I agree with much of what you said except for your premise that extended unemployment benefits “help” people.
It’s true there are not jobs out there. But that’s freeing up the process of job creation is the only way out of this mess. And paying extended unemployment benefits HINDERS job creation and INCREASES unemployment in several ways.
So, in the end, this isn’t so much about bootstrapping, but about actually, compassionately helping people. Yes, sometimes it hurts to get well (or better), but it must be done.
Sometimes I think we forget what a generous and decent people Americans are. I do think that many would find help and support from friends, family and their fellow man — not to mention within themselves — if they stopped looking to government as the be-all and end-all of the provision for their needs. (Emphasis on NEEDS.)
This is not so much about “helping” people than permitting them to tread water until circumstances change. Unemployment tends to have an increasingly erosive effect, the longer it lasts, as more resources become exhausted. This leads to depression and despair.
And political vulnerability. More and more such people are willing to vote for anyone who offers them a way out. The best example was Lenin, who became hugely popular by saying just three words: “peace, land, bread”, to desperate people.
It almost makes me wince to see several people, bootstrappers, even after I explained what a disaster we could all face out of being miserly. Indeed it is penny wise and pound foolish.
Is it worth it that Obama gets reelected, just to show those damned lazy unemployed people a thing or two about responsibility?
Hell no. We MUST get our priorities straight.
$58 billion to extend unemployment benefits is *nothing* compared to the vast amounts being wasted right now on utterly useless crap, and yet this $58 billion could make or break the Republican or Democrat parties for 50 years!
And all the Republicans are asking for is that this money comes from less spending, instead of increasing the deficit.
Give the unemployed their money! The vast majority of them WILL get work when they can. They are not multi-generational welfare babies. They are normal, hard working people who got fired, and have not been able to get work since. They do not like their situation, and they are terrified that their lives will go to hell unless they can hold things together.
These are millions of scared Americans who vote. Do not sneer at them and curse them. What they want is tiny, but can change the future of our country. For better. Or much, much worse.