Right-wing libertarian that he is, Rand Paul isn’t much for using the federal government to make the world a slightly less terrible place. It was hardly a surprise, then, to find out the Kentucky senator opposed extending emergency unemployment compensation, preferring instead to let it expire for some 1.3 million in late December, with millions more to come after that. EUC is a federal government program, after all; and worse still, it’s one whose primary beneficiaries are the unemployed, a population with little political influence or social standing. You’d expect, in other words, Rand Paul to leave these people shuddering in the winter cold. It’s what his rigid vision of libertarianism requires.
What was less predictable, however, was Paul’s stated justification for opposing EUC. Rather than talk about “makers” and “takers” and the economy’s winners and losers, Paul attempted to repackage his laissez faire absolutism as a kind of tough love empathy. He pointed to a study that, he claimed, showed those on EUC had a harder time reentering the workforce (an interpretation one of the study’s authors subsequently differed with). He talked about how those advocating for an EUC extension were doing a “disservice” to America’s long-term unemployed workers. He made kicking millions to the curb sound like nothing less than an act of benevolence, bordering on charity. Whether it was a feat of self-delusion or chutzpah, only Paul can really say. (My guess is somewhere in-between.)
let's say that he really believes that then he is not thinking of his constituents but the state treasury instead. he is ignoring them like he did that lady his security kicked in the neck on the curb.
What’s more, Paul’s understanding of the long-term unemployed also betrays a shameful ignorance as to what life on EUC is actually like. People on EUC aren’t collecting their former paycheck while sitting around and waiting for work to come to them.They’re receiving a mere fraction of their former salary and are under constant pressure to prove that they are indeed searching for new employment. As Kim Merryman, a former water quality technician for an Indian reservation who was laid off in April, told me, “It’s not like [EUC] allows me to live this comfortable, cushy life.” In 2012, the average weekly compensation for those on EUC was $300.What EUC does do for Merryman and millions like her is allow her “to have a roof over my head, have gas in my car, get down to the employment agency, [and] to get my résumés out.” Rather than keep Merryman out of the workforce, in other words,EUC keeps her in it by helping her to continue to search for a job. That’s why economists believe ending EUC will lead to many of the unemployed simply giving up on finding a new job and dropping out of the workforce entirely.
i refuse to believe that the republicans don't know what they are doing IMO they know perfectly well what they are doing the ignorance comes in when they think they can do it in front of our faces and deny it seconds later.
we all have heard them each month the more positive the jobless numbers are the more they say well people have left the market that's why the numbers are down, as you just read they are the reason for the unemployment, they are sitting on jobs act and this ridiculous Paul elephant dung will hurt more Americans and next jobs report they will say again more people left the workforce just won't mention they are the cause and effect. 2014
