House Republicans Opposed To Extended Unemployment Benefits Could Pay The Price In 2014

[LoveLife&Laughter]

 

The left-leaning Public Policy Polling surveyed voters in four key congressional districts, as well as House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) district, to gauge support for extending unemployment . The poll, funded by the liberal advocacy group Americans United for Change, showed that voters across party lines were overwhelmingly in favor of extending the benefits, with 63 to 68 percent of voters in each district expressing support for preserving jobless benefits.

Voters in the four districts surveyed said they were less likely to vote for the Republican incumbent in 2014 -- by at least a 9-point margin -- were he to vote to cut off extended unemployment benefits.

Moderate Republicans urged Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to rescue jobless benefits for the longterm unemployed earlier in December, saying the issue was "important to many American families." But Boehner would only consider the proposal if cuts were made elsewhere and job growth guaranteed, and the measure ultimately did not make it into Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget deal.

"Speaker Boehner and fellow Washington Republicans are hopelessly out-of-touch, and their decision to Scrooge over a million unemployed Americans three days after Christmas is the latest and among the worst examples of it,

"All these struggling Americans got from the GOP for Christmas was a ‘Get Employed Soon’ card."

Looks like the Tea Party may be packing up their "Bags".

[base2final]

We should just extend benefits to infinity and beyond.

[LoveLife&Laughter]

Base, we mised'ya.  Glad your still alive and kick'en, afraid maybe you died and went to heaven.

[exedir]

Question is as to how this will be brought up, in the House it is all up to Speaker Boehner.  As to his situation, his district is less of a concern than his speakership.  

There are some issues that will hit even before unemployment extension can be brought up such as the debt ceiling.  The best leverage the Democrats had to extend the 99 benefit weeks was the budget compromise with Ryan and Murray bill but, strangely, didn't not go to the mattresses to push for.

The guess is that the calculus on this was as going to be a useful back stop to the drumbeat on the trouble with ObamaCare that the president and the Democrats were going to have to take this winter, and paint the post-Grinch holiday present on the Republicans as the actual beneficiaries were dropped and not getting their payments.  

The real problem is with UI is it was not intended to deal with structural unemployment and only short-term, while the 99'ers represent the structurally unemployed who won't get hired in 199th week unless the economy picks up and the labor pool become more buoyant which is going to take a long time, which, if the other leg of the progressive agenda is past, rising the minimum wage, is going to put more into the unemployed pool who are going to have to compete for the lowest level, lowest wage jobs.

As to structural unemployed, even the usual remedy of job training and education aren't going to do much until there are employers looking for workers to fill those jobs.

[LoveLife&Laughter]

Too bad Obama could not get Congress to pass the jobs and stimulus bills sent down.

I know Rs want Obama to fail, but don't you think independent people/voters will remember in 2014 / 20116, etc?

[exedir]

Question is how they fall on issues and, if so, will they vote, independents that is.  

2014 is a midterm election and happens at the midterm point of a lame duck(there is that duck thing again) presidency.  What we have here is a traditional bring out the base event of which flavor of independents get involved, and which way will they lean, much less vote.  This will also have a lot to do with the candidates that actually show up on the ballots.

We had inevitability before, Hillary was in 2008, but something happened on the way to the White House, This time, well, this time her path is same but, she can't run a campaign like parade and she can't just use a parade wave to win 2016.  The question is will she have to bend left and will that expose her as a leftie when she isn't, really left at all.  Her hope is the economy is running smoothly, the ACA has been fixed and working, that the middle east isn't in flames and Bill will stay home and not see this as his 3rd term.

[LoveLife&Laughter]

The ACA may or may not succeed.  Conservatives have done the best they can to obstruct its success. Only time will tell if they succeeded.  

In this case a win for the right is no healthcare for an increasing number of working American families.  I don't think Hillary is worried that she could be identified as a lefty having no part in this outrage.  

More and more people seem to be proud of supporting the left.  In fact the call for Universal Healthcare / Single Payer Healthcare is getting louder and louder.  Medicare / Medicaid is cheap compared to having to support the very expensive greed centered insurance corporations.  I hope Hillary doesn't make the same mistake Obama made that cost him the 2010 elections.  He was punished by his own base in 2010 for not supporting Universal Healthcare / Single Payer Healthcare. Instead he bent over backwards to the right trying to work with the right -- bunch of cheats, liars and scoundrels. 

Supporting the right supports racism, misogyny, homophobia, corporations, government dysfunction, dirty political tricks, leadership incompetence, and religious discrimination.  I don't think Hillary wants to be seen as leaning right to her base or to Independents.  She is proud of being seen as a lefty, and she should be. 

I'm going to guess that the left will turn out in force this 2014 to reverse the damage they did in 2010.  The Left has paid a terrible price for that ideological foolishness.