How Jobless Aid Became Dysfunctional

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"Congress keeps pretending the economy will get better in a few months—and playing a cruel game of chicken." That's entirely too sympathetic a phrasing you've used. I, Big Daddy who is *paying the bill* for all this - am the one being cruelly flailed around like a steak being tugged on by mongrel dogs, not the unemployed. Make that chronically unemployed.
26 weeks is a major free lunch. That's 6 MONTHS. If one contends that their continued presence in the game is dependent on more and yet more free lunch, and that it is cruel and greedy for those slaving away in the game to deny them - that is clearly the cry of a leech. It's shiftless and trashy and pathetic.
Let's be honest. Let's say that even the 26 weeks (which I still contend is HUGE) benefit did not exist. Would people need more than 26 weeks to get something? ABSOLUTELY NOT except in the very very rarest of cases. You'd take SOMETHING if your back was against the wall.
This is not just theory. I have lived this very act out in my own life. My drive was my parents who taught me not to be a freeloader and a drain on my fellow man. And I took a crappy job for far less than the charts said I "deserved" for my educational degree. Far less. Very crappy. I had to move to a crappy state too.
This is a morally hazarded free lunch of the worst order. And the word "humanitarian" has nothing to do with it. It just rewards shiftless trashiness.

John Q of TX 10:08PM August 11, 2010

The idea that government can only spend (entitlements infrastructure defense etc) if there is an equal amount of income (taxes} is a good one. Start with defense - this countries largest governmental purchase. The tax payer should not foot that bill, oil and developers should.

pat of CA 3:53PM August 05, 2010

If unemployment benefits help the unemployed create and find jobs; in the words of Nancy Pelosi, then howcome unemployment benefits need to be extended? I thought the unemployed are creating jobs? Show us the jobs Nancy, you love the word your favorite word Nancy is that jobs? Nancy? WHERE ARE THE JOBS NANCY P.

jason of IL 4:15AM July 19, 2010

"Our entire concept of what the government should do for us has become a fantasy"
This has some truth to it, but he fails to address the area of government spending this most applies to. Military spending is far and away the largest source of spending that does not have a dedicated revenue stream (SS has been in surplus most of its existence, and Medicare, after subtracting dedicated revenues, costs less than half what defense spending costs us). It is entirely unreasonable for us to spend as much on defense as the rest of the world COMBINED. It is irrational to expect a military response every time some wacko with a weapon kills somebody. And it is completely insane to expect our military to go around the world establishing US-friendly governments everywhere under military threat.
If we pared back military spending to the level necessary to defend the nation from foreign invasion (not engage in global adventurism like we have been for many years) that would have a larger impact on reducing government deficits than any other single item.

Devin of CA 12:14PM July 16, 2010