The GOP Unemployment Ruse; It's another Taxpayer Bailout of Business.

State Republicans are hoping no one sees what they're really doing to unemployment insurance. Since it's a business expense and has nothing to do with taxpayers, republicans have been tasked by lobbyists to cut the draw on those trust funds. And they've been doing just that by cutting benefit weeks, decreasing the number of behavioral exemptions, and requiring 4 job searches a week.

Unemployment benefits are funded by a state and federal tax on employers. And during times of high unemployment, like the Great Recession (caused by GOP economic failures), the money in those funds wasn't enough to cover everyone.

Important to Remember: Unemployment does not cost taxpayers any money: Walker republicans have been trying to drop as many of the unemployed as possible, by instituting a number of degrading hoops to jump through listed above, including a move to drug test. Remember, these are people who have just lost their jobs, not people supposedly on drugs applying for work in an hallucinogenic state. So spinning it as a way to help people find work is ridiculous.

Business Welfare Again: Republican aren't "taxpayer watchdogs," they're robbing us. They're
using our tax dollars to save businesses money. Think I'm making this up. The DWD website has fessed up to the con:

Like many other states, Wisconsin’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) Reserve Fund had to rely on federal loans to help fund unemployment benefits paid to record numbers of claimants during and following the deep national recession of 2007-09.The 2013-15 budget included a provision which allocated $30 million of state general purpose revenues to pay interest due on UI Trust Fund loans from the federal government during the 2013-15 biennium. The $19 million in interest due September 30, 2013 was paid using these state funds. The $7 million estimated interest due in September of 2014, will also be paid using these funds. 

And here's the clincher, thanks to taxpayers:

This means employers will not be assessed for this interest due the federal government on Wisconsin’s outstanding unemployment loans.

All the above interest paid by taxpayers to bail out businesses, would never have happened if D.C. republicans didn't stop Obama from helping states.

President Obama, in his 2012 budget … prevents a tax increase on business and helps cash-strapped states. Republicans call it a "job-destroying” tax hike on business and a bailout for states that are overly generous with their jobless benefits.  

Obama would have forgiven that interest payment (paid by only those states that had to borrow money - like Wisconsin), if they simply raised the tax temporarily on the base income level to replenish their trust funds. States would not only save the interest payment, but they could lower the business tax once the trust funds were balanced. Republicans in congress rejected it, costing taxpayers and businesses money.

Walker used the taxpayer bailout to Fool the Federal Government so they could save businesses money:

jsonline: Additionally, the committee proposal would allow the state Department of Administration to lend up to $50 million in taxpayer money to the unemployment insurance fund. That loan would help the state ensure that the unemployment fund has a positive balance in 2014, which in turn would keep the federal government from raising taxes on employers by $191 million in 2015.

I think the knucklehead "fellows" at the MacIver Institute summed it up best:

The new law reduces their UI taxes to pre-loan levels by shifting the fiscal burden for the interest payments to the general budget.

Unemployment is not a taxpayer problem, or it wasn't until Walker decided to use our money. So don't let them lie about it. As an example, here's Rep. Chris Kapenga, another one of those wacky supply side "certified public accountants," misleading or just plain lying about unemployment. Again I ask, who created the tight budget with unsustainable tax cuts?

There's more HERE.