Today, 1.2 million jobless workers lose their extended unemployment insurance (UI) because some Senate millionaires think a $300 a week unemployment check will make people too lazy to look for a job. This group also is pushing to reduce the nation’s budget deficit rather than use short-term spending to create desperately needed jobs for the nation’s 26 million unemployed or underemployed workers.
Three things:
* The Senate yesterday failed for the FOURTH time to extend UI because Senate Republicans are blockading the bill. Economists say extending UI is fiscally prudent and essential to improve the faltering economy. Several hundred thousand more unemployed workers will lose their UI each week in addition to the 1.2 million jobless workers who already have.
* While more than 15 million U.S. workers can’t find work because there’s five workers for every one job opening, the rich are getting massively richer. The ranks of the nation’s millionaires rose 16.5 percent, to 2.87 million, last year. Their total wealth in North America rose 17.8 percent, to $10.7 trillion.
* A new poll shows the majority of the U.S. public wants government to take a larger and stronger role in making the economy work for America’s workers. Nine out of 10 agree that government and corporations should join with individuals to place the common good above greed. Another poll, by the Alliance for American Manufacturing, shows nearly three of five respondents (58 percent) say the United States no longer has the world’s strongest economy, compared with 36 percent who believe otherwise.
So, in short: Republicans in Congress are out of touch with the American people and are working with the growing group of millionaires—like coal mine owner Don Blankenship of Massey Energy Co. and BP CEO Tony Hayward—to ride roughshod over those whose sweat and hard work built this nation.
Some say the United States is now a corporatocracy.
Who in Congress is willing to prove otherwise?
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