "cutting them off" that these people are without a work ethic and just a drain on our country. At the same time they keep on insisting the economy has not recovered a scooch under Obama and has actually grown worse, and then they miraculously reverse their field to say there is no need for extended benefits...except to keep in drugs and Twinkies this shiftless hoard.

A few trillion in tax breaks for the, er, job-creators (who have not done their job in almost two decades in that direction and are estimated in seating on almost six trillion dollars gaining personal profit but giving nothing back to this nation) is warranted. "Let them eat cake," say many Republicans, and what they may push these desperate people to is a choice of one option: vote the Democrat party ticket or live in ruin. Social issues, vital to the spiritual health of this country and only carried by Conservatives, do not trump having food in the stomach.

Is the economy well or severely broken? This is the question. If this administration has really done nothing to heal the economy, all the figures of healing a progressive lie, then help the unemployed.

Let's add something else to the mix: the constant rant by the Right, and probably correct, about not only how many jobs will be lost under Obamacare but the effects on many businesses with over five hundred employees going parttime. Which will mean for a vast majority of people working two jobs just to make ends met. Roughly translating into the country needing double the jobs for most to have a sustainable income. And most on the Right claiming Obama is killing jobs. The solution: end unemployment benefits! What?