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By DEAN BAKER
From now until November 2, the Republican Party will be the party of unemployment. The logic is straightforward; the more people who are unemployed on Election Day, the better the prospects for Republicans in the fall election. They expect, with good cause, that voters will hold the Democrats responsible for the state of the economy. Therefore anything that the Republicans can do to make the economy worse between now and then will help their election prospects.
While it might be bad taste to accuse a major national political party of deliberately wanting to throw people out of jobs, there is no other plausible explanation for the Republicans’ behavior. The Republicans have balked at supporting nearly every bill that had any serious hope of creating or keeping jobs, most recently filibustering on bills that provided aid to state and local governments and extending unemployment benefits. The result of the Republicans’ actions, unless they are reversed quickly, is that hundreds of thousands more workers will be thrown out of work by Election Day.
The story is straightforward. Nearly every state and local government across the country is looking at large budget shortfalls for their 2011 fiscal years, most of which begin July 1, 2010. Since they are generally required by state constitutions or local charters to balance their budgets, they will have no choice except to raise taxes and/or make large cutbacks and layoff workers to bring spending and revenue into line.
State and local governments have cut their workforce by an average of 65,000 a month over the last three months. Without substantial aid from the federal government this pace is likely accelerate. The Republican agenda in blocking aid to the states may add another 300,000 people to the unemployment roles by early November
The blockage of extended unemployment benefits promises similar dividends. Unemployment benefits are not just about providing income support to those who are out of work, they also provide a boost to the economy. Since unemployed workers generally have little other than their benefits to support themselves, this is money that will almost immediately be spent. The benefits paid to workers are income to food stores and other retail outlets.
Unemployment insurance provides the sort of boost to demand that the economy desperately needs. That is why neutral parties like the Congressional Budget Office or economist Mark Zandi, a top advisor to John McCain’s presidential bid, always list unemployment benefits as one of the best forms of stimulus.
Republicans give two reasons for opposing benefits. First, they claim that benefits discourage people from working. Second, they object that the Democrats’ proposal will add to the national debt.
On the first point there is a considerable amount of economic research. Most indicates that in periods when the economy is operating near its capacity more generous benefits may modestly increase the unemployment rate. However, they are less likely to have that effect now. The reason is simple; the economy does not have enough jobs. The latest data from the Labor Department show that there are five unemployed workers for every job opening.
In this context, unemployment benefits may give some workers the option to remain unemployed longer to find a job that better fits their skills, but they are unlikely to affect the total number of unemployed. In other words, a $300 weekly unemployment check may allow an experienced teacher the luxury of looking for another teaching job rather than being forced to grab a job at Wal-Mart.
However, if the teacher took the job at Wal-Mart, then this would simply displace a recent high school grad who has no other job opportunities. That might be a great turn of events in Republican-econ land, but it does not reduce the overall unemployment rate, nor does it benefit the overall economy in any obvious way.
The other argument the Republicans give is that these bills would add to the national debt. For example, the latest extension of unemployment benefits would have added $22 billion to the debt by the end of 2011. This means that the debt would be $9,807,000,000 instead of 9,785,000,000 at the end of fiscal 2011, an increase of the debt to GDP ratio from 65.3 percent to 65.4 percent.
It is possible that Congressional Republicans, who were willing to vote for hundreds of billions of dollars of war expenditures without paying for them, or trillions of dollars of tax cuts without paying for them, are actually concerned about this sort of increase in the national debt. It is possible that this is true, but not very plausible.
The more likely explanation is that the Republicans want to block anything that can boost the economy and create jobs. Throwing people out of work may not be pretty, but politics was never pretty, and it is getting less so by the day.
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by Devona Walker | July 7, 2010
Democrats may not exactly be the people’s party, but the GOP is the corporate darling and that should be enough to motivate progressives to vote
The Washington Post reported there is an apparent revolt among the big money donors on Wall Street against the Democrats. Democratic contributions are down 65 percent from two years ago, the post aptly reports.
It stems from pending financial regulatory reform, which House Democrats passed last week with almost no Republican support.
But the cable network talking heads conveniently fail to mention, while saying it is because the Obama administration and Democrats “don’t understand business,” is the reason behind this is blatantly obvious.
In the months leading up to financial reform, since the financial meltdown, Republicans are obviously just getting paid for all their obstruction. The Republicans continue to be — despite their tea party hype, despite all the angry populist musings, despite that a fair chunk of their constituents live in poverty — the Corporate party. The party of limited government involvement and oversight into the financial market, the party of “drill, baby drill,” the party that put an oil and natural gas executive in the White House, the party that oppresses poor people and props up the rich.
This is the party that passed the Wall Street bailout. It is the party that made it nearly impossible for individual consumers to effectively file for bankruptcy while insuring that investors, when a company goes belly up, are shored up.
The differences between the parties could not be more poignant and critical today. And it’s not because the Democrats are good but because the Republicans are EVIL!
You might not like President Obama. You might not like Harry Reid. The question is, how screwed would we be if the Republicans were to regain control? Sharon Angle anyone?
Let me spell it out.
- Exponentially more offshore drilling and raping of our natural resources with nothing but apologies to the big corporations as they ruin the environment.
- No significant environmentally-conscientious energy legislation ever.
- Creationism not evolution taught as science in every K-12 school in this country.
- Texas-style rewrites of American history gone national.
- Glenn Beck would have a cabinet position and Rush Limbaugh would be the new White House Press Secretary.
- No drawdowns, to timelines, just more troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- No rules of the road for Wall Street and financial institutions.
- Lower taxes for the rich.
- Repeal of health care reform.
- Elimination of Social Security.
- More ultra conservative Supreme court Judicial appointment — which will inevitably lead to the repeal of Roe v. Wade. This will cause the unintended and unwanted births of thousands of children each year who will be abused, neglected and impoverished.
- The passage of a new Patriot Act. This one designed specifically to weed out “anti-American” Americans. Bill authored by Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann.
- Drastically scaled back government spending to boost the economy, huge increases in government spending on new military conflicts and 20th century military technology (like massive Cold War era fighter planes that are absolutely useless except that they make the military brass as giddy as school girls).
- The possibility that someone even dumber that George W. Bush (Sarah Palin) will occupy the White House.
- No repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. In fact, there might be a constitutional amendment to ban all gays, even the hidden ones, from joining the military.
- A 24-foot wall on the U.S. Mexican border and 24-hour brigade of armed guards posted 12-feet apart with orders to shoot anything that moves, costing about $200 billion per year. Contract awarded to Blackwater.
“Democrats worked hard to pass reform with tough oversight ***(oh, really? where is it, then?--jef)***, accountability and regulation, and it’s no secret the big banks were against it,” said Deirdre Murphy, spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “But we believe preventing another financial collapse is the responsible thing to do, and at the end of the day, we will have the resources we need to compete in our targeted states, as will our candidates.”
Republicans generally think very poorly of the poorer elements of their base as clearly evidenced by the leaked fundraising primer labeling Obama “the Joker” and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “Cruella DeVille.” They know there is an element of their base that is driven entirely by fear and biogtry. They assume these folks will not remember, make any logical connection or care that it was the Republican party who administered the Wall Street bailouts. In fact, some ads are already making the false claim that the bailouts happened on Obama’s watch. They assume their people won’t really make the logical connection between whose funding their campaigns and whose interests they are looking out for while in office. But the only Republican constituency that really matters to the GOP are the wealthy, the corporations, Wall street bankers, the insurance and oil and gas industry, etc. If you think you are a populist and you vote Republican, you are an idiot.
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