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Democrats want jobless benefits in “cliff” deal
Associated Press ^ | Dec. 8, 2012 10:36 AM EST | Sam Hananel

Posted on 12/08/2012 11:15:44 AM PST by Olog-hai

Hovering in the background of the “fiscal cliff” debate is the prospect of 2 million people losing their unemployment benefits four days after Christmas.

“This is the real cliff,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. He's been leading the effort to include another extension of benefits for the long-term unemployed in any deal to avert looming tax increases and massive spending cuts in January. “Many of these people are struggling to pay mortgages, to provide education for their children,” Reed said this past week as President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, rejected each other’s opening offers for a deficit deal.

Emergency jobless benefits for about 2.1 million people out of work more than six months will cease Dec. 29, and 1 million more will lose them over the next three months if Congress doesn’t extend the assistance again. Since the collapse of the economy in 2008, the government has poured $520 billion—an amount equal to about half its annual deficit in recent years—into unemployment benefit extensions.

(Excerpt) Read more at bigstory.ap.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Government; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: democrats; endlessdole; fiscalcliff; unemployment
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To: Olog-hai
Hovering in the background of the “fiscal cliff” debate is the prospect of 2 million people losing their unemployment benefits four days after Christmas.

Not sure why the Democrats want to extend unemployment benefits AGAIN .... the easier thing for them to do is let them fall off the rolls, watch the unemployment rate fall (because millions are no longer counted as "unemployed") and declare success at re-vitalizing the economy!

(/extreme sarcasm)

41 posted on 12/08/2012 12:45:26 PM PST by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: Fee
Old adage, when the middle class is sliding into poverty and become part of the poor, the Dems will gain politically. Look at the last Great Depression where FDR was able to be POTUS four terms despite bad economy. He was even very popular after his death into the 1970’s by the aging Great Depression generation.

Sounds like the GOP loses either way. Truth of the matter is that FDR exacerbated the depression by making all of the wrong moves. Looks like Obama is headed in the same direction.

With the media covering for him I sure the GOP will get the blame either way. However, I don't believe that pretending to be an innocent bystander is the answer.

Let's just throw the brakes on this whole fiasco. The reason the economy is a mess is because Obama has strangled it with left wing idiocy. If we continue to let him cannibalize one industry after another we'll never recover.
No to unemployment, all or nothing on the Bush taxes, no increase in national debt. Yes to Simpson-Bowles and congress keeps a firm hand on the national purse and we start hard nosed negotiations on job creation.

42 posted on 12/08/2012 12:49:44 PM PST by oldbrowser (Put Obama in check, now.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

It’s interesting, but the average unemployment check is greater than what one would make at a minimum wage job, and some folks do live on that. Granted, one would likely have to curtail one’s lifestyle, but it can be done.

You seem to suggest that the purpose of unemployment benefits is to keep one in the same financial position one was in prior to being laid off. That would be a pretty sweet deal.


43 posted on 12/08/2012 1:02:34 PM PST by ought-six ( Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

That’s a good deal if one doesn’t have a lot of debt or obligations. Hell, a married couple with no mortgage or rent obligation could do alright on unemployment benefits and food stamps, provided they didn’t spend frivolously.


44 posted on 12/08/2012 1:12:47 PM PST by ought-six ( Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: Obama_Is_Sabotaging_America
“because the mission of Socialists is to make EVERY job a government job.

In the Dems mind set those who are paid unemployment benefits are government employees. If they can create a government job, using taxpayer's money, the unemployed will move into it, and the ultimate cost stays the same. The same money shifts from one government cost source to another government cost source, and government grows.

The problem is that most of the bailouts were aimed a those who are represented by government employee unions. This group lives in la la land, because unemployment doesn't touch them.

45 posted on 12/08/2012 1:13:51 PM PST by Yulee (Village of Albion)
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To: Not now, Not ever!
“Repeal the taxes on Social security.”

The House should extend the Bush tax cuts permanently, repeal taxes on Social Security, and again submit a budget to the Senate.

At this point the Speaker of the House should go on national television during prime time, and point out that The House has passed budgets over the past two years, Senator Reid has refused to let the peoples representatives in the Senate vote on these budgets, and that the latest budget submitted by the President to the Senate was voted down by a vote of 98-0, by the same bipartisan Senate that Reid will not allow to vote on the House budget.

He should also point out that the President and the Democratically controlled Senate want to continue taxing the elderly, and tax everyone, not just the rich.

The House should then adjourn, and let Obama and Reid explain why they want to increase taxes, and why they insist upon taxing those who are retired.

46 posted on 12/08/2012 1:31:43 PM PST by Yulee (Village of Albion)
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To: Andrei Bulba

“We’re sunk.”
**********
Not yet, but we’re rapidly approaching the iceberg.


47 posted on 12/08/2012 1:41:17 PM PST by Starboard
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To: Olog-hai
Hovering in the background of the “fiscal cliff” debate is the prospect of 2 million people losing their unemployment benefits four days after Christmas

So the RATS want Baraq O'Claus to hand out some more goodies - no surprise there. WAKE UP AMERICA - THIS IS PRCISELY WHAT YOU VOTED FOR. NOW PAY UP.
48 posted on 12/08/2012 2:18:29 PM PST by Cheerio (Barry Hussein Soetoro-0bama=The Complete Destruction of American Capitalism)
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To: ought-six

No, I’m not suggesting that at all. But let me give you a weird example. One day I had a veteran come to see me at my suburban office to register for work. As I normally would do, I took a look at his wages for the last four quarters on my computer. His were in the multi-millions every quarter! Curious, I asked him about that. He said he had sold his insurance company (company, not just an agency) to a French firm and as part of the sale had agreed to stay on as an employee for six months. Now he was at our office to apply for UI since it was the first time he’d ever been an employee of someone else and eligible to apply. Do you think he really needed our $250 a week? LOL But no, it wasn’t designed to live on, only to barely tide you over as you looked for another job.


49 posted on 12/08/2012 3:30:38 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (I'll raise $2million for Sarah Palin's presidential run. What'll you do?)
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To: Obama_Is_Sabotaging_America
THe Keystone XL pipeline is toast. Obama will never support it.

Why?

Go to Wikipedia....look up BNSF Railroad. (Burlington-Northern/Santa Fe). Look at their track map. Look at who owns it. The BNSF Railway is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is known for its control by investor Warren Buffett. Connected the dots yet?

50 posted on 12/08/2012 3:35:29 PM PST by Ouderkirk (Democrats...the party of Slavery, Segregation, Sodomy, and Sedition)
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To: Obama_Is_Sabotaging_America

Obama definitely wants to kill the private sector. I too am a little surprised that nobody - on either side - is pointing this out.


51 posted on 12/08/2012 6:43:44 PM PST by livius
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To: HiTech RedNeck

If we had an honest press, it would be headline news.


52 posted on 12/08/2012 6:44:45 PM PST by livius
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To: HiTech RedNeck

If we had an honest press, it would be headline news.


53 posted on 12/08/2012 7:28:35 PM PST by livius
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To: All; Olog-hai

If the benefits are eliminated won’t the unemployment rate drop even further?


54 posted on 12/08/2012 9:58:58 PM PST by newzjunkey (grr)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

There is, however, an anti-responsibility aspect. If you saved to be able to get through a bad time, like getting laid off, or for retirement, then you can’t get the food stamps. If you lived foolishly and have no savings, then you can get the food stamps. All the incentives point one toward maximum dependency.


55 posted on 12/09/2012 12:19:39 AM PST by Paul R. (We are in a break in an Ice Age. A brief break at that...)
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To: Paul R.

They do look at bank accounts, but it wouldn’t be hard to fool the system because they’re counting on you to be honest and show them all accounts, not just one that is handling pin money.


56 posted on 12/09/2012 12:23:13 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck (How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)
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To: livius

If we had an honest Press the Headline would read, “We have an honest Press”.


57 posted on 12/09/2012 12:38:22 AM PST by Kickass Conservative (As they say in China, erections have consequences...)
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To: Paul R.

That is where we are right now. I will be decimating what’s left of my Retirement Savings starting in January. Just turning 59 and a half so I can access my funds without Penalty.

My Wife has been out of work for seven months. Her Unemployment ends December 31st. My hours have been reduced because the Company I work for as a 1099 Contract Employee is barely making it.

Looks like we’ll be selling the House. With two incomes we were doing OK. You live to what you make and now that equation is changing. We have a $1350 COBRA payment due every month because my Wife had Health Insurance through her old Job. If she found a new job with Benefits even with a lower Salary than before, we could pull it off.

I always planned ahead, but I never planned on having a Communist in the White House for eight years in a row.

I had hoped Lord Obama would be dethroned and things would get better, but 64 Million Useful Idiots thought otherwise.

2013 be an interesting year, no doubt about it.


58 posted on 12/09/2012 12:54:48 AM PST by Kickass Conservative (As they say in China, erections have consequences...)
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To: Kickass Conservative

>If we had an honest Press the Headline would read, “We have an honest Press”<

Oops, it should read: If we had an honest Press the Headline would read, “We have a DISHONEST Press”.


59 posted on 12/09/2012 12:57:38 AM PST by Kickass Conservative (As they say in China, erections have consequences...)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Yes, however, all bank accounts are reported to the IRS and, by extension, using IL as an example, to the Illinois Dept. Of Revenue. I’d think that the IL Dept. of Human Services can check with IDOR about, at least, previous years’ interest income, which would then give them a pretty good idea about one’s account(s) levels or other such resources.

Granted that I do not know how often IL-DHS or similar agencies in other states actually do check. But on the other hand, I was brought up to be honest...


60 posted on 12/09/2012 1:15:21 AM PST by Paul R. (We are in a break in an Ice Age. A brief break at that...)
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