Tea Party leader and Republican Representative Michele Bachmann told radio host Sean Hannity yesterday that Republicans may "scuttle" the tax deal if the Bush tax cuts extension is tied to unemployment aid. Linking the tax cuts to “massive spending” is something that would be very difficult for Republicans to swallow, she said. Apparently massive spending on tax cuts, especially for the rich, to the tune of $900 billion for two years, is OK, but spending $56 billion to extend unemployment insurance to the long term unemployed for another year would be wasteful.
What kind of moral cesspool do these Republicans live in? Evidently they think that it’s unfair to make the rich pay higher taxes to compensate for the unemployment and suffering they have caused.
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I agree with you in principle. But I don't think the current system of unemployment insurance is very efficient. We can do it better, fairer, and more efficiently. And, of course the unfair tax code is the primary vehicle for corporate welfare. We have too many inefficient programs that get locked into perpetuity by an undue respect for tradition and an utter disregard for efficiency.
ReplyDeleteWell, for those who are receiving it (or face starvation and life on the streets), it works well enough. It's easy to find fault with any system. Ours is overburdened with what I call bureaucratic distrust -- the Republican assumption that most people are cheaters. We design our systems with paranoid assumptions. Turns out Reagan was wrong. The Welfare Queen story was a fabrication. Sure we could do better. Meantime, millions of unemployed workers are depending on it. Let's focus on that and not its imperfections.
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