Ahhhh, Now I Get It

by digby

DKos diarist James Richardson wondered what the Republicans thought they were achieving by holding up extended unemployment benefits for over a month only to end up voting for it 98-0 and discovered they wanted to screw over a lot of people and then take credit for being good guys, as usual:

[T]he real reason republicans delayed passage of the unemployment extension benefits was this:

Because the bill was held up for so long in the Senate, an end-of-the-year filing deadline will prevent anyone from accessing the final six weeks of benefits, according to state officials and sources on Capitol Hill. On Friday, President Obama signed into law legislation extending jobless benefits by 14 weeks nationwide, with an additional six weeks for those states where unemployment rates top 8.5 percent. Those benefits kicked in on Sunday. But there’s a glitch. The new law treats the 20-week extension as two separate extensions of 14 weeks and six weeks, with participants required to exhaust the first 14 weeks before applying for the next six. However, the current law keeps a Dec. 31 application deadline, roughly seven weeks from now, making collecting the full 20 weeks impossible. That’s not all. The emergency unemployment benefits provided beginning in 2008 are also tiered. The filing deadline applies to all tiers. That is, the new extension would effectively grandfather the unemployed into the tier where they sit at the end of December, preventing them from jumping into the next, even if they were eligible.

It’s very important that with 10% official unemployment (and probably close to double that in real unemployment)that we don’t let people think they have some kind of “entitlement.” They need to suffer or they won’t understand just how seriously we take the work ethic in this country.

It’s possible that this is an unintended consequence of waiting, but it’s hard to see why someone didn’t figure it out. Indeed, the whole “tiering” system seems designed for just this result. I guess they don’t want the unemployed to get spoiled by all that free money.

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