I can't help feeling a bit traitorous to, "the cause" ( as if politics could be monolithically categorized as such), but the whole debate in Congress over extending unemployment benefits, or not, makes me politically want to puke. These idiots who presume to represent us are so short-sighted that they seem to feel the issue boils down to the morality of spending more money inefficiently, or not. Can there really be such an absence of compassion, tempered by reasonable understanding congregating in one building anywhere else in the country, if not the entire world? Guess what, you jack-asses? All government spending is by it's very nature wasteful, and inefficient ( DUH!!!). That's what government is reluctantly established to decide when, and where, and if it should be spent; and if so, then how much to spend without interfering with the more efficient Free Market principles that stimulate maximum employment. The only thing government does well is performing necessary tasks that are too big, or too expensive for the free market to do profitably. The down side of this is the consequential wasteful spending, and corruption that government spending produces. That will unfortunately be the case until Jesus returns to thankfully save us from our own corrupt natures. The trouble is when we have knee-jerk Republicans trying to reign in the wasteful spending of knee-jerk Democrats, when the only apparent consideration is whether or not they can earn any political "browny-points" for their cause, then they risk creating chaos in the market that is greater than the alternative.
If this economy were as robust as Wall Street analysts would have us believe ( bearing in mind that these "analysts" are paid to tell us only the part of the truth that makes us want to invest), or if it were rebounding due to the natural stimuli of supply and demand then I would not find fault with the Republican effort to let expire whole segments of the unemployment compensation benefits that have been necessary for the past five years, or so. It's surely true that there must be many healthy, able-bodied former workers who prefer to exploit the benefits opportunity, rather than take the effort to look for profitable employment for which they are easily qualified. But there are just as surely many people who are unable to find work that they can qualify for that will pay them a livable wage, in an era when Congressional edict has made it more profitable for businesses to scale back on both wages, and full-time hours to offer their employees. Obamacare is just another example of legally punishing businesses for having too many full-time jobs, and encouraging them to turn them into multiple part-time jobs. This makes the knee-jerk-liberal Democrats feel good because they have "created more jobs". Yeah, but at the expense of eliminating full-time jobs. Now you have twice as many employees willing to work who can't earn enough on one job to pay the bills for themselves, let alone their families. So, they have two logical choices: 1) work multiple part-time jobs, if they can find them. And this increases the transportation costs, and lost time in commuting from one job, to another. Or, 2) continue to receive unemployment benefits, which barely cover expenses, until the economy really rebounds sufficiently to offer employment that will pay for their financial needs. Another consideration is that those benefits are calculated by 50% of their last full-time salary, or wage. If they were last paid an inflated wage before the deflationary effects of the recession, then a new job may not pay as much as the old one, even if it pays more than the unemployment benefits do now. So, if the risk of being laid off of the new job is considerable, they would face future benefits that were less than they receive now, which might not be a survivable income. Concern for their families survival certainly takes precedent over the moral issue of whether their drawing benefits is perceived as idleness, or laziness by some pompous Congressman who draws a fat government salary, and foolishly believes that he deserves every penny of it.
This economy is made "out of whole cloth", or is constructed out of "chewing gum and baling wire", or whatever flimsy euphemism one cares to apply. We are in an excessive inflationary economy, built upon the paper stimulus of the Federal Reserve, and trending dangerously close to a runaway Hyperinflationary economic disaster of absolutely historic proportions. The only reason we don't feel the horrible effects of it yet is because we have been inflating our currency since 2007 to keep from sliding into the Deflationary Depression that we were naturally entering after more than 75 years of profligate governmental inflationary spending. If the economy is really recovering from the worst recession in history ( at the very least), then the job market will have to improve considerably in order to tempt workers off the unemployment benefits line (which amounts to subsistence living) by offering employment which will meet their financial needs as well as the ability to actually save money. When that happens there will be a flood of able bodied workers fighting over the available jobs. That's the time when Republicans should talk about reducing the money for benefits, not before. To foolishly think that kicking people off of the benefits roster will necessarily create a better job market, out of employee desperation, is as stupid as the Democrats' belief that all problems just naturally go away by throwing tons of money at them. But in this case the gross lack of compassion on the Republicans' part for the people who will not be able to survive without living "on the streets" is so insensitive that it boggles the mind. This will have the effect of creating more die-hard Democratic voters for years, if not permanently. What kind of party idiots are running the show here? How many people have to freeze to death in the winter, or beg for food on the streets, just to give big business a little bigger work force to hire from, without the concern for paying a livable wage? Rather, if the economy is genuinely rebounding, restoring the unemployment benefit for a while longer will create the "greed-stimulus" for those companies that are desperate to take advantage of increasingly ripe opportunities to produce profits that they will gladly create better paying job opportunities which will naturally attract the workers they need. Have you Republican Congressman forgotten the overwhelming efficiency of the law of supply and demand? The only way it doesn't work is when impatient Congressmen try to artificially create either the supply, or the demand with their bone-headed meddling in the natural economic trends.
This is why I can't bring myself to register as a Republican. I see too little difference between the bone-headed meddling from Democrats, who want to throw enormous amounts of wasteful tax money at whatever current issue is deemed popular at the moment; and the big business, butt-kissing Republicans who want to stop the wasteful spending on programs that actually help desperate people in times of comparative emergency. Don't cancel programs prematurely just because the spending is wasteful. DUH!!! All government spending is wasteful, especially Defense spending! But Defense spending serves a very necessary purpose, even if Democrats prefer to pretend that it doesn't. I don't think Republicans want to cut spending on Defense, even though it is the most outrageously wasteful part of government spending. But it is wasteful spending that profits corrupt businesses, which in turn kick back money to the Republicans who protect their programs, so they can fund their re-election campaigns. This is reprehensible to me, but the alternative is worse, if the Democrats get their greedy little fingers into massive disarmament legislation. We nearly lost World War Two because of the pre-war disarmament policies of the 1930's. ( Back then, Congress thought money for more Army Cavalry units meant purchasing more horses, rather than building new Tanks.) But for the Republicans to callously end unemployment benefits before the economy creates sufficient jobs with livable wages, is not only immoral to me, but it stupidly enhances the roles of die-hard Democratic voters. What kind of moronic, self-serving, short-term thinking is this, anyway?
Now you know why I feel the only recourse I have is to say, "a pox on both your houses", and stay reluctantly registered as an Independent. When the Republican party can figure out how to balance a reasonable degree of compassion for Americans, even if they might vote Democrat, with their self-serving needs to support big business, then perhaps I'll consider registering as a Republican. I'd be too ashamed to do so now, even if I must vote Republican, for lack of a better alternative. Chris Christy for President in 2016,...yuck, what a horrible thought!!! How many more John McCain, and Mitt Romney clones do we have to reluctantly support for lack of an alternative, rather than deal with another Obama clone, like Hillary, or John Kerry??? While the Lord tarries, it almost makes one wish for the second coming of Ronald Reagan!!!
UPDATE; -- 4/25/2018;
All right, I admit my humiliating hypocrisy!!! I still feel the same as I've written above, but I have swallowed my pride, and registered as a Republican, in spite of my feelings.
I was surprised to find out that if a candidate claimed something in the primary that only registered party members were allowed to vote, in those primaries. This happened. locally, in the 2016 election, and I was unable to vote for a friend of mine, as were others, including Democrats, who were also personal friends of his. (I know, it's hard to believe, but some Republicans can actually have Democratic friends!!!)
So, I have been forced to swallow my pride, and join a party that combines sincere, concerned, people (including many "Born-Again" Christians), with people of varying degrees of sincerity, along with people whose values vary little from the self-serving liberals who are dragging this country down! (May God have mercy on my soul!!!)
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