Friday, April 1, 2011

How to Form a Breadline

1930s Redux

How to Form a Breadline

By Bill Britton

The Florida House of Representatives has approved a bill that would establish the deepest and most far-reaching cuts in unemployment benefits in the nation. The measure would reduce the number of weeks the unemployed could collect benefits from the standard 26 weeks to 20. This has workers worried in Florida, where the unemployment rate, while continuing to inch down, is 11.5 percent, considerably higher than the nation’s rate of 8.9 percent.

The bill’s sponsor, Representative Doug Holder, a Sarasota Republican, said creating jobs is pivotal to keeping Floridians off the unemployment rolls: “Florida is positioning itself to be the most business-friendly state in the country. The best way to right a capsized economy is to provide more jobs.”

This year the tax on business owners jumped to $72.10 a year for each employee. How $72.10 is an excessive burden on business, and how putting more people out of their homes is good for the economy are two questions that are beyond me.

1 comment:

  1. Beats me too, Bill. The GOP up here in New Hampshire is also at work with its "voodoo economics," trying to enrich the rich, eliminate the middle class and increase the gap between the haves and have nots. I don't understand why good people are so gullible -- must be the living embodiment of JKGalbraiths's Dependence Effect, Tell 'em What they Want to Hear. As Barnum stated, "There's a sucker born every minute."

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