Long Term Unemployment

The “Buffett Rule” Is The “Reagan Rule”, But Instead Cut Food Stamps: Republican Party Message To America!

Ronald 2 Comments

The “Buffett Rule”, the idea that those who earn more than a million dollars a year should pay a tax rate of 30 percent, more than their secretaries and other workers, was defeated in the Senate on a party line vote on Monday, with only Susan Collins of Maine voting with Democrats, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas voting with the Republicans, and 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster being unable to be accomplished.

Of course, the “Buffett Rule” is really a restatement of the “Reagan Rule”, the assertion of the 40th President that one should not expect an employee to pay a higher level of taxes than his or her employer. It is an embarrassment to the GOP of 2012, that they are actually defying their icon, their god, their “savior”, who they claim to be following and worshiping, but only when they choose to follow his lead. The fact that 72 percent of the American people in polls support the “Buffett Rule” has no effect at all on the Republicans, as they argue that $50 billion over ten years collected if the “Buffett Rule” went into effect is a “drop in the bucket”!

Meanwhile, the Republicans wish to cut spending on food stamps, the main source of funding for nutrition for poor families, attacked as socialism, but they insist that cutting it over ten years, saving $33.2 billion, is substantial, and must be done as part of the Paul Ryan budget plan in the House of Representatives.

The Republican Party has no conscience, as they are willing to take from the poor to give more tax cuts to the rich. They are Robin Hood in reverse, with no second thoughts!

So 4,000 families will benefit from the defeat of the “Buffett Rule”, while $46.4 million Americans, who are already dependent on food stamps for survival will see an 11 percent cut in monthly benefits after September 1.

The long term unemployed, who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, will now suffer even worse, as we now live in a society in which government leaders do not care about what hunger means, and do not care about the desperation of millions left behind, a large percentage of them children and single mothers, as long as the elite continue to get tax cuts!

Long Term Unemployment: Its Toll Much More Than Many Realize!

Ronald Leave a comment

It is very simple for someone who has NEVER been unemployed, except maybe briefly, to dismiss the issue of LONG TERM unemployment!

It is easy to blame the long term unemployed for being in that position, particularly when one has had good fortune, and never had to face the same situation!

It is easy to claim that it is, somehow, a character flaw in the person, and to choose to ignore what that means for him or her, and for society as a whole!

But when one realizes that now there are more than TWO million people who have been unemployed for more than TWO years, and 700,000 for more than THREE years, it is something that should be seen as a structural problem in America, which cannot be ignored!

Many of these long term unemployed have been people with long term careers, suddenly laid off when they are reaching the high 40s to the early 60s, with little possibility of ever regaining positions anywhere near what they had formerly earned, and this affects their wives, husbands, and children.

The long term unemployed also includes young workers coming out of undergraduate degrees, graduate schools, law schools, business schools, etc, who are facing the worst employment market in the last half century, and have looming student debt they cannot pay. This will delay or prevent plans to marry, have children, buy homes and cars, and plans for a lifetime of goals that all young people have.

This is not a laughing matter, as the “American Dream” is being destroyed, and so many have no hope for a better future, and yet the Republican Party in Congress and its Presidential candidates refuse to address these issues, and it is something that could boil over into more than just disillusionment!

The numbers of long term unemployed will grow rapidly, and there is little interest in extending unemployment compensation further, even by those who are unemployed, who strangely think extension will promote less desire to look for work, which is, sadly, a hallucinatory belief!

And when so many employers are now demanding that all job applicants be employed before applying for a job, that forecasts over time that we will see millions of people on the streets, in what used to be called Hoovervilles and Reaganvilles, going to churches and charities for minimal food supplies, and having serious medical issues that go undiagnosed!

Divorce and suicide and physical violence are also the manifestations when people have no hope and fall into depression!

And, of course, if people are not earning income, they only add to the long term dire economic outlook!

It is immoral and unethical for the opposition party, which wants to win power, to have no concern for the downtrodden, the deprived, and think all they have to do is appeal to the elite wealthy!

This is social dynamite, which cannot be ignored, as it is a threat to civil society long term! We cannot move to the future by creating a lost class of people!