I think I still have my copy.
Seriously, this shit is getting out of hand.
Obama tells Republicans he should have worked more with them
Daily Archives: December 1, 2010
Season of Reason
Maven would like to see this billboard in Reno. I’m thinking right at the Spaghetti Bowl would be perfect.
I’ll help. Anybody else?
In the meantime . . .
The average weekly unemployment benefit in the U.S. is $302.90, though it varies widely depending on how states calculate the payment. Because of supplemental state programs and other factors, it’s hard to know for sure who will lose their benefits at any given time. But the Labor Department estimates that, without a Congress-approved extension, about 2 million people will be cut off by Christmas.
In Nevada:
More than 10-thousand Nevadans will be impacted immediately. Thousands more will join them every week that follows.
The debate in Washington centers on fiscal policy and ideology. arguments over the deficit. For those who come to the Reno office of Nevada Job Connect every day looking for jobs, it’s more personal.
“They’re not worried about people like us,” says 21 year old Adam Denler. “They’ve got jobs.”
Denler’s benefits stopped weeks ago. Still he says he’s looking every day.
Darla Fernandez is in no immediate danger. She still has 12 weeks of benefits coming, but that’s hardly reassuring. “I just found out about it today and I’m upset.”
Fernandez, recently downsized out of a marketing job worries her search may take her to the point that she too will need an extension. ‘It’s really unfair.”
The two of them represent two ends of the problem. Denler has been looking for a year for anything in warehousing or production and coming up short.
Both bristle at the suggestion, they’d rather stay home and collect benefits than take a job, any job.
The Catfood Commission may be violating its charter by delaying their vote until Friday.
“The charter that created President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform explicitly states that: ‘a vote on the approval of a final report is required not later than December 1, 2010.’ Former Senator Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the co-chairs of the commission, have now said they intend to directly violate the commission’s charter by delaying a vote until Friday, December 3rd.
“This changing of the rules, which further reduces the time for Congress to consider any recommendations from the commission, is typical of a commission that was ill-conceived from the onset. The fundamental premise of the commission is that the country suffers from serious deficit problems that Congress is unable to address through its normal processes. This view does not correspond with the facts as can be easily shown.
“There has been no explosion of spending whatsoever. This is entirely an invention of those with their own agenda. The Congressional Budget Office shows that non-interest spending was 19.8 percent of GDP in 1980. Its analysis of President Obama’s 2011 budget projects that non-interest spending will be 21.1 percent of spending in 2020. This means that in 40 years, spending other than interest will have increased by just 1.3 percentage points of GDP.
“Rather than being a cause for concern, the rise in the deficit in the downturn has been essential for sustaining demand in the economy. Annual demand in the private sector has fallen by more than $1.2 trillion as a result of the collapse of the bubbles in residential and non-residential real estate. This led to a plunge in construction and also consumption that was driven by housing bubble wealth. Remarkably, the co-chairs of the commission never seemed to have considered a tax on the financial sector as a source of revenue (a policy that is even recommended by the IMF), in spite of the fact that it was largely responsible for the current crisis.
No, they’d rather go for after the middle class.
Oh…and this is rich. Adam Savage got through the TSA body scanner with 12″ razor blades on his person.
