It appears that a change in power doesn’t necessarily imply a change in strategy. The Republicans, with a fresh majority in the House of Representatives, are celebrating their victory by continuing to behave in a predictably obstructive fashion. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear that until the Bush Tax Cuts are addressed, they will keep any other issue from even reaching the floor of the Senate. That includes dealing with long line of Americans who are set to watch their unemployment benefits expire just in time for Christmas.
The U.S. Government has already spent $160 billion this year on unemployment benefits and extending them another year would cost $65 billion. On Tuesday night, jobless benefits expired for over 800,000 Americans, and will expire for another million people if Congress doesn’t act before the end of the year. The situation is dire, and there’s no other way to describe it. Facing the holidays without a job is bad enough; but to face them without any income can be devastating.
Let’s be clear on the Republican position about the tax cuts: they are clearly fighting to protect the rich. The only major sticking point about the Bush tax cut extension, to my knowledge, has been the fact that President Obama and the Democrats are not interested in extending the cuts for Americans earning over $250,000 per year. Therefore, by forcing the unemployed to face homelessness at Christmas time in exchange for the tax cut extension, the Republicans are effectively stealing the livelihood of millions for the marginal benefits of the few.
WATCH REP. DONNA EDWARDS DISCUSS THE TAXES DEBATE:
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The Republican stance on the unemployed is serving to draw a line in the sand between those who have compassion for others during a tough economy and those who simply don’t care. I’m not sure if conservatives can benefit from a political strategy that alienates over 14 million Americans. Also, over 41 percent of the nation’s unemployed have been jobless for more than 27 weeks, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so the unemployment situation is affecting all of us, including the upper class.
Many Americans are tired. The number of discouraged workers, who’ve simply stopped looking for work, has increased from 411,000 this time last year to 1.2 million today. There are even more Americans who are technically employed, but find themselves underemployed in jobs with woefully low pay rates. People are suffering, and it seems the Republicans are only concerned with saving money when it’s time to take something from the poor. All the while, they don’t spend nearly as much time mulling over the cost of paying for extending Bush Era tax cuts for the wealthy.
Part of the reason the Republicans may be ignoring the unemployed is that the party holds a long-held belief that most of its constituents aren’t affected by the unemployment rate. To some extent, this is true, given that married white men and white women have the lowest unemployment rates among all ethnic/marital groups. Additionally, higher income Americans are more likely to vote than those who are struggling economically..
The great Republican deception, however, is that they are often able to disguise their agenda for the wealthy as a set of populist, racist principles that attract the Tea Partiers and many in the working class of America. Concepts like small government, cutting Affirmative Action and helping small business end up being translated into a lower capital gains tax, tax cuts for the rich and subsidies for major corporations. By selling microscopic manipulation as grandiose ideology, the Republicans are able to successfully manipulate the minds of the poor and uneducated to get their support for the ambitions of the rich.
Last year, the wealthiest one percent of Americans took home 24 percent of our nation’s income. This number is up dramatically from just 9 percent in 1976. If such trends continue, the U.S. may become a failed economic state, one where the government becomes an ineffective, bankrupt entity, and private armies protect the fortunes of the few from the misery of the masses. Our nation was not built to be an aristocracy, but when our entire Supreme Court comes from just three Ivy League schools, corporations are ruled to have the same rights as human beings, and a small fragment of wealthy Americans guides the agenda of a major political party, we are well on our way to becoming the very thing that the founding fathers found to be most despicable.
By undermining the fate of the unemployed in favor of tax breaks for the rich, Republicans are clearly communicating the basis of their political agenda. While neither Democrats nor Republicans have all the answers for our nation’s economic future, the Republicans have been keen on building their personal financial lifeboats. Expanding the coffers of the wealthy while ruining the financial stability of the nation signals that the future of the country doesn’t matter to some, as long as they get what they want.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the initiator of the National Conversation on Race. For more information, please visit BoyceWatkins.com>