Tough Luck

by digby

I wrote about this last week and nothing’s happened yet. I’m not sure why nobody gives a damn about it, but it seems to me as if the Democrats could at least say something.

From the National Employment Law Project:

As we reported last week, Senators Reid and Baucus, with the help of Senators Shaheen, Dodd, Reed and Klobuchar, introduced a bill that would provide 14 additional weeks of unemployment benefits to workers exhausting their benefits in all states, and an additional 6 weeks (for a total of 20 weeks) for those in states with unemployment rates at or over 8.5%. This bill would be fully paid for by simply extending a small surtax on employers. This tax is nothing new as it has been in place for 30 years and amounts to a mere $12 per worker per year. We had hoped that in light of the calls for an extension from certain key Republican Senators including Senators McConnell, DeMint and Cornyn, that this bill would move quickly through the Senate, back to the House, and to the President’s desk for signature. Unfortunately, that has not happened yet. Last Thursday, and again this Tuesday, the Republicans (first Sen. Kyl from Arizona and then Sen. Hatch from Utah) blocked attempts to move the bill and provide unemployed workers with the relief they desperately needed. They have a series of amendments, most of which have nothing to do with unemployment insurance, that they want to force the Senate to debate. The amendments include issues such as the TARP program, ACORN, and an attempt to characterize extending the surtax to pay for this extension as an unreasonable burden on employers. We are sure you agree that a mere $14 per year per employee, a tax employers have been paying for the last three decades, is a small price to pay for the important stabilizing and stimulative effects of extending unemployment benefits to those who have exhausted them.[…]Now is the time for all of you to contact your Senators. If your Senators are Democrats, tell them to speak up and stand up to demand a vote on the unemployment extension. If your Senators are Republicans, tell them to stop playing partisan games instead of performing their duty to their constituents. Click here to send your message. Ask your friends and family to do the same — we need to make our voices heard and get this done!

Evidently, John Kyl and Orrin Hatch think it’s perfectly a-ok to hold unemployed workers hostage during the country’s worst economic downturn in 70 years. WTH?I don’t know how many of you have ever tried to get by during a long period where unemployment insurance is all that’s keeping the wolf from the door, but I have. It’s scary stuff. These unemployed workers aren’t being lazy. There are no jobs. People need these benefits now, not a month from now.It’s outrageous that the congress isn’t passing these bills as a matter of course. That nobody is aware this is happening (except for the poor schmucks who aren’t going to get a check) is an indictment of both the Democrats and the media.

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