We all remember all the protest Republican Senators have raised over unemployment benefits this year. Of course, the greediest and least patriotic among us want working America to shoulder the burden of their failed policies and want everyone but the ones who actually crashed the economy to pay for it. Now they want the unemployed who lost their jobs due to no fault of their own and their families to starve. That is, if they must give up the tax cuts for their wealthy base.
So what's new? Hal Rogers, Ed Whitfield and Brett Guthrie showed their true colors and when they had a chance to stand up for seniors on Medicare they voted "Nay" to kill H R 4213 and allow a 21% cut in Medicare payments to physicians essentially killing Medicare as we know it. Geoff Davis was a no show and didn't even bother to vote.
Huffington Post When Sen. Jim Bunning complained on the Senate floor in February that he'd missed the Kentucky-South Carolina basketball game because of a debate on unemployment benefits -- a debate the Kentucky Republican himself prevented from proceeding to a vote -- Bruce Shore got angry. "I was livid. I was just livid," said Shore, 51, who watched the floor proceedings on C-SPAN from his home in Philadelphia. "I'm on unemployment, so it affects me. I'm in shock." Read More
Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence
In his inimitable "twisting mainstream economics in as progressive direction as he can accomplish" style, Paul Krugman has made a splash among those following the challenge of our headlong and reckless pursuit of Climate Chaos with a column on the cost of policies to put the brakes on that reckless gamble.
Krugman falls into the trap of discussing the costs of dealing with climate change ... a robust cost/benefits analysis would ... result in a very serious statement as to the "huge risks and costs of inaction vs the very serious benefits of action".
In particular, it is a common failing of mainstream economics to assume an economy that naturally tends to full employment, so that policies that boost employment are a cost, when in the real world they are a benefit.
The March Jobs Report has come, and though there appears to have been some employment growth in the rose colored glasses retailing sector, in most other sectors, the headline is that the Job Free Recovery continues.
There are three main numbers to focus on when looking at the monthly employment report:
employment
the headline unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted
the broad ("U6") unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted
Just because we're unemployed, it doesn't mean we have to stop living like Americans - not when we can use all that free time making the the luxury items we used to go out and buy!
When Senators Jim Bunning and Mitch McConnell voted against H.R. 4213: Tax Extenders Act of 2009, March 10, 2010, they voted against folks on Medicare, folks on Medicaid, the unemployed and folks on COBRA. Click here to see the roll call.
Jim Bunning And Mitch McConnell Voted Against The Elderly On Medicare:
Dot Med News The Senate voted Wednesday to delay the 2010 cut in Medicare physician reimbursement. The 21% reduction was to go into effect March 1 till a vote last Tuesday put it off till the end of March. Yesterday's follow-up means the cut will take effect October 1.
Jim Bunning and Mitch McConnell voted to allow the 21% reduction Medicare physician reimbursement. Shame on them.
The Kentucky Senate race was getting quite boring. Leave it to eccentric, Looney Tune Jim Bunning to heat things up. One would like to think that the outgoing Senator who was shunned by the McConnell machine because he is a can or two short of a six pack decided to shake up this race but then you realize that well, Bunning is a can or two short of a six pack. However, his callous, uncaring and hypocritical "stand" earlier this week against the nation's unemployed has indeed ignited the Kentucky Senate race, which quite frankly was becoming a yawner.
By now everyone knows about the block Jim Bunning decided to put on unemployment benefits. However, this move did not just effect the unemployed. All across America many federal programs will furlough 2,000 other workers without pay and will indefinately end construction projects across the country.
When Jim Bunning blocked unemployment benefits for those who lost their jobs due to the economy he helped crashed I would have to say that most Republicans were pretty torn. I mean, Kentucky's Repubican Senate candidates were all for it, and stated so publicly but in the Republican leadership there seems to be a little angst. See, Republicans simply cannot afford to let the American people hear how they really feel, but deep inside they are all Jim Bunning.
Huffington Post Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky, is single-handedly blocking Senate action needed to prevent an estimated 1.2 million American workers from prematurely losing their unemployment benefits next month. Read more.
Working America According to Reuters,
attempts by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to move an
emergency unemployment aid extension in the Senate are being thwarted: Reid
had hoped to quickly pass a short-term extension of unemployment
benefits for more than a million people to ensure they are not
terminated at the end of February, but Republican Senator Jim Bunning
blocked it.
Policy advocates on Capitol Hill this morning confirmed that Sen. Bunning (R-KY)
is currently holding up an emergency measure to extend the expanded
federal support for unemployment insurance and COBRA subsidies set to
expire in three days.
A spokesman for Senator Bunning said this
morning that Bunning had objected to Senator Reid's unanimous consent
request to proceed on the measure, citing a dispute over how it should
be funded.
Kentucky's jobless rate, which exceeds the national average, increased to 10.7%
in December, the last month of available state statistics. Numerous
counties in Kentucky report unemployment rates of 13% or more, as can
be seen on this Washington Postinteractive map of unemployment rates by state and county. (click on the map to zoom in) Several counties in rural eastern Kentucky have jobless rates of 15% or higher, including Magoffin County at 21.4%. Read More
While I have been disappointed by the direction of this Administration one thing remains true. When they took office our country was disasterously close to a Great Depression. A Depression wrought by the irresponsible policies of greed enacted during the Bush years of being rubber-stamped by an uncaring Republican Congress. While I personally feel the stimulus did go far enough, the Looney Tunes on the right are now deeming the whole bill a failure. Yes, talking heads like Glenn Beck may bark like a dog, but the facts show they are just licking their own butts.
Want to know how bad the economy the Republicans crashed has been for America?? All one has to look at is the numbers for working families. Sadly, millions of American families are stuck with both breadwinners unemployed. Besides having a "lost generation" of young folks who cannot find a job, we also are quickly gaining a "lost generation" of parents that are unemployed.
Opinion America the land of the free and the home of the brave. Really? Brave, I don't think so. How can we consider ourselves brave when we let the Wall Street elite steal our money and then blackmail us to bail them out and we sit back and twiddle our thumbs like a bunch of wimps?
Reason.Com Just how much has household net worth dropped since the peak? Calculated Risk calls it $14 trillion, as does CNN, which refers to an "all-time high of $64.4 trillion in the second quarter of 2007."
New York Times Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one, the worst ratio since the government began tracking open positions in 2000. According to the Labor Department’s latest numbers, from July, only 2.4 million full-time permanent jobs were open, with 14.5 million people officially unemployed. Read more.
In his inimitable "twisting mainstream economics in as progressive direction as he can accomplish" style, Paul Krugman has made a splash among those following the challenge of our headlong and reckless pursuit of Climate Chaos with 
The March Jobs Report has come, and though there appears to have been some employment growth in the 
