6+million Unemloyed

Jason P

tonifig8 wrote:

It ends at 99 weeks-
This is simply adding to those who haven't reached 99 weeks.
I think everyone pays into this insurance- So for the first 26 weeks it's money you basically saved- after that the Fed/State helps out.

We won't know for sure until a deal is reached, but the news sources I've been reading imply that the benefits will be extended to the 99'ers. I guess there isn't any reason to debate the issue any further until more details are known. At this point, it's MSNBC Said, FoxNews Said.

So, have a wonderful week and we can discuss the issue in more detail once the facts come out. :angel:

Boxes&Books

Electric_Delta wrote:

tonifig8 wrote:

Republicans Playing Grinch With Unemployment Benefits Right Before The Holidays

With Senate Republicans killing an extension of unemployment benefits Saturday in a 53-36 vote, I thought I’d share some of my inconsolable rage. First off, given that unemployment benefits have a multiplier effect of 1.64 for every dollar spent, this is clearly another attempt by the Republicans to sabotage any hope of a real economic recovery. Permanently extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy only has a multiplier effect of 0.29 for every dollar spent. But let’s forget the negative macroeconomic impact of this despicable obstruction on the part of the Republicans for a second.

If unemployment benefits are not extended soon, millions of struggling parents in this country will be unable to feed their kids during the holiday season. These people are not lazy or looking for a handout. The average unemployment check is only $293 a week. It is impossible to raise a family on unemployment benefits in the long-term. The unemployed want to work, as they desperately want to support themselves and their families. These are hard-working Americans who were employed all the way up until two years ago when the Wall Street bankers crashed the economy and walked away with trillions of dollars from the American taxpayer.

Republicans claim to be the party of “family values.” Is this their idea of family values? If you’re an average American who loses your job because of the criminal actions of the richest and most powerful people in the country, you and your children deserve to starve right before the holidays? I wonder how many of the Republicans who voted to deny the extension of unemployment benefits claim to be “Christians,” as this is what Jesus would do, right? Jesus would tell the unemployed to go beg for food in the streets to keep their children from starving, because the rich need their tax cuts?

It’s abundantly clear that Republicans view average hard-working Americans, without any lobbyists working on their behalf, as chattel, plain and simple. But I’m asking the Republicans to show some compassion for once. I’m begging them to stop trying to take the last lifeline that millions of suffering Americans and their families are desperately relying on. Because if they think Americans are angry now, just wait until they really have nothing left to lose and starving kids to feed.


http://www.alan.com/2010/12/05/republic ... -holidays/

Alan Colmes? Do you have something non-biased?

Will it make a difference? If so, I'll post something less bias, but you would have to actually accept the facts.... Can we agree?

Boxes&Books

Just received this alert from Politico -
Do republicans really think that these tax cuts will create jobs and employ those 6 million people? Why are they now willing to give 13 months of unemployment to those lazy people? WTF!!! They said the money wasn't there - that it would only add to the deficit!!WTF!! Looks like more government hand outs ....
politico alert-

The White House and congressional Republicans neared a deal on extending the Bush-era tax cuts to all Americans for two years, including wealthier families, administration sources said Monday night, and the deal includes a payroll tax cut for workers in 2011 totaling $120 billion. Also, Republicans would agree to renew jobless benefits for another 13 months, sources said. But House Democrats were no closer to signing on to a deal with Republicans after Monday's round of meetings at the White House.

Brock Samson

if anyone needs a job and can stomach central new york winters, the company i work for is always hiring. always.

Electric_Delta

Will it make a difference? If so, I'll post something less bias, but you would have to actually accept the facts.... Can we agree?[/quote]



I can accept factual information.

Jeanwah

Brock Samson wrote:

if anyone needs a job and can stomach central new york winters, the company i work for is always hiring. always.

Where's that? Just curious.

Boxes&Books

Electric_Delta wrote:

I can accept factual information.

related to taxes:
"At present, no corresponding spending
cuts have been identified to offset the $680 billion in projected revenue shortfalls. As such, the revenue
shortfalls will require additional borrowing to fill the resulting budget gap in each of these years. This
borrowing, in turn, will increase the national debt and thus will increase the annual cost of servicing
this debt – in other words, annual interest payments on the national debt will rise. These increases in
annual interest payments will add further to annual deficits. Together, these higher annual interest
payments will add another $146 billion to the projected 10-year deficit cost total, bringing the combined
total of annual increases in the deficit to $826 billion over the period from 2011-2020 ($680 billion in lost
revenue + $146 billion in interest payments = $826 billion)."

All the info you need on the taxes should be here-- http://www.massbudget.org/file_storage/ ... _28_10.pdf

Ronald Reagan's former budget director David Stockman said, "the Bush tax cuts costs $300 billion a year: 100 billion to the top 2 percent, 200 billion to the middle-class". - "I find it unconscionable that the Republican leadership, faced with a 1.5 trillion deficit, could possibly believe that good public policy is to maintain tax cuts for the top 2 percent of the population who, after all, have benefited enormously from this phony boom we've had over the last 10 years as a result of the casino on Wall Street.

And I blame Paulson on it. I blame the Bush White House. They basically sold out the birthright of the Republican Party when they bailed out Wall Street unnecessarily, in a state of complete panic in September 2008. That's really, at the end of the day, one of the greatest misfortunes in fiscal governance since the Reagan revolution tried to straighten things out beginning in 1980"


unemployment benefits:
Unemployed in Mississippi receive an average of $230 a week! The National average check is $290 a week, according to NELP. That's about 35% of an average American's wages.

http://nelp.org


What pisses me off- is that the GOP clearly stated that they weren't going to add to the deficit.
Additional 13 months of unemployment-
Plus the big one of 700+billion!

I say hand out water and bread to those who can't afford to live
and increases taxes for those 2% .... Shit people are giving their life's in the middle east, can't we all sacrifice a little more.

As Jason P said.... Happy Holiday's! :wave:

Boxes&Books

THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Sorry to keep you waiting.

For the past few weeks there’s been a lot of talk around Washington about taxes and there’s been a lot of political positioning between the two parties. But around kitchen tables, Americans are asking just one question: Are we going to allow their taxes to go up on January 1st, or will we meet our responsibilities to resolve our differences and do what’s necessary to speed up the recovery and get people back to work?

Now, there’s no doubt that the differences between the parties are real and they are profound. Ever since I started running for this office I've said that we should only extend the tax cuts for the middle class. These are the Americans who’ve taken the biggest hit not only from this recession but from nearly a decade of costs that have gone up while their paychecks have not. It would be a grave injustice to let taxes increase for these Americans right now. And it would deal a serious blow to our economic recovery.

Now, Republicans have a different view. They believe that we should also make permanent the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. I completely disagree with this. A permanent extension of these tax cuts would cost us $700 billion at a time when we need to start focusing on bringing down our deficit. And economists from all across the political spectrum agree that giving tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires does very little to actually grow our economy.

This is where the debate has stood for the last couple of weeks. And what is abundantly clear to everyone in this town is that Republicans will block a permanent tax cut for the middle class unless they also get a permanent tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, regardless of the cost or impact on the deficit.

We saw that in two different votes in the Senate that were taken this weekend. And without a willingness to give on both sides, there’s no reason to believe that this stalemate won't continue well into next year. This would be a chilling prospect for the American people whose taxes are currently scheduled to go up on January 1st because of arrangements that were made back in 2001 and 2003 under the Bush tax cuts.

I am not willing to let that happen. I know there’s some people in my own party and in the other party who would rather prolong this battle, even if we can't reach a compromise. But I'm not willing to let working families across this country become collateral damage for political warfare here in Washington. And I'm not willing to let our economy slip backwards just as we're pulling ourselves out of this devastating recession.

I'm not willing to see 2 million Americans who stand to lose their unemployment insurance at the end of this month be put in a situation where they might lose their home or their car or suffer some additional economic catastrophe.

So, sympathetic as I am to those who prefer a fight over compromise, as much as the political wisdom may dictate fighting over solving problems, it would be the wrong thing to do. The American people didn’t send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories. They would much rather have the comfort of knowing that when they open their first paycheck on January of 2011, it won’t be smaller than it was before, all because Washington decided they preferred to have a fight and failed to act.

Make no mistake: Allowing taxes to go up on all Americans would have raised taxes by $3,000 for a typical American family. And that could cost our economy well over a million jobs.

At the same time, I’m not about to add $700 billion to our deficit by allowing a permanent extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. And I won’t allow any extension of these tax cuts for the wealthy, even a temporary one, without also extending unemployment insurance for Americans who’ve lost their jobs or additional tax cuts for working families and small businesses -- because if Republicans truly believe we shouldn’t raise taxes on anyone while our economy is still recovering from the recession, then surely we shouldn’t cut taxes for wealthy people while letting them rise on parents and students and small businesses.

As a result, we have arrived at a framework for a bipartisan agreement. For the next two years, every American family will keep their tax cuts -- not just the Bush tax cuts, but those that have been put in place over the last couple of years that are helping parents and students and other folks manage their bills.

In exchange for a temporary extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, we will be able to protect key tax cuts for working families -- the Earned Income Tax Credit that helps families climb out of poverty; the Child Tax Credit that makes sure families don’t see their taxes jump up to $1,000 for every child; and the American Opportunity Tax Credit that ensures over 8 million students and their families don’t suddenly see the cost of college shooting up.

These are the tax cuts for some of the folks who’ve been hit hardest by this recession, and it would be simply unacceptable if their taxes went up while everybody else’s stayed the same.

Now, under this agreement, unemployment insurance will also be extended for another 13 months, which will be welcome relief for 2 million Americans who are facing the prospect of having this lifeline yanked away from them right in the middle of the holiday season.

This agreement would also mean a 2 percent employee payroll tax cut for workers next year -- a tax cut that economists across the political spectrum agree is one of the most powerful things we can do to create jobs and boost economic growth.

And we will prevent -- we will provide incentives for businesses to invest and create jobs by allowing them to completely write off their investments next year. This is something identified back in September as a way to help American businesses create jobs. And thanks to this compromise, it’s finally going to get done.

In exchange, the Republicans have asked for more generous treatment of the estate tax than I think is wise or warranted. But we have insisted that that will be temporary.

I have no doubt that everyone will find something in this compromise that they don’t like. In fact, there are things in here that I don’t like -- namely the extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and the wealthiest estates. But these tax cuts will expire in two years. And I’m confident that as we make tough choices about bringing our deficit down, as I engage in a conversation with the American people about the hard choices we’re going to have to make to secure our future and our children’s future and our grandchildren’s future, it will become apparent that we cannot afford to extend those tax cuts any longer.

As for now, I believe this bipartisan plan is the right thing to do. It’s the right thing to do for jobs. It’s the right thing to do for the middle class. It is the right thing to do for business. And it’s the right thing to do for our economy. It offers us an opportunity that we need to seize.

It’s not perfect, but this compromise is an essential step on the road to recovery. It will stop middle-class taxes from going up. It will spur our private sector to create millions of new jobs, and add momentum that our economy badly needs.

Building on that momentum is what I’m focused on. It’s what members of Congress should be focused on. And I'm looking forward to working with members of both parties in the coming days to see to it that we get this done before everyone leaves town for the holiday season. We cannot allow this moment to pass.


And let me just end with this. There’s been a lot of debate in Washington about how this would ultimately get resolved. I just want everybody to remember over the course of the coming days, both Democrats and Republicans, that these are not abstract fights for the families that are impacted. Two million people will lose their unemployment insurance at the end of this month if we don't get this resolved. Millions more of Americans will see their taxes go up at a time when they can least afford it. And my singular focus over the next year is going to be on how do we continue the momentum of the recovery, how do we make sure that we grow this economy and we create more jobs.

We cannot play politics at a time when the American people are looking for us to solve problems. And so I look forward to engaging the House and the Senate, members of both parties, as well as the media, in this debate. But I am confident that this needs to get done, and I'm confident ultimately Congress is going to do the right thing.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Boxes&Books

Obama outlines tax cut deal that extends jobless aid


Reporting from Washington —
Over the objections of many in his own party, President Obama on Monday announced a deal with Republicans to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for all taxpayers, keep jobless benefits flowing for 13 months and continue a series of tax breaks for the middle class.

The deal, which breaks a weeks-long standoff between Republicans and Democrats, also includes a GOP-backed proposal to revamp the estate tax and lower Social Security payroll taxes by 2 percentage points to put more money into workers' pockets.

Obama made it clear that he disagreed with some aspects of the deal — in particular, the extension of tax cuts to the wealthiest earners, something he has vowed to fight since his election campaign two years ago.

But Obama said that it was more important to settle the issue so that middle-class taxpayers did not incur a tax increase after Dec. 31, when the cuts are scheduled to expire.

"I have no doubt that everyone will find something in this compromise that they don't like. In fact, there are things in here that I don't like," Obama said. "For now, I believe this bipartisan plan is the right thing to do."

But many Democrats said Monday that they were deeply troubled by the compromise, which gives them some substantive concessions from the Republicans but goes against the Democrats' longstanding opposition to extending tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.

The dispute represents the clearest sign yet of the gaping divide between the White House and congressional Democrats as Obama strives for bipartisan accord to accommodate a Republican Party emboldened by last month's midterm elections.

As a result of the unusual split, many Democratic lawmakers may vote against the deal, despite the president's blessings.

Underscoring the division, liberal activists pelted the White House and congressional Democrats on Monday, tying up phone lines with a massive call-in campaign to oppose a deal that extends tax breaks on earnings beyond $250,000.

The White House now faces the daunting task of winning congressional support for what administration officials billed as a bipartisan compromise.

House Republicans signaled their agreement with the deal, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate GOP leader, said Obama's outline marked an acknowledgement by the White House that "a new direction is needed if we are to revive the economy and help put millions of Americans back to work."

Obama moved to quell the rebellion by congressional Democrats, summoning them to a White House session Monday to explain the "framework" of the proposal. Democrats left the afternoon meeting without signing on to the agreement.

Despite additional tax breaks for middle-class households, "Democratic leaders are not completely comfortable with this," said one Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

The White House is dispatching Vice President Joe Biden to meet with Senate Democrats on Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) issued only a terse statement after Obama unveiled the compromise.

"Now that the president has outlined his proposal, Senator Reid plans on discussing it with his caucus," his spokesman said.

Underscoring the partisan ambivalence, the president stood alone at the White House in making the announcement of the tentative agreement, which came after tense days of negotiations.

Earlier Monday, Obama foreshadowed the likely deal in an appearance in Winston-Salem, N.C.

"There are some serious debates that are still taking place," Obama said at a technical college. "We've got to make sure that we're coming up with a solution, even if it's not a hundred percent of what I want or what the Republicans want. There's no reason that ordinary Americans should see their taxes go up next year."


Congress faces a Dec. 31 deadline to resolve the impasse over tax cuts passed during the George W. Bush administration. Without action, American taxpayers would see their income tax rates rise an average of 3% in January, an outcome neither party wants.

Republicans last week blocked Democratic attempts in the Senate to extend tax breaks on earnings up to $250,000. A compromise was increasingly seen as a foregone conclusion, and the White House has been negotiating with Republicans who have held out for an extension of all tax cuts, despite the additional $68 billion annual cost of tax breaks for the wealthy.

Extending unemployment insurance through 2011 would cost $56 billion. Without action, an estimated 2 million jobless Americans will see their benefits expire during the holidays.

The White House had pressed to include an extension of the expiring "Making Work Pay" tax credit, given to 95% of taxpayers in 2009 and 2010 as part of the economic stimulus bill. The tax break provided up to $400 a year to working singles who made $75,000 or less, and up to $800 to couples earning $150,000 or less. Democrats argue that allowing it to expire would amount to a tax hike on middle-income Americans.

Republicans have been cool to extending the tax credits, after having almost unanimously opposed the stimulus act 2009. The GOP wanted a lower estate tax.

By Monday, the White House had dropped its insistence on the Making Work Pay tax break in favor of the 2% payroll tax holiday, which is expected to cost $120 billion.

The White House also agreed to a Republican-led proposal on the estate tax, which would exempt estates valued at $5 million for singles and $10 million for couples from a 35% tax — a particularly difficult concession for Democrats who had pressed for a lower exemption and higher tax rate.

Over the weekend, House Democrats told Biden that the administration may lose votes from congressional Democrats if any compromise is not paired with other middle-class enhancements.

"Assuming House Democrats will sign off on a deal the White House cuts with [Republicans] is incorrect," said the Democratic aide.

As Democrats convened at the White House on Monday, they were told this was the best deal they would be able to get in the face of Republican intransigence.

Senate Democrats also have indicated displeasure with being forced to compromise on an issue many believe is a signature difference between Democrats and Republicans.

"I'm just hoping that the president sticks to what he said in Iowa in the campaign … that he was drawing the line at $250,000," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said late last week. "The president ought to stick to what he said and stick to his guns."

In the political calculations of the White House, Democrats will be able to more effectively campaign against tax breaks for the wealthy in 2012, when the president is up for reelection.

"We expect this will be a central piece of the debate," a senior administration official said. "It's a debate that we had in 2008 and won, and it's a debate we think the American people should have."

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... ory?page=2

Brock Samson

Jeanwah wrote:

Brock Samson wrote:

if anyone needs a job and can stomach central new york winters, the company i work for is always hiring. always.

Where's that? Just curious.

http://anaren.com/

Best of Times

If you're looking for a job, I know a recruiter you can talk to....

Lousy pay, Congress continually erodes your benefits, long overseas "business" trips way from your family to exciting places like Kandahar, the Devil's Triangle, the Sunni Triangle, and even Korea!!

Meet interesting people with fascinating ideologies and hobbies.....

And hey- they pipe in a Pearl Jam show every once in a while- (see NOLA Jazzfest last spring).

You don't even have to be able to spell "unemployed"...