4 Job Searches a Week angering/costing Businesses money, causing applicant Ghosting of interviews.

Compare the two following responses, Democratic vs Republican. The contrast is so dramatic, that I had to feature it here. 

Deceptive Work Requirement Referendum: No surprise...

Wisconsin voters supported in an advisory referendum a work requirement for recipients of taxpayer-funded benefits.

But Republicans want you to think it has something to do with cuts to unemployment benefits. Unemployment is an insurance program that's set up just like SS and Medicare, paid for by hard working employees and employers. It is NOT a taxpayer-funded "welfare" program. So, it's not part of the referendum.

Point:  GOP Punishment...4 Job Searches a Week = Ghosting: That's the case I'm making here. State Rep. Jerry O'Connor (R) highlights the problem below, oblivious to the job search requirement that made "ghosting" a huge problem. Having been a blue-collar worker myself, I've been on unemployment a bunch of times, and you will eventually run out of places for your skill set. Sure, employers are angry about the cost of setting up interviews that never happen, but that's a newer GOP created problem: 

Counter Point: While Rep. O'Connor struggles to identify a failed GOP job search requirement, Democratic Rep. Katrina Shankland points out how this is really an attack on workers, ignoring what unemployment insurance was designed to do. The difference in actual governing is shocking: 

Shankland: "This is an insurance program you earned, because you worked...what my colleagues across the aisle intended to do with this legislation is one missed interview, one car breaking down, one losing your childcare slot for the day or week, and you would lose unemployment for that week as well."

Bottom line? Republican would rather punish workers than have to deal with the complexities of the insurance program itself. Oh, and more importantly, Republican want to lower the cost to employers for the insurance program. See how they did it below the video...

 

From February 2016: Here's how Republicans help businesses, but then screws and punishes workers...and taxpayers:

The Dirty Little Funding Secret: Republicans and employers hate putting money into the state's unemployment fund so much that they conceived the scam below. This is corporate welfare on steroids, from a posted I wrote July 11, 2013:

jsonline: Under changes to the state's unemployment insurance system adopted by the Legislature's budget committee Wednesday, taxpayers would spend $26 million over two years to prop up the unemployment fund, To avoid having employers face new assessments this year, the committee voted to use $26 million in general tax dollars to pay down interest on that loan.

Think that’s bad? Taxpayers will be used to scam the federal government. Republican will borrow our hard-earned taxpayer dollars to shore up the unemployment fund, so the fed won’t raise taxes on EMPLOYERS, the ones who actually fund the account.

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.

Instead of employers taking responsibility for funding their own insurance program, Walker Republicans have shifted that liability over to taxpayers. All is well in "Stand with Walker" land.

GOP limits on Unemployment Insurance Benefits helped lower rate artificially, at workers expense.

On unemployment, we've got a problem. Our meddling career politician Scott Walker, who still can't get over losing his job, has been doling out horrible advice to Gov. Tony Evers and the Rhode Island governor. He can't stop bragging about the unemployment numbers he got thanks to Obama's recovery plan after the Republican Great Recession.

Oh, and Medicaid isn't a "welfare" program, it's a national health care insurance plan:

Making Unemployment Insurance Impossible to Get or Keep: Walker did everything he could to discourage and drop workers from their unemployment benefits. Other states went even further. Here's public radio's Marketplace report exposing the scheme to lower unemployment numbers, something Scott Walker exploited:



Here's are a few changes Walker put in place that are now being targeted by Gov. Evers for elimination or change:

1. One-week waiting period to qualify for unemployment benefits. 

2. A provision that makes people ineligible for benefits if fired for what the law defines as “substantial fault,” or failure to conform to a “reasonable” employer job policy ... recent court cases found it was improperly used to deny unemployment benefits to eligible applicants. 

3. The administration has authority to define the types of job offers a person can reject and remain eligible for benefits.

4. Eliminating requirements adopted in 2015 that applicants submit to drug testing to receive jobless benefits. The most sweeping of those requirements has not yet taken effect due to federal delays.

5. If someone has more than one job and quits one of them, they are now ineligible to collect unemployment for the next year if they’re laid off from another job.

The changes were part of a scheme to cut business contributions into the insurance program and artificially make the numbers lower to look like we didn't have a problem in the eyes of the federal government. It worked too. Here's a link to Wisconsin efforts and other state's cuts to unemployment eligibility.

With a minimum wage of $7.25 and tough unemployment insurance requirements that include work requirements and drug testing for food and housing benefits, is it any surprise Wisconsin has a labor shortage and out migration problem. 

Artificially Low Unemployment Benefits another Walker Scheme!!!

No wonder we have a hard time attracting labor into Wisconsin:

In 2014 Wisconsin increased the maximum rate for unemployment benefits — calculated as a percentage of what an employee earned before losing a job, up to as much as $370 a week. Evers wants to raise that maximum to $406 a week.

Evers administration officials said Wisconsin’s jobless benefit rate currently is less than most other states.

Here's why Gov. Evers wants the change:

The department “believes that individuals who lose work through no fault of their own shouldn’t have to worry about paying their bills,” spokesman Ben Jedd said.

 But wait, Republicans don't like this one bit. They intend to make people who lose their jobs feel uncomfortable? Yes:

Critics, meanwhile, fear the state could make it too enticing to claim jobless benefits.“We don’t want to make it too comfortable to remain unemployed,” said Scott Manley, senior vice president of the state’s business lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

You know, it's that old comfort level thing so many people have when they lose their job while still trying to feed themselves or their families and keep a roof over their heads. Lot of comfort there.

Again, Republicans are now openly saying the unemployed are lazy shiftless losers who have no value to society unless they're working, and Republicans need to "push people"..:

Rep. Mike Rohrkaste, R-Neenah, said increasing jobless benefits is unnecessary at a time when Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is just 3 percent. “We want people in the workforce now, particularly when jobs are plentiful. Let’s push people that can be working to be working.”

Walker/Republicans dipped their hands in Taxpayer Pockets to save Business Money: Check out the comment and the highlighted words below:

WMC's Manley, one of five management representatives on the state’s Unemployment Advisory Council said the council has helped keep Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance program stable and mostly uncontroversial, but Evers’ proposal threatens that balance.

That's funny, because under Scott Walker, Republicans came up with a scheme to deceptively moved taxpayer money around to keep unemployment benefit rates artificially low in Wisconsin for employers, it's called market manipulation. I blogged about this way back in Nov. 2015:
___________________________________________________________________________________________

Scott Walker and the Republican legislature bailed out businesses in 2013, because they were on the hook for replenishing the unemployment fund.

From way back on July 11, 2013: Here’s what Walker put in place on our dime:

jsonline: Under changes to the state's unemployment insurance system adopted by the Legislature's budget committee Wednesday, taxpayers would spend $26 million over two years to prop up the unemployment fund, To avoid having employers face new assessments this year, the committee voted to use $26 million in general tax dollars to pay down interest on that loan.

Think that’s bad? Taxpayers will be used to scam the federal government. Republican will borrow our hard earned taxpayer dollars to shore up the unemployment fund so the fed won’t raise taxes on EMPLOYERS, the ones who actually fund the account.

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.

But did taxpayers ever get the $50 million back? And then there's this Evers proposed change:

Eliminating a provision that makes people ineligible for benefits if fired for what the law defines as “substantial fault,” or failure to conform to a “reasonable” employer job policy. This standard has been the subject of recent court cases in which judges found it was improperly used to deny unemployment benefits to eligible applicants.

That was also part of the scheme mentioned above:

jsonline: Tighten the definition of workplace misconduct so that fewer people would qualify for benefits. Eliminate nine instances in which a worker can quit a job and still claim benefits.

But how about penalties for unintended unemployment application errors?

Bill targets unemployment fraud by prohibiting a person from receiving unemployment benefits for seven years if they have twice been found to have lied to the state to receive benefits passed the Republican Assembly 63-34.

Wisconsin Republicans should just seek death penalty for costly poor people, or is punishment more fun!

The title could be a simple exaggeration, but it really isn't.

Republicans in the state have done it, they've gone after everything a person, or family, needs to literally live; Work for food stamps, work for health care, and now work for housing. If you don't work, you don't live. We're now the death penalty state for the jobless!!!

GOP lawmakers have advanced a proposal that would require some able-bodied adults to work in order to get housing vouchers in Wisconsin.

This is another state law by anecdote, you know, something he heard from someone who heard it from someone else:  

Rep. Terry Katsma, R-Oostburg, is the bill'ssponsor. He said the proposal will encourage voucher recipients to seek job training and help fill employment vacancies he hears about in his district.

The bill doesn’t specify what the employment, training, and or other "self-sufficiency requirements" would be.

Nice guy huh? A realllllllll Christian.

Terry has serving as an elder and deacon in his church, serving the youth of the community as a Workbound, Inc. board member and a member of Kiwanis.

Walker creating large gap between jobless claims and job losses to kill Unemployment Benefits.

The news media is slowly catching on to the Republican plan to make unemployment benefits a thing of the past, handing big business a huge but little talked about tax cut. 

Scott Walker has put Wisconsin on the front line of states trying to end the very program we created back in 1932, unemployment insurance. And it's a double edges sword, because Walker has also tied these reforms to a work requirement and drug test for food stamp recipients. They go hand in hand:

Governor Scott Walker on Wednesday, May 4th 2016 approved a rule requiring certain Wisconsinites receiving unemployment insurance benefits to pass a drug test. Gov. Scott Walker would also extend the requirement that people work 80 hours a month to receive food stamps to parents of school-aged children. It would also move forward with drug testing as a requirement for food stamp recipients.

But as a recent story on WPT's Here and Now explained, the unemployed and hungry aren't trying to scam the system or use the benefit programs as a hammock. Instead, they're getting hammered and shut out of both programs because of hoops, barricades, red tape and burdensome regulations by "small government" Republicans on purpose. Are any of the people in the story below lazy?

A recent issue of Isthmus exposed the Walker/GOP plan to purge workers safety nets:

In December 2015, the state departments of Justice and Workforce Development announced they were cracking down on unemployment fraud.

Worker advocates say that this crackdown is increasingly going after people ... who find themselves before a judge, facing fines and even criminal charges for honest mistakes or even the mistakes of state workers. The Department of Workforce Development seems to want to prevent anyone from getting benefits. Victor Forberger, an attorney who specializes in unemployment issues and keeps a blog monitoring the state’s new efforts (said) “They’re not trying to stop mistakes; they’re trying to make it worse.”

So to cut taxes for businesses, Walker is going to make it impossible for employees to collect unemployment benefits.

In the 2013-15 budget, Gov. Scott Walker created substantial fault — for when people can be fired and not collect benefits ... if someone has more than one job and quits one of them, they are now ineligible to collect unemployment for the next year if they’re laid off from another job ... “You’re penalizing people who work more than one job, and it undermines the entire system of unemployment.”

In a 2015 law, the state changed what it means to “conceal” income while receiving unemployment benefits ... the new law said the state no longer has to “prove that a claimant had an intent or design to receive benefits to which the claimant knows he or she was not entitled.” Now, honest mistakes can lead to fines and criminal charges.

Fraud is almost nonexistent. But that's not the point:

A December 2014 report by the Legislative Audit Bureau found that only 9.5 percent of the overpayments between 2011 and 2014 was the result of people intentionally trying to defraud the state. The rest, 90 percent, were due to unintentional mistakes or department errors.

I blogged awhile ago about the states use of taxpayer money to fill the unemployment funds deficit hole after the great recession so businesses wouldn't see an increase in taxes. Much of that money never came back. The story received almost no attention.

Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, mentioned this problem in the Wall Street Journal article - The Growing Gap Between Jobless Claims and Job Losses:

There is a growing gap between the number of workers losing their jobs and the number applying for unemployment benefits ... Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute said, “So there is something else putting downward pressure on claims.”

That “something else” could be more than one thing, not all good—such as tenuous work arrangements or difficulty applying for benefits.

The National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, also has tracked the decline in unemployment claims. “In general, we’re concerned that significant numbers of involuntarily unemployed workers are being prevented from receiving benefits to which they may be entitled, especially workers with labor market disadvantages like limited English proficiency, limited experience with computer technology, limited literacy,” said Claire McKenna, a senior policy analyst at NELP.

For example, states that shift to online claims filing from telephone filing may be locking out of the application process people who don’t have ready access to the Internet or the kind of documentation needed to qualify.

Walker targets Jobless to take "lower paying jobs much sooner."

Humiliation and forced cheap labor is on the Republican fast track. Thanks to the effort of big monied lobbyist WMC, and their willing dupe Scott Walker.

It's not like wages weren't low enough already in Wisconsin:

WSJ: Despite a new report showing Wisconsin has the fastest-shrinking middle class in the U.S., the Gov. Scott Walker administration says the state is headed in the right direction.

Unfazed by that devastating news, Walker's rigid ideological agenda remained unchanged. He now wants to increase cheap labor in the state, and force Wisconsinites into taking those lower wage jobs. WPR:

This week, lawmakers heard testimony on a bill that more clearly defines when someone looking for work can reject a job. Scott Manley from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce said the bill expands what jobs should be considered and spells out when there is just cause for refusing work.

Leave it to WMC to go for it all, demeaning those who were once in highly successful careers, and dumping them into menial jobs:

"An unemployed worker who is collecting benefits can actually refuse a job and continue to collect benefits if the job offer does not constitute suitable work," Manley said.

The bill gives out-of-work people less time to wait for a job comparable to the one they had. "The changes made by this bill will force workers to take lower paying jobs much sooner," said Kevin McGee with Legal Action Wisconsin.

The Specter of Fraud: Republicans were so successful using the fear of fraud to suppress voter turnout, they're now going to use the same tactic for "unemployment fraud." 

Gov. Scott Walker wants changes to jobless benefits that employers say will prevent fraud and strengthen the state's unemployment fund.

The Dirty Little Funding Secret: Republicans and employers hate putting money into the state's unemployment fund so much that they conceived the scam below. This is corporate welfare on steroids, from a posted I wrote July 11, 2013:

jsonline: Under changes to the state's unemployment insurance system adopted by the Legislature's budget committee Wednesday, taxpayers would spend $26 million over two years to prop up the unemployment fund, To avoid having employers face new assessments this year, the committee voted to use $26 million in general tax dollars to pay down interest on that loan.

Think that’s bad? Taxpayers will be used to scam the federal government. Republican will borrow our hard earned taxpayer dollars to shore up the unemployment fund so the fed won’t raise taxes on EMPLOYERS, the ones who actually fund the account.

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.

Instead of employers taking responsibility for funding their own insurance program, Walker Republicans have shifted that liability over to taxpayers. All is well in "Stand with Walker" land.

The Great Unemployment Fraud Caper!

Unemployment fraud is the latest Wisconsin legislative con. An in your face ripoff that portrays the unemployed as the real villains here, and not the our ghoulish state business climate. So Republicans are about to add a few more ways to deny claims.

Scott Walker and the Republican legislature bailed out businesses in 2013, because they were on the hook for replenishing the unemployment fund.

From way back on July 11, 2013: Here’s what Walker put in place on our dime:

jsonline: Under changes to the state's unemployment insurance system adopted by the Legislature's budget committee Wednesday, taxpayers would spend $26 million over two years to prop up the unemployment fund, To avoid having employers face new assessments this year, the committee voted to use $26 million in general tax dollars to pay down interest on that loan.

Think that’s bad? Taxpayers will be used to scam the federal government. Republican will borrow our hard earned taxpayer dollars to shore up the unemployment fund so the fed won’t raise taxes on EMPLOYERS, the ones who actually fund the account.

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.

jsonline: Tighten the definition of workplace misconduct so that fewer people would qualify for benefits. Eliminate nine instances in which a worker can quit a job and still claim benefits.

With urine tests about to start up, just in time to disqualify a few Oscar Mayer workers, penalties for unintended unemployment application errors is part of the next attack:

Bill targets unemployment fraud by prohibiting a person from receiving unemployment benefits for seven years if they have twice been found to have lied to the state to receive benefits passed the Republican Assembly 63-34.

Rep. Andy Jorgensen, D-Milton, balked at the proposal, saying it could affect people who are simply confused by the application process.

Republicans know 85% of what they call "fraud" are really just mistakes made on applications. The Legislative Audit Bureau:

From FY 2011-12 through FY 2013-14, DWD identified 681,400 overpayments totaling $167.9 million. Individuals who unintentionally provided inaccurate information accounted for 84.7 percent of the number of identified overpayments, and these overpayments totaled $61.8 million ... multiple parties made errors, such as an individual and an employer who provided inaccurate wage information to DWD.

9.5% of fraud cases were intentional, discovered and recovered, keeping pace over time.

So dumping as many employees as possible from collecting unemployment is a win for business and a win for Republicans who won't have to raid the general revenue fund anymore. 

These are all short term measures that hide their failed open for business scheme. Urban Milwaukee's Data Wonk put it this way (leaving out defunding the UW, state parks and transportation borrowing):

We have become a “can’t do” state. We have become fixated on costs, including sunk costs, not opportunity. A number of recent actions—including turning down the federal rail grant, attempts to sabotage the Milwaukee street car, and refusing to expand Medicaid—suggest that Wisconsin should be numbered among the can’t do states, obsessed with cost rather than looking for opportunity.

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.

Unemployment Benefit Extension Ended in December, Suddenly, U.S. Rate Down to 6.3...Magic!!!

Remember when Senate Republicans killed the federal unemployment benefit extension in December? 

That threw over 2 million people off the official unemployment rolls...

WaPo: After the payments ended in December, some workers opted to file for early Social Security benefits. Others may have enrolled in school or simply stopped looking for a job, disqualifying them for retroactive payments.

The number of the uncounted unemployed will continue to grow month after frustrating month. 

Fiscal Times: By the end of the year there will be 4.9 million people cut off from unemployment insurance. Add in their children and other family members, and you are talking about many millions of people who are affected. 

So is it any surprise the unemployment rate is at its lowest level since the Great Recession?

Jsonline: The Labor Department also said Friday that the unemployment rate sank to 6.3 percent, its lowest level since September 2008, from 6.7 percent in March. But the drop occurred because the number of people working or seeking work fell sharply. People aren't counted as unemployed if they're not looking for a job.

This is the same ploy used by Scott Walker, when he change the requirements to receive benefits on top of those losing federal extension benefits. Magically, and in time for Walker's reelection, the unemployment rate dipped to 5.9.  That's pretty close to the drop federally.

Dumb Ron Johnson, Insane, Cold. Unemployment Cut Off while still above the previous record high level.

Here's Dumb Ron Johnson rationalizing the end of the unemployment extension, despite the fact that the current level is still higher than the highest previous level, from Upfront with Mike Gousha. Big friggin talker:



This graph from the Economic Policy Institute should disgust everybody. The Republican must know they're cutting the unemployment extension at the most unrealistic and devastating time:

Scott Walker’s "ObamaCare" like Moment? Dept. of Workforce Development overwhelmed by the Unemployed.

With so many of the unemployed getting their benefits dropped, thanks to Republican hardliners, you’d think the Walker Authority would have had the following covered. Man, government can’t do anything right under Republicans:

jsonline: Unemployed workers who want to file for unemployment compensation are having trouble getting through on the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development's phone lines. A spokesman said Wednesday the department is experiencing "particularly high call volumes."

Ron Youngbluth of Pewaukee said he started calling to see whether he'd be eligible for unemployment after he was laid off from his part-time job as an optometrist in Brookfield on Dec. 6. He estimated he called up to two dozen times in the past month, sometimes several times a day. He got through to the automated system, but never to a person. "I called them the past at least three weeks, I don't know how many times. I couldn't get ahold of anyone," he told the Public Investigator. "It's all automated. That's the most I ever got. I thought, 'What the hell is going on?' There must be people who desperately need unemployment help."

John Dipko, a spokesman for DWD said the department rolled out a call-back feature in late 2012 that allows callers the option of getting a call back instead of staying on the line. Youngbluth said he was never offered a call back and that the system sometimes dropped his call.

A few readers left these appropriate comments:

Just remember to vote next November based on what kind of service the Governors Administration gave you and your family. Higher taxes, low paying or worse yet no jobs, reduced and more expensive public services, rotten roads, crowded schools, and six felons and counting.

Walker can't even manage a phone center, let alone the whole State of Wisconsin. He'll get laughed out of a Presidential race.

Did you hear, GOP won't extend Unemployment?

The media is consumed by this story. What, no outrage, no public anger over losing unemployment benefits a few days after Christmas? Could the timing be any worse?

Others say rumors of an opposition party have been greatly exaggerated.

My simple point is this: No matter how draconian and cruel the Republican agenda gets, no one seems to care. Yet, that's all we ever needlessly debate. I say needlessly because starving people and forcing them out of their homes due to cutting off employment insurance benefits is really a no-brainer.

Media headlines don't reflect the American horror over the Republican position. To the press it's a political battle that sensationalizes and bolsters the GOP agenda, all the while making the yawn inducing liberal message of compassion seem stale and passe. This is an insurance program, not a handout, right?

Republicans are not only getting endless press over their act of utter cruelty to the families they say they support, but the media generated idea Republicans could takeover the Senate in the midterms is gaining momentum. That suggests there's no political consequence to killing off unemployment.

Additionally, the GOP is distracting and decoupling unemployment from their biggest failure yet, the Great Recession.  Think about it; unemployment is at 7%, with 3 applicants for every 1 job:

Spokespeople for Alexander, Chambliss, Isakson, Portman and Wicker said Sunday that the senators plan to vote against the Reed-Heller plan because the cost of extending the program isn't offset by spending cuts. The unemployment insurance program was first expanded during George W. Bush's administration with broad bipartisan support when the nation's unemployment rate hovered around 5 percent.

Even worse, Republicans like Gov. Scott Walker are allowed to get away with the bitter cold portrayal of the unemployment debacle as a "distraction" from the troubled Affordable Care website. That's how I read his latest tweet:

That's if they still have a home to live in.

Job Searches end with Lost Unemployment Insurance Checks. GOP pushes desperate workers into low wage jobs.

If Scott Walker wanted to blame someone else for his poor job creation numbers, besides protesters and recall elections, he can just point to his old friend Reince Priebus at the RNC. Republicans are finally taking down unemployment insurance, in their effort to create a more desperate low wage workforce. This is their moment. What's next, ending the five day work week? Here's the economic hit to Wisconsin:

23,700 Wisconsinites lost unemployment insurance Dec. 28^th. With an average weekly check of $266.09, Wisconsin lost $6,306,333 in just one week, money that could have gone in to each local economy. This is according to the US Dept. of Labor/Office of Unemployment Insurance.

What's rarely mentioned is how the unemployed are require to look for work in order to receive their benefits. Cutting off benefits will only be an incentive for some to stop looking. That's a plan?

The House Ways and Means Committee/Democrats has an interactive map showing the negative effects of not extending unemployment insurance benefits in each state. You won't find this map on the Ways and Means Committee/Republicans site. Gee, you think they don't want their low information voters to know the truth?

For Wisconsin, already struggling to hold onto jobs all the while trailing the rest of the country in job creation, Scott Walker can only sit back and watch his own party sabotage his reelection efforts. Below is a screen capture of Wisconsin:

The Dec. 28 expiration of the emergency federal program cut off more than 1.3 million Americans from unemployment insurance, with an additional 72,000 Americans losing their benefits each week during the first half of 2014, on average. Without the federal EUC program, state UI programs nationwide provided assistance to only 25 percent of the unemployed.  Since records began, going all of the way back to 1946, the annual UI recipiency rate has never dropped below 30 percent (when accounting for both state and federal benefits.

Sources: Committee on Ways and Means Democrats, “Millions of Unemployed Americans Will Lose Benefits Unless Congress Acts,” (2013) PDF & The Council of Economic Advisers and the Department of Labor, “The Economic Benefits of Extending Unemployment Insurance” (2013) PDF

Killing Unemployment Extension, GOP economic wizards tank state economies!!!

Just like the $24 billion loss to the U.S. economy shutting down the government to prove how much they hate health care for all, Republicans are now costing the country hundreds of millions of dollars cutting unemployment insurance. Point made...again:

Think Progress: State economies lost $400 million in one week thanks to Congressional inaction on unemployment benefits, according to a new report from the Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Republicans have historically supported unemployment benefits, as individuals must continue looking for work in order to receive them. However, some GOP lawmakers have signaled they will use this lifeline as leverage to extract more spending cuts.

 Oh wait, this was a partisan report put out by Democrats? Never mind, it can't be true.

Forget Jobs Promise? Walker focus on unemployment numbers another scam, misdirection play.

Democrats are slow to react to Scott Walker’s ridiculous emphasis on his administrations lower unemployment numbers. Is Walker misdirecting attention away from his jobs promise? Ya think?

On the jobs front, Walker has also succeeded in silencing his critics by oddly sticking to his jobs promise, an obvious ploy, but obtuse enough to confuse reporters.

But didn't Walker just manipulated the unemployment rate? Walker's reforms changed and restricted who could get unemployment. According to Thomas and Thorngren, a company that deals with unemployment cost controls for employers:

Reforms to Wisconsin’s Unemployment Law Favorable for Employers: The new law tightens up UI benefit eligibility by decreasing the number of qualifying quit exceptions for individuals who voluntarily quit from 18 to 9 … A disqualification may now be imposed when the employee is discharged for “misconduct” or for “substantial fault” … (even) when the underlying reasons for discharge do not rise to the level of misconduct.  A claimant must now conduct at least four reasonable search actions for suitable work during a week of unemployment to be eligible to receive unemployment insurance benefits for that week.  

Walker reduced the number of people getting unemployment, which in turn, makes his numbers look better than they are. Oddly (but not really), conservatives never talk about the uncounted unemployed-the actual number they site often to bash Obama.

The think (in-the) tank MacIver Institute didn't mind Walker shifting an employer’s increased unemployment taxes to the public...you and me. Yes, we’re now subsidizing business:

The new law also shifts UI tax increases away from employers … When that fund was emptied in 2009, the Wisconsin state government borrowed $1.6 billion from the federal government, a loan that at one point cost $60,000 per day in interest payments. UI taxes on businesses have roughly doubled since the state took that loan in order to pay that interest, but the new law reduces their UI taxes to pre-loan levels by shifting the fiscal burden for the interest payments to the general budget.

The “general budget” is us, the taxpayers. We also threw in an extra $50 million of general taxpayer money to balance the unemployment fund, so the federal government wouldn't increase taxes on businesses. It was a trick, a scam, played on the federal government by using our money to keep businesses from paying in to their unemployment fund.  

Wisconsin Manufacturing and Commerce "quite excited" about new ways to deny unemployment and save money doing it.

Who controls the state? Big business of course. Take a look at the lobbyists below from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. Soulless weasels?

I also find it funny how the biggest lobbying group in the state is stuck with "manufacturers" in their name, a dying passe industry in the this state, and the U.S.. It might not have been had WMC focused their attention a nationwide manufacturing policy like Germany. Oh well, another missed opportunity.

Cap Times’ Jack Craver wrote this:

The gang at Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce are practically giddy about the budget that now awaits Gov. Scott Walker’s signature. I was notified of the YouTube clip by a disgruntled legislative staffer, who described its contents thus: “Just a few of the former GOP staffers who give the Legislature its marching orders from outside the building.” All four of the lobbyists in the video indeed once worked as aides to Republican legislators.

One lobbyist brags:

WMC's Eric Bott, Dir. of Environmental and Energy: "The budget directs the DNR to seek permission from the EPA to exempt more 800 businesses entirely from regulation...we're quite excited about this."  

WMC's Scott Manley, VP of Government Relations: "...the idea that we're going to streamline permits and possibly even exempt hundreds if not thousands of businesses in this state is certainly exciting."

They even shamelessly admit their intention to allow businesses to freeload off Wisconsin taxpayers by borrowing state revenues to fund the unemployment coffers, just so they don't have to pay interest.  They're even excited about the new very broad definition of "substantial fault," that allows employers to fire "human capital" easily, to avoid paying unemployment.

WMC's Chris Reader, Dir. of Health and Human Services: "(the Joint Finance Committee) created a secondary definition of misconduct called "substantial fault" which basically means that if an employee  is acting in wonton disregard of the employers best interest..."

WMC's Scott Manley: "...and in addition, the budget committee provided millions of dollars of relief to pay the interest on the loan we have to the federal government...that interest is costing employers millions of dollars because we are overdrawn. We had to borrow money. And the fact that the legislature saw fit to pay that interest (with taxpayer money) will mean businesses will pay less." 

How nice we did that for them. If we had let the market work, and adjust to changing times, businesses would have had to make larger payments into the unemployment fund. WMC couldn't let that happen.

Walker's Con: Unemployment is going Down, even without creating one job!!!

I still can't believe state Republicans want to balance the unemployment fund on the backs of the unemployed. This is so business won't have to spend a cent. This should have been a bigger and more unsettling story.

Businesses were wiped out during the Great Recession and millions of people lost their jobs...so the Republican solution is to make unemployment insurance harder to get? jsonline:

- Tighten the definition of workplace misconduct so that fewer people would qualify for benefits. 

-Eliminate nine instances in which a worker can quit a job and still claim benefits.

 Republicans are also proposing an amazing misuse of general taxpayer money to pay into the unemployment insurance fund, instead of businesses. Do Republican voters even know about this?

And then to loan the unemployment fund another $50 million from taxpayers to show a positive balance and trick the government into not raising taxes on business, is nothing short of crooked.

Gov. Scott “Humpty Dumpty” Walker bestows “empowerment” and “dignity” on Jobless by taking away their Unemployment. He cares too much….

Scott Walker is filled with Humpty Dumptyisms. What’s that? From Wiktionary: "The practice of insisting that a word means whatever one wishes it to."

This great line from “Through the Looking-glass” says it all:

Humpty Dumpty replies "When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."

Walker goes beyond Humpty Dumpty's word play though, by including phrases and concepts. Which brings me to the following unexplainable, explanation. WKOW:

Humpty Walker: "Ultimately the best thing that we can do for people who are unfortunately in a difficult position today is find ways to empower them through the dignity that comes from work, to ensure that they're only temporarily dependent on the government supports we provide."

Inspired yet? Can anyone make sense of Walker's upside down reason to kick people off unemployment, just so businesses are off the hook from paying more into the insurance fund?

State Republicans No Longer Protect Taxpayers, Soak ‘em for $26 Million paying Employers interest on Unemployment. Oh, and it gets worse…

The great protectors of taxpayer money just decided to give some of that money to help private companies pay interest on their unemployment accounts.

First, will anyone ask our sneaky Republicans why the “job creators” need public welfare? And second, unemployment is their business responsibility, not ours.

Teabillies won’t notice this until next year, and radio propagandists Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling will keep up their distraction campaign.

This is almost too hard to believe:

jsonline: Under changes to the state's unemployment insurance system adopted by the Legislature's budget committee Wednesday, taxpayers would spend $26 million over two years to prop up the unemployment fund, To avoid having employers face new assessments this year, the committee voted to use $26 million in general tax dollars to pay down interest on that loan.

Think that’s bad? Taxpayers will be used to scam the federal government. Republican will borrow our hard earned taxpayer dollars to shore up the unemployment fund so the fed won’t raise taxes on EMPLOYERS, the ones who actually fund the account. This is actual fascism:

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.

 Again, taxpayers are paying the states private employers interest on unemployment, and loaning private employers money, so the fed won't raise taxes on them for under funding unemployment.

CEO's love High Unemployment States for their Desperate Workers.

I've said it before: the attack on FoodShare, the length of unemployment, sick leave pay, and the removal of labor rights are all schemes to create a desperate public, willing to work anywhere for as little as possible.

I've been proven right unfortunately:

Cap. Times: There was the report this week in Chief Executive magazine showing the state climbing to No. 17 on the “Best States for Business” ranking. That’s up from No. 20 ... The report in Chief Executive generated a fair amount of coverage, including this blog in The Baltimore Sun which asks why Florida, with an unemployment rate of 11 percent, is ranked No. 2 while Maryland with an unemployment rate of 6.9 percent is ranked No 41. One commenter theorized that CEOs love states with high unemployment rates so they can pay less in wages to desperate job seekers.