Today I re-posted two articles that I think are significant to the unemployed if they rely on any type of government assistance. One article debates what the Republicans define as "welfare" and the other article refers to the Republican's proposed cuts in spending next year.
Also read "The Human Disaster of Unemployment", posted in the New York Times by Dean Baker and Kevin Hassett on May 12, 2012:
"Older workers have seen the largest proportionate increase in unemployment. The number of unemployed people between ages 50 and 65 has more than doubled. A worker between ages 50 and 61 who has been unemployed for 17 months has only about a 9 percent chance of finding a new job. Economists estimates a 50 to 100 percent increase in death rates for older male workers in the years immediately following a job loss if they previously had been consistently employed. There are various reasons for this rise in mortality. One is suicide."
CEOs Press Congress on Debt
(Editor's Note: Starve the Beast is the well-documented and radical 34-year-old plan that Mitt Romney, the Republicans, and the Tea Party endorses for deliberately bankrupting the government.)
Without a deficit-reduction deal by the end of the year, the Bush-era tax cuts and this year's payroll-tax cut will expire at year's end, and about $1.2 trillion in spending reductions—half from defense programs and half from domestic programs—will take place over the next decade. Of those cuts, $98 billion are scheduled to take effect next year.
Democrats want to use tax increases and spending
cuts; Republicans want to rely on cuts alone.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives just approved their plan by a vote of 218-199 that would prevent the military cuts
but make deeper cuts in antipoverty programs -- and has virtually no chance of approval by the Democratic-controlled Senate.
(*Editor's Note: The main hurdle to a deficit deal was the polarization of the parties, with the Republicans opening admitting that they refuse to
compromise, citing "principles", as though the Democrats don't also have
principles.) The GOP's principals are based on protecting large corporate interests
and pampering the most wealthy, while the Democrats are concerned with working Americans
and the poor.)
Some in Congress have tried to advance a measure in the House modeled after Simpson-Bowles, but it was defeated 382-38.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), has began openly discussing
on finding ways to delay the tax increases for at least three or six months.
The shape of any post-election deal would likely be influenced by the outcome of the November vote, which has led both parties to
hold back on substantive bipartisan talks.
(*Editor's Note: CEOs and Republican lawmakers involved in the effort don't want to wait until after the election to start looking at options -- they want their tax breaks made permanent now, despite whatever else might happen -- because they fear a Democratic victory and the Buffett Rule will be implemented on the ultra-rich.)
- "CEOs Press Congress on Debt" posted in the Wall Street Journal by Damiam Paletta (excerpted) on May 10, 2012
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