Brother, Can You Spare a ... Diploma?

"Those wascally Wepublicans," as Elmer Fudd might intone.

On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed HR 3630, a bill extending President Barack Obama's 2 percent payroll tax cut. The tax cut, which was set to expire on January 1, will save the average American family an estimated $1,000 next year. Good news in a continuing economically difficult climate, right?

Not so fast, my paycheck-challenged little friend!

Apparently, the wise men and women on Capitol Hill also want to help reduce the number of unemployed Americans with a couple of other choice tidbits included in the bill: unemployment insurance benefits, which currently provide for up to 99 weeks of support, will be slashed by about 40% . After all, they don't want you laying around, slacking on the job search thing.

And, since you must be ignorant if you don't have a job, you will also now be required to have a high school diploma or a GED in order to get the cash. So if you're a credit or two short, better enroll in some night school courses while you have no way to support your family!

Oh, and one more thing -- you'll need to find time to pee in a cup in between job interviews and Algebra One; there will be mandatory drug testing to be sure "that people who are receiving these unemployment benefits are not using those resources to purchase drugs." (A quote from House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif. -- I promise, I'm not making this up!)

Many Republicans -- and a few Democrats seeking to pander to the more conservative elements of that party -- are fond of platitudes like "we believe a paycheck is better than an unemployment check." Another quote, this one from House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.)

Okay, most of us are with you on that one, Dave. But take a minute and just do the math (I'm assuming here that the Congressmen have at least a GED.)

As another Republican, Mark Zandi -- an economic adviser to John McCain in his 2008 presidential campaign -- has estimated, each dollar spent on extending unemployment benefits generates $1.61 in economic growth. Meanwhile, according to an analysis from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the Republicans' bill would result in $22 billion in lost economic growth and cost at least 140,000 jobs next year.

Americans are not -- by and large -- stupid, shiftless and just waiting for the check in the mail so they can get stoned. The most recent data from the Bureau on Labor Statistics shows 6.9 million people receiving unemployment insurance (out of a total 14 million without work) versus 3.4 million job openings in September.

To borrow a line from another famous cartoon character, James Carville: It's the jobs, stupid!

Ideological idiocy aside, how do you people sleep at night offering stuff like this in the name of helping hard-hit Americans through these tough economic times?

A couple of helpful articles (and sources for the above stats and quotes):  Mother Jones and The Hill

D is for Democrat...and Disappointed

As my childhood hero, Popeye, used to say: "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more!"

I suppose that, with the looming advent of 2012 -- and not much actual faith in the December 21 Mayan deadline for the ending of the age -- I'm going to have to make a decision about the presidential election.

Along with many other Democrats in America, you can color me "depressed, disappointed and disillusioned." Whatever euphoria may have briefly arisen in 2008 seems to have dissipated like so much swamp gas in the bayou. (Along with, evidently, any hope that BP and the Feds were actually going to do anything to "make things right" along the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of the Deep Throat...I mean,  Deepwater oil disaster.)

Actually, I am not registered with any political party here in my "home" state of Florida. I am staunchly and fiercely independent in my political views. The son of a fervent Goldwater Republican, it is sad to see what the GOP of my father's generation has become. Their agenda seems to me to be anything but Grand these days.

Lacking any true option for a viable independent candidate, that leaves the Democrats. I'll go ahead and confess, I voted for William Jefferson Clinton -- and I thought Slick Willy did a pretty decent job. Will he have a place in the pantheon of "great presidents" in US history? Doubt it. But judging by the quality of his successors, he sure looks better all the time!

I read a nice little opinion piece today by Canadian journalist Bogdan Kipling, who writes about America's political scene from no less a lofty peak than our nation's capital. (Reminds me of a popular bumper sticker from my youth, seen plastered on a toilet tank: "Flush Twice -- It's a Long Way to Washington!")

In his essay, Run, Hillary, Run, Mr. Kipling was addressing the perplexing dilemma facing many Democrats for 2012...should the donkeys run somebody besides President Obama -- most likely Hillary Clinton -- if they hope to derail whichever Republican candidate emerges from the goof-fest that is their primary season?

Mr. Kipling writes:

Increasingly the question of whether President Obama should be challenged for the 2012 nomination is surfacing among disgruntled Democrats worried about a solid Republican victory next fall. They’re right to be concerned: the crises facing the United States and the world deserve better than Obama’s permanent floating re-election campaign....

Obama’s priorities seem to be governed more by his re-election timetable than the demands of the national interest and reflective responses to the galloping changes in the global order. Contrary to mainstream opinion, Obama is a mediocre politician. Were it not so, surely he would have known that people get wise to polished repetitive, but empty speeches — and know the difference between bread and butter now and pie in the sky later.  (full article text here)

I'm no Obama-hater; I have plenty of friends who can fulfill that role for me. I begrudgingly granted him my vote after his emergence in the 2008 campaign; I did (fleetingly) dare to hope for a change in the way Washington was working. I've tried to be supportive of the office, the man and the policies the current administration has enacted.

But I think I'm with Mr. Kipling on this one: "the Democratic Party should bite the bullet and jettison the nation’s one-term Senate orator and try to elect the nation’s first woman president."

I'm pretty sure he ain't talking about Michele Bachmann, by the way.