Pete Sessions Is A Shameless GOP Hypocrite. But That's Redundant! 6FEB14

NOT as eloquent as Sen Elizabeth Warren D MA, but the truth about the gop / tea-bagger caucus in congress. From Crooks and Liars, and watch Sen Warrren's comments on the US Senate floor at VIDEO Watch Elizabeth Warren Slam the GOP for Blocking Unemployment Benefits 4FEB14 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/video-watch-elizabeth-warren-slam-gop.html

By Susie Madrak February 6, 2014 6:41 am

Remember "jobs, jobs, jobs"? All we got out of a Republican House were a bunch of red-meat bills about abortion, ACORN and guns.

The monkey's in the middle. (Credit: Flickr)

Credit: Jason Seiler

I'm not very fond of the Democratic party, although they sometimes throw the rare bone to working people. But the Republicans? They're just plain evil. So we have to do everything we can to get them out of office, and then we can start kicking the crap out of the Democrats when they don't do what we want. Because this crap has got to stop:

It is immoral to extend a meager monthly allowance to unemployed Americans still looking for work more than six months after losing their jobs, according to Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), which is why he and his fellow House conservatives are blocking Democrats’ efforts to reinstate the safety net program.
“I believe it is immoral for this country to have as a policy extending long-term unemployment [benefits] to people rather than us working on the creation of jobs,” Sessions said Tuesday on the House floor in response to questions about his party’s refusal to allow a vote on reinstating the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program.

If I passed this teabagging asshole on the street, I would spit on his shoes.

There were 1.3 million people receiving EUC when the program’s authorization expired on December 28, 2013. Since then, an estimated 300,000 other job-seekers have exhausted their state-level unemployment insurance benefits, pushing the total number of unemployed left without EUC to 1.6 million. As a group they have over 2.3 million children economically dependent upon them. The number being hurt by the failure to renew EUC rises by tens of thousands every week.
Sessions went on to say that job creation is vital in part because working gives a person “self-respect enough to know that jobs are important,” and that “too much of the time we have been hung up on, instead of job creation, we talk about the symptoms that are related to unemployment and long-term unemployment.” The long-term unemployed know better than most how important a job is, however, and how impossible jobs are to find right now.

Yeah, because hunger's just a fucking "symptom."

These are people who have spent six months and longer sending out job applications by the hundreds without success. It is hard enough for any unemployed person to find work given that there are about three job-seekers for every job opening nationwide. But the long-term unemployed face even higher hurdles. Hiring managers view a lengthy stint of unemployment as disqualifying. Research shows that being out of work for nine months has the same effect as reducing an applicant’s work experience by four full years. A freshly out-of-work applicant gets called back about 16 percent of the time when she applies for a job, but that rate falls to 3 percent for the long-term unemployed. Only a handful of states ban discrimination against the unemployed.
Cutting these people off of benefits doesn’t help them get work. It makes it harder by undercutting the basic income they need to afford to hunt for jobs online, get to interviews and look presentable, and keep themselves and their families from sliding into poverty or homelessness. Unemployed people receiving benefits spend more time on the job hunt than unemployed people without that safety net.

When Republicans say shit like this, I feel like I'm going to blow a gasket. Remember "jobs, jobs, jobs?" I do. And what did they do about jobs? Not a goddamned thing, and we need to rub their noses that pile of crap every time they open their mouths.

About Susie Madrak

• Susie Madrak's feed

 http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/pete-sessions-shameless-gop-hypocrite

VIDEO Watch Elizabeth Warren Slam the GOP for Blocking Unemployment Benefits 4FEB14

SEN Elizabeth Warren D MA continues to champion the American people in the US Senate, much to the consternation of the Obama administration and third way democrats. Here she slams the gop / tea-bagger obstructionist for blocking an extension of emergency unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed. She condemns them for insisting any extension be paid for by funding cuts of other programs while they push for an extension of tax cuts and subsidies for the rich (tax extenders) for corporate America without requiring offsetting cuts to other corporate welfare programs. From Mother Jones.....

—By Erika Eichelberger

| Tue Feb. 4, 2014 8:52 AM GMT

http://youtu.be/S2NYK1YMN6I 

On Monday evening, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) denounced GOP lawmakers for blocking an extension of federal unemployment insurance, which expired at the end of last year, and called on Congress to act immediately on behalf of the roughly 1.6 million Americans who depend on the benefits.
"Unemployment insurance is a critical lifeline for people who are trying their hardest and need a little help—a recognition that Wall Street and Washington caused the financial crisis, but Main Street is still paying the price," Warren said in a speech on the Senate floor.
She added that it's hypocritical for Republicans to push for an extension of a package of mostly corporate tax breaks called "tax extenders" without offsetting the cost, but are demanding that aid for the unemployed be paid for. "Republicans line up to protect billions in tax breaks and subsidies for big corporations with armies of lobbyists," the senator said, "but they can’t find a way to help struggling families trying get back on their feet."
Each year since the onset of the recession in 2008, Congress has re-authorized federal emergency unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless, which kick in after state unemployment benefits run out—usually after 26 weeks. The number of extra weeks of federal unemployment insurance has varied over the years, but last stood at 47 weeks.
The long-term unemployment rate—the percentage of those without a job for 27 weeks or longer—remains at record high levels, but Republicans in the House and Senate don't want to extend federal unemployment benefits unless they are offset by savings elsewhere. A Senate plan to renew the benefits failed a couple of weeks ago, because Republicans said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wouldn't allow them to amend the legislation to their liking. The upper chamber is now working on a new proposal that would pay for the $6-billion extension by temporarily increasing taxes on employers. But even if the Senate passes the measure, it is unclear whether House speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will bring the bill up for a vote, according to Democratic House aides.

Erika Eichelberger

Reporter

Erika Eichelberger is a reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She has also written for The Nation, The Brooklyn Rail, and TomDispatch. Email her at eeichelberger [at] motherjones [dot] com. RSS | Twitter

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http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/02/video-elizabeth-warren-slams-gop-blocking-unemployment-benefits 

A simple test for conservative poverty proposals; FOLLOW THE MONEY & Fear is Why Workers in Red States Vote Against Their Economic Self-Interest & Top Republicans Oppose Obama’s Call To Raise The Minimum Wage 17&15JAN14&13FEB13

So [Zacchaeus] hurried down and was happy to welcome [Jesus]. All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much."  - Luke 19:6-8
 

The secular world needs to understand that what would "free us from anxiety" is opening up to the poor and otherwise marginalized the chance to flourish. This cannot happen if there is hunger, unfair political arrangements, ongoing assaults on the environment, and no safety net to protect the sick, the unemployed, and the frail.
- Paul Farmer 
IT is a sin to neglect and abandon the poor, the needy, the least among us. The repiglican party, lead by the tea-baggers, have been on a cross country propaganda tour during the recognition of America's 50 year war on poverty offering faux concern and compassion for the least among us while manipulating the jellyfish Democratic caucus in congress to accept their demands for massive cuts to all social safety net programs, filibustering an extension of emergency unemployment benefits denying the government any chance of increasing the minimum wage, refusing any economic stimulus program while protecting the rich and corporate America from tax increases that would have them meet their obligation to the national social contract. This is nothing but class warfare by the 1% on the 99%, but the repiglicans and tea-baggers are winning because they shroud their proposals in their perversion of Christianity and manipulate the fear, economic uncertainty and racism of the masses to the point that many of those in poverty, the poor, the working class and the middle class buy into their deception and support the very policies that keep them poor, in poverty, and for the working and middle classes, sliding backwards economically. IF jellyfish Pres Obama and the jellyfish Democrats in congress had any morals, if they had a spine and the courage to stand against the repiglicans and tea-baggers and their class warfare we might have faced another government shutdown, but they could have used that to tell America just what the repiglican / tea-bagger obstructionist plans are. As it is, there are few in the Democratic party who have the morals and courage to take that stand. That is why I am a member of the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic party, and will no longer compromise myself by supporting any politician who is not a populist, a bold progressive. This from the Washington Post.....

• By Ezra Klein

There’s a simple way to tell whether the Republican Party’s newfound commitment to fighting poverty is more than rhetoric: Follow the money.

GOP budget architect Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

Follow the trail in the party’s recent budgets and what you find, hidden between appendix tables, are deep cuts to programs for the poor. That’s the inevitable consequence of Republican commitments to favored constituencies. The party promised its anti-tax wing no tax increases and lower tax rates. It promised older voters that Medicare and Social Security would not change for those over age 55. It promised defense hawks that sequestration cuts to military spending would be reversed. And it promised its tea party allies that it would cut trillions from government spending and balance the federal budget.
The only way to square all those promises is through draconian cuts to programs for the poor. The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that programs for lower-income Americans would account for two-thirds of proposed Republican budget savings. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that as many as 37 million Americans would lose access to Medicaid, which was targeted for hundreds of billions in cuts.
That’s an agenda that would result in more poverty and deprivation, not less. Yet all the Republicans now talking about poverty -- Sens. Marco Rubio, Mike Lee and Rand Paul and Rep. Paul Ryan -- either voted for or, in Ryan’s case, authored these cuts.
The notion that the main problem of the poor and jobless is their generous indulgence by the federal government is apparently too seductive to resist. Senate Republicans this week filibustered an extension of emergency benefits to the long-term unemployed. Some have argued that the existence of unemployment benefits is itself the problem.
“When you allow people to be on unemployment insurance for 99 weeks, you’re causing them to become part of this perpetual unemployed group in our economy,” Paul said.
This is a correlation/causation mistake of staggering size and consequence. In effect, Paul sees that people who take medicine are more likely to die and concludes that we need to take away their medicine. When there are three job seekers for every open position, it’s pretty clear that a lack of jobs, rather than lack of interest in getting jobs, is the core problem for the long-term unemployed.
Some conservatives are beginning to develop more realistic approaches to joblessness and poverty. In the latest issue of the journal National Affairs, Michael Strain, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, lays out a compelling agenda for any Republican politician brave enough to pick it up.
Strain’s article acknowledges there is a jobs emergency. It pulls together almost every job-creating proposal Washington policy makers have thought of -- as well as a few they haven’t --- and suggests implementing them simultaneously.
Some of Strain’s ideas will thrill conservatives. He calls for policies that would reduce “oppressive licensing requirements” at all levels of government, reform the disability insurance system so it rewards work, facilitate immigration by highly skilled foreigners and expand union-busting right-to-work laws to more states.
He also proposes reforming the unemployment insurance system so it gives workers a cash bonus when they find a job, paying the long-term unemployed to move to regions with tighter labor markets, subsidizing employers to enable them to pay the long-term unemployed less than the minimum wage (the government would make up the difference), and massively investing in infrastructure.
“What if we bought a whole bunch of buses and had them run express from low-income communities that are in exurbs into commercial centers?” he asked me during an interview. “We know mobility is inversely correlated to the degree of sprawl in a city. I think a simple explanation is that if you have people living two hours away from the jobs, that the commute is killing them and their economic potential. If you can cut that two-hour commute down to an hour, all of a sudden they can apply for a lot more jobs.”
That’s not the kind of idea you normally hear from Republicans. But Strain’s point is that these aren’t normal times -- and Republicans have to stop acting as if they are. “I don’t think traditional solutions that people on the right typically turn to would be particularly effective here,” he said. “Lower taxes are important for long-run growth. Less debt is important for long-run growth. But cutting the top marginal income tax rate this year or doing draconian spending cuts to balance the budget won’t be particularly effective in getting the unemployed back to work.”
Strain’s article doesn’t offer much in the way of budget estimates. So I asked him point-blank whether his proposals would require spending more money.
“Yes,” he said.
Elected Republicans who want to do something serious about poverty are going to need to get comfortable with that answer. In recent years, Republicans have backed themselves into a corner; virtually everything they’ve proposed entails deep cuts to programs for the poor. They’ve tried to escape this trap -- and allegations by opponents that they are indifferent to suffering -- by arguing that various reforms, such as turning federal programs over to the states, will unleash such miraculous efficiencies that meager budgets will stretch to cover existing needs.
They won’t.
The model they cite is welfare reform, which was enacted in 1996 during the highest-growth economy since the 1960s. Welfare cuts didn’t make the fight against poverty magically more efficient; they simply made it stingier. In 1996, 68 of 100 families living in poverty with children received welfare benefits. In 2010, two years after the worst economic shock since the Great Depression, only 27 of 100 such families were receiving benefits. The assistance once provided by welfare is now supplied by tax credits such as the earned income tax credit, which the government has vastly expanded.
Taking poverty and joblessness seriously doesn’t mean the government needs to spend more forever. But it does mean the government needs to spend more now -- when poor people are squeezed by high unemployment and low growth. That spending could be reallocated from other programs, or it could be offset by future tax increases or spending cuts. But there is no getting around it: Any policy that sharply reduces government spending to alleviate poverty is a policy that will lead to more poverty.

Ezra Klein is the editor of Wonkblog and a columnist at the Washington Post, as well as a contributor to MSNBC and Bloomberg. His work focuses on domestic and economic policymaking, as well as the political system that’s constantly screwing it up. He really likes graphs, and is on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. E-mail him here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/17/a-simple-test-for-conservative-poverty-proposals/?wpisrc=nl_wnkpm 

Fear is Why Workers in Red States Vote Against Their Economic Self-Interest

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Last week’s massive spill of the toxic chemical MCHM into West Virginia’s Elk River illustrates another benefit to the business class of high unemployment, economic insecurity, and a safety-net shot through with holes. Not only are employees eager to accept whatever job they can get. They are also also unwilling to demand healthy and safe environments.
The spill was the region’s third major chemical accident in five years, coming after two investigations by the federal Chemical Safety Board in the Kanawha Valley, also known as “Chemical Valley,” and repeated recommendations from federal regulators and environmental advocates that the state embrace tougher rules to better safeguard chemicals.
No action was ever taken. State and local officials turned a deaf ear. The storage tank that leaked, owned by Freedom Industries, hadn’t been inspected for decades.
But nobody complained.
Not even now, with the toxins moving down river toward Cincinnati, can the residents of Charleston and the surrounding area be sure their drinking water is safe — partly because the government’s calculation for safe levels is based on a single study by the manufacturer of the toxic chemical, which was never published, and partly because the West Virginia American Water Company, which supplies the drinking water, is a for-profit corporation that may not want to highlight any lingering danger.
So why wasn’t more done to prevent this, and why isn’t there more of any outcry even now?
The answer isn’t hard to find. As Maya Nye, president of People Concerned About Chemical Safety, a citizen’s group formed after a 2008 explosion and fire killed workers at West Virginia’s Bayer CropScience plant in the state, explained to the New York Times: “We are so desperate for jobs in West Virginia we don’t want to do anything that pushes industry out.”
Exactly.
I often heard the same refrain when I headed the U.S. Department of Labor. When we sought to impose a large fine on the Bridgestone-Firestone Tire Company for flagrantly disregarding workplace safety rules and causing workers at one of its plants in Oklahoma to be maimed and killed, for example, the community was solidly behind us — that is, until Bridgestone-Firestone threatened to close the plant if we didn’t back down.
The threat was enough to ignite a storm of opposition to the proposed penalty from the very workers and families we were trying to protect. (We didn’t back down and Bridgestone-Firestone didn’t carry out its threat, but the political fallout was intense.)
For years political scientists have wondered why so many working class and poor citizens of so-called “red” states vote against their economic self-interest. The usual explanation is that, for these voters, economic issues are trumped by social and cultural issues like guns, abortion, and race.
I’m not so sure. The wages of production workers have been dropping for thirty years, adjusted for inflation, and their economic security has disappeared. Companies can and do shut down, sometimes literally overnight. A smaller share of working-age Americans hold jobs today than at any time in more than three decades.
People are so desperate for jobs they don’t want to rock the boat. They don’t want rules and regulations enforced that might cost them their livelihoods. For them, a job is precious — sometimes even more precious than a safe workplace or safe drinking water.
This is especially true in poorer regions of the country like West Virginia and through much of the South and rural America — so-called “red” states where the old working class has been voting Republican. Guns, abortion, and race are part of the explanation. But don’t overlook economic anxieties that translate into a willingness to vote for whatever it is that industry wants.
This may explain why Republican officials who have been casting their votes against unions, against expanding Medicaid, against raising the minimum wage, against extended unemployment insurance, and against jobs bills that would put people to work, continue to be elected and re-elected. They obviously have the support of corporate patrons who want to keep unemployment high and workers insecure because a pliant working class helps their bottom lines. But they also, paradoxically, get the votes of many workers who are clinging so desperately to their jobs that they’re afraid of change and too cowed to make a ruckus.
The best bulwark against corporate irresponsibility is a strong and growing middle class. But in order to summon the political will to achieve it, we have to overcome the timidity that flows from economic desperation. It’s a diabolical chicken-and-egg conundrum at a the core of American politics today.
ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock" and “The Work of Nations." His latest, "Beyond Outrage," is now out in paperback. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause. His new film, "Inequality for All," is now available on iTunes, DVD, and On Demand. 

http://robertreich.org/post/73471886666

Top Republicans Oppose Obama’s Call To Raise The Minimum Wage

By Pat Garofalo on February 13, 2013 at 9:15 am

"Top Republicans Oppose Obama’s Call To Raise The Minimum Wage"

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)

During his State of the Union address last night, President Obama called for raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour, up from its current $7.25, and indexing it to inflation so that it rises as the economy grows. If the increase were to happen, it would give the minimum wage its highest purchasing power since 1981, lifting millions of families above the poverty line. But top Republicans are already coming out against it. During interviews last night and today, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) both made clear that they oppose raising the minimum wage, citing its supposed effect on job creation:

RYAN: I think it’s inflationary. I think it actually is counterproductive in many ways. You end up costing job from people who are the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Look, I wish we could just pass a law saying everybody should make more money without any adverse consequences. The problem is you’re costing jobs from those who are just trying to get entry level jobs. The goal ought to be is to get people out of entry level jobs into better jobs, better paying jobs. That’s better education and a growing economy. Those are some of the things he talked about and I don’t think raising minimum wage — and history is very clear about this — doesn’t actually accomplish those goals.
RUBIO: I want to see people making a lot more than $9 an hour in the United States. And the way do you that is through rapid economic growth where people are being paid a lot more than that. $9 is not enough. I think we all would want that. The question is is a minimum wage the best way to do it? And history has said the answer is absolutely not. In fact, the impact of minimum wage usually is that businesses hire less people. That’s the impact of it. They’ll just hire less people to do the same amount of work…We have a lot of history to prove that the minimum wage , raising the minimum wage does not grow the middle class.

Watch a compilation:
In fact, the history says that raising the minimum wage has little if any impact on job creation. A study published in November 2010 in the Review of Economics and Statistics, for instance, found “no detectable employment losses from the kind of minimum wage increases we have seen in the United States.” Another published in 2011 “found no impact on hours worked or employment levels.”
The seminal study of the minimum wage, done by economists David Card and Alan Krueger, found that job creation was actually strengthened by an increase in the minimum wage. This result has been found time and time again. So Rubio and Ryan have the history exactly backwards: raising the minimum wage results in higher wages and more purchasing power for workers, not job losses.
 http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/13/1587381/top-republicans-oppose-minimum-wage/

Meet the Americans Who've Lost Their Unemployment Benefits: "I'm Thoroughly Petrified" & Obama is off-message on the unemployed 3&15JAN14

WE expect this from the repiglicans and tea-baggers. Behold how Pres Obama and the Jellyfish Democrats in the US Congress have abandoned the poor, the unemployed, some of the least among us. They gave in to the greed of those representing the rich and corporate America and left out of the budget agreement the emergency unemployment extension, exposing tens of thousands of families, millions of people, to unnecessary suffering. These people of faith, most of them Christians, should consider this....
"There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless.' There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard."
- Arundhati Roy 
[Jesus] proposed a transformative vision of God. God isn't the one who condemns the poor and weak. God isn't the one who favors the rich and righteous. God isn't the one who ordains the rich to be in the castle and the poor to be in the gutter. God is the one who loves everyone, including the people the rest of us think don't count. 
- Brian McLaren 
Here are articles on the fate of the unemployed from Mother Jones & the Washington Post.....

"When you apply for a job at 50 people laugh at you. When you apply for a job at 65 people just look at you like you are crazy."

—By Dana Liebelson

| Fri Jan. 3, 2014 3:00 AM GMT

Job applicants line up at a new Target store in Albuquerque ZUMA/Dean Hanson

When Congress reconvenes next week, lawmakers will have to decide whether to extend federal unemployment benefits for about 1.3 million Americans. These emergency benefits—which Congress let expire shortly after Christmas—are part of a 2008 program that allows workers who have been out of the job for more than six months to receive an emergency extension on their payments up to 47 weeks. If Congress fails to renew these benefits, only a quarter of jobless Americans will be receiving any benefits at all, according to the Huffington Post.
As these charts show, the United States is looking at the worst long-term unemployment crisis since soup kitchen lines peaked during the Great Depression. Americans who have been unemployed for more than six months are often hit with major financial and personal hardship. Around 10 percent must file for bankruptcy, more than half report putting off medical care, and many say they have, "lost self-respect while jobless." But who are these Americans who have lost their benefits? Some reached out to Mother Jones. Here are their stories:
Name: Anonymous
State: New York
"My benefits run out this week. I'm thoroughly petrified…I am the nice girl you went to high school with who was in the advanced classes, graduated with an A average, and went on to college. I'm the girl who always worked through high school, college, law school, and grad school. I never thought I would end up a welfare mother, but here I am. I want you to know how I got here and why I can't get out. I want you to realize that your nasty comments on social media about the losers demanding entitlements and benefits and hand-outs as compared to your 'hard-earned money,' hurt more than you know. Those comments may also be hurting your friend or colleague or relative. I'm not alone in this situation. I do not want benefits, or hand-outs, or entitlements. I want a job. I want to be able to pay my own way. I want to be self-sufficient again and earn the money I receive through hard work. I don't want to lose my house or have to talk to another debt collector. But in the meantime, I am grateful that some of our lawmakers saw fit to protect the vulnerable in times of need."

Maureen "Momo" Kallins

Name: Maureen "Momo" Kallins 
State: Washington
"I am 65 years old. For three years I worked as the General Manager and the Business Manager of a small public access television station in Washington State. I lost that job in January 2013, which supported half of our household. (I have two sons, 26 and 24, and I live with my husband.) I was awarded unemployment insurance of less than half of my salary that month, which was extended after six months. I have applied for numerous jobs but never even get an interview. A friend of mine in the film business said recently, 'When you apply for a job at 50 people laugh at you. When you apply for a job at 65 people just look at you like you are crazy.' Presently I am adding to my video resume and trying to build a business. I sincerely hope that the members of Congress can agree to extend these benefits and throw us a lifeline." 
Name: Carol Watterston
State: Nevada
"After being laid off after seven years [at my job], I have now been unemployed since November 9, 2012. I job hunt for full-time employment everyday. I've been to multiple interviews and nothing has worked out. I've even attempted going back to school but I have bad credit and can't afford it…I'm already struggling to pay my rent, my bills, my car insurance and feed myself and my pets. I have never been one that expects or wants any kind of charity, and this situation I'm in is degrading and shameful, but I have to do whatever is necessary for survival. However, I have a lot more than other people on this planet. I have a roof over my head, I have food in my fridge, I have a car, and I have a very supportive family, which I'm thoroughly thankful for."

Tara Dublin

Name: Tara Dublin
State: Washington
"I was a very popular DJ on the radio in Portland. When I lost that job, I could not find another job in local media. The radio station that fired me has not replaced me. As a single mom of two sons (15 and 10 years old), it was imperative to me that I show my kids that we don't roll over and die when bad things happen; we fight. And I've been fighting for the last four and half years. In the time since I lost that dream job, I've had small opportunities, but nothing long term. I'll get a voiceover gig just when a bill is due…I worked holiday retail sales at Nordstrom but wasn't rehired for this season, and despite applying for every retail and waitressing job I can find, I have yet to be hired. I'm on the verge of losing my house yet again, and I am terrified, I don't ask for a lot out of life—just to be in a job that makes me happy and pays my bills." 
Name: Anonymous 
"I lost my marketing communications specialist position in April and have not landed a job in nine months of looking, despite working at it diligently and investing in expensive job-hunt strategy and technique classes. I am 61. I believe my age and the reasonably good salary I was earning were factors in losing my job. I was replaced by a 20-something who could be paid a lower salary. I just do not get the assertion I see in so many news stories that eventually, long-term unemployed people just stop looking for work. Who can afford to do that? How can they live?" 
Name: Jeff
State: Indiana
"I have an associate degree in hotel and restaurant administration. Right now I live in an old mobile home in pretty bad condition, but at least it is a sheltering place. I do not have a high standard of living, so really my only worry about not having a job and losing my unemployment benefits is becoming homeless. I only have rent, car payment and insurance, utilities, and food as expenses. I also worry about my three cats because I don't want to see them suffer because of what is happening to me. I have pretty much been taking care of myself since I was 13, and the thought of not having a roof over my head is terrifying…I do think Congress needs to extend benefits, because people are suffering and it would be a catastrophe to let all those who are hurting slip even lower."
Name: Anonymous 
State: Washington
"I had a baby in July 2012. I was on unpaid maternity leave until November 2012. I was informed that I would be getting laid off in October 2012. I was in a unionized position but I got bumped by a more senior union member. We had insurance through my work. So we went on COBRA for $1800 a month. The unemployment benefits extension was covering the COBRA payment. Now we'll be paying for COBRA out of pocket. And we have another baby on the way. I know I'm one of the lucky ones out there. I have enough in savings and an overall family income that I can make a choice to stay with the expensive COBRA, so that I don't have to deal with this hassle [of changing to Medicaid] mid-pregnancy."
And here are some stories from other news outlets:

• David Davis, Virginia: "That’s one goal, to avoid living on the street or in my car." (The New York Times )
• Adaline Irizarry, New Jersey: "If I don’t get an extension, I’m screwed. I think a lot of people are in that situation." (The Star-Ledger)
• Celeste, New York: "I don’t buy books; I get everything from the library. We go to maybe one movie a year." (Buzzfeed)
• Kaitlyn Smith, California: "I have to keep the house at 55 degrees even though I have two little girls, ages 2 1/2 and 1 1/2." (Los Angeles Times)
• Mary Lowe, Ohio: "We didn't do anything for Christmas—50 bucks for our daughter, that was it." (CBS News)

Dana Liebelson

Reporter

Dana Liebelson is a reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. Her work has also appeared in The Week, TIME's Battleland, Truthout, OtherWords and Yahoo! News. RSS | Twitter

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 http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/unemployment-benefits-stories

Obama is off-message on the unemployed

By Dana Milbank, Published: January 15

Why is it so hard for President Obama to stick to a theme?
Wednesday afternoon provided a vivid juxtaposition that underscored his on-again, off-again relationship with message discipline.

On the House floor, 25 Democrats interrupted debate on a spending bill, coming forward one at a time to ask Republican leaders to take up an extension of unemployment benefits, which lapsed last month. The previous day, Senate Democrats had been doing their part to keep the issue prominent, provoking Republicans to block the legislation with a filibuster.
This is exactly the sort of time when presidential leadership is most effective, when consistent use of the president’s megaphone can focus national outrage and force holdouts to relent. But at the moment House Democrats were having their rebellion, Obama was giving a speech in Raleigh, N.C. — about wide bandgap semiconductors.
“Wide bandgap semiconductors, they’re special because they lose up to 90 percent less power,” he informed his audience as he announced that he was creating a high-tech manufacturing hub in Raleigh to produce such things. “They can operate at higher temperatures than normal semiconductors.”
I’m all for wide bandgap semiconductors, whatever they are. And the broader themes of Obama’s speech — training, technology jobs and broadening “the circle of opportunity for more Americans” — are worthy. In fairness, the president did call on Congress to extend the unemployment benefits — but he gave the topic all of 47 seconds, a third of the way into his speech.
We’ve seen this before on health-care reform, gun control and other subjects: Obama will speak about a topic (as he did last week on unemployment benefits) and then move on before the job is done. But unemployment benefits should be a particularly easy sell for Obama, because Republican opposition to helping job-seekers (unless the money is taken from somewhere else) makes them sound heartless.
The House was debating the 2014 spending bill on Wednesday. The measure was being rushed to passage (as if to emphasize the haste, it was attached to a bill called the Space Launch Liability Indemnification Extension Act) and it was full of goodies for defense contractors and other powerful interests. But the alternative to passage was a government shutdown, and so the measure sailed through with only token opposition.
The absence of controversy gave House Democrats the opportunity to draw attention to jobless benefits.
“I ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 3824 to end the Republicans’ refusal to extend unemployment benefits that affect 355,000” in California, said Rep. Eric Swalwell.
“I ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 3824 to end the Republicans’ refusal to extend unemployment benefits that protect 49,965 workers in Michigan,” said Rep. Daniel Kildee.
“I ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 3824 to end the Republican majority’s refusal to extend unemployment benefits that would protect 137,315 workers in my home state of New York and that number is growing as we speak,” said Rep. Paul Tonko.
Each time, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who was controlling the Republicans’ floor time, was forced to object to the request. At the end, he thanked the Democrats for “the opportunity to renew so many acquaintances with my good friends on the other side and to make new ones.” But Cole also felt the need to defend the Republican refusal. “Supposedly we’re in the fifth year of a recovery and we have extended these extraordinary benefits for five years at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said, repeating GOP leaders’ position that Democrats had to find a way to pay for another extension.
This was an argument Democrats wanted to have.
“Nobody talks about pay-fors for tax cuts for Donald Trump or subsidies to big oil or any special deals for corporate donors to the Republican National Committee,” answered Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). “But when it comes to extending benefits to unemployed Americans, we’ve got to find pay-fors?”
Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) called it “unconscionable” that Republicans plan to shut down the House on Thursday for another recess while giving the jobless their “cold shoulder.”
And Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), pointing out that 2.3 million children live with a long-term unemployed parent and 1.5 million long-term jobless Americans have been cut off, called it “outrageous that the House of Representatives would leave town again without taking time to renew this critical program to help struggling American families.”
Outrageous. Unconscionable. Strong words, but valid — and missing from Obama’s speech about semiconductors.
Twitter: @Milbank
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-obama-is-off-message-on-the-unemployed/2014/01/15/90e0dcee-7e3c-11e3-95c6-0a7aa80874bc_story.html?tid=pm_pop

EZRA KLIEIN'S WONKBLOG FOR FRIDAY 10JAN14

View on the Web.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Welcome to Wonkbook, Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas's morning policy news primer. Send comments, criticism, or ideas to Wonkbook at Gmail dot com. To read more by Ezra and his team, go to Wonkblog.
Wonkbook's Number of the Day: 1.7 million. That's the number of documents Edward Snowden took, according to a leak of details from a Department of Defense report.
Wonkbook's Graph of the Day: Here's the graph the Fed is thinking about right now. Rising yields on two- and three-year Treasuries show that markets think monetary policy will tighten far more quickly than promised.

Wonkbook's Top 5 Stories: (1) the year for NSA reform; (2) how you finish the two biggest trade deals in U.S. history; (3) the mess of the UI extention; (4) what good news on Obamacare sounds like; and (5) Bridgeghazi.
1. Top story: Could NSA reform end up the biggest policy issue of 2014?
Behind the scenes, White House preoccupied by NSA surveillance controversy. "[I]n public, President Obama has focused this week on income inequality, touting initiatives to help the poor and unemployed. But in private, the president and his top aides have spent more time dealing with another issue. Obama met Thursday with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to update them on his review of the National Security Agency's vast surveillance program. A day earlier, he huddled separately with top intelligence officials and a White House advisory panel on privacy issues and civil liberties. He also called German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose mobile phone had been tapped by the NSA, and invited her to Washington...[H]is top lawyer, White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, met with privacy advocates Thursday, and executives from the nation's largest Internet companies were scheduled to visit the White House on Friday." David Nakamura in The Washington Post.
What Obama is about to propose for the NSA. "President Barack Obama is leaning toward extending broad privacy protections to non-U.S. citizens and is seriously considering restructuring the National Security Agency program that collects phone-call data of nearly all Americans, officials familiar with the process said on Thursday. Mr. Obama plans to unveil these and other changes to surveillance programs as soon as next week, the officials said." Siobhan Gorman and Carol E. Lee in The Wall Street Journal.
@mattyglesias: Time for someone at the NSA to leak all their info on this [Christie bridge scandal] and unify our scandals.
Intel panel: DOD report finds Snowden leaks helped terrorists. "Edward Snowden's leaks about National Security Agency programs have put U.S. troops at risk and prompted terrorists to change their tactics, according to a classified Pentagon report. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and ranking member Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Mich.) said that the Pentagon report found a significant portion of the 1.7 million documents Snowden took were related to current U.S. military operations." Jeremy Herb in The Hill.
Obama, lawmakers discuss whether to end NSA collection of Americans' phone records. "President Obama met Thursday with senior lawmakers on opposing sides of a debate about whether to end the National Security Agency's collection of Americans' phone data. The 90-minute meeting came in the wake of a report by a presidentially appointed review group that concluded that the program, which gathers billions of phone call toll logs, "was not essential" to preventing terrorist attacks. The group recommended that the data be held instead by the phone companies or a private third party" Ellen Nakashima in The Washington Post.
@ChadPergram: PATRIOT Act author Jim Sensenbrenner after Obama mtg: I'm not so sure that the president thinks we need legislation (to reform the NSA)
NSA and GCHQ activities appear illegal, says EU parliamentary inquiry. "The 51-page draft report, obtained by the Guardian, was discussed by the committee on Thursday. Claude Moraes, the rapporteur asked to assess the impact of revelations made by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, also condemns the "chilling" way journalists working on the stories have been intimidated by state authorities." Nick Hopkins and Ian Traynor in The Guardian.
@interfluidity: so, suppose a guy like Chris Christie--let's just say with staff like Chris Christie's--headed an executive branch that included the NSA.
As automakers tap smartphone technology, concerns grow about use of drivers' data. "The growing alliance between Silicon Valley and Detroit has executives in both places excited over the technological and money-making opportunities. But the fast-emerging trend also has raised questions about whether consumers will be able to control the massive trove of personal data that cars are expected to generate in the coming years. U.S. laws are vague about who can harness all that information. Can law enforcement use the data to prove that a driver was speeding? Will hackers be able to get personal data from Web-connected cars? Can consumers stop Google from tracking them as it seeks to sell targeted ads?" Cecilia Kang and Michael Fletcher in The Washington Post.
FRIEDERSDORF: The NSA leaks are about democracy, not just privacy. "[T]here is inherent value in citizens being given access to information when it informs their judgments about public policy. Information of this sort is a prerequisite for meaningful civic participation. There ought to be a strong presumption in favor of making it public, especially when the policy at issue is as significant and controversial as targeted killing...The unstated assumption behind a lot of national-security-state defenders and Snowden critics is that the public has no proper role in deciding any of these questions, because the information needed to make sound judgments is properly classified." Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.
Music recommendations interlude: This is a great YouTube playlist of all the Seventies songs in the movie "American Hustle."

Top opinion
KRUGMAN: The war over poverty. "The narrative went like this: Antipoverty programs hadn't actually reduced poverty, because poverty in America was basically a social problem -- a problem of broken families, crime and a culture of dependence that was only reinforced by government aid. And because this narrative was so widely accepted, bashing the poor was good politics, enthusiastically embraced by Republicans and some Democrats, too. Yet this view of poverty, which may have had some truth to it in the 1970s, bears no resemblance to anything that has happened since." Paul Krugman in The New York Times.
SUNSTEIN: A new War on Poverty needs correct facts. "[S]ome programs have especially big impacts. All by itself, for example, the earned income tax credit reduced child poverty by no less than 5 percentage points in 2012. Food and nutrition programs had almost as large an effect. In 1967, the impact of such programs was close to zero." Cass R. Sunstein in Bloomberg.
ABRAMOWITZ: Political independents don't really exist. "[T]he large majority of independents are "closet partisans" who consistently support only one party's candidates. They call themselves independents and many of them register as independents when given an opportunity, but they vote like partisans...87 percent of independent Democrats (i.e., independents who lean Democratic) voted for Barack Obama while 86 percent of independent Republicans voted for Mitt Romney. Moreover, 78 percent of independent Democrats voted a straight ticket for president, House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, as did 72 percent of independent Republicans." Alan Abramowitz in Politico.
Opinion interviews: A health industry expert on 'the fundamental problem with Obamacare.' Robert Laszewski speaks with Ezra Klein. This sociologist has a plan to make America more like Sweden. Lane Kenworthy talks with Dylan Matthews. The Washington Post.
RITHOLTZ: The best housing program you've never heard of. "Of all of the various government housing programs run by various federal agencies, [the Home Affordable Refinance Program] is the most effective and efficient one out there...[A]fter HARP was modified in 2011, refinances increased significantly. The total number of avoided foreclosures has passed 3 million. What does the HARP 2.0 program actually do? It takes people who are underwater in a variety of expensive, or ill-advised or even predatory mortgages, and allows them to refinance their homes into traditional conforming 30-year fixed mortgages. A broad assortment of "interest-only" mortgages, 2/28 teaser rates, adjustable-rate interest-only loans are eligible under the program." Barry Ritholtz in Bloomberg.
BROOKS: Movement on the right. "I'd invite you, for example, to cast your eye over the new issue of National Affairs, the right-leaning policy journal edited by Yuval Levin. You'll find nine different articles that hang together coherently around what could well be the dominant style of conservatism of the coming years. This is the conservatism of skeptical reform. This conservatism is oriented, first, around social problems, not government...But the emerging conservatives begin their analysis by looking at concrete problems: how to help the unemployed move to where they can find jobs; how to help gifted students from poor families reach their potential. If you start by looking at these specific matters, then even conservatives conclude that, in properly limited ways, government can be a useful tool. Government is not the only solution, but it is also not the only problem." David Brooks in The New York Times.
COHN: The young are alright. "Thanks to analysis from Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist who was an architect of both the Massachusetts and federal reforms, we know that enrollment was slow to get rolling in Massachusetts--and that, relatively speaking, healthy people came into the system late. Now Gruber has done a new analysis, breaking down enrollment specifically by age, and provided it to the New Republic...Over the course of the first year, the proportion of young people (in this case, ages 19 to 34) who had obtained health coverage through the Massachusetts insurance exchange grew. In other words, they were more likely to sign up late." Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic.
TYSON: For once, a bit of optimism has arrived. But let's be real: it's just a bit. "Optimism about the future should also be tempered by recognition of where the economy is today and what it has lost since the recession. Even with more rapid growth this year, output and employment will remain far below prerecession trend lines for several years. Output fell 8 percent relative to its noninflationary potential in 2008-9 and is now around 10 percent lower than what was judged to be its potential in 2007." Laura D'Andrea Tyson in The New York Times.
This is just great interlude: Now you too can have a business card like Chen Guangbiao.
2. How you finish the two biggest trade deals in U.S. history
Trade bill to open debate on globalization as Congress demands more oversight. "Lawmakers have proposed a bill that would narrow the Obama administration's room to negotiate new free-trade agreements, demanding that sensitive issues such as currency ma-nipu-la-tion be covered in future treaties and deepening congressional oversight of the process. The legislation, introduced Tuesday by three of the top lawmakers on U.S. trade policy, would give the administration a green light to complete new trade pacts covering an important swath of Asia and Latin America and all of the European Union -- the most significant such agreements in a generation...The measure requires that future treaties set ground rules for how countries manage their currency values -- a sensitive issue for any sovereign state that may be difficult to build into a trade agreement with countries as diverse as Japan and Peru. It also asks for limits on the role of state-owned enterprises, and it would allow any member of Congress to attend trade negotiating sessions." Howard Schneider in The Washington Post.
Explainer: What is "trade promotion authority" or "fast track"? Lydia DePillis in The Washington Post.
More economists are taking the 'glass half-full' view on U.S. growth. "Record exports and the smallest trade deficit in four years. Healthier consumer spending, including the strongest annual increase in automobile sales since 2007, spurred by a booming stock market and an improving housing sector. And a slow but steady pickup in job creation that has pushed unemployment to its lowest level since 2008. The confluence of all these forces in recent weeks has prompted economists to sharply revise their expectations for growth in late 2013 and early 2014, and prompted hopes that a more sustained economic expansion has finally arrived...The newfound optimism will face its first test on Friday, when the Labor Department reports the latest data on unemployment and job creation in December." Nelson D. Schwartz in The New York Times.
Jobless claims fall by 15,000. "Initial claims for jobless benefits, a measure of layoffs, decreased by 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 330,000 in the week ended Jan. 4, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was the lowest level in more than a month. Economists had expected 335,000 new claims for the week...The four-week moving average for claims, which evens out bumpy week-to-week data, fell by 9,750 to 349,000." Eric Morath in The Wall Street Journal.
Federal Reserve faces prospect of bond market showdown over rates. "Bond traders are bringing forward their expectations of when the Federal Reserve will start to tighten policy, leading to a jump in short-term US borrowing costs. Recent economic data have pointed to a gathering American recovery, and could result in a showdown between policy makers and the Treasury market....[T]he upbeat tone of recent economic data is testing the bond market's belief that the central bank is in no hurry to start tightening policy after the gradual withdrawal of QE is completed, probably later this year." Michael Mackenzie in The Financial Times.
What should we call Chris Christies bridge scandal? interlude: Bridgeghazi? Bridgegate? Blagojebridge? WikiLanes?
3. The fight to extend unemployment benefits has turned into a real mess
Showdown vote ahead on Senate Democrats' bill to extend jobless benefits. "Democrats offered a roughly $18 billion proposal that would extend the benefits through most of 2014, and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) scheduled a showdown vote on the new proposal for next Monday...The new Democratic plan would extend the emergency unemployment program until mid-November (the original proposal was for three months). " Paul Kane in The Washington Post.
Here are some more key policy details. "The law that expired in December provided federal aid to supplement the 26 weeks of unemployment benefits provided by most states. The expired law provided up to 47 weeks of additional payments; the new Reid proposal would scale that back to a maximum of 31 weeks. To partially offset the cost, the bill included a proposal--similar to one backed by President Barack Obama and a broader one introduced by Mr. Portman--to eliminate a kind of "double dipping" by cutting off Social Security disability benefits to people if they are also collecting unemployment benefits. Most of the cost of the bill, some $17 billion, would be offset by postponing for one year the expiration of across-the-board spending cuts, known as the sequester, that apply to mandatory spending programs, including payments to health providers under Medicare." Janet Hook in The Wall Street Journal.
Jobless benefits are not a priority for House Republicans. "House Republicans are showing little appetite, urgency and interest in extending the program, and are hinting that they are content to let the issue disappear if the Senate fails to pass its own legislation...Some Republicans think the nation is awash with unoccupied jobs, others are wary of shuffling more government money to the unemployed and nearly every GOP lawmaker wants to see seismic changes to the way benefits are administered." Jake Sherman in Politico.
Reid is burning bridges trying to get the bill through -- and to an extent that it's hurting the bill. "With his strong-armed change to the filibuster rule and an iron-fisted control of the Senate floor, Senator Harry Reid has engaged in the greatest consolidation of congressional power since Newt Gingrich ruled the House, unleashing a bitterness that may derail efforts to extend unemployment insurance. Mr. Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, on Thursday dismissed all proposed Republican amendments to the unemployment extension, even those drafted by Republicans who had handed Democrats a victory on Tuesday by voting to take up the bill." Jonathan Weisman in The New York Times.
<strong">Trains are a cool hobby interlude: Check out these cool ones in history.
4. What good news on Obamacare sounds like
Obamacare is giving a big boost to Georgia's health IT industry. "Politically, Georgia is fighting the health law at every turn. Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, has chosen not to expand Medicaid, and the state's insurance commissioner publically vowed to obstruct the Affordable Care Act. But that doesn't mean Georgia isn't seeing a financial benefit from the law. Take the company called PreMedex. Founder and president Van Willis knows that just a few years ago, a company like his would've been a hard sell -- impossible, even. The two-year-old company contracts with hospitals and doctors' offices to call patients after they're discharged. Under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals are penalized if Medicare patients are readmitted within a month for several specific illnesses." Jim Burress in Kaiser Health News.
Maryland's plan to upend healthcare spending. "The Obama administration is set to announce Friday an ambitious health-care experiment that will make Maryland a test case for whether aggressive government regulation of medical prices can dramatically cut health spending. Under the experiment, Maryland will cap hospital spending and set prices -- and, if all goes as planned, cut $330 million in federal spending. The new plan, which has been under negotiation for more than a year, could leave Maryland looking more like Germany and Switzerland, which aggressively regulate prices, than its neighboring states. And it could serve as a model - or cautionary tale - for other states looking to follow in its footsteps." Sarah Kliff in The Washington Post.
Medicaid is nearly free health care. Will people move for that? "[S]hould we expect a widespread migration from the states who fail to expand Medicaid into those that are participating? New research suggests it's unlikely: Previous expansions of the public program, coupled with the geographic clustering of non-expansion states, suggest that cases like Workman's will be the exception rather than the rule..."The takeaway, I think, is that as states are considering whether to expand Medicaid it's unlikely they'll see an influx of beneficiaries if they expand," says Aaron Schwartz, a doctoral candidate at Harvard who published the new paper in the journal Health Affairs. "Based on past experience, we don't see any effects on migration."" Sarah Kliff in The Washington Post.
Survey: Most of the uninsured haven't been to HealthCare.gov yet. "The survey from Enroll America, a nonprofit with close ties to the Obama administration that is aiming to sign people up, found seven out of 10 uninsured people in the United States haven't visited an ObamaCare online exchange yet...In addition, 81 percent said they didn't know March 31 is the open enrollment deadline, after which they would be subject to the individual mandate penalty, if they remain uninsured. Sixty-nine percent said they weren't aware that tax subsidies and financial help might be available for them, and 59 percent said they didn't know anything about plans that may be available in their state." Jonathan Easley in The Hill.
Obamacare will cover breast-cancer drugs. "Certain medications that are intended to prevent breast cancer will be fully covered under Obamacare, in new guidance set to be issued by the Department of Health and Human Services Thursday morning. Women at increased risk of breast cancer can receive so-called chemoprevention drugs, including tamoxifen and raloxifene, without a co-pay or other out-of-pocket expense." Amanda Terkel in The Huffington Post.
White House stops short of veto threats on House healthcare bills. "The Obama administration stopped short Thursday of threatening to veto House bills to require officials to tell people if their personal data has been compromised through ObamaCare, and to require weekly reports on the health law's implementation. The White House said in two Statements of Administration Policy that it opposed both bills, one of which is set for a Friday vote in the House...Weekly reporting requirements on both enrollments and the operation of the HealthCare.gov website would require "unfunded, unprecedented, and unnecessary reporting requirements" on the health insurance exchanges, it said in one statement." Pete Kasperowicz in The Hill.
Writerly interlude: John McPhee on structure.
5. We're calling this Bridgeghazi, right?
Christie apologizes for scandal, fires deputy chief of staff, ousts top political aide. "A contrite New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie apologized Thursday for a scandal that threatens his political future, announcing that he had fired a senior aide and banished his top campaign adviser for their roles in days of traffic jams orchestrated to punish a small-city Democratic mayor. Christie at once accepted responsibility as the state's chief executive but also insisted he had no involvement in shutting down a pair of access lanes to the heavily trafficked George Washington Bridge over four days in early September. The Republican governor said he was "blindsided" by this week's release of e-mails and text messages detailing his office's role in the plot to create severe gridlock in Fort Lee, N.J." Robert Costa and Philip Rucker in The Washington Post.
U.S. attorney's office reviewing GWB lane closings to see whether federal law violated. "U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman has been asked to review the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee last September to determine whether federal laws were violated. The review, prompted by a referral from the Port Authority Office of Inspector General, is considered a preliminary look to determine if a full-blown investigation is warranted. If a criminal investigation is undertaken, charges ranging from interfering with the right of state travel to obstruction of justice to criminal negligent homicide could be lodged, legislators and legal experts said on Thursday. Another outcome: lawsuits filed by commuters or business owners who were impacted by the massive traffic snarl." Peter Sampson and Karen Sudol in The Bergen, N.J. Record.
Firing of Stepien deprives Christie of a key counselor. "In Chris Christie's circle of advisers, few were as close to the governor as Bill Stepien. He managed both of the New Jersey Republican's winning campaigns for governor, helped shape Christie's tough-guy-on-your-side image and was expected to take a top role in an eventual White House bid. But when Christie cut him loose Wednesday evening, the governor didn't so much as speak to him. Christie's decision to oust Stepien and another top adviser implicated in the burgeoning scandal over George Washington Bridge lane closures demonstrated the blunt force that Christie is willing to use to contain a crisis, even if it means exiling members of his innermost circle." Matea Gold and Robert Costa in The Washington Post.
Reading material interlude: The best sentences Wonkblog read today.
Wonkblog Roundup
Maryland's plan to upend health care spending. Sarah Kliff.
Congress is considering whether to allow Obama to finish two massive trade deals. Lydia DePillis.
NASA wants to keep the International Space Station going until 2024. Is that a good idea? Brad Plumer.
Three insane ways marketers will reach you in the future. Lydia DePillis.
This sociologist has a plan to make America more like Sweden. Dylan Matthews.
A health industry expert on 'the fundamental problem with Obamacare.' Ezra Klein.
Medicaid is nearly free health care. Will people move for that? Sarah Kliff.
Et Cetera
How legalizing pot squeezes police funds for fighting drugs. Zusha Elinson in The Wall Street Journal.
Got tips, additions, or comments? E-mail me.
Wonkbook is produced with help from Michelle Williams.

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Jobless Rate Drops To 6.7 Percent; Only 74,000 Jobs Added & Every Job In America, In 1 Graph & Where The Jobs Are (And Where They Aren't), In 1 Graph10&9JAN14&11JUL13

THIS pathetic jobs report shows we are still in recession. But the repiglicans and tea-baggers will continue their class warfare, blocking and voting against the renewal of emergency unemployment benefit extension and touring the country on a propaganda tour during the 50th anniversary of Pres Johnson's War On Poverty. They are trying to convince the nation they are concerned about American poverty too, while they slash funding for the social safety net, eliminate unemployment AND job training / stimulus programs while protecting the tax cuts and subsidies for the rich, for corporate America. WHEN will Americans wake up and see the greatest obstacles to economic recovery are the gop and tea-baggers in Congress? From NPR...

by

January 10, 2014 8:15 AM

We'll be constantly updating this post after its 8:30 a.m. ET release.

Sign of the times? A "help wanted" sign in the window of a Philadelphia business last year.

Matt Rourke/AP

There were only 74,000 jobs added to public and private payrolls in December, but the unemployment rate fell to a 5-year low 6.7 percent, . It was a report that included several surprises for economists and raised questions about just how strong — or not — the labor market was as 2013 came to a close. .
We'll have more on the news. Click your "refresh" button to be sure you're seeing our latest updates.
Update at 8:45 a.m. ET. If Job Growth Was So Slow, Why Did The Jobless Rate Go Down?
The 74,000-gain in payroll employment last month was far below the 195,000-or-so that economists expected. But the unemployment rate fell 0.3 percentage points, which also surprised the experts. They had thought the rate held steady at November's 7 percent.
Those figures often seem to contradict each other because they're based on different surveys. The job growth data come from surveys of businesses and government agencies. Those institutions are basically asked to report how many jobs they have on their payrolls. The unemployment figure, meanwhile, comes from a survey of households. People are basically asked if they were or were not working.
To understand what's going on, it's important to dig into the data behind the unemployment rate. According to BLS, there were 347,000 fewer people in the "civilian labor force" last month than there were in November. That group includes both those who have jobs and those who say they're looking for work.
Meanwhile, BLS says that 143,000 more people — a subset of the total labor force — reported they were working. When the total size of the labor force shrinks, but more people say they've got jobs, that brings the unemployment rate down.
A key issue: Why were there fewer people in the labor force? According to BLS, 917,000 individuals were classified as "discouraged workers" last month. That was up by 155,000 from November. Discouraged workers are those who would like to have jobs, but have given up looking for work because they don't think they can find any.
An increase in the number of discouraged workers is not a positive sign.
Our original post — Will Last Jobs Report For 2013 Offer Hopeful Signs For 2014? — previewed the news:
When the releases figures this morning about job growth and the unemployment rate in December, economists will sift through the data to see if the numbers add to the recent evidence of slow improvement in the labor market, NPR's Yuki Noguchi .
The BLS report is due at 8:30 a.m. ET. We'll be updating with highlights and reaction to the news. , economists expect to hear that 195,000 or so jobs were added to public and private payrolls last month. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, likely stayed around November's 7 percent.
There's a growing sense among economists, Yuki said, that something of a "warm front" is sweeping across the economy and that job growth in 2014 might be able to continue at a 200,000-or-so monthly rate. If that happens, she added, the jobless rate could be down around 6 percent by year's end.
One caveat: As the Federal Reserve it's been giving the economy, that could slow things down.
Our friends over at Planet Money, who track this sort of news all the time, offer this related post

Every Job In America, In 1 Graph

by Quoctrung Bui

January 09, 2014 4:13 PM

Whatever Friday's monthly jobs report says, it won't change the big picture. There are roughly 137 million jobs in this country. About two-thirds of those jobs are in private-sector services; the remaining third are split between goods-producing jobs (mainly manufacturing and construction) and government work (mostly at the state and local level).
Here's a closer look, drawn from the same data that the government collects for the monthly jobs report. (You can see this data, in glorious detail, .)

Notes

*The data come from the government's non-farm payroll report -- which, as the name suggests, does not include farm jobs.

Source: Bureau Of Labor Statistics
Credit: Quoctrung Bui/NPR

One thing this graph doesn't show is change over time. Over the past several years, the job market has (obviously) been pretty grim. The recession ended four and a half years ago, in June 2009. But there are still 1.3 million fewer U.S. jobs than there were in December 2007, when the recession began.
Still, when you look more closely, the picture is more nuanced. Since the recession started in December 2007:

• Health care has added 1.5 million jobs.
• Restaurants and bars have added roughly 700,000 jobs.
• The number of construction jobs has fallen by 1.6 million.
• The number of manufacturing jobs has fallen by 1.7 million.
• The number of government jobs has fallen by about 500,000.

For more on jobs lost and gained since the recession — and on average wages in different sectors — see our post .

Where The Jobs Are (And Where They Aren't), In 1 Graph

by Jacob Goldstein

July 11, 2013 3:47 PM

It's been five and a half years since the recession started, and four years since the recovery began. It's been a brutal time for the U.S. job market (obviously), and the picture is still pretty bleak.
But when you look at individual industries, you see a more nuanced picture. Many industries have lost jobs, but others are employing more people than ever.
To see how the jobs picture has changed since the start of the recession, we created the graph below. Here's how it works:

• The size of the circle represents the number of jobs in each industry today.
• The circle's position on the vertical axis shows the number of jobs lost or gained since the start of the recession.
• The circle's position on the horizontal axis shows average hourly earnings for workers as of this spring.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Credit: Matt Stiles and Alyson Hurt

A few notes on some key sectors from the graph:
Manufacturing lost 2 million jobs during the recession. The sector has actually added back about half a million jobs during the recovery, and average wages are over $24 an hour. But many of the jobs that disappeared during the recession are probably gone forever. Even before the recession, automation and global competition led U.S. manufacturers to cut jobs, even as they increased output. That trend is likely to continue.
Construction is the other big sector that really got wallopped. This isn't surprising, given that the recession followed a massive real estate bubble that triggered an unsustainable building boom. Still, it's worth noting that even now, with the housing sector coming back to life and adding jobs again, there are nearly a million fewer construction jobs than there were a decade ago.
Health care is the big bright spot in the jobs picture. The sector has added 1.5 million jobs since the start of the recession, and average earnings of over $26 an hour are solid.
Leisure and hospitality mostly means jobs at restaurants and bars. The sector has more jobs now than ever. But average earnings, at about $13 an hour, are low.
Mining and logging includes the oil and gas industries, which have been booming, and where average hourly earnings are nearly $30 an hour. But, as the graph shows, even after strong growth, the sector has fewer than 1 million jobs. It just isn't big enough to make much of dent in the national jobs picture.
Professional and technical services includes a big swath of the tech industry as well as architects and lawyers and other skilled professionals. Not surprisingly, average hourly earnings are high, at about $37 an hour.
For More: The data in this post come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which has tons of great jobs data. The are here; are here. One limitation: The BLS doesn't collect earnings data for government jobs. That's why government isn't listed on the graphic.

 http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/10/261361049/will-last-jobs-report-for-2013-offer-hopeful-signs-for-2014?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=BreakingNews&utm_campaign=

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/01/09/261053608/every-job-in-america-in-1-graph 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/07/11/201075339/where-the-jobs-are-and-where-they-arent-in-1-graph