By this GOP logic, food stamps discourage the unemployed from seeking nourishment.

"I know for a FACT," said Senator Kyl, "That the dumpsters are overflowing behind every fast food restaurant in the nation."

DeLay added, "It's an untapped resource that these lazy layabouts should use, instead of relying on the government to feed them!"

Actually, there are some prominent academic economists that are making the same argument. Of course Krugman and Stiglitz can explain why they are wrong. However, that belief is out there.

Obama needs to highlight this question as a difference between Dems and the GOP. Should the government try create jobs? Ask the American people. For sure the Teabaggers will be against government jobs (except for their own). But the majority of Americans would like to have Obama take a stand.

I'm sure the French aristocrats who believed that Parisians who didn't have bread should just eat cake weren't any more out of touch than today's Republicans.

But unfortunately for the French aristocrats, they didn't have a black man to point at and blame for all the poor people's troubles.

Work? Not work? Work? Not work? Yep. Everybody who knocks down more per week than unemployment benefits deals with this existential question each and every work day.

The GOP argument has defined the last thirty years. More than an entire generation has grown up believing it.

SteveT:
The problem for the French aristocrats was that people were willing to take to the streets with torches and pitchforks. They wish for today's supine population.

And assuring Medicare benefits encourages getting old?

The GOP is seriously overreaching here.
They're counting their electoral chickens before the eggs are even laid, and letting their true selves show too soon. W did not campaign as a conservative - Rove knew it's a losing proposition.

"Actually, there are some prominent academic economists that are making the same argument."

You mean the ones who believe the 'true' general market equilibrium for wages is $3.00/hour? Or the ones who posit that economic theory predicts that Alex Rodriguez should have quit baseball after making his first $10million? Which?

Name names.

Joe Klein's conscience said:
The problem for the French aristocrats was that people were willing to take to the streets with torches and pitchforks. They wish for today's supine population.

People are taking to the streets today. Instead of torches and pitchforks, they're carrying signs of Obama with a Hitler mustache. But some of them are also proudly carrying handguns and the occasional semiautomatic rifle.

...who, exactly, is going to be impressed by Republicans attacking the unemployed as lazy?

The same people who respond to the dog-whistles of racism and innate hatred of 'the other.' This is the same old, same old with Republicans: make it about 'someone else' taking 'something that should be yours', casting them as lazy, good-for-nothing social parasites who want to take your hard-earned wages and the fruits of your labor and give it to gay terrorists from Mexico.

Where in the world is Tim Kaine? The DNC should be aggressively pushing back against this nonsense. Better yet, why is there no narrative framing republican policies as the reasons for unemployment and persistent low wages? Conservatives have spent 30 years demonizing unions. They've consistently sided with corporate bullies and failed to protect workers from minimal wage and firing abuses. There's NO coherent populist argument coming from the DNC.

Once again the repubs are creating a stereotype. Of course all the unemployed are democrats. Damn those lazy welfare slugs.

No small irony that the anti-science party whose denizens profess disbelief in evolution and whose textbooks strike Darwin's actual theory are now pitching the most crass form of survival of the (financially) fittest, the worst, most over-zealous, twisted version of "social Darwinism."

One of two things is happening. First, Republicans are simply being Republicans. Claiming that the unemployed are only unemployed because they are lazy or at least unemployment beneftis discourage work is a pillar of Republican thought and has been at least since the 1920s. It is also a logical extension of the kind of Calvinist theology that undergirds the world view that the rich deserve to be rich and the poor are equally deserving of their poverty.

It could also mean that leading Republicans have concluded that America is about to expand its permanent underclass and we all need to abandon 30-40% of our population to intractible poverty. Think India and rigid classism. The rich in India are trained to look right past the suffering of their lower class brothers and sisters.

Of course, the Republican world view embraces disenfranchisement for much of the population. It is only a short step or two from indentured servitude and slavery.

Let me see...According to the current Republican mindset, once your corporation downsizes, or small business goes belly-up because banks are no longer lending even on a short term cash flow basis, not only should you be out on the street dumpster diving, but you should get sick and die quickly.

That about sums it up.

I was out of work for four months.
During that four months I applied for manual labor jobs.
They rejected me because they were confident I would get a better paying job the moment I could I they weren't interested in producing so much churn in their labor pool.

Just a few months later they were absolutely right, but during those four months, it's not as though you can pick up a want ad and just choose a job you KNOW you can do. It doesn't work that way. That said, I got my job by lowering my salary requirement 20% and I do wonder whether some folks out there have absurd notions of what they're labor is worth. I see more validity to the GOP talking points when the economy is on all cylinders and unemployment is at 4% rather than 10.

Like the Laffer curve, they like to apply a potentially useful economic tool and apply it in ALL situations which is attractively simple, but tragically wrong.

Howie is exactly right. This is entrenched American thinking. Recently I was talking to an acquaintance who had seen some hard times in his life. He and his family had taken advantage of Wisconsin's public assistance programs for health care, unemployment, food stamps and all that. And he said that if there is too much safety net, everyone will just sit around on welfare! He certainly didn't want to be on welfare when he was, but he assumed that everyone else was different and of a lesser moral character! He, of course, really needed the assistance. Others apparently do not.

There's NO coherent populist argument coming from the DNC.

Posted by: jcg on March 8, 2010 at 8:56 AM

Of course not, the DNC isn't a populist organization. It is simply the 2nd face of the corporatist political party running American.

There is a giant untapped populist potential out there. Nobody, including the tea baggers has really been able to tap that potential. The tea baggers try, but at bottom they are a Republican astro turf organization. The populist potential is seen in the anti-incumbant mood of the electorate. I know people who just aren't going ot vote for incumbants this fall regardless of party.

Sometimes I wish the Republicans could have their wish and privatize Medicare and Social Security
and eliminate unemployment comp., food stamps, and other programs they hate. Oh, and drill for oil to their hearts' content, deregulate everything for the sake of the free market, ban abortion, reduce taxes further. Yes, let them have things their way on everything for just six months. I'd like to see how the "real Americans" who support them would like their chaotic country then.

Beginning next January 1, 2011, raise the "death" tax in perpetuity to 100% of all assets -- no minimum exemptions.

Given Republican theories of incentives and disincentives, I fully expect all Republicans to do the rational thing and kill their worthless selves by midnight December 31.

Think of it -- no Republicans left -- and we would have saved lots of money we would have spent on rope and bullets.

Raise the death tax on Osama Bin Laden too, I expect he uses the same logic as his domestic brothers and sisters.

The external enemy and the internal enemy of America -- all dead by their own hands.

This is simply code for, "The white, working taxpayer should not fund blacks' and immigrants' laziness and breeding."

Dare I say it on this site, but in a sense, everyone should be angry at that segment of society that does freeload of the government. Nobody likes or encourages that.

HOWEVER, and this is a big however, when you compare the amount of actual taxpayer money that gets funneled to freeloaders to the amount of taxpayer money corporations get in terms of tax breaks and incentives, the difference is astronomical; the money freeloaders get is a mere drop in the bucket as opposed to that companies get, who of ourse then relocate offshore, hire peasants for pennies a day, and overcharge American consumers.

This is what is so hypocritical about the right's argument against the 'welfare' state. It's ok for rich affluent people and business to get welfare but not poor non-whites.

Like tom, I know someone (okay, it's my brother-in-law) who went through tough times. This guy lost his job when a plant closed. He went on unemployment AND trained for new work at his local junior college in a probram funded by a federal law co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy. In spite of all that, he's convinced that all them thar aid programs are just being milked by a a bunch of lazy, no-good, well, you fill in the rest.

Don't know whether this will be a political plus or minus for the GOP. On the one hand, almost everyone knows someone who is unemployed through no fault of his or her own.

On the other hand, Republicans have exploited this sentiment for a long time: you're working hard, but Democrats are taking your tax dollars and giving them to people who aren't working. A lot of people may feel these unemployment benefit extensions are like that. It's a safe bet they don't understand how many local businesses benefit from unemployed people having at least some cash to spend.

"because people are being paid even though they're not working." - Hmmm, so interest paid on bank accounts discourages people from working too, and BTW the rest of us pay for that too as part of the interest payments on loans, etc. It's funny that right-wingers gripe about people getting money and not producing work output, while they admire financial manipulators. The ads and email offers they send around are full of ways to make money by just buying and re-selling investments, flipping houses, etc.

BTW it isn't ultimately code about whites and blacks. The GOP don't want white people pulling from those services either.

For cryin' out loud -- can't every Dem make a campaign stop at unemployment lines, or anyplace where the economy is in real distress, and quote these heartless GOPers?

Anyone who is unemployed should just get a gig on "Dancing with the Stars." Why, oh why is CNN even putting its camera on this creep?

"Actually, there are some prominent academic economists that are making the same argument"

The point is: it may indeed be true when the economy is going well -- but not now when the situation is that (I read recently somewhere) for every job opening there are six people looking for work. That's the point that needs to be hammered home -- the utter unfairness of the GOP's position during a recession.

"Are there no workhouses?"

Of course Republicans hate the unemployed! Why, if it wasn't for all these lazy people who lost their jobs, unemployment wouldn't be nearly as high as it is now.

Unfortunately, the Republicans are expressing a sentiment, while they chortle gleefully behind their hand, that is deeply held by many people. That type of rhetoric only benefits those in the have camp. As narratives in a few previous posts have illustrated - “its not me they’re talking about” is a widespread belief held by many who have been on the receiving end of assistance. It serves to distance them from others in the same boat, at least in their mind. I would also argue that there is a strong and not so subtle thread of them “lazy Mexicans and Blacks” underlying. We have watched the ugliness that is catalyzed by the fear of becoming a have not. The Republicans, with the eager collaboration of the MSM, have perfected the exploitation of various demographic groups who angrily parrot their handlers. It is not those in true poverty who follow Republicans, it is those who can see poverty clearly from their current status. Some of those Republicans have truly corrupted souls.

I once collected unemployment. I couldn't have lived on it alone for more than a few weeks (which I fortunately did not have to do). I had to use my savings to keep up with payments. I bet most people are the same. The implicit Republican argument that people would choose this situation is ridiculous.

Most people that are out of work are not there by choice.

We are faced with years of a dismal job picture, unless our legislators knuckle down and create jobs, real jobs, across the country.

We fundamentally have to fix this problem.

To blame the worker and not the greedy banker is not fair.

Repeal NAFTA. De-globalize. Bring jobs back to our shores.

Nothing is more important than a healthy employment picture.

Stop trashing the unemployed.

Got work?

Wow, I know I am really hoping to get that 425 dollars NYS is offering me for 26 weeks. Please fire me so I can take home $1700 bucks a month. So asinine.

“Crowley followed up, asking, ‘People are unemployed because they want to be?’ DeLay again said, ‘Well, it is the truth’.”

Campaign ad please ?

The intro is a voiceover saying “The Republicans think you are unemployed because you want to be”

Roll the video.

Followed by a voiceover and text on the screen that says “According to the Department of Labor, there are six Americans unemployed for every job opening.”

German catholic priest was the one who said the famous lines, wasn't it?
'First they came for the jew. Then....'

Yes, first the republicans came for Black unemployed and cut off their benefits. we kept quiet? No, applauded. Then they....

Oh, today they are coming after the big city white middle class unemployed? How dare they? ...

Did we expect anything else from them all these years?
mandana

We had over 150 applicants for an entry level accounting position where I work. Some of them were overqualified for the Controller's position.

The traditional Rethugs have always seen themselves as entitled aristocrats, the Southern gentry of the Confederacy, and their elite existence was oblivious to the needs of others, not unlike the pre-1789 French aristocracy.

The neo-Rethugs, the teabaggers, come from the lower classes long exploited by the elites, and they feel entitled to assert white supremacy and nativism. If both the elites and the white underclass are convinced that the social safety net, what remains of it, is merely a welfare program for undeserving minorities, it may keep the unstable Rethug coalition together for a while longer. Especially since the Dim-Dems have no coherent message whatsoever to push back with.

It's the unstable Democratic coalition that is likely to come off the rails, and take with it many of the lingering social reforms of the 20th century. It just seems we will be in much worse place as willy-nilly we become a third-world country and banana republic.

I think I'll resist the urge to tell my recently-laid off Republican neighbor that it's his own fault for being unemployed. I might send him a link to this article, however, so he can see what his beloved fellow Texas conservatives think about his situation.

Again, why the hell isn't Tom Delay in jail? He practically brags about how great he was at peddling influence and collecting pay off money while he was in congress. He's one of those politicians who believes that trading money for access and favors is how the system should work, and he's proud of how good he was at it.

@midland: [Again, why the hell isn't Tom Delay in jail?]

And let's add, why the hell is Tom Delay on CNN being treated as a serious person?

Perhaps the criminal Tom Delay chooses to remain unemployed but that doesn't mean everyone else does.

People are unemployed because they want to be

I'm sure disastrous Republican policies had nothing to do with it.

Shorter Criminal Delay... the only good welfare is corporate welfare.

I was unemployed, after I company I worked for in NYC went belly-up about three months after 9/11. It was a rough time to find a job in NY. I had a mortgage, a fiancee in graduate school, and limited (but some) savings to fall back on.

Without unemployment, I probably would have had to sell the house, quite possibly for fire-sale prices. In todays economy, it would be worse - trying to sell a house that is under water.

Without unemployment, I would have had to take anything, anything I could have gotten. It would have dragged me off track from using the skills I'd spent a long time in graduate school and work developing.

My fiancee would have had to quit graduate school as well, abandoning years of hard work on a PhD.

Now, I'm a VP at a Fortune 500 company, doing work that I believe is an excellent conrtibution to the economy in a classic capitalist sense - and paying a boatload of taxes, which I don't mind so much since I've got a lot more that I get to take home.

Without unemployment, none of the hardships we would have gone through would have been horrible; our lives likely would have been better than a lot of folks without the education or priviledge we've had most of our lives. That's not the point. The point is, we were able to use that safety net to get to a much better place, both for us, the U.S. economy, and, ultimately, the U.S. taxpayer.

Think of it -- no Republicans left -- and we would have saved lots of money we would have spent on rope and bullets.
Posted by: John Thullen on March 8, 2010 at 9:12 AM |

The thought of no Republicans, Tea Baggers or Cheneys is wonderful. But I wouldn't give up on the rope and bullets; the people we're talking about here deserve them.

How many people currently unemployed? How many with young children? How many of these young children will be told by their currently unemployed parents of the Republican Partys contempt for those receiving unemployment benefits? How many future Republican votes can the party of NO count on in the next 20 to 30 years? If you were one of these kids would you vote for and support the political party that gave your parents the finger when they needed help from their government? These current Repubs spouting their views are a waste of skin...

GOP and corporate cronies say
'Let them eat cake...in the breakroom everytime someone has a birthday.' And we are supposed to be Grateful these crappy jobs while CEOs make all the money. Fight malemployment at www.PleaseFireMe.com

I'd love to hear the backroom conversations that result in Delay being on CNN in the first place.

Republican President Abraham Lincoln said that if he made a friend out of an enemy, then he had effectively destroyed that enemy.

Republicans do indeed want to decimate, even eliminate, the unemployed - by helping them become employed. And Republicans know that government programs, which make no product and offer no service except regulation, cannot employ them. ONLY an environment that enables small and medium-size private businesses to prosper will help people become employed.

Compulsory compassion is a curse; voluntary compassion is a blessing.

The dumb is strong with this one:

Republicans do indeed want to decimate, even eliminate, the unemployed - by helping them become employed.

That must be why they gave companies tax breaks for sending jobs overseas! And why they refuse to let workers organize for better pay and benefits! And why they fight against equal employment and anti-discrimination laws! And why they fight against equal pay for equal work! And why they've helped the rich's wealth increase by 1700% since 1980, but only 20% for the middle class.

Yep -- the GOP sure does love helping people find work.

Just not people in America.

---

I just love how caring and compassionate the party of GOD is. After all, Jesus said, "Blessed are the money changers, for they deserve the tax breaks," and his demands for co-pays before treating the sick is legendary!

Oh, wait ...

The Republicans are absolutely correct. Living the $206 per week unemployment 'benefit' high-life is so friggin awesome, I may - after 30+ years of busting my full-time balls - never, ever work again!

Sure, I don't have a car, or a big TV, or cable/satellite, or a cell phone, or health insurance, or anything in my refrigerator, but, still - I have this sofa I scored by the dumpster, all the water I can still afford, a few books...

And a cool collection of over 50 rejected job applications. Not that I would ever work, mind you, but applying has become a sort of hobby, that's all... because It. Is. So. Much. Fun...

When the government extracts money from the productive economy and gives it to the unproductive economy, it hurts and restrains the productive economy.

As a result, there are no jobs for a longer period.
And the longer there are no jobs, the more money is extracted to pay those with no jobs, so even less money is available for jobs.

I realize this concept is difficult for liberals who believe that others peoples' money is theirs for the taking.

I have been unemployed for over a month because MY former employer was forced to pay over 10% interest to borrow money thanks to the government sucking up every dollar on the planet.

If this is the GOP's premise for what the unemployed are currently up to, what do they have to say regarding when the unemployment rate was lower? Where were more people working then and not taking advantage of these super unemployment benefits? It couldn't be because THERE WERE ACTUAL JOBS AVAILABLE THEN, right?

the reason we no longer have the tax revenue is because the rich no longer pay thier fair share their employees who make 1/1000 sometimes less pay more more in taxes- -trickle down no matter what you call, that this country has been doing for thirty years has screwed up our job market and CORPORATE AMERICA AFTER THE FAST BUCK AND SENDING JOBS OVERSEAS HAS DESTROYED NOT ONLY THE THE UNIONS BUT ALSO THE TAX BASE WAY TO GO REBUPLICAN ANUS'S

But all we hear about on Chris Matthews is how Obama, the pointy-headed intellectual doesn't connect with regular people

RSweeney,

Your company's inability to borrow for less than 10% doesn't have much to do with the government's own borrowing. With current Fed policy, banks can borrow pretty much as much as they want, at practically 0% interest. They could lend to your company at 5% and make a tidy profit if they thought that was a good idea. Apparently they don't. (How do I know? Well, apparently I have more faith in the market than you do, because it seems obvious to me that if banks can make money lending at 5%, competition should mean that one of them actually does it.)

So why ARE they asking 10%? The simplest explanation is that they aren't too impressed with your (former) company's prospects. And why might THAT be? It probably has something to do with how thoroughly your Republican idols screwed the pooch before handing the stinking mess over to Obama.

Tese guys' points woul have some validity during normal times. When unemployment is 5% or 6% or less, I'm sure a decent percentage of people on unemployment take some "paid vacation" before looking for job again.

For people who've been uneemployed multiple times, I guess that paid vacation eventually adds up to some seroius money.

What gets me is how completely out of touch these guys are, comparing today's 10%+ unemployment to employment in, say, 2005.

Now it's only one job for every six unemployed people.

How can these guys be in Congress and not realize there are no jobs for most people? I suspect they know perfectly well how inappropriate their responses are to the current situation, but they pretend there's a job for everyone who wants one. I wish!

In effect they're minimizing the situation. Will that make it easier for them to vote against future unemployment and COBRA extensions, etc.? Is that the point?

RSweeney: First off, if the business you were working for needed a loan so badly to stay afloat that it was willing to cut workers (and with them, production) in order to handle such an absurd interest rate, then that business wasn't doing too well to begin with, and would have likely cut your job soon anyway. Secondly, Fed rates these days are at 0% across the board; the government has effectively made it costless to lend money. The reason banks still will not lend cheaply is not because of government policy, nor is it because of government borrowing which is in line with the stimulus borrowing other countries not experiencing the same sort of job loss we are have been doing; it is because banks, realizing that they still can't be sure who among the venture capitalists of the world are actually solvent, are hoarding money (particularly all that stimulus money they were given to loan to the economy) to drive up their balance sheets and shore up their position. If you were a regular viewer of the Nightly Business Report on PBS, you would have seen a report last night about a rash of mergers over the last few weeks. This is directly the result of businesses pursuing this sort of behavior; using their capital to buy up capacity, distribution, and capital accounts (that is, market share) instead of using it to create jobs.

Need I point out that, if conservatives in both parties had not been so opposed to the stimulus, and in particular, to provisions within it requiring changes in corporate governance and a majority of its spending to be focused on job creation instead of institutional recover, then lending would likely have recovered faster, demand would have stabilized at a higher level, and more jobs, like yours, would have been saved? Come on, these yahoos cost you your job and your dignity; how long are you going to swallow their lies? They're screwing you and calling you a failure and you are thanking them for it!

Has anyone here yet mentioned that unemployment insurance is just that: insurance? Drawn down by same worker, essentially, who paid into the fund through their payroll taxes? How are those on UI "freeloading" off others, when in fact they're simply accessing the savings that they themselves previously put aside for rainy day?

How could Republicans (pretend to) not know this about UI? The payroll tax withholding/deduction is often right there on one's pay stub:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States#Other_payroll_taxes

Republicans do get paystubs, generally, when they work at least, don't they? If so, do they ever look at them?

Then again, even some heartless benefits department personnel at actual insurance companies probably deny claims based on the belief that the sick actually "want to be sick." So the "it's insurance!" argument might only get you so far with the compassionless worst of today's GOP.

In Kentucky, October 2009, GE advertised 90 manufacturing positions and received 10,000 applications in 3 days.

http://andymatic.com/10000-apply-for-90-jobs-at-louisville-ge-plant/

Why Kentucky sends McConnell and Bunning to DC, I have no idea. They're lining their own pockets, collecting retirement, health care, and lobbyists' money. Nothing else.

Who "is going to be impressed by Republicans attacking the unemployed as lazy?" We're going to have to wait until November to find out, but don't be surprised if the answer to that question turns out to be "Sadly, quite a few people."

So, here is an actual current case... you decide!!! Co-workers brother has been out of work for 14 months. He was a finance specialist for a builder. He is hauling down $451 per week in unemployment, his wife has a great job, and he works part time for minimum wage. No jobs for finance specialists... he basically quit looking for a job 6 months ago... Who is right???

Takes a parasite to know a parasite and disgraced former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) definitely qualifies in my humble opinion.

Why work when you can be a Democrat?

Obama and the Dems sure love unemployment--they've 'created' four million more unemployed people in the short span of 1 year.

In his Principles of Economics book, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman argues that unemployment benefits create incentives for the unemployment to not look for jobs.

Guess Kruggie is a Republican ....... or a liar.

It might be best to read the entire chapter of Krugman's on unemployment and the NAIRU to get a full understanding of what he wrote and not take it out of context. Since we are not experiencing inflation it seems the benefits received are not being overly generous to the point of them being an incentive not to work.

Guess that Paul Krugman is not a Republican...he is consistent with his models.