Posted on 01/04/2009 6:46:52 AM PST by reaganaut1
CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are considering major expansions of government-assisted health care insurance and unemployment compensation as they begin intensive work this week on a two-year economic recovery package.
One proposal, as described by Democratic advisers, would extend unemployment compensation to part-time workers, an idea that Congressional Republicans have blocked in the past.
Other policy changes would subsidize employers’ expenses for temporarily continuing health insurance coverage to laid-off and retired workers and their dependents, as mandated under a 22-year-old federal law known as Cobra, and allow workers who lose jobs that did not come with insurance benefits to be eligible, for the first time, to apply for Medicaid coverage.
The proposals indicate the sorts of potentially long-range changes that Mr. Obama intends to push in his promised American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, as he named it in his weekly Saturday address on the radio and YouTube. They will be combined with one-time measures that are more typical of federal stimulus packages to jump-start a weak economy, like spending for roads and other job-creating public works projects.
As the economy worsened in the weeks after Mr. Obama’s election, advisers and Congressional leaders suggested that a stimulus plan would be ready by the new year for House votes this week. But the House is not expected to vote until next week at the earliest, which will most likely push final action into February, Democratic aides said.
The aides said delays were probably inevitable given the holiday interruptions, the big ambitions of the undertaking and internal tensions over the plan’s components and their costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
By increasing benefits for the unemployed, Obama will increase the number of people who stay unemployed.
I don't know how long we will be able to sail along printing money, or borrowing it from future generations, but the end has got to be near. I figure that's the only thing that will stop Obama and his minions.
That’s it! I’m going to retire, then take unemployment to collect the difference between retirement pay and my present pay.
The longer, and more you provide for people who aren’t working, the longer it’s going to take for them to find work.
Makes perfect sense to me!
Another reason not to find new work. It's rather insidious how Zero and his minions are going about this. They're using this downturn as a back door to socialism in ways no one would imagine in better economic times. As I've stated in prior posts, once a government program is expanded it becomes next to politically impossible to get rid of due to the built in constituency it develops. Zero knows this all to well. This notion of a “two year program” is first degree BS.
Your, but see, you live in the REAL world of reality. Politicans who live in the clouds think if you give people $$ it will stimulate them to work.
Paying people to stay home. Exactly what brought down the auto companies. He wants to bring that success to all of America.
God help us.
THEREBY ENSURING A ROCK-SOLID VOTING BLOC!!!!!!!
And what about the civilian defence force funded at Pentagon levels....?
The employers only pay half and the state pays the other half. The employer can give a months vacation, or so,and only have to pay for two weeks of it.
The employee doesn't get as much money but they like the extended vacation, and they aren't even required to look for work.
In Michigan they don't even have to go to an unemployment office. Just call an automated phone line and the checks come in the mail!
Oh, perfect! Instead of working to increase the number of jobs available via tax cuts on business and personal income, let’s give away some more of my money to make it easier not to work. When are you going to take an Econ 101 course, you airhead...?
I’m going to retire, then take unemployment to collect the difference between retirement pay and my present pay.
Someone should find out which company makes ink for the govt. printing presses that print the money. I think their stock is about to shoot up.
Democrats are wary of slowing down the economic stimulus by provoking the opposition of Republicans, who have warned in recent days that the package must be neither excessive nor rushed. They are also fielding concerns from fiscally conservative Democrats.
This just goes to show you that we have no representation.
Republicans, who have warned in recent days that the package must be neither excessive nor rushed.
How about some of these crooks just saying NO to all of this crap? How about telling them NO! If you want more cash for something you must close the door on any and all other hand outs needed to fund your next insane plan. Then after getting that message passed we would have to keep eliminating hand out after hand out until the private sector took care of just about everything. Then all the criminal mobsters would not have our money to tell us what we should do with it.
We need to scream this to all of these jerks until they get it and hopefully before it’s too late.
I got out of the Navy years ago and was eligible for unemployment. Back then, you at least had to go through the motions of looking for a job in order to collect. I decided I was too lazy to leech off the taxpayers so I leeched off mom and dad for a couple of months until school started..
I’m thinking I should just take all my money and the deed to my house and give it to the next bum I find passed out on the street. It will save Obama the trouble of having to be the middle man on the transaction.
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