On the first day of the new year, let us ponder a moral question:
How many weeks of unemployment checks should you and I pay for?
I have difficulty envisioning anyone being out of work more than a month.
For now, never mind that the Obama administration has made it syruply enticing for millions of marginally serious workers to chase for jobs when they can lie around the house, guzzle liquor or drugs, and painlessly collect a government handout check until even they are bored.
One of the few admirable actions Republicans took last year was to drive a reduction in fairy tale-like unemployment checks from an astounding 99 weeks – two years, pal – to 73 weeks.
Imagine, getting paid for 73 consecutive weeks without ever rising from your comfy bed – unless you are motivated to even cash the check.
That nugget of gold combined with the food stamps that President (I Hate Working) Obama naively has been handing out like jelly beans on a street corner to anyone who wants them, have driven unemployment into the gutter.
Plainly, unemployment checks openly invite laziness and discourage job hunting.
Long term unemployment insurance lapsed last Saturday for 2 million persons, and Congress has not set a date for discussion of reviving the policy, although it seems likely to happen.
Naturally, Liberals Are in a Fury
Congressional liberals are angry about the stoppage – but then anger also is their reaction when they find out it is 3 o’clock instead of 2, or Thursday instead of Tuesday.
We are told Congress only allowed this to happen one time, for seven weeks in 2010.
“You can't continue to pay people not to work forever,” says U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble (D-WI), who became my new hero with those words. “Some decrease (from the present 73 weeks), some reduction in the deadline would be a good negotiating spot.”
Happily, only nine states pay the full 73 weeks.
Renewing the 73-week limit will cost the federal government – you and me, pal – $30 billion this year.
But left-wingers, who easily can imagine going jobless for months, roaringly support the notion of 73 (at least) in ’13.
As a young man, I was once out of work in Orange County for 12 days. I was so anxious I was ready to change planets.
Wouldn’t you have been, too?
