Continuing The War Against The Unemployed

There is always something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day. Unfortunately, for the unemployed, it's not the GOP, as The Huffington Post reported a few days ago:

The House of Representatives on Thursday voted down a measure that would have reauthorized extended unemployment insurance for another three months, leaving no clear path forward to prevent the benefits from lapsing as scheduled on Nov. 30.

Without a reauthorization, the Labor Department estimates that two million long-term unemployed will prematurely stop receiving benefits before the end of the year....

The bill was brought to the floor under a "suspension of the rules," meaning it required approval from two-thirds of the House. It failed 258 to 154, with mostly Democratic support. Twenty-one Republicans voted in favor and 11 Democrats voted nay.

Sympathize, however, with those Republicans. It's hard to buck this guy, of whom it was written three months ago:

With millions of long term unemployed Americans losing everything they have, Fox News host Glenn Beck recently went on his show and said “Have you heard of the 99ers?” He then showed footage of the 99ers protest on Wall Street from last Thursday and said “Some of these people, I bet you’d be ashamed to call them Americans.” Most of the 99ers at the protest were locals to the area and chose Wall Street to symbolize that Congress is willing to bail out wealthy Wall Street businesses but not the unemployed.

Glen Beck was kind enough to offer some Republican solutions to the 99ers problems by adding “Don’t spend your remaining money on travel to get to a protest. Go out and get a job. You may not want the job. Work at McDonald’s. Work two jobs.”

And Beck has a powerful media figure in his corner, Fox News chairman Roger Ailes. In his recent interview with the guy who runs the de facto communications arm of the Republican Party, Howie Kurtz noted

There’s one criticism that Ailes doesn’t want to hear. He admonished the staff after unnamed Fox journalists told me they are worried that the divisive Beck is becoming the face of the network.

“Yeah, shut up,” says Ailes. “You’re getting a paycheck. Go on the team or get off the team. Don’t run around here badmouthing a colleague.”

Ailes is no Roger-come-lately on Beck, having warned in April "Glenn Beck does his show and that's his opinion. It's not the opinion of FOX News and he has a right to say it. We prefer people in the tent not dumping on other people in the tent."

For Beck, as with so much of the right, unemployed people are lazy and can be ignored, despite- or perhaps because- there are so many of them (graph from Center for Budget and Policy Priorities):





In the interests of argument, let's posit that the GOP attitude is accurate, that a substantial portion of unemployed individuals lack a job primarily because they do not want to work. If this slothfulness were to apply to 60% of those on the unemployed rolls, there still would be..... two people vying for an average job.

For those of us who don't believe Americans are lazy or are enthused that the surplus of workers to jobs lowers the wage rate, that still would be too many individuals unable to find employment. And that still would demonstrate a need for unemployed benefits for those two individuals unable to find work- and for those three individuals, who, content not to be employed, better enable the other two to find work.

On the micro (individual) level, laziness needs to be discouraged; but on the macro-national- level, an economy with fully five unemployed individuals per job available little suffers because some portion of that five does not seriously pursue employment. And all five of those individuals without a source of legal income, as most of the Repub Party supports, are five individuals unable to spend and help lift our nation out of its economic downturn. Which, for the Party of No, may be the point.


HAPPY THANKSGIVING

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Limbaugh Applauds Economic Obstructionism

Rush Limbaugh ranted on Tuesday, July 14

The regime today says that they have "saved or created" three million jobs. Think about how deranged or delusional that is. We know for a fact that just last month alone 652,000 people gave up looking for work, and they want to try to tell us they've "created or saved" three million jobs? So liberalism, leftists, they know how to destroy. They know how to tear down. But they have no clue how to build back. They can't even manage their own disasters. They made their debt, let them lie in it.

A few minutes later Rush would claim "Democrats are in a screaming panic" about losing the House in November and contend

It woulda been worse if we hadn't done the stimulus, it would have been worse. That's all they got, that and bashing Bush. It could have been worse. They have to lie. That they created three million jobs, or saved 'em, or what have you.

That manipulative genius, Rush Limbaugh. He said Democrats claim "it could have been worse" and implies that it is absurd. Not so absurd, according to the Congressional Budget Office in May, as reported by that socialist communist Obama house organ, The Washington Times:

The stimulus law was responsible for funding between 1.2 million and 2.8 million jobs in the first quarter of this year and kept the unemployment rate lower than it would otherwise have been, the Congressional Budget Office said in a new analysis Tuesday.

The analysis said the gross domestic product, the measure of the country's economy, was between 1.7 and 4.2 percent higher than it would otherwise have been without the $862 billion program, which passed Congress in February 2009 almost exclusively on the strength of Democratic votes.

As for unemployment, even though the rate hovered around 10 percent during the quarter, CBO said that could have been as high as 11.5 percent without the stimulus.

In a prime example of circular logic, Rush maintains of Democrats (who else?) "They made their debt, let them lie in it."

Admittedly, if it is their debt, they are responsible for it. Unavoidably true- but completely irrelevant, except as manipulation. The implication (not statement) is that Barack Obama- or the Democratic Party- is responsible. (Limbaugh doesn't make it clear to whom or what he is referring. Specification, even mere clarification, is uncomfortable for conservatives, who usually prefer feeling to thinking.) But the Democrats/Obama/Pelosi etc. are neither responsible for most of the current deficit nor for what is expected in the future. Last year, The New York Times explained

Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

If the analysis is extended further into the future, well beyond 2012, the Obama agenda accounts for only a slightly higher share of the projected deficits.

According to The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the Bush-era tax cuts account for over $700 billion — or nearly 55 percent — of the deficit projected for 2019 under current policies. According to the Congressional Budget Office (graph, below, via CBPP), Bush-era tax cuts will account for a greater share of the projected 2019 deficit than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recession, the stimulus, and TARP, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac- combined.

Rush, then, could have altered his monologue a bit and made it accurate: The Obama administration has saved or created at least two million jobs. Still, there were 652,000 people who gave up looking for a job last month; many of them need an extension of unemployment benefits, which my party has been blocking. Conservatives know how to oppose; heck, we oppose anything President Obama favors, or which we can accuse him of favoring. We can help the president pull this nation out of the recession facilitated by the last president, end the latter's tax cuts for the wealthy, and then claim credit with the public for helping get the deficit under control.

Either this is good electoral strategy- or this Daily Kos blogger has a point.

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Down With The Unemployed!


It was a fabulous discussion (video below, from Crooks and Liars) Chris Matthews had on Monday with Tom Sherk (to rhyme is tempting) of the Heritage Foundation and Mark Green, who was largely along for the ride. Green is almost always right, and was here, but kept trying to talk about extending unemployment compensation while Matthews and Sherk were arguing about whether American workers are lazy. (Sherk obviously thinks they are, but with an IQ well into the double digits, wasn't about to admit to it.) In italics are the excerpts about these American men and women who don't want to provide for their families but love to just sit around collecting unemployment compensation.


Tom (sic) Sherk is with the Heritage Foundation. He‘s a senior analyst of labor economics. Mark Green of course is former New York City public advocate. And he‘s host of the syndicated radio show “Both Sides Now With Huffington & Matalin.”
Gentlemen, this is one of the issues. Again, we‘re going back to the high school debates I had, like whether we should have the civil rights bill under interstate commerce. Here we go with this baby.
You‘re saying—well, let me ask you Mr. Sherk, do you believe that people are shirking work to take unemployment compensation? They would rather get $300, if you‘re making it, the absolute top of unemployment, rather than take a job for $30,000 or $40,000 a year? You‘re saying that?

JAMES SHERK, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Well, no, no, that‘s not what I‘m saying.
What unemployment insurance does—and this is the finding of the science. It‘s not just me saying this as a conservative. Alan Krueger—he‘s the assistant secretary of the treasury for Obama—put out papers finding exactly this in his role as an academic economist.
It‘s not a left/right thing. It‘s the finding of the science. It‘s that when you extend the length of unemployment insurance benefits, that workers spend more time unemployed and take longer to find work. But it‘s not because they‘re lazy. It‘s not because they‘re sitting on the dole.
What it does is, it changes the types of jobs they look for. If you‘re unemployed, you would like to find a job near your city in the same type of work and preferably paying close to what you had before. And so when you have got, say, two years of benefits, so those are the jobs you spend the first year or so looking for.
The problem in this downturn is that a lot of the jobs that have been lost, particularly in construction and finance, simply aren‘t coming back. And so you‘re encouraging workers to spend a lot of time looking for jobs that don‘t exist and aren‘t going to exist.

MATTHEWS: OK.
I‘m going to have Mark respond to that.
He makes an intellectual argument there. Let‘s hear your response.

MARK GREEN, FORMER NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC ADVOCATE: This is as much science as Terri Schiavo was alive.
Chris, this is a good debate a century ago. And from Andrew Mellon to Herbert Hoover to Mr. Burns on “The Simpsons,” there have been people who say, don‘t give unemployed benefits because they won‘t work.
The science is that most economists agree some people getting unemployment benefits—they may be very young, they may be professionals with some options—may not seek work because they‘re getting a little benefit.
The overwhelmed percentage are panicked, desperate, can‘t meet mortgage payments, can‘t meet health care payments, can‘t pay for their drugs.
I don‘t know how often Mrs. Angle or Senator Kyl or the economists have been unemployed. People all over the country are putting out feelers for jobs. And there are 20 applicants for every job. And in this desperate situation, unemployment benefit extension does two things.
And it has ever since Keynes and Hoover. It‘s moral, because it gives to people who are largely desperate. And, second, it‘s perfect economics. It‘s countercyclical. The federal government spends money exactly when the economy needs a stimulation because business and consumers aren‘t spending. If there‘s not an overwhelming consensus for this, I don‘t think we should depend on free market, abstract people who say the free market will stop Toyota‘s...
(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: OK.
(CROSSTALK)

GREEN: ... stop...
(CROSSTALK)

GREEN: ... collapsing, and stop oil—oil spills in the Gulf.

MATTHEWS: You know, it‘s interesting, Mr. Sherk. My son is an actor. And, of course, actors have to get jobs when they‘re not acting. And my son, he goes—shows up for jobs as busboy and things like that, an actor in New York.
By the way, Thomas Matthews. He looks like a movie star, he should be working more often.
And he shows up—and, Mark, you live in New York, you know what it‘s like. They announced a job like at a restaurant for busboys, which is a fairly an entry level job. Not waiter which could be pretty professional obviously, a busboy. The lines go around the corner. They‘re like trying to get an acting job.
How you can say that there aren‘t people looking for work at pretty much at the entry level job? Not the perfect job, the highly or semi-skilled job, but basic work. And these jobs have lines around the corner. Every time a hotel opens, the lines are around the corner for two or three blocks.
Why do you say there aren‘t unemployed people that really want to work out there, who don‘t really want to work? Why do you make that case when every single time you open up a job—

JAMES SHERK, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: I‘m not saying that.

MATTHEWS: -- the lines are incredibly long and they don‘t get the jobs, because there‘s only a few jobs open.

SHERK: I‘m not saying that they don‘t want to work. And I‘m certainly not saying we should get rid of unemployment benefits. It‘s simply a question of how much is appropriate. I think two years—

MATTHEWS: But who are these people in the lines every time a job opens in New York that seems to be reasonably OK? Not even attractive, just OK—a job that exists, and the lines are around the corner. What do you think that is? That phenomenon we‘re looking at?

SHERK: Well, part of that is from the unemployment benefits. The New York economy has been hammered. The financial industry has, you know, taken a heavy toll. A lot of investment banks have gone down. With those investment banks, a lot of the New York economy.
And so, if you want to find a job, a lot of the workers now in New York or unemployed are going to have to move to different state. They‘re going to have to move to, say, Nebraska, or to Texas, or one of the states where the economy isn‘t doing as poorly.
But when you got the two years of benefits, it encourages the workers to look for the jobs in New York instead of looking for the jobs, say, in another state.

MATTHEWS: Do you live in the ivory tower of the universe?

MARK GREEN, FMR. NYC PUBLIC ADVOCATE: Chris—

MATTHEWS: You‘re talking about a guy who‘s got a house, barely able to pay his rent, and you‘re saying take the family and put them on a Graham bus and drive to where? Alaska. Where were you saying they should go to get this busboy job?

GREEN: Chris, appreciate this.

MATTHEWS: Nebraska. You are serious. I got nothing against theory. But that is theory. That‘s not reality.
Go ahead.

GREEN: Here‘s the theory. People in Ohio and Michigan should move to Nebraska because that‘s where the new jobs are. Now, follow this abstract theory. According to him --

MATTHEWS: There‘s a new restaurant in Omaha. Get on the bus.

GREEN: -- we should cut the oil depletion allowance, because that‘s making oil men lazy and they‘re not investing in technology on spills. We should end Medicaid because then the poor will take care of themselves. They‘ll be motivated to be more healthy.
This is insane. Unemployment benefits work in every country and in this country, except for a fringe right-wing who don‘t want it, exactly the economy needs it.

SHERK: I‘m not calling for getting rid of them. I‘m not calling for getting rid of them.

GREEN: You‘re complaining about two years. First, you know that two years is the absolute maximum. Half the people—half the people on unemployment now have been unemployed six months or more.
Bush lost 8 million jobs. He created 2 million in eight years. Clinton created 22 million. Republican economics dug this hole, and now, you don‘t want to help the victims out of it.

MATTHEWS: OK. Let him answer.

GREEN: That‘s very convenient.

MATTHEWS: Mr. Sherk, go ahead. Mr. Sherk, your chance.

SHERK: I was going to say, look, all this government spending from the stimulus hasn‘t worked. What we need to do is—

GREEN: Two to 3 million jobs, say the CBO. Who‘s right, you or the
CBO?

MATTHEWS: Let‘s take the unemployment comp, Mark. And, Mr. Sherk, let‘s take the unemployment comp. Is unemployment compensation overused, underused? Is it a necessity in a modern workplace where you have 10 percent unemployment in the country or not?
This is a real unemployment rate by the way. It‘s an objective fact. It‘s not about how busy or willing you are to take a lower level job. Why do you think, sir, there is almost 10 percent unemployment rate right now? Is it because people won‘t take the lower jobs?

SHERK: That‘s part of it. And that‘s not simply my saying it. The Brookings‘ paper on—the Brookings Institution recently released a paper on economy activity that found that the current unemployment extensions have increased the unemployment rate by about one percentage point. It‘s not most of what‘s going on, but it‘s contributing to it.
And, again, that‘s the Brookings Institution, by no means a conservative institution. That‘s what the science shows.
(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Mr. Sherk, do you know anybody who‘s out of work?

SHERK: I have several friends who are out of work.

MATTHEWS: OK. See, with some familiarity with that, are they lazy?

SHERK: No, not at all. I‘m not saying that people are lazy.

MATTHEWS: Do they refuse to take jobs below their cut, below their self-esteem? What‘s their problem for being unemployed, as you know them? Because you know them personally. So, tell me, are they the kinds of people that won‘t take jobs that are available because they insist on getting jobs appropriate to their ego?

SHERK: They‘re looking for jobs that match their skills. And they have in mind something in terms of what they‘re looking for. Most people do.

MATTHEWS: Have you told them they‘re living off—they‘re living off the country too much, and to get off unemployment? Have you told that person yet?

SHERK: I am not arguing for getting rid of unemployment benefits.
No one is arguing for that.

MATTHEWS: No, you‘re saying people have too much self-esteem for the lower level jobs. That‘s why they won‘t—they‘re exploiting unemployment compensation too long.

SHERK: What I‘m saying—

MATTHEWS: That‘s what you just said for five to 10 minutes now.

SHERK: What I‘m saying is it changes the type of jobs you look for something near your home.

MATTHEWS: Again, have you told your friends to take lower level jobs?

SHERK: No, if they‘ve been unemployed for a year and a half, yes, I would tell them that.

MATTHEWS: But you haven‘t gotten around to it yet.


SHERK: If those jobs are in New York, I‘m coming back.

MATTHEWS: It‘s kind of hard to do this. I‘m having some fun with you because it‘s a sad story. It‘s easy to tell a guy to go flip hamburgers who‘s been a nuclear scientist. I‘m sorry, it‘s hard.
Anyway, but thank for this.
And, by the way, to get unemployment compensation, you have to prove that you‘ve gone looking for a job. You have to fill out the forms. Every time you go in for another check, you have to go through all this stuff. It‘s not like that they‘re not just writing checks.
Anyway, thank you, James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation. And, Mark Green, thanks for having you on.

GREEN: Thank you.


Sherk, like any good conservative, never has a doubt. Those jobs, he assures us, "in construction and finance, simply aren‘t coming back." There is no explanation of why they aren't coming back, only that they're not. And Sherk is almost giddy about it.

After Sherk claims that he knows people who are unemployed, Matthews asks him "Have you told them they‘re living off—they‘re living off the country too much, and to get off unemployment? Have you told that person yet?"

Sherk hasn't gotten around to it yet, probably because it's easier to describe strangers, rather than people you know, as lazy. He's critical of the long-term unemployed because "they‘re looking for jobs that match their skills" rather than taking a part-time job at minimum wage with few if any benefits.

He's not the only one, of course. That paragon of virtue, former House Speaker Tom DeLay, stated in March "there is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs." Tom Corbett, the Republican running for govenor of Pennsylvania, remarked at a campaign stop on July 9 "People don't want to come back to work while they still have unemployment. They're literally telling him, 'I'll come back to work when unemployment runs out.' That's becoming a problem."

Pennsylvania was the state to whose residents Senator Barack Obama was referring in the infamous "bitter" comment, which won for him widespread criticism for being "elitist." Now, several Republicans (including a prominent Pennsylvanian) have come out of the woodwork, inferring that most Americans who have been employed for a long time are lazy. Democrats should call them on that and make the argument that the GOP has little respect for American workers, refusing even to agree to extend unemployment benefits to them, which would have the added benefit of stimulating the econmy.

Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the argument would be undercut by the support of the accusers for increased migration to the United States by Mexicans, who would perform the jobs which we are assured Americans are unwilling to do. Embracing the American worker is an obvious electoral strategy. Look for Democrats to avoid it.

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Cracking Down On Workers

Sharron Angle, the far-right Republican nominated to square off against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November, had some uncharitable words for the unemployed recently:

You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job, but it doesn't pay as much. And so that's what's happened to us is that we have put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry and said you don't want the jobs that are available.

Roundly criticized, Angle a week later clarified her remark:

I was criticized for saying that Americans won't do certain jobs and the reason that they won't do certain jobs is because they get more pay on unemployment than they can get to work those...those good jobs that are really out there. What has happened is Harry Reid has just extended unemployment and when he did that he not only made it so that people are less employable, but he makes it so that they want to be dependent on the government. This entitlement pays them more than getting a real job.

It might seem a little difficult to run for a U.S. Senate seat by telling Nevadans they are lazy. Rush Limbaugh seemingly is a little more ambivalent, contending "We've got a lot of people who think being an American means being taken care of, but I think a lot of these people on unemployment want to work."

But if Angle's contempt for American workers is more explicit, the rationalization is the same. For Angle, it is that unemployment compensation "makes it so that they want to be dependent on the government"- they're lazy, and it's government that has made them that way. For Limbaugh, it is "policies (of Speaker Pelosi) along with the president are creating circumstances where people who want to work cannot. It's just that simple. Obamaville is all about welfare checks, and Obamaville is the country."

Fortunately, Angle, who says that she would have joined her GOP colleagues in voting against extension of unemployment benefits, and Limbaugh, who claims "taking money away from people who are working and giving it to people who aren't is creating jobs," are both wrong.

David Card, Raj Chetty, and Andrea Webber concluded in a 2007 paper that most people do not wait until their unemployment benefits run out to secure further employment. A 1990 paper, based on 1970s data seemed to indicate otherwise. However, one of the authors, Lawrence Katz, recognized those findings aren't relevant when jobs are less plentiful and stated in 2009 "I strongly favor extensions of UI benefits when the labor market is weak and the ratio of job seekers to job openings is very high."

Katz noted also that extending unemployment benefits can provide a quick, temporary fiscal stimulus. That brings us back to Limbaugh, fantasizing "putting it (money) back in the private sector is not growing the private sector. Taking money away from people who are working and giving it to people who aren't is (sic) creating jobs. Somebody at home getting an unemployment check is not working."

Thankfully, Speaker Pelosi understands what not only labor economists such as Katz but almost all other economists recognize:

....unemployment insurance -- we talk about it as a safety net and the rest -- this is one of the biggest stimuluses (sic) to our economy. Economists will tell you, this money is spent quickly. It injects demand into the economy, and it's job creating. It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name; because, again, it is money that is needed for families to survive and it is spent. So it has a double benefit. It helps those who have lost their jobs but it also is a job-creator.

So it isn't necessary to attack the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sharron Angle for looking down on American workers, nor to note that they rationalize their disdain by blaming government for making those workers lazy. They do all that of course, but, additionally, they are simply wrong.

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Lock Up The Unemployed!

As we all are aware,

Republicans on Thursday defeated Democrats’ showcase election-year jobs bill, including an extension of weekly unemployment benefits for millions of people out of work more than six months.

The 57-41 vote fell three votes short of the 60 required to crack a GOP filibuster, delivering a major blow to President Barack Obama and Democrats facing big losses of House and Senate seats in the fall election.

The rejected bill would also have provided $16 billion in new aid to states, preserving the jobs of thousands of state and local government workers and providing what White House officials called an insurance policy against a double-dip recession. It also included dozens of tax breaks sought by business lobbyists, and tax increases on domestically produced oil and on investment fund managers.

The demise of the bill means that unemployment benefits will phase out for more than 200,000 people a week. Governors who had been counting on federal aid will now have to consider a fresh round of budget cuts, tax hikes and layoffs of state workers.

Thursday night, Rachel Maddow effectively summarized (transcript here; video below) the implications of the defeat of the legislation, as well as the nature of the GOP opposition. Included in comments by Republicans disdainful of the American worker was one in which Utah Senator Orrin Hatch sarcastically remarked

You know, we should be giving people cash who… who basically are just going to blow it on drugs.

Maddow added "Senator Hatch actually proposed an amendment to the jobs bill earlier this month, to force anyone getting unemployment benefits to submit to a drug test, because, you know, land of the free and all that. Now pee in this cup."

Aside from holding a contemptuous attitude toward unemployed workers, Hatch must have forgotten that he is supposed to be against big government. Back in March, he told CNN's Campbell Brown "Those on the other (conservative side of the health care debate, of whom he was one) feel deeply about the big spending, big government, big controls, and, of course, some of the provisions of this -- of these two bills."

Yet, Hatch apparently wants to jack up the size of the federal government, and increase its costs, by establishing a whole new function- testing applicants for unemployed benefits. Or perhaps he wants the state government to fund the entire procedure because, after all, what the 50 states need more than ever now is another unfunded mandate. Drug testing is, of course, more than drug testing. It is training employeees for the procedure, setting up an appointment for (presumably) urinalysis, administering the test (in-house or contracted out), evaluating the results, and taking the action prompted by the results.

The action prompted by the results gets into real money. When, as is inevitable, people start testing positive for illegal drugs, law enforcement will need to be notified and can hardly turn a blind eye to a violation of criminal law. And what this country needs more than anything is more citizens incarcerated for non-violent offenses, at least victimless crimes. (Yes, drug possession is victimless. Some people argue otherwise. They would be wrong.) Among steps taken by states to reduce expenditures on criminal justice and hold their budgets in check, according to USA Today in March, 2009, were:

• A California panel of federal judges recommended last month that the cash-strapped state release up to 57,000 non-violent inmates from the overcrowded system to help save $800 million.

• Kentucky officials last year allowed for the early release of non-violent offenders up to six months before their sentences end to serve the balance of their time at home.

The budget crunch in most states, and thus consideration of drastic measures to reduce costs, has only intensified in the last sixteen months. And Orrin Hatch wants to find men and women who have lost their jobs and use illegal drugs so that they can be denied benefits and, unavoidably, prosecuted.

Some Republicans will go to great lengths to bar the American people from helping Americans who are down-and-out.

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Change, McCain-Style

Maybe John McCain was being truthful when at his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, he said "change is coming." McCain said also

I know some of you have been left behind in the changing economy and it often seems your government hasn't even noticed. Government assistance for unemployed workers was designed for the economy of the 1950s. That's going to change on my watch.

Senator McCain is now on the record as seemingly opposed to unemployment insurance. He also is on the record as opposing Social Security, having declared at a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, Ohio in July, 2008:

Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers ... and that's a disgrace.

So John McCain does believe in change. Radical change. Change that harms the unemployed and the elderly.