“Ninety-nine weeks is just shy of two years. Given that the recession began exactly three years ago, and that some people live in states that don’t even qualify for all 99 weeks of unemployment, it should be no surprise that some Americans have already exhausted their benefits.”
Massive number of unemployed fall of the 99ers cliff
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
This is an important point.The argument went we must help the unemployed so let’s agree to an extension of the Bush tax cuts. The Republicans were ecstatic especially with the new inheritance tax which will decrease from 52% prior to Bush to 35%, with a 5 million vs the pre-Bush 1 million exemption. It’s extremly unlikely we are ever going to go back to 52% and less than 5 million. Imagine you have an estate of a 50 million, you heirs just got a 12 million plus Xmas present. As I understand it the new tax bill extends unemployment befefits that would have otherwise expired only if they are within the 99 week limit.
He gave away so much for so little. Had he held tough the Republicans would have been beside themselves because of the inheritance tax, plus I think the elimination of the special rate on dividends. Obama could have gotten a much better deal, extending additional help to all the unemployed. He keeps on losing his cool.
99 week extension was never on the agenda for both republicans and democrats (except Shummer of NY brought a bill, it didn’t go anywhere). You rhetoric ej, doesn’t keep pace with reality. Both democrats and republicans represent the rich and the corporate interests. In this game no one speaks up for the people who held the offshored jobs or who have been demolished by the banking derivatives. The republicans be damned for not caring about the deficit. The democrats be damned for giving the rich another present, including doing nothing about the tax deductions. It’s time for you to sober up about the puppet(s).
PS Let me paraphrase this. Democrats say they were “forced” to make the tax deal because of the unemployed. But really they don’t care for the hundreds of thousands who fall off the 99ers cliff every month. In fact they (especially the election bound Obama) prefer people to go off the unemployed rolls so they are no longer counted in the total bogus unemployment number.
Your second formulation obviously goes down easier from my end, and I appreciate your making the effort. We agree that both parties are not concerned about those who exceed the 99 week limit. (You have the same kind of deal with Medicare…99 days in a hospital/rehab facility and any more you eat into your lifetime deductible of a million. The upshot is if your Alzheimered, in time you benefits will expire and you are now under Medicaid. They do cap programs.)
We might disagree on the following…I hold that even though both parties serve corporate interests which is bad, the Democrats are still better, have more rachmunis, than the Republicans. Others, maybe you, would maintain that once one begins talking about the lesser bad and certainly the lesser evil, you will never think straight, and will end up doing apologetics for very bad governments.
I just heard Bill O’Reilly on FOX, he is getting on my nerves big time, talking to the libertarian Stossel. And O’Reilly says that both Bush and Obama, “diametrically opposed to each over”, both agree that stimulus(s) were needed for the economy and if they both are for it, this must be true, his words.
Do you recognize the central fallacy here? True for whom? For the corporation that employ both presidents or for the people? You see how both the left and the right benefit from accentuating the presumed “diametric” difference.