House Republicans Name An Already Expired Program As First Spending Item They Would Cut

Wonk Room

One program upon which House Republicans have consistently seized upon to bolster their budget-cutting bona fides is the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Emergency Contingency Fund, a successful program that created 250,000 jobs in 37 states via subsidized employment programs for low-income and unemployed workers. And according to National Journal, Republicans are once again railing against the program:

House Republicans have targeted one of the first programs they would like to ax: the $25 billion emergency fund for people who lose their jobs, part of last year’s stimulus bill. Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said the program encourages states to increase their welfare caseloads “without requiring able-bodied individuals to work, get job training, or make other efforts to move off of taxpayer assistance.”

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out, Price’s characterization of the fund is completely inaccurate. The program also had the staunch support of many Republican governors, including Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), who said it provided “much-needed aid during this recession by enabling businesses to hire new workers, thus enhancing the economic engines of our local communities.”

But the crux of the issue is that eliminating the TANF emergency fund will save exactly zero dollars, because the program has already expired! It was funded at $5 billion for two years, and ended on September 30, 2010. It’s over, and there is no money for Price to save.

Note several things here. One, the GOP has spent months ignoring the question "What specifically would you cut?". The answer was a variant on 'we'll see when we get in there'. Now that they're there, the first answer is to cut an already expired program.

Point number two is that they were planning to cut a program that provided relief to unemployed workers.

Read that last sentence again.

I wonder how many unemployed workers voted Republican two weeks ago? I wonder how many just stayed home? Why? There's not much else to say, just "why?". By not turning out for the Democrats, you've cut your own economic throat. and it's not like you can say you didn't know. The GOP promised to cut unemployment benefits, they consistently voted against them.

If you're not in the richest 2%, prepare for the hard times to get worse because the GOP has made it clear that they don't care about you.

Employment down, corporate profits up; more GOP memes fall apart

Ezra Klein

Employment? Down 5.9% since late-2007. Corporate profits? Up 5.7% since late-2007 -- and driven by Wall Street.

The GOP likes to claim that the private sector is the only thing that can save the economy. While I don't disagree that a strong private sector is vital, if the theory were true, we'd be in better shape right now. the private sector has been growing for 6 straight quarters now.

Speaking of exploding memes, let's debunk the "Obama is against corporate America" myth. Look at the rise in corporate profits since the first quarter of 2009. That doesn't look like the gateway to a socialist worker's paradise.

Real deficit numbers and the (huge) difference between tax cuts and unemployment

Reflecting on today's earlier post, what's more harmful to the deficit, unemployment or the Bush tax cuts?

Ezra

By the way, note how much cheaper it is to do tax cuts for those under $200,000. Look at how much more it costs to subsidize tax cuts for the wealthy - which is the difference between the yellow and red lines.

John Kyl and the GOP openly favor oil companies over working Americans

Republican Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) is deeply concerned about extending unemployment benefits for the neediest of working Americans. Almost 2 million of those out of work the longest because of the recession have seen their benefits go away. He has raised eyebrows by calling jobless benefits a necessary evil", despite the fact that the OMB and most economists correctly point out that putting money that will immediately be spent into the economy provides a boost.

TPM
Kyl dismissed the view of the Congressional Budget Office, and a large swath of economists, that during a recession, extending unemployment is one of the ripest forms of stimulus.

"CBO's been wrong before," Kyl said. "It's not a stimulus for the economy, to try to help people through tough times. It's a necessary evil, in a sense. We'd like not to have to raise revenue in order to pay people for not working--or not to pay them for not working, but because they can't get work."

"To me you shouldn't look at it as an economic matter, it's a humanitarian matter. You got people who are out of work, who can't find work, you want to help 'em out. Families need help. That's why you provide it. You don't do it because it's going to stimulate the economy. You have to borrow the money in order to pay the folks. That borrowing has huge costs. They are adverse economics costs. So it's not a good thing for the economy. It's a bad thing for the economy but it's still the right thing to do for other reasons.

But, he says: [C]ontinuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work."

This Republican meme that people are living high-on-the-hog on unemployment benefits is a complete fallacy, and worse than that, an insult to anyone who has ever been forced to reply on the benefits.

SocialistWorker.com
No one who looks at the facts could take this seriously. The long-term unemployed aren't still jobless because they're enjoying the high life off an unemployment check that averages just over $300 a week--not much above the minimum wage, and not nearly enough to keep a family of three above the official poverty line.

The problem is that there aren't any jobs for the jobless. According to government statistics, there are almost five unemployed workers for every one job opening. Overall employment has grown since the beginning of the year, but not fast enough to keep up with the natural growth in the population, much less replace the 8 million jobs lost in the recession.

And for some some people who are jobless today, they may not work ever again--not because they're "lazy," but because age discrimination has made it even more difficult for workers in their 40s and 50s.

That hasn't stopped wingnut Senate-hopeful Sharron Angle of Nevada...

Allentown Morning-Call
"You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job that doesn't pay as much," Angle recently told an interviewer. "We've put so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry."

Ah, yes. The citizenry spoiled by sending jobs away and then handing out checks so they can drive their Cadillacs and live in leisure, not working, while titans of industry toil restlessly to support them.

However, when it comes to tax breaks for the wealthiest 3% of Americans (4 percent tax increase on those who make over $250,000), Senator Kyl is undisturbed by digging the deficit deeper to the tunes of $678 billion, even though that's close to the number for 10 years of health care for Americans that was also a problem.

Kyl tried to defend his contradictory positions to Chris Wallace of Fox News:

New York Times
Mr. Kyl's first line of defense was to dismiss Mr. Wallace's query as "a loaded question" because "the Bush tax cuts applied to every single American." Mr. Wallace pointed out that he was only referring to the top tax brackets.

Eventually, Mr. Kyl trotted out the tired and unsubstantiated argument that the tax cuts for the wealthy must be extended because otherwise "you're going to clobber small business." Mr. Wallace persisted: "But, sir, . . .how are you going to pay the $678 billion?" -- at which point Mr. Kyl descended into nonsense. "You should never raise taxes in order to cut taxes," he declared. "Surely Congress has the authority, and it would be right to, if we decide we want to cut taxes to spur the economy, not to have to raise taxes in order to offset those costs. You do need to offset the cost of increased spending, and that's what Republicans object to. But you should never have to offset [the] cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans."

So now stimulating the economy is a good thing, unless it's by direct infusions of cash under a program like TARP. TARP, which by the way, was proposed by Bush and continued under Obama but is being used to try to hang an non-existant albatross around Obama's neck.

Let's continue to oil company subsidies and tax breaks, to the tune of about $4 billion a year, which Kyl also supports. While stopping unemployment benefits (because of deficit concerns) and supporting tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% of Americans (despite deficit concerns), Kyl also supports tax breaks for big oil, an industry which rakes in billions a year selling a product to the American taxpayer that they've subsidized.

In fact, the oil companies pay a tax rate that ends up being far less than other, smaller and less-well-connected businesses:

New York Times
According to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry.

The standard GOP cry is that if we don't subsidize the oil companies, jobs will decrease, as will oil production. If that happens, the terrorists win. However:

New York Times
But some government watchdog groups say that only the industry’s political muscle is preserving the tax breaks. An economist for the Treasury Department said in 2009 that a study had found that oil prices and potential profits were so high that eliminating the subsidies would decrease American output by less than half of one percent.

“We’re giving tax breaks to highly profitable companies to do what they would be doing anyway,” said Sima J. Gandhi, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research organization. “That’s not an incentive; that’s a giveaway.”

So let's sum up the Kyl/GOP position:

Item: Deficit
Verdict: BAD

Item: Unemployment extension for working Americans hurt by the recession
Cost: $34 billion
Verdict: BAD - drives up the deficit

Item: Tax breaks for wealthiest 1% of Americans
Cost: $678 billion
Verdict: GOOD - although it drives up the deficit

Item: Tax breaks and subsidies for big oil on billions of dollars of profit
Cost: $4 billion
Verdict: GOOD - although it drives up the deficit.

Whose side are they on, tea partiers?

Senate Republicans (and Ben Nelson) screw Americans while supporting Big Oil

Cesca

Well, that's it. No more unemployment extensions. No more COBRA subsidies. And the Republicans are entirely to blame.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday that Democrats are giving up on trying to break a Republican filibuster of a bill to reauthorize several expired domestic aid programs, including extended unemployment benefits.

The Republicans like Rand Paul think you should just go out and get a job. Just get one. Out there. Somewhere.

This detail should make everyone lose their shpadoinkle:

Reid and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), in an effort to mollify a handful of conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans, have spent the past several weeks trimming the bill to reduce its deficit impact. But after jettisoning several provisions to help the old, the poor and the jobless, reducing the bill's ten-year deficit impact down from $134 billion to just $33 billion, the bill is still sinking. Not a single Republican is willing to lend support and Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson is still holding out, leaving Democrats two votes short of the 60 needed to overcome the GOP filibuster.

$33 billion. Do you remember the dollar amount of the annual subsidy paid to Big Oil? $38 billion. That's right, the Republicans voted to continue paying corporate welfare to companies like BP, but they filibustered a bill of nearly equal dollar value paid to unemployed Americans. The Republicans. $38 billion to oil companies? YES! $33 billion to unemployed Americans? NO!

Here there be jobs; the hopey-changey stuff works

Although unemployment holds at 9.7%, this is the best jobs news since 2007, as a net 162,000 new jobs were added last month.

Benen

Look at the graph. See where it starts to uptick? That's the passage of the stimulus plan. This has to drive conservatives nuts since it throws off the whole "where are the jobs?" meme. One does not dig out of a hole that size in 60 days. In fact, at the point where we switch presidential administrations, the graph becomes a near inverse.