Are unemployment benefits getting an undeserved 'mugging'?
Hey, let鈥檚 get real: extended unemployment benefits are an effective form of stimulus spending, and although they do add to the short-term deficit, they are not part of the longer-term deficit problem. Nowhere in will you find different assumptions about unemployment benefits. It鈥檚 all about what we do with the Bush tax cuts and how well health reform will work. (More on this soon, I promise.)
This says it well. Scot even quotes two of the most vocal (and sincere) deficit hawks around:
鈥ake it from David Walker, former US comptroller general and now, as president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a leading deficit hawk. 鈥淲hile the current deficits are large, they don鈥檛 represent the real threat to the future of the country,鈥欌�� he said. 鈥淭he real threat is the medium-to-longer term structural deficits that will be here after the economy has recovered.鈥欌�欌��
No fiscal falcon with a proper balance of economic and fiscal priorities is going to fault you for supporting that extended aid.
鈥淎s a deficit hawk, I wouldn鈥檛 worry about extending unemployment benefits,鈥欌�� said Bob Bixby, president of the Concord Coalition. 鈥淚t is not going to add to the long-term structural deficit, and it does address a serious need. I just feel like unemployment benefits wandered onto the wrong street corner at the wrong time, and now they are getting mugged.鈥欌��
Let鈥檚 face it: those who use their 鈥渨orry鈥� about our longer-term fiscal outlook as a reason to oppose extended unemployment benefits don鈥檛 want to reduce the deficit as much as they want to get rid of unemployment benefits. It is just a convenient excuse to 鈥渕ug鈥� those benefits and deny many American families that assistance they so badly need.
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