Let Them Eat Cake Coalition
In the Senate there is a bill in limbo for continuing unemployment benefits. Prior to the depression we’ve experienced, unemployment benefits ended at 26 weeks. These benefits had been extended. In some states they were up to 99 weeks. By not passing this bill, roughly 1.3 million people will stop receiving unemployment assistance almost immediately. This is happening in a time where many states have unemployment rates exceeding 10%. This bill which would continue unemployment benefits failed a cloture vote. I compiled a year ago a list of Senators that supported the bailout of Wall Street executives and opposed supporting autoworkers and workers employed at auto suppliers. Among those people, these are the one’s voting for the unemployed to eat cake.
Bob Bennett, R-UT (7.3%)
Richard Burr, R-NC (10.3%)
Saxby Chambliss, R-GA (10.2%)
Tom Coburn, R-OK (6.7%)
Bob Corker, R-TN (10.4%)
John Ensign, R-NV (14.0%)
Chuck Grassley, R-IA (10.0%)
Judd Gregg, R-NH (6.4%)
Orrin Hatch, R-UT (7.3%)
Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-TX (8.3%)
Johnny Isakson, R-GA (10.2%)
John Kyl, R-AZ (9.6%)
John McCain, R-AZ (9.6%)
Mitch McConnell, R-KY (10.4%)
John Thune, R-SD (4.6%)
Dishonorable mentions for Senators voting for the unemployed to eat cake with state unemployment rates exceeding 10%.
Sessions, R-AL (10.8%)
Shelby, R-AL (10.8%)
LeMieux, R-FL (11.7%)
Lugar, R-IN (10.0%)
Bunning, R-KY (10.4%)
Cochran, R-MS (11.4%)
Wicker, R-MS (11.4%)
Voinovich, R-OH (10.7%)
DeMint, R-SC (11.0%)
Graham, R-SC (11.0%)
As I heard one of cable TV’s talking heads say last night, the GOPers are voting against the bill to send a message to the unemployed that they should get up off their lazy butts and go out and find a job–a job that the same GOPers say isn’t there, because of Barack Obama. Go figure.
South Carolina–my “home state” in America, if I have one–full of illiterates, the politically and fiscally unsophisticated, as well as some of the most racist people in America. DeMint and Graham will NOT have to pay for these votes because their corporate backers will erase the memory of them by election day. The state is “too small to be a country, but too big to be an insane asylum.”
Oh, it’s worse than this. Excessive risk-taking and greed in the financial sector almost caused a second Great Depression and led to 34 million more unemployed across the world (ILO figures) and 60 million more living in extreme poverty (World Bank figures). This can be traced directly to the laissez-faire zeal of Reagan and his acolytes- a quarter of a century later, we are reaping the ugly rewards of their ideology.
And today, the Republicans stand against any attempt to regulate the financial sector more effectively, any attempt to tax the financial sector, all the while opposing this unemployment benefit extension. Remember, Mitch McConnell tried out his anti-regulation talking point right after a meeting with top Wall Street financiers.