Dems Refuse Unemployment Benefits from Obama's Stash: Checks are Job Creators

Republicans refused to add $33 billion+ to the Nation's soaring deficit for extended unemployment benefits, and want them paid for by Obama's economic recovery stash. Dems say the stash is for jobs. Nancy Pelosi said unemployment checks "creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name." So what is the problem? Obama's economic recovery stash is for jobs, the checks create jobs, so use the stash! See the video below.

Spending Obama's Stash

Graphic courtesy of Sam Finley for Congress (R) - Texas 12th District

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and all Republicans except RINOS Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), proposed actually paying for the extension with stimulus funds - otherwise known as Obama's stash. Unable to get a bill  passed, the Senate left for the holiday weekend early.

In spite of the Democrats own Pay-Go rules, indicating the American public might hope spending is paid before being spent, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) said unemployment benefits are "emergency spending," and not bound by Pay-Go.

At some point, after months of benefit extensions, we have to ask when an extension has become a part of the Democrat agenda. The administration's policies have the private sector awaiting their tax bomb, their healthcare bomb, the regulations bomb, and the continuing demise of their investments - and business owners are not hiring. It is not a surprise, it's a conclusion - a result of bad policy that seems to have no end.

Democrat Senator Ben Nelson (NE) voted with Republicans, shunning the Liberal mindset voiced by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) in an interview with the Washington Examiner:

We've never done it, Durbin said. And it is counterintuitive that to stop a recession we have to take spending away from one area and put it into another. We need to put money into the economy.

Senator Saxby Chambliss' (R-GA) mid-June comment about benefit extensions was used in part by the Georgia Democrat Party, quoting only half of it, and then tried to make a point that Chambliss supported benefit extensions but had voted against them "multiple times." The Georgia Dems quoted this:

During a time of economic hardship, I don't believe we should allow provisions such as the extension of emergency unemployment benefits to expire.

What they omitted is this:

But I do believe that when we extend these programs, we should do so in a responsible fashion. Congresss should find a way to pay for those extensions.

The Tulsa World (h/t to hubby)

The bill would extend unemployment payments for up to a total of 99 weeks...through the end of November, at a cost of $33.9 billion. The money would have been borrowed from, adding to the budget deficit....They [Republicans] proposed using unspent money from President Barack Obama's massive 2009 economic recovery package.

Democrats rejected the offer, saying the money was needed for jobs programs. Republicans said the stimulus package included plenty of lawmakers' pet projects that could be cut to cover the unemployment benefits. 

Here we are back at Nancy Pelosi's claim that unemployment checks are a big job creator. If Democrats actually believe her, and stand behind her ridiculous comment, then use the job recovery stash for extended benefits.





Nancy Pelosi on Extended Unemployment Checks (video)