This Is Getting Good

[babylonsister]

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/03/01/this-is-getting-good/

This Is Getting Good
Posted by Joe Klein Monday, March 1, 2010 at 9:42 pm


Jim Bunning is doing all of us a favor. As this comment from the Number 2 Senate Republican, Jon Kyl of Arizona, makes clear, the Republicans are turning toward a form of reactionary radicalism that is well to the right not only of traditional conservatism, but also of post-Victorian concepts of government and--not to put too fine a point on it--of common decency as well:

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working." Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work,"

The idea that those who have lost their jobs in this Wall Street/mortgage-scam recession are simply deadbeats, choosing to stay on unemployment rather than look for work, seems more appropriate to Scrooge's London than the 21st century. But Kyl has spoken his version of the truth, and we should be grateful for that: this is what the Republican Party is now all about. The America they--and the Tea Partiers--want would have no Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security (just ask the rising Republican star, Paul Ryan, who would privatize them all), no social safety net, no environmental or workplace regulations, no highway or infrastructure building. It would more Hume than Adam Smith, who would be considered a socialist by current Rush/Beck standards. This is what they are selling and, according to CNN, what 56% of the American people are currently buying--the idea that the federal government is a threat to their freedom. This is not conservative government, but the absence of government.

And so, again: Let's call the roll. Let's see how many allies Jim Bunning and Jon Kyl have. Let's find out their names and remember them. This is so important that we should stop all other business: Let them filibuster...and spend hours telling us exactly what else they would abolish.

[Inuca]

1. Kyl's comment is UNBELIEVABLE

Kyl is a reptile but he is pretty smart. The comment, in addition to being obscene, was also politically very stupid.

[Lerkfish]

2. its very similar to Babs bush's comment after katrina

You have to realize that republicans, as racists, believe subconsciously that the majority of people on unemployment are black (which is increasingly untrue of course) and it fits in with the "shiftless, lazy" percpetion of those people.


IMHO

[customerserviceguy]

3. Not necessarily

One of the things that stunned me back in Psych 101 was the notion that people tend to blame a victim. That's not the way I was brought up, and I just didn't believe it.

But thirty-five years of real life since then have taught me that it's true. When bad things happen to someone, everybody looks around for a "reason" so that they can reassure themselves it can't happen to them. Look at the way we sentence murderers: If the stranger jumps out of the bushes and kills, he gets the death penalty (because that really could happen to any of us), but if it's a neighbor or co-worker, then we're talking about a lesser sentence. Hell, kill someone in your family, and blame it on abuse, and you're likely to walk, since everybody calms themselves with the idea, "If I was living with (or near) someone that bonkers, I'd have the sense to stay the hell away!"

Right now, we have a bunch of survivors out there. They either didn't lose their jobs, or just got a bit of a cutback in hours, maybe no raise the last couple of years, etc. They have to figure out why those other people are in such a sad situation, and many, if not most, of them will play "blame the victim". The Rethugs have always been good at tapping into that perverse streak in human psychology, and they're doing it here.

[gateley]

20. That's very interesting - and makes sense. Thanks. nt

[KT2000]

23. Very important point

and you did a good job of explaining it.
That is so critical to the RW success. A RW radio person made the case against healthcare because people cause their own sickness!
It has been at the subtle level but now it is coming out into the open.

[laughingliberal]

25. Well put. nt

[Phx_Dem]

19. It's pure Kyl. Sickening.

[liberal N proud]

4. It is surprising how many people believe that shit

People see others getting what they would call hand outs and think they don't do anything to get that money why would they go get a job.

I hear it all the time, "why can't people work for their unemployment?" Wouldn't that be called employment?

[niceypoo]

5. Republicans in general are doing this

They are acting like the Hoover republicans in the early 1930s, pure heartlessness. I say the worse they wanna be, the better.

[On the Road]

6. By Itself, It Seems Pretty Undeniable

unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working." In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work,"

Of course unemployment is a disincentive -- it doesn't mean it shouldn't be offered or that people are using it irresponsibly.

This part, on the other hand, makes no sense to me on any level:

Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs."

It's not supposed to, and there's absolutely no rationale presented.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

7. They're wrong on both counts....

The amount you get while unemployed is laughably small. I was unemployed (thankfully only for about two months) about five years ago. What I got from unemployment was scarcely enough to pay my utilities and grocery bill for a family of four. My mortgage? My health insurance? Gas for the car? All of it came straight out of my IRA. If you think people who are on unemployment are anything but financially devastated, then you've never been on unemployment.

As to unemployment not creating jobs, that is also incorrect. Because the amount you get is so small, people on unemployment spend that money almost immediately on the essentials. We're not paying off old credit cards bills or investing it for the future. Bread. Milk. Eggs. Unemployment gets plowed back into the economy almost immediately, and so an extra $7-10 billion per year (the cost of the Democrats latest proposal to extend unemployment) is a shot of pure adrenaline to the economy. It is, in fact, the most effect economic stimulus imaginable.

[Cosmocat]

10. YEP ...

I am a husband and wife and found myself unemployed RIGHT as the job market was collapsing ...

I was making the most money I had ever made prior to it, and it was a MAJOR drop to what I received in unemployment ...

It was a fulltime job trying to get a job, and things got REAL tight, REAL quick for the family ... I am underemployed now, and while things are tight, it is NOTHING like it was while I was on unemployment ...

I could not get off of it fast enough ... On a personal level, financial level .. I COULD have waited it out, stayed on it to keep trying to find a better paying job, but no friggen way ...

[On the Road]

11. It May be Laugably Small

but it's still a disincentive. If you have $5 to your name, you're going to be on the street looking for your next meal. If you have a check for $95, you can put off the job for a little while.

What Kyl seems to be saying is that people on unemployment have no incentive to look for a job, and by implication that they do not look for work. That is not a valid inference and is not true. And it's no reason not to offer unemployment.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

16. You've got to be kidding...

If I have $95 in my pocket and a $1,500 mortgage payment due next week, that $95 is not an incentive for me to not seek work. Unemployment is a disincentive to work only if you're stupid enough to trade sub-poverty level assistance for a real paying job -- and most people that stupid never had real paying jobs to begin with.

[On the Road]

17. Saying it is a Disincentive is Not Saying You Don't Look for a Job

especially if you have a $1500 mortgage. The claim is whether it is a negative incentive, which is axiomatic.

If you offer a $1000 reward for performing some unlikely action, you're still incenting it even if no one does it. What Kyl did was take an undeniable statement and draw an unwarranted conclusion.

Some people do use unemployment as a reason to put off looking for a job, generally at the lower end of the economic scale. I had a tenant who lived a year this way and just returned to work. It is always an issue. But unemployment benefits are still necessary.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

30. Oh Dear God....

What is your day job? Jim Bunning's publicist?

If you have a family, a car payment and a mortgage, you're going to go fucking bankrupt on unemployment in a New York Minute. Best case scenario is that you'll seriously drain your retirement account. Maybe both.

$200 a month in unemployment is a fucking ten-cent tip. It's who-the-hell-cares money. Given the "incentive" of $200 per week and certain bankruptcy, I think the sane person is going to go for the massively larger incentive of gainful employment.

You argue like Republican. Find one anecdotal story the illustrates the exception, and then try to claim that it's the rule.

Kyl is fucked, and to the extent that you're trying to justify his position, you're fucked too.

[On the Road]

31. I'm Not Justifying Kyl's Position,

I'm justifying the statement that providing unemployment checks is a disincentive for finding jobs. You seem to be confusing the two.

Let's say you offer a $100 bounty for killing an alligator. You are by definition incenting killing alligators. Whether people are likely to actually go out and do that is beside the point. You are incenting killing alligators by offering the bounty.

Likewise, if you offer checks to people as long as they are umemployed, which stop when they become employed, you are by definition incenting unemployement, or conversely disincenting employment.

What Kyl is doing is using that fact to argue that unemployment checks should be stopped. That is an enormous logical leap. Attacking the premise is not the way to do it. It is falling into the common debating trap of attacking the premise rather than the argument to be resolved. One of the most powerful debating tactics is not to contest any of your opponents' premises, but rather show that they are irrelevant or do not lead to his or her conclusion.

Otherwise, you end up with fallacious, emotional attacks on perfectly valid statements. Like you just did.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

33. "Providing unemployment checks is a disincentive for finding jobs"

Read those words again.

Those are your words.

You posted them.

Those words are fucking idiotic. We're not killing fucking alligators here.

If I need $2,000 after tax each month to pay my bills, offering me $200 a week is not -- I say again -- NOT an incentive for me to not go out and seek a new job. $200 per week is a one-way ticket to bankruptcy.

How fucking stupid do you have to be to NOT GET THAT POINT?

I'll say it again. You've never had to get by on unemployment.

[On the Road]

34. If Kyl Had Said

"Water is wet, therefore we must cut taxes," would you say "Oh no, that's ridiculous, water isn't wet!" Of course not. You would say "of course water is wet but (a) it doesn't prove your point, (b) it's not relevant to your argument, (c) there are more powerful opposing reasons," or something similar.

You are completely missing the point. Nobody is saying you personally can survive on unemployment. I couldn't. But when you stop sending a check of several hundred dollars a month when X happens, you are by definition disincenting X. It doesn't matter what it is.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

36. Since you seem to be hung up on Aristotelian logic...

A syllogism is valid only when the premises are true.

"Nobodyh is saying you personally can survive on umemployment"

Your words. Reread them.

If nobody can survive on unemployment, then the receipt of unemployment is not an incentive and so the elimination of unemployment is not a disincentive. Your premise, that the receipt of a $200 unemployment check will alter or modify one's behavior, is false. Actually the phrase I think I used upthread is "fucking stupid."

At this point, the mantle of being fucking stupid is now yours to own as you persist in trying to logically prove something based on a false premise.

[On the Road]

41. It's Economics, Not Aristotelian Logic

and it probably does a measurable effect, although it may be negligible for many people.

Kyl's argument makes an enormous leap from that to recommending that unemployment payment be stopped, ignoring along the way:

- More people trying harder to look for jobs is not going to create any more jobs.
- This is particularly true of unskilled workers who the ones more likely to change their behavior as the result of an unemployment check.
- Unemployment is paid for by taxpayers while they're employed, so it's closer to insurance than a handout.
- Extending benefits is typically done during a recession, especially ones like this with very high unemployment.
- Unemployment checks are a very direct way of stimulating the economy, since almost all that money will be spent immediately.
- Because it is stimulative, it increases tax revenue.
- The whole point of offering unemployment is not maximize efficiency, but to care for the welfare of the citizens.

Nevertheless, I was not trying to be pedantic and will be glad to drop the argument.

[olegramps]

39. You are not worth responding to.

[scorpiogirl]

40. I agree with you...

What a bunch of bullshit. Our lives (family of four) have been completely flipped upside down by unemployment. Our rent is $1545 and we get (after fucking taxes) $1780/mo from unemployment. The math sucks but there it is. Our 401k, savings, long gone. Now we're $20k in debt in credit cards when we use to live day to day on cash, we had zero debt except for our car payments. But we didn't live extravaganty, but we at least we didn't have to choose between food and bills.

But hey, there's no incentive to find a job because we get that check every two weeks. The lack of reason is just astounding.

[olegramps]

38. Tea bagger intelligence at work.

[JDPriestly]

24. People who are literally on the street lack the time or the means to

look for a job. I know. I used to work with homeless people. I knew of a case of a guy who was homeless and walked miles and miles to an interview.

It is hard to make a good impression at an interview if you didn't have anyplace to take a shower in the morning, no mirror for shaving or putting on makeup, few work clothes and an empty stomach. And that is what longterm employment means -- no home, no shower, no mirror where you shave or put on makeup, no decent clothes and an empty stomach.

Bunning has no clue about joblessness. It's time for Bunning to learn what it is like to lose a job. He is a cruel, heartless man.

[Blue_Tires]

35. really?

"If you have $5 to your name, you're going to be on the street looking for your next meal. If you have a check for $95, you can put off the job for a little while."


um, no...A person in both instances is just as desperate to find a job...It's just the difference between being having money for food and transportation and begging/borrowing/stealing for it...

[olegramps]

37. Are you serious?

[CitizenLeft]

12. really?

Can you live on $285 a week? That's all I got for 5 months. Anyone with a home or a car will lose them both unless they have a spouse making enough to help make the payments. I almost lost my house because I had to choose between house payments and car payments. Try finding a job without a car in any city other than New York or Chicago. Thank God I found a job.

[Cha]

14. The amount of unemployment compared to

real wages is scarily small.

It's meant to barely get you by if that.

The reptile, kyl, is lying through his teeth.

[Jennicut]

8. Scrooge's London. Rethugs won't be content until we are all on street corners begging

for food. Really, why was welfare developed? Social Security? Medicare and Medicaid? You had people who were desperate and needed help. Not so people could be lazy. I have been unemployed, it paid for basic things. I was not content to live in near poverty on it and found another job about 3 months later.

[Peacetrain]

9. Kabuki theater of politics.. they are reptiles.. Bunning and Kyl NT

[xxqqqzme]

15. It appears jeffie sessions has joined

choir.

BTW, all three are multi millionaires. They don't give a rats ass, they got theirs. They probably don't even know anyone who is unemployed.

[Cha]

13. Another stupid lying cnn poll..

"This is what they are selling and, according to CNN, what 56% of the American people are currently buying--the idea that the federal government is a threat to their freedom. This is not conservative government, but the absence of government."

cnn sucks as much or more than bunning's ilk.

[Lorien]

22. but they stop short of calling it Anarchy. nt

[Myrina]

28. CNN last night also said:

that the "Dems 'gave in' to Bunning and let him have his vote when they could have worked around him" ... so the GOP will use this, compliments of CNN, to further paint Dems as weak and gutless.


:(

[annabanana]

18. oh KICK yeah

[rpannier]

21. Let's not forget when then U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese lauded E. Scrooge back in 1983

"Ebenezer Scrooge suffered from bad press in his time. If you really look at the facts, he didn't exploit Bob Cratchit. Bob Cratchit was paid 10 shillings a week, which was a very good wage at the time... Bob, in fact, had good cause to be happy with his situation. His wife didn't have to work...He was able to afford the traditional Christmas dinner of roast goose and plum pudding...So let's be fair to Scrooge. He had his faults, but he wasn't unfair to anyone."

[pundaint]

26. Kyl has been an assclown for years. Apparently unemployment has given more

people the time to listen to his stupid rants.

[Mr. Ected]

27. Unfortunately, their cravenness is irrelevant

Unless and until it is LOUDLY debunked and repudiated by our esteemed Democratic Congressmen and Congresswomen.

What are the odds of THAT happening?

[EnviroBat]

29. Typical of Republican scum.

When my conservative father was shocked to find that I'm a Democrat, he asked me why. I told him that I simply can't go through this life with a "fuck you , I got mine" mentality. He had no come-back for that.

I fucking hate republicans.

[BeyondGeography]

32. "This is not conservative government, but the absence of government."

Nailed.