Randi Rhodes Show - March 02 2010

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 Given the way Republicans have fought against stimulus programs, you would be justified in asking if the GOP had anything to offer the legions of unemployed Americans. Well just this week, they’ve offered them both insult and injury! The injury part is ongoing: Senator Jim Bunning is continuing his successful quest to deny unemployment benefits to hundreds of thousands of Americans. Jim Bunning is a one-man WMO—Weapon of Mass Obstruction. Thanks to him, a Senate that had been grinding to a halt suddenly came screeching to a halt. After Bunning injured the unemployed, the subsequent insult was provided by Arizona Senator Jon Kyl. Yesterday on the Senate floor, Kyl said “continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.” Yeesh. That sounds like something that Ebenezer Scrooge says in “A Christmas Carol,” right after the bit about “decreasing the surplus population.” I’m almost surprised Senator Kyl didn’t go on to ask “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?” Somebody needs to send Senator Kyl a series of visitations from spirits. His approach to the problem of unemployment seems very 18th century British. If we don’t have enough prisons and workhouses, maybe he thinks we should just take all of our jobless people and ship them off to Australia. Kyl is the Republican whip… and he’s certainly lashing out. He’s also upset “because people are being paid even though they’re not working.” Paid for not working? Senator Kyle! I think you just described a United States Senator! The only one I see doing anything right now is Jim Bunning—and everything he’s doing is wrong. But back to Senator Kyl: I would also point out that workers pay INTO the unemployment system while they’re working so that they have that safety net. That’s why it’s called unemployment insurance, Senator. But then if Republican Senators understood the concept of insurance, we wouldn’t be having all these problems over health insurance, now would we? The bottom line is that nobody is trying to make ends meet on unemployment compensation because it’s a secret path to riches. It’s barely enough to get by… and thanks to Jim Bunning, for a lot of unemployed people right now, it’s absolutely nothing at all.

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