Republicans kill extended unemployment benefits

Senate Republicans and a handful of Democrats Saturday defeated a bill to reauthorize unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and a plethora of tax provisions for the middle class not because of the bill's trillion-dollar deficit impact, but because it did not include tax cuts for the rich.

Two bills were defeated. By a vote of 53-36, the Senate rejected a measure by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) that would have preserved Bush era tax cuts for lower- and middle-income taxpayers, but would have allowed cuts for people earning more than $200,000 a year to expire. Democrats Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Jim Webb (Va.), Russ Feingold (Wisc.) and Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman (Conn.) joined Republicans in voting nay. 

Unemployment extension blocked by Republican Senator

The extension of unemployment was not passed in the U.S. Senate.  A vote on the extension was blocked by Republican  U.S. Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts.
From the California Budget Project:

ALLOWING FEDERALLY SUPPORTED UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BENEFITS TO EXPIRE WOULD COST JOBS AND COULD ENDANGER THE FRAGILE RECOVERY

Hundreds of thousands of jobless Californians who are struggling to find work in the weakest job market in decades face the prospect of struggling to make ends meet without Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits just before the holidays. Unless Congress acts, emergency measures currently in place that provide additional weeks of federally supported UI benefits to unemployed workers who exhaust their regular state benefits are set to expire on November 30.1 Allowing these benefits to expire at a time when California’s unemployment rate remains close to the record-high rate reached only months ago would deliver a sharp blow to the economy and could endanger the fragile recovery. Absent Congressional action, more than 400,000 unemployed Californians will lose access to federally supported UI benefits next month alone.2 Without UI, these jobless workers would be forced to scale back their spending, which means businesses would have fewer customers and weaker sales – and that could ultimately cost jobs. For this reason, Congress should do what it has traditionally done during significant downturns in the economy: Continue federally supported UI benefits until the job market shows strong signs of recovery.

Unemployment in the Euro area continues to grow.

The euro area (EA16) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 10.1% in October 2010, compared with 10.0% in September4. It was 9.9% in October 2009. The EU271 unemployment rate was 9.6% in October 2010, unchanged compared with September4. It was 9.4% in October 2009.

The news was released this lunchtime, read here. 

When will the people of Europe wake up to what is being done to them?

Dangerous and misguided deficit recommendations

A dangerous approach to deficit reduction

Last week, the co-chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform released proposals for reducing the federal deficit. EPI’s analysis shows both are seriously misguided plans that could undermine badly needed job creation, prolong the jobs crisis, and ultimately further weaken the country’s fiscal health.

In response, EPI’s Research and Policy Director John Irons issued a statement that the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform “is running seriously off track.” Irons noted that almost half of the adjustments suggested in the Commission’s co-chairs proposal would come from cuts to discretionary spending, a portion of the budget that is not responsible for long-term deficits. At the same time, it proposes little to increase tax revenue and gives barely a nod to the prime driver of longer-term deficits, rising health care costs, suggesting only that lawmakers establish a process to control health care cost growth. The plan’s proposed changes to Social Security would result in reduced benefits for most people, Irons stressed. This initial proposal was drafted by co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to stimulate discussion. It will be followed on December 1 by a final report.

In a separate response, Irons and Policy Analyst Andrew Fieldhouse called the Peterson-Pew deficit reduction target dangerous and misguided. They stressed that the Peterson-Pew plan, which calls for immediate deficit reduction aimed at reducing public debt to 60% of gross domestic product by the year 2018, “would slow the economic recovery enough to possibly risk a double dip recession.”

EPI believes that the current economic downturn is not a reason to adopt fiscal austerity. Rather it is time to invest in the middle class, create jobs, and spur economic growth. In the coming weeks, EPI, together with Demos and The Century Foundation, will release a Fiscal Blueprint that details the policies we believe will create jobs now and achieve long-run fiscal sustainability.

20 more years of high unemployment?
The Labor Department's November 5 employment report showed a nationwide unemployment rate of 9.6%. Although that report contained the welcome news that 159,000 private-sector jobs were created in October, even that level of job creation is not sufficient to reverse a backlog of 14.8 million unemployed workers anytime soon. Economist Heidi Shierholz, in her analysis of the latest jobs data, said that if the pace of job growth seen in October were to continue going forward, it would take a staggering 20 years to return the country to its pre-recession rate of unemployment.

Two million unemployed workers are at risk of losing their unemployment insurance benefits before the end of the year if Congress fails to continue benefits for the long-term unemployed. EPI’s research shows not only that extended benefits are needed, but that they are an effective policy for creating jobs. EPI’s analysis of new Labor Department data on job openings released November 9 shows there were five unemployed workers for every one job opening in September, a ratio that has actually widened since the summer. This means that for four out of five unemployed workers, there are still no jobs.

Shierholz and EPI President Lawrence Mishel outlined the benefits of emergency unemployment insurance in the Issue Brief A Good Deal For All, where they showed that maintaining these extended unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed will create about 700,000 full-time equivalent jobs and save millions of people from poverty. The authors also note that because unemployment insurance benefits are quickly invested in local communities, thereby stimulating economies and creating jobs, the “sticker price” of these benefits is considerably less than advertised. “The government will bring in more revenue from the taxes paid on the wages earned by those who otherwise would not have jobs,” they state.

EPI’s latest research on the benefits of unemployment insurance builds on earlier work, including the May 2010 panel discussion, Long-term Unemployment: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions, where a group of leading economists agreed that extending unemployment insurance during periods of high unemployment was smart fiscal policy. A short video of some of the panelists from that event explaining how unemployment insurance creates jobs is available on EPI.org.

Unemployment and Meg Whitman

Grand Hotel in Sacramento. October 14,2010.

Greenhagen and Escalera joined more than 100 other union members and community allies to protest Whitman’s opposition to high-speed rail and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it would create.

Greenhagen:

I know what it feels like to be unemployed. It hurts. Meg Whitman doesn’t know the first thing about us, and she doesn’t care what we’re going through. I came on this tour to raise awareness about this election and where the candidates stand on jobs. The more I talked with my brothers and sisters about the situation across the state, the more I came to understand that none of us is alone in this struggle for jobs. We need leaders who will stand up for us and help get us back to work. Meg Whitman says she’ll kill this project and the hope of jobs it brings. Jerry Brown will put us back to work. We all need to get out and vote because our jobs depend on the outcome of this election.

The Sacramento protest was the final stop on the Good Jobs Express Tour, which rallied construction trades members and working families in the cities of Anaheim, Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto and Sacramento. Greenhagen and Escalera were joined at each stop by elected officials, labor leaders, environmental advocates and community allies to make the case for high-speed rail and candidates who support it.

From Steve Smith. AFL-CIO, posted on the California Progress Report.

For which Nation does Nick Clegg speak at the UN?

Nicholas William Peter Clegg (such refreshingly cosy sounding familiar Christian names) has his family tree listed on the Wikipedia web site which is linked here. The information provided seems largely backed up in an article from "Family Detective" on Nick Clegg which appeared shortly after he beat Chris Huhne for the leadership of the Liberal Democrat party, which is linked from here.

On Wikipedia Clegg allows this thumbnail description:

Clegg is multilingual: he speaks English, Dutch, French, German, and Spanish. His background has informed his politics. He says, "There is simply not a shred of racism in me, as a person whose whole family is formed by flight from persecution, from different people in different generations. It’s what I am. It’s one of the reasons I am a liberal." His Dutch mother instilled in him "a degree of scepticism about the entrenched class configurations in British society".

Before we go further let me declare my interest in this particular subject, Clegg is a typical Euro leech, who normally would not be worth the effort of investigating, British politics is full of such pensioned apparatchiks whose (tax dubious) EU pensions would be at risk were they not to spend every waking minute extending the seditious powers of this foul institution. Yesterday morning it was reported, however, that Clegg had stepped over the line by suggesting that the use of Tax Accountants was somehow immoral.

Let me be clear on this blog's position on tax, namely that it is the duty of every citizen, in the interests of his own family, for whom he/she is ultimately responsible to reduce their tax payments to the legal minimum within their country of residence.

Secondly let me re-iterate that the evasion of national taxes is theft of their taxpaying countrymen's funds especially when they are accomplished by secretive amendments and hidden clauses in various EU Treaties. Such evasion should IMO become a criminal offence that would thereafter place large numbers of Britain's Great and the so-called Good, being such recipients, firmly behind bars - our Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg would, because of his EU background, necessarily be among them.

But Clegg is not just any old greedy British failed politician milking the system for all he is worth, in fact Nick Clegg can hardly be considered British, let alone English at all. Even the two linked articles above show he is at best only one quarter British, yet the missing portions of the Wikipedia illustrated family tree (note number 21) and background of the humble origins of his supposed British forebears raise more questions than are answered.

How, for instance, from his oh so humble origins, did Dr Hugh Anthony Clegg rise to edit the British Medical Journal and earn such a lengthy tribute, linked here, which noted that he was quite an internationalist as a member of the Council of the World medical association and initiated (and later served as its Secretary) the First World Conference on Medical Education. A surprising feat implying considerable international networking for an individual with the background described in the last two paragraphs of the Telegraph link. Speculation and research on my own ancestry with a similar anomaly I have learned cannot easily be discovered let alone explained, so we will leave such questions aside.

It is clear enough from the undisputed facts and background that Nick Clegg is by no means a typical average Brit! Four languages indeed, I am deeply envious I must admit! So how did this internationalist arrive in Downing Street at the heart of Britain's Governmental power? Well obviously the EU has played its part, in fact looking at the article on Clegg's expenses manipulations, linked here, we discover this startling information:

The claims also include two bills for the Liberal Democrat leader’s home phone in Sheffield, one for £105.88 and the other for £121.56. These detailed four calls to Colombia, including two mobile phones, three to Vietnam, including two mobiles, and 21 calls to Belgium, including six mobiles.

Draw what conclusions you wish from these mistaken claims, in my mind far more damage has been done to Clegg's reputation as a freely acting typical Englishman that he likes to portray than to his other facade as an English gentlemen, unlikely to be putting in 21 calls to Belgium, home country to the odious EU, drug-war torn Colombia and even Vietnam let alone claiming their costs from the poor old British taxpayer.

Yet worse, far worse is to come today! Fresh from his appearences on TV this past weekend and exhortations at his party conference in Liverpool when he lectured the nation on the burning necessity for massive and immediate cuts (which this blog does not dispute) he is now prepared to stand before the UN and on behalf of these same suffering taxpayers, proffer untold bounty and largesse to be spread around the world by organisations broadly similar to the corrupted EU and generally stuffed full of Clegg-like clones syphoning much of the donated funds as they laboriously make their way to the poor. Only a leader of a nation acting on behalf of interests beyond that nation's shores would attempt such perfidy. Who does Clegg represent, it speaks for itself really, does it not? Anybody and anything other than the UK appears the only answer.

Look again at the family tree for Nick Clegg on the Wikipedia link at the head of this posting, and ponder was he perhaps selectively bred and meticulously programmed by the sinister forces behind the EU from his earliest days to appear as a virtual Englishman while working towards our final destruction, not much that he does seems to work against such a theory? Is Nick Clegg, perhaps, a prototype model of an EURobot?

How can Conservative MPs allow such an outrage to continue? Ask them if you plan to attend their conference.

Republicans block Extended Unemployment insurance

The expiration of the special unemployment compensation provisions enacted earlier in the recession has brought the problems of long-term unemployment and the role of unemployment compensation to the fore.

The June unemployment rate was 9.5%, and 45.5% of the unemployed have been seeking work for more than six months. Roughly a quarter of the unemployed have been jobless for more than a year. In this context, more than 2 million unemployed workers have already lost their unemployment insurance benefits because of the failure to renew the program that provides extended benefits to the long-term unemployed. This is unfortunate because providing unemployment benefits during a recession fulfills two important national needs: assisting those most hurt by the recession and generating jobs in the midst of a deep downturn.

First, unemployment benefits help cushion the blow of unemployment for millions of unemployed workers. This recession has caused the most job loss by far of any recession in the last seven decades. 

During the first half of 2010, unemployment averaged nearly 15 million workers, and that will likely remain the case for the rest of the year. However, the number of people experiencing unemployment will be far greater since some unemployed will gain employment and some of those employed now will become unemployed. For instance, in 2008 (the year for which we have the latest data) there were 8.9 million people unemployed on average.

However, over the course of the year, 21.2 million people experienced unemployment, a number 2.38 times the level of unemployment in the average month.1 This means that in 2010 we might have 35.0 million people experience unemployment at some point during the year. Given that there have been at least five unemployed workers for every job opening in recent months, many of those who are unemployed have and will continue to need assistance to weather this economic calamity. For the week ending May 29, 10.2 million people were receiving unemployment insurance benefits, over 50% of who had exhausted regular state benefits and were receiving benefits under provisions that were included in the Recovery Act. This is a crucial lifeline to those families most hurt by the downturn.

Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierhoiz.  Economic Policy Institute

Senate fails to pass unemployment extension

'The Washington post says that 900,000 people will lose

their jobless benefits by the end of the money.

Millions are losing their health insurance right now as

well. Why isn't this considered a national emergency.

It is certainly an emergency for those people, for the

stores where they buy groceries, their landlords or

mortgage-holders, their children, their relatives and

their communities. What is wrong with Washington that

they don't care/ What is wrong with our elite media

that they don't report this?'

Dave Johnson

Campaign for America's Future

June 24, 2010

http://tinyurl.com/2cmr52e

Hello Hoover: Republicans kill unemployment extension

Republican partisan politics won—and working families lost—again last night when Senate Republicans for the fourth time this year blocked a bill that would revive the extended unemployment insurance (UI) benefits program that is the last lifeline for millions of jobless workers.

The 57-41 vote (with Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson from Nebraska joining all Republicans) fell three votes short of the 60 needed to end the filibuster against the bill. The bill also included aid for states facing huge budget shortfalls to keep 900,000 people on the job.

The extended UI program expired May 31 after the Senate left town for the Memorial Day recess without acting on a House-passed jobs bill that would have kept the long-term unemployment benefits program alive. Since then, 1.2 million jobless workers have lost their benefits.

The Republican blockade means about 250,000 unemployed workers a week lose their benefits, which averages around $300 a week, while Republican lawmakers take in a nifty $3,346.16 a week of taxpayers’ money.

Maybe if they spent a few months out of work in an economy where the unemployment rate is near 10 percent, at least 15 million people are out of work and 6.8 million people have been out of work for 27 weeks or more, they wouldn’t be so cavalier in calling for “tough love” for the unemployed and telling them they’re just not looking hard for work.

This is how you make a recession worse. 

Crisis Mounts - 3,152 applicants for 52 Jobs -BNP Rise

The Government, the Conservative Opposition, their Mainstream Media Lackeys, the Members of Parliament, the Members of the European Parliament, Councils up and down the country, complicit troughing Civil Servants - NONE OF THESE can much longer keep the lid on their wilful destruction of the nation's economy and system of society. The Observer reports on the evidence in the employment area which may be read in gruesome detail from here.

One shocking statistic from the Isle of Wight is in this postings headline, others from the article follow:

There are just 4,275 vacancies across the 12 inner London boroughs, against almost 71,000 unemployment benefit claimants. Hackney, in east London, has 37 claimants for every new job.

When Twycross Zoo in Leicestershire held a recruitment day recently to hire 150 staff, it attracted a crowd of up to 3,000 people.

Hackney, in east London, has 37 claimants for every new job.

Again to the deep shame of the British media, once renowned for its fearless and deep analysis of political trends and independence from political control, it is left to Al Jazeera this Sunday morning to report on one absolute certain consequence of the sabotage of the nation by the establishment - the rise of the BNP, read their report from Newark on Staythorpe from here.

(The BBC did include an item on an attack on the BNP in their web coverage yesterday, read here)