Why Republicans Want To Deny Unemployment Insurance

Last week Congressional Republicans blocked an extension of unemployment insurance for Americans out of work. They claim it was because of budgetary concerns but of course that’s nonsense. Unemployment insurance is a miniscule part of the budget and actually, it can be helpful to the economy! But, frustratingly, this is once again just the Republican Party saying something – not because it’s true, but because they think it will sound good.  As they play their cruel little games, Americans suffer.

Have you noticed that Republicans only seem to care about the budget when they don’t have control of it?  All they really want now is their political power back and they are more than willing to do anything to poison the political climate to such an extent that people just throw up their hands and say “throw all the bums out”.  Since Democrats are in the majority, Republicans feel they will win by default. They don’t want America to rebound – quite the contrary, a rebound will mean that people would not dare risk giving the GOP the levers of power once again.

The real reasons Republicans want to stop unemployment insurance:

They believe that sinking the nation deeper into misery will help their 2010 and 2012 election chances. Conservatives have never been shy about wanting Obama and the Democrats to fail.  They have been nothing but obstructionists since being booted from power.  They hope that if people are jobless AND hungry, the Democratic incumbents will be thrown out.

They want people to work harder for less money. This is a staple of the Conservative Ideology. Strengthen the advantage to those doing the hiring over job seekers; of those running the companies over the employees. Since there are not as many jobs as there are people needing to feed their kids, people will have to do much more for much less. Remember, these are the folks who consistently oppose the minimum wage.

They want owners to increase their profits. There’s no point in screwing the average guy if the big boys don’t profit.  Redistributing wealth upwards has always been the ultimate goal of the Conservative movement. Ending unemployment insurance assures that while so many will suffer, the wealthy few will still own the leverage that allows them to expand their empires.

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