Don't Tell Sumner: Does Outrage Over Failure to Extend UI Benefits Have Legs?

     You'd almost feel bad about telling him, he's having such a good time with it. Yes, he's still denying that he's having a good time with it but then that's par of the course for Sumner. When Judy Judy talked about 'peeing on my leg and telling me it's raining' she must have had him in mind. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/12/sumner-wont-admit-he-enjoys-ui-benefits.html

     By the way, Money Illusion commentator has inadvertently given me a real gem of a definition for monetary offset:

     "Coming from a man who says talk of “monetary offset” is actually code for letting poor people starve, the irony is delicious."

    http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=25583&cpage=1#comment-307811

     Daniel sounds like a man who doesn't know what 'irony' is-no wonder he and Sumner are such friends. Meanwhile I think monetary offset is something quite like that-note that Sumner has been crowing all year about the sequester and how it was allegedly wholly offset by the Fed thereby rendering those who lost jobs and lost benefits-including some who dependeded on the sequestered jobs to eat a decent meal every day-invisible. Now regarding UI as Daniel wants suffering poor people here it goes:

    "A quick scan of local coverage of the expiration from the past 24 hours shows a somewhat remarkable array of stories, localizing the issue by tying it to the plight of specific area residents who will suffer. In many (but, alas, not all) cases, the stories make clear that the GOP is responsible for the suffering that will begin on Dec. 28, when 1.3 million long-term unemployed won’t find a check in the mail."

    "For example, here’s KOB 4 in Albuquerque:

Thousands of New Mexicans are about to lose their long term unemployment benefits right after Christmas – and they won’t get them back unless our state’s lone congresswoman can convince her colleagues to take action early in the New Year.

People like Katharine Hill of Albuquerque have been depending on them. “I’m about to run out of my unemployment benefits,” Hill said. “Going on unemployment is better than having no money, but my whole situation has caused me to become homeless for an entire year.”

    "The Bluefield Daily Telegraph in West Virginia ran a statewide AP story:

The expiration of funding for long-term federal unemployment benefits will affect nearly 7,000 West Virginians who have been jobless for at least 26 weeks. The number of West Virginia recipients fluctuates from month to month, David Watson, assistant director of benefits for WorkForce West Virginia, told the Charleston Daily Mail.

    "The Yakima Herald-Republic, in Washington state:

For 1,028 Yakima County residents, it will be like finding a lump of coal in their Christmas stockings. Three days after Christmas, long-term unemployment benefits will end for 1.3 million Americans, including those in Yakima County and 25,000 statewide.

“This will make it harder for my wife and me to get by,” said Randy Frank, 54, who was laid off from his regular job five years ago. The benefits “help me continue to look for work and helps with the mortgage.”

       http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/12/24/tough-local-coverage-of-unemployment-insurance/

      Meanwhile, Sumner celebrates this lump of coal decarling 'what a wonderful Christmas gift.' To be sure he made that comment regarding Obama's decision to enable some to avoid the Obmacare penalty. However, he said this in the same paragraph as the one where he dispassionately discussed how 1.2 million are about to lose their income and predictably he never thought about how Christmas might be for them-anything but 'wonderful.'  For him it's just another 'natural experiment' for him to hopefully gloat over the way he gloats over the sequester.I don't know where this stereotype about heartless conservatives comes from-Sumner surely has a heart.  

      "With polls already showing a potential voter backlash and local news outlets giving the story serious play, advocates are ratcheting up the pressure even further by taking out television ads depicting Republicans as heartless Scrooges for stripping benefits from the jobless during the holidays. Americans United for Change purchased national airtime on cable channels for this ad, “Bad Santas,” beginning today:

      "The ad adopts the 99 percent versus the 1 percent framing by noting the richest Americans had a great Christmas because the recently completed budget bill did not touch tax loopholes that only benefit corporations or the very wealthy. But it also did not extend the emergency unemployment program, as the ad notes:

And for those facing tough times? Republicans stripped 1.3 million Americans of jobless benefits — folks who want to work, but cannot find a job — kicking them to the curb during Christmas. So to the 1.3 million Americans losing benefits, Merry Christmas — from the GOP.

    "It’s a tough spot, and it relies on language that was popular through the 2012 election that paints the GOP as dedicated protectors of the powerful and wealthy at the expense of struggling Americans."

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/12/26/campaign-to-restore-unemployment-benefits-hits-the-airwaves/

    With Dems unanimously supporting the extension it will only take a few Repubs in the House to get it passed. If the early polls are any sign, Sumner's gloating over UI may be short-lived. 

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/12/23/republicans-could-face-serious-backlash-over-unemployment-benefit-expiration/