Ben Nelson

Unemployment Filibuster- It Is Time For Daily Hearings

Bill Egnor — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 08:26:55 -0500

Since the Republicans have managed to stand tall on their intransigence that up to 2 million unemployed Americans should lose their meager benefits, perhaps it is time to start introducing them to some of the unemployed. We have heard the Dickensian pronouncements on the Senate floor that the unemployed are lazy, that the benefits they receive are keeping them from looking for work, that it is more important in a financial crisis to cut spending (and thus cut the over all recovery off at the knees) than it is to help our fellow Americans who, through no fault of their own, are now paying the price for financial deregulation.

As long as this debate is kept in abstract terms it is easy for those Republicans who have a conscience (all three of them) to talk about how we should be burdening our children and grandchildren with debt. It is time to use the very effective method of hearings to bring the real face of the long term unemployed right into the face of the heartless and petty Republican majority.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

Imagine the scene; there are the Senators all in their expensive suits, high end electronics at their sides, expensive watches at their wrists, sitting in the lovely hearing rooms at the Capital. In come the five witnesses, the laid off factory worker in his mid-forties, single mom who was an administrative assistant for a medium size company, the engineer who worked her whole life at one company and now is unlikely to find a job in her field again because of age bias, the construction worker who used to build houses and the coffee shop worker who lost her job to hours cuts.

They come to the Senate in their very best clothes, just like everyone does, but it is instantly apparent that what is their best is something the Senators would never consider wearing in their hallowed halls of the Greatest Deliberative Body in the World. What would our witnesses tell the Senators? They would testify to the reality that people like Senator Ben Nelson (D (sort of)-NB) and Senator Scott Brown (Dumbass-MA) seem to have forgotten or never known, that unemployment benefits are not enough to really live on.

They will tell the story of filling out there five or so required applications every week, in order to get that small check that puts food on the table. They will talk about the crushing despair of applying for more than 260 jobs, going on interview after interview and still not being able to be hired. They will talk about what it has done to their families; the bankruptcies, the loss of their homes, the grinding fear that they will have to choose between the water bill and putting food on the table for their kids this month.

If one day of this does not move the stone-hearted Senators of the Republican Party and one Democrat (I am looking straight at your corn-fed jowly face Sen. Nelson!) and make them realize that this is not an abstract thing, then every committee that has anything to do with employment should hold the same kind of hearing everyday until it does.

There is a lot of information that these Senators don’t seem to have. The average maximum unemployment benefit is $293 dollars a week. That is less than $1,200 a month, and it is the maximum. The highest benefit is $628 in Massachusetts, and the lowest is in Mississippi which expects folks to get by on $230 dollars a week at the top end. It might be interesting to see if these Senators really think that there are people who want to stay on that kind of money.

It is true that there are some who are not taking lower paying jobs, because their benefits are better than the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Why would they do that? Well it might have something to do with the fact that they are already going under financially on the amount of money they are getting in benefits, so taking a job where they will make less does not actually make things any better.

It might serve to make the Republicans like Sharon Angle and Rand Paul happy with people working “honest jobs” but the reality is those not taking a wage lower than their benefits are making the rational decision. They will not get COBRA subsidies when they are employed and those types of jobs are extremely unlikely to have health care benefits. The net affect of this would be to make their financial crisis worse by orders of magnitude.

Having hearings that show what the real face of the deepest economic crisis in generations would have another benefit. This move to neo-Hooverism austerity measures and deficit reduction will mean that millions more of our fellow citizens will face the same hardships of the long term unemployed. Turning off the only source of demand in the economy, namely government spending, at this point verges on the insane. The fact that every dollar of unemployment benefits comes back to the economy as $1.92 of GDP should be enough reason to keep the money flowing, but that is not how they think (assuming, of course that the Jethro Bodine’s of the Republican Party actually think).

The same Senators that happily (even gleefully) signed us up for a trillion plus in war spending on a war of choice need to understand what the cost of tightening the belt of the nation will really mean. There is no doubt that they are not going to be tightening their belts. None of them will be giving up their $174,000 per annum salaries in the name of deficit reduction, even the ones who are multi-millionaires.

I have a little sympathy for Senators, it is easy to get out of touch with the practical realities of day to day life in America when you are in such rarified company and settings. There is a tendency to look at the overall or philosophical issues, especially when one is part of a party that is so ideologically rigid. However the time has come to bring their heads out of the clouds and force them to see the real life consequences of their cold hearted intransigence face to face. Perhaps then they will understand what they are doing by their politically motivated stunt of denying desperate citizens the one life line they can count on.

It may not move them, but it will surely move the public. To see day after day the plight of our fellow citizens will stoke the anger at Republican obstructionism. It is a cold political calculation, but if the Republicans will not help the formerly working people of this nation they then should be made to pay for it at the ballot box. By showing the kinds of stories the unemployed are living and juxtaposing the words and actions of Republicans we can show the voters who is really on their side and who is completely and totally on the side of the powerful and wealthy.

It is time to have ongoing hearings. I don’t understand why Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have not started doing this, but it is time for them to get the message. Take a minute and call their offices and let them know you think it is a good idea to show the real face of the unemployed and stop the Republicans for slandering our fellow citizens who can not find work.

Here are their office numbers:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi – 202-225-0100 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 202-225-0100 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Majority Leader Reid – 202-224-3542

The floor is yours.

Can't Vote With The Democratic Party? There Is The Door

Bill Egnor — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:41:49 -0600

I am a life long Democrat and Liberal. There is nothing but pride in those appellations for me. I have been a supporter of the idea of the Big Tent since before I really understood that it did to refer to the Party and the Circus. However, there is a limit and that limit has been reached. It is not acceptable for politicians to be able to call themselves Democrats and then piss on the party’s agenda from a great height.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

I am specifically looking at the Blue Dogs in the House and Senators Bayh, Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, and Lieberman. The time has come for them to either leave the party or be replaced. You have collectively benefited from millions of dollars of campaign donations from the DSCC and from the work of tens of thousands of union members and Democratic volunteers over the course of your political careers.

During the last eight years in particular, the party was willing to give you a pass as you voted with the Republicans because we knew there would come a day when we would be in majority, when we would be able to count on your votes for the agenda the party set, even if they were only in procedural motions. We waited as your actions enabled some of the worst legislation possible. Your votes empowered a Supreme Court that has just overturned 100 years of precedent, and made the chances of the people’s voice being heard in the halls of power infinitely smaller.

Then the day came when we had an overwhelming majority and instead of supporting your party to allow 51 vote majority to pass the legislation the nation wanted, you showed yourselves to be completely craven. You allowed the Republicans and the Insurance Cartel to negotiate away any of the provisions that would have made a difference for the people of the nation. You’re failure to stand up for the middle class, who are the great majority of the voters put in place a plan that raises less money than the House and does it on the backs of that very middle class.

You have played politics with the lives of millions of Americans, 45,000 of whom will die this year because you could not be counted on to be loyal to the party that has been loyal to you. Well enough is enough. I have concluded that the party would be better off without you. If you cannot be counted on to support, the agenda of the party with even a vote to end debate, then there is the door! Be sure to let it hit you good and hard on the ass on the way out!

If you can’t be counted on for even an ounce of loyalty to a mandate that gave our party a huge majority in both Houses of Congress and the Presidency, then you are not worth keeping in our party. Here is the dirty little secret too; you have no future in the Republican Party either. Sure, they would welcome you with open arms now, but the minute you are up for reelection you will be primared and abandoned. If you think this is not the case, just take a look at conservative stalwarts like Sen. Hatch of Utah, who will face a primary from his right this cycle.

Here is where your cowardice and disloyalty has brought you. You have dithered, cowered, and compromised to the point where the people of the nation who needed your help will continue to suffer. You have so enraged them that you have critically damaged your party’s chances of maintaining those majorities. You have through your actions contributed to the deaths, in a single year, of fifteen times as many as Al Qaeda killed on 9/11. You have brought shame and derision on yourself and the political party that has supported you for your entire career. This, Senators, is your legacy. This is what you will always be remembered for, craven lack of even the most basic loyalty to the caucus you belong to.

The time has long past for you to act like Democrats. The time now is for you to leave or be replaced. It is clear from polling in all of your states and nation wide that the compromise you forced is not what the people you nominally represent want. The Liberals and Progressives in the Democratic caucus let you whittle this down to a jagged little pill because they understood that there was and is a real need. You failed to even have this basic understanding of the issue. If you can not be counted on to exercise judgment, can not be counted on to exert some back bone and finally can not be counted on to be loyal, then you are useless. Your time is up.

This fall the Democratic Party is going to face a because of your craven actions. I will be working to replace all of you who face re-election with a Democrat, conservative, moderate, or liberal, who will understand there is a requirement for loyalty received and that is loyalty given. Your services, such as they are, are no longer required.

The floor is yours.