by Nomad
This week the Republicans appeared to be sticking to its tried and true conservative principles by blocking a vote on extending unemployment benefits.
Add to that the impact of sequester cuts to state jobs training programs and you have a campaign issue nightmare. The question is: can any party get elected by hurting its most vulnerable voters?
Not once but twice?
Not once but twice?
Two days ago, Republican conservatives used the power of the filibuster to block a Democratic bill to restore unemployment benefits to over a million Americans, hit hard by the recession. According to an announcement of this decision, the lawmakers declared they were standing on conservative principle.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) stated:
"People, if you pay 'em for years and years, they won't look for a job."
Who is the "'em" and who are the "they"? What happened to "us" and "we"?
Extending unemployment benefits, he added, creates no jobs. At a cost of $6.4 billion, the cost of the extension could not be justified, according to the Republicans. Shelby told an interviewer,
"That is a huge expenditure. What we need to do is spend that money on retraining these people that are unemployed -- help them for a few months and get them retrained and get them back in the job market. That's the problem."
As we shall see, there is a major problem with that idea.
Other Republicans cited their conservative principles to support the filibuster. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said:
"I certainly ran because we're mortgaging our children's future. We're bankrupting this nation."
It's not hard to imagine the possible fallout from this decision come election time. With more than.1.3 million people Americans left without any kind of safety net nationwide, it could make a difference who controls the houses of Congress.
