They are so far removed from ordinary life that they have no clue the harm their politically calculated actions can wreak on fellow Americans.
And they just don’t care.
The House and Senate have approved an extension of unemployment benefits, but refused to extend COBRA subsidies.
This, from a Congress and president that basically ignored an increasing unemployment rate and deepening recession, and instead used all of their political capital to enact a health care reform law that most Americans didn’t want.
Because, they told us, they cared about the health of ALL Americans.
But now, when unemployed citizens find themselves without health insurance, Congress declines to provide the subsidies to help pay for that health coverage.
Congress drops the ball on creating new private sector jobs. And when people are laid off because of that inaction, Congress refuses to provide them with health insurance.
Irony is a mild word to describe it. What is the word one would use for a person who walks past without offering assistance to an elderly woman who is being mugged by a miscreant? Yeah, that better describes it.
The excuse Congress and the president use is that they would rather borrow money from China (and other sources) than use money already allocated to economic recovery and sitting around unused.
Borrowing a few billion dollars from China would put our country into further debt. The U.S. debt is in excess of $13 trillion, of which $5 trillion is held by foreign nations. We are not talking about “billions,” but “trillions.” Adding to that debt is not wise, no matter how one looks at it.
Republicans want to fund the extensions with money that has already been allocated to the economic recovery. That money is just sitting there gathering dust, because frankly, the president is doing nothing with it to create new jobs. So Republicans are saying, “Hey, the money is already there, you aren’t using it for anything else, and we have folks who are unemployed and need a hand. We propose to use that money instead of throwing our country into an even deeper recession.”
Some will argue that Republicans didn’t want to extend COBRA. They did. They just didn’t want to borrow more money to do it. And for an administration that promised to “cross the aisle” and work with the minority party, the president and Congressional leaders should have compromised.
As an added benefit, folks who want to stick it to corporations can revel in the knowledge that the “stimulus” money used to help unemployed workers will not go to fund a rich “fat cat” on Wall Street.
So the question was, did Democrats in Congress want to give stimulus money to executives on Wall Street and borrow money from China (increasing our federal deficit) to extend COBRA subsidies, OR did they prefer that money set aside for Wall Street bailouts be given to unemployed workers for their health insurance, and at the same time not increase the national debt?
Their answer? Neither.
Congress extended the unemployment benefits, but the “public servants” who hoisted and forced a health care reform overhaul on the country didn’t see fit to extend health insurance to those same workers.
A Democrat in Congress (I can’t remember his name, and don’t recall if he was in the House or Senate) was on one of the cable news shows this week; I halfway listened to the interview on XM Radio while on the road. During the interview, the politician said that we should not tap the unused stimulus money because it was intended to “stimulate the economy.” Later in the interview, he said that it was important that Congress borrow the money to extend unemployment benefits, because that money would be spent and therefore “stimulate the economy.”
He muddled some incomprehensible response when the host pointed out the hypocricy, especially since the first extension that the Democrat-controlled Congress and President Obama approved in February 2009 was first authorized using stimulus dollars.
This time, however, to prevent giving a “win” to Republicans, the Democrats refuse to use those funds.
And the unemployed American worker is the loser.
‘Compassionate’ Congress and Obama refuse to extend COBRA via IFAwebnews .
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