why does the GOP fight continuing Unemployment insurance?

[callmeslick]

Every study has shown that the investment grows the economy, and the longer term return in taxes and secondary employment revenue is well worth it. Why does the GOP fight economic growth at every turn? Sort of puts the lie to their premise that they are concerned about the economy.....or jobs.

[Tunnelcat]

Anything that helps Obama is not something they want to get behind, PERIOD. That's the ONLY reason I can see for their intransigence that keeps stifling job growth. But the good news is that the economy IS growing slowly despite their machinations. It must be royally pissing them off too.

[Nightshade]

It's slowly trying to recover IN SPITE of Obama and his democrats.

If the burdens of Obama, the uncertainty of his disaster of a presidency and democrat strangled senate were lifted, the economy would roar back to life.

[Spidey]

Every study has shown that the investment grows the economy, and the longer term return in taxes and secondary employment revenue is well worth it. Why does the GOP fight economic growth at every turn? Sort of puts the lie to their premise that they are concerned about the economy.....or jobs.

Why do you even care what an obsolete party does?

[Top Gun]

Because they still control the House, and enough of the Senate to represent significant obstacles.

[Spidey]

Both parties need some obstruction.

[Will Robinson]

I'm curious about all these studies that prove unemployment subsidies grow the economy.

Do any of them take into account the whole effect of using government revenue to give it to unemployed to spend?

Obviously you could print billions of dollars and dump it in the hands of spenders but that would have negative effects. Devaluing the currency, reducing productivity, etc.

Slick, do these studies you cite factor in the effect on the economy that generating the subsidy has? Or do they limit their focus to counting the introduction of the subsidy into the economy by the recipient without considering the before and after affects of mandating the taxation of the funds, or the 'printing of money' to create the funds, paying interest on the 'created' funds, etc. etc.
Do the studies calculate the percentage of recipients who never return to the work force, or return later due to the availability of subsidies and factor that against the net positive results you are claiming?

Generally speaking, new money introduced to a system isn't growth if it isn't really new money.

[callmeslick]

It's slowly trying to recover IN SPITE of Obama and his democrats.

utter nonsense. Left in the GOP hands, we would still be in the worst recession in decades, if not an outright depression.

If the burdens of Obama, the uncertainty of his disaster of a presidency and democrat strangled senate were lifted, the economy would roar back to life.

were it not for his unwavering calm in the face of utter stupidity and roadblocks, the economy would be in the toilet altogether.

[callmeslick]

I'm curious about all these studies that prove unemployment subsidies grow the economy.

if this is truly the case, then Google is your friend. Look them up, they are very numerous.

Do any of them take into account the whole effect of using government revenue to give it to unemployed to spend?

yes, as I laid out above, they HAVE to.

Obviously you could print billions of dollars and dump it in the hands of spenders but that would have negative effects. Devaluing the currency, reducing productivity, etc.

obviously, but as the spending deficit is shrinking, this isn't the case, and hasn't been.

Slick, do these studies you cite factor in the effect on the economy that generating the subsidy has? Or do they limit their focus to counting the introduction of the subsidy into the economy by the recipient without considering the before and after affects of mandating the taxation of the funds, or the 'printing of money' to create the funds, paying interest on the 'created' funds, etc. etc.
Do the studies calculate the percentage of recipients who never return to the work force, or return later due to the availability of subsidies and factor that against the net positive results you are claiming?

all this data is available, although I've never seen one study cover them all at once.

Generally speaking, new money introduced to a system isn't growth if it isn't really new money.

it's called investment, and it works most of the time.

[Spidey]

The question always has to be focused on the narrower issue of whether the benefits should be extended, not a peripheral question, because investment is a separate issue, the government could simply make investment separate of unemployment.

I really see that as a way to cloud the issue.

So as far as the basic question, well that’s a hard one, I have seen studies where people tend to stay unemployed longer when benefits are extended.

So it’s a very hard call, but in bad times like these, I would have to lean on the side on extending them…notice I didn’t speak for the Republicans.

[Top Gun]

So as far as the basic question, well that’s a hard one, I have seen studies where people tend to stay unemployed longer when benefits are extended.

I'm sure that is true to some extent, since it gives you the luxury to not have to scramble for a new job as quickly, but I'd just about put money on the jobs that those people find being higher-quality as a whole than they would have without the extension. One of the problems with the recovery from this past recession has been that a lot of people were forced to take lower-paying positions just to get any jobs at all, and widespread under-employment doesn't do anyone any favors.

[Spidey]

Well, according to an article I seen on The NewsHour, the longer people remain unemployed the “more” likely they are to have to settle for a lesser job. >shrug<

Who knows, I would probably say it could go either way, depending on many different things.

[callmeslick]

The question always has to be focused on the narrower issue of whether the benefits should be extended, not a peripheral question, because investment is a separate issue, the government could simply make investment separate of unemployment.

the point is that under the current type of recovery, the benefits ARE a very good bang-for-the-buck investment.


I have trouble, based on the folks I know who have collected unemployment that anyone would prefer that payout to a paycheck. Maybe, if one is getting the State maximum, it might be an incentive not to take a much lower paying job, but for most folks, getting 50% or less of what you used to make isn't a good deal......and, the money is still taxable income.

[Will Robinson]

The only way it boosts the economy is if you pay for it out of increased tax revenue. If you just run up the debt, print more currency etc. to fund the benefits then you are just borrowing against the economy and the payments will ultimately come back and bite the economy in the butt.

If you bring in a new tax dollar for every benefit dollar (after tax) you hand out it works. It becomes a transfer of wealth from those who are earning enough to pay taxes to those that are not and they will of course spend it.

It isn't what I would call the best investment in the economy we can make though! The return is not nearly as good as educating or training someone to earn a decent paycheck that is 100% new money...especially since they run up debt to cover the funding of programs.
You have to have a balanced budget to be able to count, in good faith, every dollar of the stimulus effect as a dollar in the "boost" column.

In government they get away with that kind of accounting but that same government will put you and me in jail for that kind of accounting...
For us we can't count a debt as an asset or fail to include some of our debts on the financial statement to make the bottom line look better.

[Krom]

The return is not nearly as good as educating or training someone to earn a decent paycheck that is 100% new money.

This does not compute. Where or in what context is this "100% new money" coming from? I mean, unless you are working for the federal government and they pay you in freshly minted cash, it is supposed to be impossible to earn "100% new money". A paycheck is a transfer of existing funds from the employer to the employee, it doesn't create any money.

[Will Robinson]

The return is not nearly as good as educating or training someone to earn a decent paycheck that is 100% new money.

This does not compute. Where or in what context is this "100% new money" coming from? I mean, unless you are working for the federal government and they pay you in freshly minted cash, it is supposed to be impossible to earn "100% new money". A paycheck is a transfer of existing funds from the employer to the employee, it doesn't create any money.

I guess "new" was a bad word choice.

It is new to the government, as in the growth of the economy from more people buying things from more producers creates revenue that the government didn't have.

If the government uses revenue it already took from someone in taxes and then gives it to someone else to spend then any subsequent revenue created from that purchase isn't 100% because it 'cost' the government the outlay in unemployment payment to initially introduce that money into the economy to then receive a percentage in 'new revenue'.

Hence my complaint about the way these studies value the stimulus of unemployment compensation as such a great investment.

The government doesn't produce product so money it receives isn't coming from increasing the GDP. Money it reintroduces to the economy doesn't come without a cost to someone who already earned it in the first place (tax)....or...a cost to all taxpayers in the form of future debt(taxes) if the government decides to print money to introduce it into the economy. The government takes money from the economy in order to then put some back in and then get a small bit back.

If the government spends $10,000 in a year on someone by just giving them some cash the return on that investment is marginal and limited. A percentage of a percentage of the business his spending the $10,000 adds to the growth of the economy.

If they spend 10,000 teaching that person to weld pipe and bend sheet metal that person can earn money from producers (the economy grows) and spend it for the rest of his life and the revenue the government realizes from that new worker (his taxes) and the economic growth his contribution and his consumption creates(his employers profit on his work, his landlord and grocer etc, also profit on him and pay taxes) soon surpasses the investment and continues far longer than the unemployment benefits bring back from paying his bills.
Once he learns to weld he doesn't need anymore payments. Once he spends his unemployment check he needs another one....

[callmeslick]

If they spend 10,000 teaching that person to weld pipe and bend sheet metal that person can earn money from producers (the economy grows) and spend it for the rest of his life and the revenue the government realizes from that new worker (his taxes) and the economic growth his contribution and his consumption creates(his employers profit on his work, his landlord and grocer etc, also profit on him and pay taxes) soon surpasses the investment and continues far longer than the unemployment benefits bring back from paying his bills.
Once he learns to weld he doesn't need anymore payments. Once he spends his unemployment check he needs another one....

they do this as well, but without that comp check while he/she is learning whatever new trade, his/her family could not survive. More importantly, without that check, his/her family would have no money to be consumers of food and other basics, and this would have the effect of depressing the segment of the economy devoted to producing those basics, and to persons working to deliver those basics to the consumer. A vicious cycle would ensue.

[Will Robinson]

I'm not suggesting unemployment insurance payments are wrong, or even that they shouldn't be extended (that should depend on the effort of the recipient to seek employment).

I'm just suggesting the characterization of the unemployment payment as a 'better investment' is lame.

I looked at a few of those studies and they all calculate the net benefit of the dollars travels through the economy without deducting the cost of delivering that dollar, without considering the removal of that dollar from the economy in the first place in order to have it to redistribute, without factoring the debt it can put on the economy if it is created out of whole cloth to distribute and without any consideration of prolonging the recipients time away from employment.

Their reported 'net' result is far from a true net result.

[callmeslick]

I'm not suggesting unemployment insurance payments are wrong, or even that they shouldn't be extended (that should depend on the effort of the recipient to seek employment).

I'm just suggesting the characterization of the unemployment payment as a 'better investment' is lame.

it is not that I suggested it to be a 'better' investment, nor that I compared it to anything else. I merely noted it is a VERY GOOD investment of government monies, and returns more than it costs and is shown to actually help the economy recover. No more, no less.

[Will Robinson]

The studies you told me to look for are being promoted by numerous 'media' pundits as best, better, etc.

I'm allergic to spin and talking points and they currently are creating a meme with the 'better' analogy. I'm guessing this topic must be from a current bill up for vote?

[callmeslick]

The studies you told me to look for are being promoted by numerous 'media' pundits as best, better, etc.

I'm allergic to spin and talking points and they currently are creating a meme with the 'better' analogy. I'm guessing this topic must be from a current bill up for vote?

yes. The topic was brought up by me when the House resisted extending the benefits(a bill which passed the Senate easily), and might well go home for Christmas without extending the benefits. Nice of them to enjoy a little Holiday Cheer when pulling the plug on a couple million people as of Jan 2.

[Spidey]

I’d be curious for you to answer the question yourself. (OP)

[callmeslick]

I’d be curious for you to answer the question yourself. (OP)

I can't, Spidey. It makes no sense for them, especially given the issues around demographics, and losing working people's votes to the Dems more every election. I understand that they have some sort of ideology that opposed ANY government involvement in social programs, but I think the earlier opinion that 'they don't wish to do anything to help Obama succeed' is closer to the actual WHY involved. In so doing, they have, once again, prevented the nation as a whole from progressing, economically, and as I say, it makes no sense to me as a long-term strategy.

[callmeslick]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/0 ... ap=%5B%5D#

[Tunnelcat]

It's slowly trying to recover IN SPITE of Boehner and the House Republicans wasting our tax dollars sitting on their hands and trying to outlaw abortion and kill Obamacare over and over and over......

:FIXED IT FOR YA TB.:


The House Republicans are like a bunch of cats. They can't be herded.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the ... nt-be-led/

"Republicans continue to act as an opposition party and not as a governing party, which is congruent with increasing parliamentary behavior among the electorate and their elected officials," said one former Republican lawmaker. "This is not a path to a majority. House Republicans need to recognize their destinies are intertwined.

It's not the first time that the GOP leadership team of House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio.), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) have failed to wrangle conservatives allied with the tea party into line."

[Tunnelcat]

Not only are they fighting unemployment insurance, but ANY budget at all, even one that Paul Ryan helped author. Even this budget doesn't fix unemployment benefits, so the libs don't particularly like it either. But I'm guessing the libs won't block it like the tea partiers will.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... roy#r=read

[woodchip]

Every study has shown that the investment grows the economy, and the longer term return in taxes and secondary employment revenue is well worth it. Why does the GOP fight economic growth at every turn? Sort of puts the lie to their premise that they are concerned about the economy.....or jobs.

Since you link no study and expect us to lap up your opinion as truth from on high, lets look at some studies about raising minimum wage and poverty:

"Many economists have examined the evidence and come to the surprising conclusion that the minimum wage does not reduce poverty. Ohio University economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway examined the effect that increases in the minimum wage had on the overall poverty rate in the United States and on the poverty rates for groups like minorities and teenagers that might especially benefit from higher minimum wages.[1] They found that the minimum wage had no statistically detectable effect on poverty rates."

"Other researchers have approached the evidence in different ways and reached the same conclusion. For example, economists David Neumark of the University of California-Irvine, Mark Schweitzer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, and William Wascher of the Federal Reserve Board examined how the minimum wage affects the incomes of families living near the poverty line. In a series of papers, they repeatedly reached the same conclusion as Vedder and Gallaway: A higher minimum wage does not lift low-income families out of poverty.[2] Their results were particularly clear:

The answer we obtain to the question of whether minimum wage increases reduce the proportion of poor and low-income families is a fairly resounding "no." The evidence on both family income distributions and changes in incomes experienced by families indicates that minimum wages raise the incomes of some poor families, but that their net effect is to increase the portion of families that are poor and near-poor.[3]"

Some reasons why increasing minimum wage has no effect.:

"First, the only workers who benefit from a higher minimum wage are those who actually earn that higher wage. Raising the minimum wage reduces many workers' job opportunities and working hours."

"Second, few minimum-wage earners actually come from poor households."

"Third, the majority of poor Americans do not work at all, for any wage, so raising the minimum wage does not help them."

http://www.heritage.org/research/report ... ce-poverty

Now if you want to refute the above kindly reply from some source other than a rich friend of yours says so or one of your fishing buddies who owns a small business is eager for this to take effect.

[vision]

Since when is minimum wage supposed to lift people out of poverty? Minimum wage is poverty. We raise it to keep it in line with the cost of living increases. A minimum wage is the minimum thing you can do and still be considered civilized and humanitarian.

[woodchip]

Since when is minimum wage supposed to lift people out of poverty? Minimum wage is poverty. We raise it to keep it in line with the cost of living increases. A minimum wage is the minimum thing you can do and still be considered civilized and humanitarian.

Nice logic. Now use that to explain how raising the minimum wage is going to stop the downward economic slide the middle class is going thru.

[vision]

Nice logic. Now use that to explain how raising the minimum wage is going to stop the downward economic slide the middle class is going thru.

Since when is minimum wage supposed to stop the erosion of the middle class?

[Tunnelcat]

Since when is minimum wage supposed to stop the erosion of the middle class?

It doesn't. But it sure helps those who fall out of the middle class and need a job that doesn't pay slave wages to support their families. Personally, I'd rather people had enough money to pay rent and buy food, rather than have to resort to stealing or other crimes just to survive.

[Tunnelcat]

Oooooooooh, Boehner does have a spine after all.

http://gma.yahoo.com/john-boehner-fed-3 ... 16296.html