Unemployment Insurance: GOP Filibusters the Unemployed
Well, the question never even made it to the House. It appears to have died in the Senate at the hands of the obstructionist GOP.
Illinois Senator Mark Kirk went along with his GOP colleagues earlier this week in filibustering the extension of Unemplyoment Insurance to the long-term unemployed. Jonathan Cohn says, “Republicans determined to help the poor and the unemployed? That’s so last week.” (Last week it looked briefly like maybe the GOP had decided to step away from the morass of spite in which they’ve been wading these last years. John Cassidy was skeptical even then; sadly, he was right to be.)
Brad Plumer compiled “7 reasons why Congress’s failure to extend unemployment insurance matters“. Read his piece, but here are the 7 headers:
- Long-term unemployment is still as high as its ever been since World War II.
- Most of the long-term unemployed are having an extremely difficult time finding jobs.
- Long-term unemployment takes an extreme toll on people’s health and well-being.
- The expiration of emergency benefits took away a key source of income for millions of people.
- There’s scant evidence that the long-term unemployed will find it easier to get jobs if their benefits are cut off.
- Congress is doing very little else to help the long-term unemployed find work.
- All this long-term unemployment is hurting the U.S. economy.
But facts and data – not to mention simple human compassion – don’t seem to be persuasive to these folks.
Why would a decent person choose to associate himself or herself with this party?