George Will apparently doesn't think that those receiving unemployment benefits spend their checks because he claims that another extension would not
June 28, 2010

George Will apparently doesn't think that those receiving unemployment benefits spend their checks because he claims that another extension would not stimulate the economy. Another typical mean spirited Republican basically telling unemployed Americans "let them eat cake". I'm sure George thinks that once you cut those benefits off all of those lazy unemployed people will finally have to get off of their butts and magically find those non-existent jobs out there that they weren't looking for before instead of living high off the hog from the riches they were receiving with those massive unemployment checks. Heaven forbid we can't have anyone sucking off of that government teat when we've got those tax cuts for the rich we've got to keep in place and those wars to pay for.

I assume George won't have to worry about actually being around any of those tiresome whiners from his perch at his $1.9 million mansion in Chevy Chase, Md. since they probably keep that type of riff-raff out of his neighborhood.

And Rajiv Chandrasekaran nonsense about who's playing politics with this is almost as bad. Other than Ben Nelson it's not the Democrats blocking unemployment benefits. If the Republicans get whacked with this in November, they deserve it.

SANGER: And the president's also in the position in Canada of saying, don't do as I do, do as I say. I mean, just the day before he left, Congress could not come to an agreement on a very small extension of unemployment benefits, the most basic stimulus effort that the president tried to push.

TAPPER: 1.2 million Americans are going to lose their unemployment benefit extensions -- or unemployment benefits this week.

SANGER: That's right. So there's a fundamental stimulus action and the president had to go up and tell the Europeans they weren't doing enough for stimulus.

TAPPER: George, why can't they pass this unemployment extension? I don't understand. The Republicans say spending cuts should pay for this, the Democrats know it's emergency spending. It seems like this is something where there could be a compromise.

WILL: Well, partly because they believe that when you subsidize something, you get more of it. And we're subsidizing unemployment, that is the long-term unemployment, those unemployed more than six months, is it at an all-time high and they do not think it's stimulative because what stimulates is the consumer and savers' sense of permanent income. And everyone knows that unemployment benefits are not permanent income.

TAPPER: Rajiv, I'm going to let you have the last word, we only have a minute left.

CHANDRASEKARAN: Both sides in this town have an incentive to let this drag out longer. The Republicans certainly playing to their base don't want to be seen as adding to the debt issues in a midterm election year. The Democrats I think are trying to sort of push the Republicans and trying to make them look like the party that's denying 1.2 million people an extension of these benefits.

Transcript via ABC News.

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