The White House said Friday it would agree to a budget deal with the
Republicans that excludes an extension of federal benefits for the
long-term unemployed, which are scheduled to expire at the end of the
month.
By the administration’s own figures, allowing the federally-funded
extended benefit program to expire will end cash assistance for 1.3
million people immediately after the holidays and impact an additional
3.6 million people in the first half of 2014.
With this cruel and callous act, Obama and the Democratic Party are
prepared to join with the Republicans in condemning nearly 5 million
people and their families to destitution. In prior recessions, emergency
unemployment benefits, beyond the standard aid offered by the states,
have never been terminated when unemployment remained at such high
levels as those prevailing today.
Obama’s own Council of Economic Advisers this week pointed out that
long-term unemployment in the US is 2.6 percent, more than double “any
other time that we have allowed benefits” to lapse.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney made clear on Friday that
Obama would not make an extension of long-term benefits a precondition
for reaching an agreement in current talks between leaders of a
House-Senate conference committee tasked with coming up with a budget by
December 13.
The conference committee, headed by Republican House Budget Committee
Chairman Paul Ryan and Democratic Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman
Patty Murray, was set up as part of the agreement that ended the partial
government shutdown in October. The temporary federal spending
authorization that ended the 16-day shutdown expires on January 15.
Exuding the cynicism that typifies the Obama administration, Carney
said in an interview it would be “terrible to tell more than a million
families across the country just a few days after Christmas that they’re
out of benefits,” while making clear that the White House was prepared
to do just that.
Friday’s announcement came just two days after Obama gave a speech in
which he called income inequality the “defining challenge of our time”
and declared that “over the course of the next year, and for the rest of
my presidency,” his administration would “focus all our efforts” on
narrowing the gap between rich and poor.
His readiness to end jobless benefits for millions of out-of-work
people has already given the lie to his absurd pretense of championing
working Americans and opposing concentrated wealth. It reflects the real
substance of the policies he has pursued since taking office, which
have been devoted to further enriching the ruling elite at the expense
of the broad mass of the population.
The announcement came as well the same week that a federal bankruptcy
judge ruled in favor of the bankruptcy of Detroit, which the Obama
administration has supported, opening the way for the pensions of city
workers in Detroit and throughout the country to be gutted.
It also coincided with the Labor Department’s employment report for
November, showing moderate job growth and a drop in the official
unemployment rate to 7.0 percent. The most significant aspect of the
report, however, was its data showing a further growth in the ranks of
the long-term unemployed. The government now estimates there are 4.1
million people who have been out of work for a half-year or more—a huge
figure that nevertheless understates the actual level of long-term
unemployment.
According to the Labor Department, the average duration of
unemployment increased by more than a week in November, to 37.2 weeks,
while the percentage of the jobless who have been out of work for more
than six months hit 37.3 percent, up from 36.1 percent in October.
The official unemployment rate, which excludes laid-off workers who
have given up looking for a job and young people who have been unable to
land their first position, vastly underestimates the real level of
joblessness.
The overriding reason for the decline in the official unemployment
rate since 2009 has been the exit of millions of workers from the labor
force. According to a survey by the Economic Policy Institute, five
million “missing workers” have dropped out of the labor force over the
past five years. While the percentage of the population that is employed
rose slightly last month, to 58.6 percent, it is still below what it
was in July and down 4.4 percentage points since 2006.
According to multiple press reports, Democrats and Republicans on the
budget conference committee are close to a deal on a one- or two-year
budget agreement. What has been reported makes clear that the White
House and congressional Democrats are preparing to accept a reactionary
plan that will continue to cut social spending while imposing new taxes
on consumers in the form of “user fees.”
The deal will leave in place the framework of automatic cuts in
domestic discretionary spending under the so-called “sequester” process
that took effect last March. However, certain cuts will be pared back,
mainly those affecting the military. Billions of dollars in other,
unspecified future cuts will be mandated to offset the increased
military spending.
The Democrats are preparing to drop their demand for ending corporate
tax loopholes, and instead agree to regressive fees on consumers,
including a surcharge for air travel. Some $20 billion in savings are to
come from an increase in federal workers’ contributions to their
pension plans. The increased pension contributions will come on top of
three years of frozen wages for federal workers and income losses from
unpaid furloughs resulting from the sequester.
These developments underscore the fact that behind the partisan
wrangling, there is complete unanimity between the Democrats and
Republicans on intensifying the attack on the working class and
expanding the transfer of wealth from the bottom to the very top of
American society.
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Obama postures as an opponent of inequality
[5 December 2013]
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