Ravenwood - 12/28/02 11:13 PM
Should being unemployed have benefits? So thinks CNN:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Almost 800,000 jobless workers lost their unemployment benefits Saturday because the U.S. House of Representatives recessed in November without extending them.I hate to sound like Scrooge, but come on. CNN takes it as a matter of fact that benefits should have been extended. Not to mention that those 'losing' unemployment 'benefits' have already had up to 52 weeks of unemployment compensation. Hoping to buy votes, some congressmen and senators want to just keep extending those benefits indefinately.
Even President Bush has jumped on the 'unemployed vote' bandwagon buy saying that an extension should be a first order of business for the new year. He also declared the any benefit extension should be retroactive to December 28th, when the current extension expired.
So, all you unemployed folks, don't go rushing out to get a job just yet. There is still hope that you can stay home and slack.
Right on... last I checked, we didn't extend and retract unemployment comp based on weather we were in a recession or not... and the fact that this is a terrorist-influenced recession hasn't a darn thing to do with it.
There is something that occurs to me though...
1. Does it really make sense to drop them all on the same date? Usually they go for a specific number of weeks before stopping, therefore the work force can absorb them (or not) distributed throughout the year, not in one big chunk.
2. If I were trying to maximise the chance that they WOULDN'T be getting jobs, this is exactly the time of year I'd pick... since all the post-holiday season layoffs (especially in retail) happen right about now.
Course, I wouldn't expect a senator to know this from experience...
Posted by: Ryan Waxx at December 29, 2002 9:52 PMI'm not sure about the semantics behind the originial extension.
But it illustrates perfectly the 'baby steps' approach to socialism. Give them a hand out and they just keep coming back for more.
Posted by: Ravenwood at December 29, 2002 11:47 PM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
