What Not to Say–Michele Rollins edition
Jul 30th, 2010 by David Anderson
The Washington Post has an audio of Heiress Michele Rollins explaining that unemployment shouldn’t be extended because it makes people lazy. It is true that starvation and homelessness can focus minds, but there may be a better way. How about giving a six month suspension of the payroll tax for new hires who are on extended benefits? She is right that we can’t foster dependency, but she seems to have no answer on how we encourage independence when the economy mathematically has about 9 people looking for every full time job available. A lot of people on extended benefits are working part time or go on and off with temporary jobs. They are not lazy just hurting.
The answer is not to expand the debt and take tens of billions out of private investment and finance public debt. We need to unleash the private investment and let job creation begin. We can start by paying for new benefits out of unspent stimulus money and not adding on nearly 50 billion dollars that have nothing to do with unemployment benefits turning a 35 billion dollar bill into an 84 billion dollar with almost 50 billion in new taxes and fees and 35 billion in new debt.
That is what I wish she said. Take it back to them. The problem is not the unemployed but Democrat policies that kill jobs. The fact that she didn’t is another reason to look elsewhere. Should I add that her understandable anxiety about paying for people who aren’t working is like ours about paying for bailouts of people who make bad business decisions. I guess she can relate to the average man.
UPDATE: for those who do not understand the process for keeping extended benefits, I detailed them in the comments. I know a placement worker as well as people who are currently on them. It is different from regular unemployment where you say what date you looked for work that week which is sort of checking it in. You don’t get a notice in the mail. You have to go in and get career counseling, resume updates, and are offered placement services to help you. You have to get in touch with at least 3 real people which is verified by contacts from the office which likely means you have to make at least 10 times that number of inquires to find 3 willing to even take an application. You actually have to try getting off or they will cut you immediately. It has never been publicized anywhere that I knew. I remember when a relative got one of the packets and I made further inquiries including with a job placement specialist. That is the way unemployment should be all the time, frankly.
David, I guess you know the HIRE Act signed into law by the President in April includes a suspension of payroll taxes for businesses hiring unemployed workers. I think the payroll tax exemption runs till the end of the year.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20000700-503544.html
Regarding the issue of what makes people lazy, I wonder if government sanctioned gambling at Dover Downs has a negative effect on workers and their families. Does Dover Downs have any policy for preventing people from gambling away Social Security or unemployment money?
Note from me: No, if they did ban Social Security benefits that would really hurt business. It couldn’t be enforced anyway. You are right. They benefit from the desperate. You are right, the bill which has worked better than the near trillion dollar boondoggle to create private sector jobs would expire in a few months. It would be expired before the next Congress so for someone running it doesn’t exist. It should be replaced with the more permanent proposal above. It has worked better than projected. Tax incentives matter.
I don’t think I agree with Michelle Rollin’s entire statement, but I do agree that unemployment should no longer be extended. There are people that have been on unemployment for about 2 years now. That is no longer insurance. In fact it is on the verge of being a career. The perpetual extention of unemployment insurance is a reversal of welfare reform, and undoes much of what was accomplished by that measure.
“We can start by paying for new benefits out of unspent stimulus money and not adding on nearly 50 billion dollars that have nothing to do with unemployment benefits turning a 35 billion dollar bill into an 84 billion dollar with almost 50 billion in new taxes and fees and 35 billion in new debt.”
Is this from David Anderson, blogger, or David Anderson, spokesman for the Urquhart campaign? In other words, is this your candidate’s proposal?
NOTE from me, I label campaign items as such. It keeps it easy. They are either press releases or signed off with a title. Otherwise everything can be assumed to be normal. I am sure that opposition to adding new debt for the benefits is something all three primary campaigns would actually agree upon as opposed to the Carney campaign. Email each of them for an answer.
A highly respected economist made the statement almost exactly one year ago that if unemployment benefits were cut cold turkey for all, right now, the unemployment rate would fall by 0.5% almost overnight.
What’s even more amazing is who said that, not Art Laffer nor Larry Kudlow. It was Lawrence Summers, the president’s chief economic advisor.
There is no truth to the rumour that Mr. Summers is being held at once of former Vice President Cheney’s undisclosed locations.
She ought not shy from the commentary, or issue a statement of clarification, she should say it again because it’s true. The truth hurts. Get over it.
If you’re out for 99 weeks and you can’t find a job, you’re not looking. It’s time to change your field of expertise even if that means you’re making subs at Wawa.
Strong conservative position from Candidate Rollins. I suppose Glen Urquhart would prefer to continue adding to the debt.
I am not speaking for the campaign or I would have stated that I was, but all new spending needs to be paid for. Isn’t that in both posts on the subject or did you read neither of them? This sham of adding to the debt and new spending to boot has to end. Cut the nonsense spending, if you think this is valuable.
My opinion is that a conservative finds ways to move people off benefits so they get on with their lives. Don’t add to the debt, start giving investment tax credits for all businesses not just a one year purchase credit for some small businesses and give payroll tax credits for those on extensions. It is not compassion to keep extending the benefits, permanently. Compassion is finding ways to strengthen the opportunity so we are not talking about this in 6 months. Statist policies from both parties have really destroyed the job market. Forget the people who aren’t looking. Bring them back and the picture is even worse. I am talking about people who are looking every week or more frequently. Once the benefits reach a certain level, I forget what extension, I would have to ask someone on it, but You have to have extensive documentation that includes places, addresses, phone numbers, websites if applicable, and contact names. They follow up with phone calls to make sure you really applied. I think you need 3 to 5 places where you follow up with a real person each week. In this economy, that likely means 20 places to find that many who are even building applications.
Extended benefits are not the same as regular unemployment. You have to actually try to get off of them. There are classes for job seeking they can require you to take or job training you can choose to attend where they help place you when you are done. I have a friend who is one of the job placement specialists. She used to find it easy because employers looked to her to cut through and give them people. Now she can’t even place her best students in 13 weeks because there are so few people hiring and she knows the employers and calls around 20 hours a week. I admit that I have inside knowledge there.
Almost no one on either side of the aisle is opposed to an extension. The debate is should we add it to the debt along with other spending or should we cut the money from the unspent stimulus.
The President refuses to cut the stimulus money that wasn’t claimed. He wants to reallocate it, yet he desires new spending like this added to the debt. He doesn’t realize the problem. Notice that after the Hire Act, more private sector jobs were created than after the stimulus act which was 50 times larger. It was a halting effort in the right direction where all the good parts expire in a few months. This crew keeps spending forever and barely allows tax credits to last a year. The housing credit was less than a year. The Hire Act is 9 months. It actually is working as small as it is to stop the bleeding. Makes you wonder why we had to spend almost a trillion dollars.
Democrats cut out for a second time the President’s tax credit for the unemployed that he campaigned on and was one of his few good ideas. Even half of the hire act was aimed at spending by government.
By the way Michael, it may very well fall a half of percent and because some people who are holding out for full time would take part time. That would not be a bad thing, but obviously that means most of the problem is still there and the U-6 is virtually unchanged. Sometimes part time jobs get your foot in the door so you are first in line when full time opportunities arise. Companies like Verizon which ban you from taking a full time position for 3 years if you take a part time one (due to a labor agreement) should be ashamed and in that case their union should especially be shamed into dropping that position. It is anti-worker. We have a 17 and a half percent real unemployment. Dropping a half of percent would be nice, but not impressive.
I also need to add that people who are on their final 26 weeks are called in to have an in person sit down and connection with a job placement or other services as well as a mandatory career counseling and reregistration with the department of Labor with their resume updated. It is a lot more than a notice sent in the mail saying hey, maybe you should go out and look. If you don’t look one week or your reference was bogus, you don’t get a check the next week. They are strict with the final extension.
That is a good thing.
David, I’ll give you that it may be a better thing than standard unemployment, but I can’t call it a good thing. I also have to say that I think the government is making unemployment/jobseeking into a job of its own, on the cusp of becoming a career.
David, you say all new spending should be paid for but you neglect to say all new tax cuts should be paid for? That has been our achilles heel – this free lunch theory. I want to pay less in and I want the debt to go down. Once we are back from the brink, pay go should mean no new anything unless it’s paid for. Want a small business tax cut? Cancel some F-35 fighters.
M.Opaliski makes it sound like there is no job problem. Just get one eh? We can’t let the small percentage of bums who game unemployment benefits system ruin it for everybody else, anymore than we can let a few corrupt corporations ruin it for all. We’re always going to have shop lifters and grifters in all walks of life from Main Street to Wall Street that does not mean we shut the other 95% off.
Rollins is sad, the more she talks the more we realize she is there for her big purse not her deep thoughts. If she is the nominee Carney can rest easy, Claymont Carney versus Greenville Michele, a blow out for the D’s.
She will lose as bad as I did in 2008. Still, I had to stiff my friend Glen Urquhart who I was going to support but Michele paid off my campaign debts from 2008. Ooops.
“She will lose as bad as I did in 2008.”
When you say “I” do you mean Lee, who you’re pretending to be, or Protack, who you are? Because those are two totally different levels of losing.
What’s the difference between us and the Third World? It’s the safety net stupid.
David…I was not advocating that action one way or another. Just pointing to the irony that while this president has extended unemployment benefits three times since taking office, his own chief economic advisor is pointing out the folly of creating a new dependency.
For Anon…I see this debate won’t die easily. Should new tax cuts be paid for? Why pay for something that history conclusively has proven has paid for itself. The Kennedy tax cuts, Reagan income tax cuts, Reagan capital gains tax cut, the Gingrich captial gains tax cut and the Bush tax cuts all increased the rate at which federal tax collections grew because the increased (stimulated) economic activity more than offsets the growth rate by leaving more money in the people’s pockets to fuel the economy with.
I’ve given you five examples here of how tax cuts stimulate federal revenue. But when Jimmy Carter raised taxes in 1978 (I call on all Americans…to make sacrafices), Bush 41 in 1990 (don’t read my lips) and Clinton in 1993, not only did the rate of tax collections not accelerate, but especially in the case of 1990 and 1993, the federal deficit threatened to explode. Remember CBO projected that in 1993, after the Clinton tax hikes were passed without the support of a single Republican, that the federal deficit would double. Those forecasts were not changed until Gingrich forced Clinton to accept a capital gains tax cut. That tax cut alone is responsible for reversing the accelerating deficit and balancing the federal budget between 1998 and 2001.
During the tough times, let the government do without, not the people. And if spending is wasteful, cut that too. The F-35? If the military says they don’t need it, cut it.
But cut the taxes, especially those that take directly from the individual’s pockets and let the private sector work its magic. History says so again and again.
At the end of the second paragraph (next to last line) of my post above, please not “growth rate” should read “rate cut.”
Should not be tickling my child while posting….
I do not disagree with Michael. I will add another dimension. The problem is a complex one and in today’s discourse there seems to be little appreciation for complexity. Granted , there are people who if they put an extra effort forward would get better results, but do we ask why? Some are depressed and grieving their loss of identity. They were so into their jobs for 10 or 20 years and never thought it would happen to people like them, but their whole company went into the tank. I really sympathize with people who are doing their best. Some people say take any job, but in reality does it make sense to work for minimum wage and not be able to look for a job? If working full time gets you bankrupt and selling everything, what difference does it make? it is surprising how many homeless people actually have jobs in today’s market. Families with children are the fastest growing segment.
It is rough. I know people who never were unemployed in their lives. They ended up so depressed that it hurt their ability to find work because they went into a place thinking they weren’t going to get the job after so many turn downs. One guy finally got hired on to Dover Downs security then when the state took a greater cut, it went last hired, first fired and he got laid off again. Another person has exhausted her extended benefits a couple of months ago and despite looking everyday is still looking and had to sale her home and move in with family. When working people can’t work, it does something to some of them. Families don’t always survive. It is a mess.
Those forecasts were not changed until Gingrich forced Clinton to accept a capital gains tax cut. That tax cut alone is responsible for reversing the accelerating deficit and balancing the federal budget between 1998 and 2001.
You guys really do have your own set of facts, don’t you? I guess if I believed all that garbage I’d be a Republican too.
The deficit declined each year beginning in 1993 until the budget was balanced in 1998.
CBO re-issued its projections each year during the 1990s to reflect that revenue was beating expectations.
The budget was balanced due to economic growth created by the Clinton economic plan. Spending levels had little to do with it.
The numbers show the growth trend started in 1993 was strong enough to balance the budget with or without the Clinton/Gingrich budget battle.
The boom was well established and the deficit falling by the time the capital gains cut took effect in 1997. The capital gains cuts unwisely poured gas on the equities fire and turned Clinton’s boom into a bubble.
Alpha….
The deficit only declined if you count in Year 2000 based dollars. That’s cheating… In real dollars, delcine did not begin until after the Cap Gains Tax Cut.
In fact, the first two quarters of 1995 posted growth rates of only 1.1% and 0.7% respectively. Only after the Cap Gains Tax Cut took effect did we really start to see growth return the way it was in the Reagan and Bush Administrations. Growth reached 6.7% in 1996 Q2 and 6.2% in 1997 Q2 and averaged above 5.0% until the stock market bubble went burst.
You’re entitled to your opinion, Alpha and to rig statistics any way you want to try and create an illusion that others of your ilk will believe. But as other anonymous posters on this site can attest, I will catch you. You’re not entitled to your own facts.
Alpha, maybe you should be a Republican….
Alpha….the poster who said it was the Republicans who orchestrated the housing crisis.
As if Barney Frank and Chris Dodd had not a thing to do with it.
Alpha sits over in the corner and plays with imaginery moonbeams.
The deficit only declined if you count in Year 2000 based dollars. That’s cheating…
You, sir, are innumerate. Year 2000 works just fine for real-dollar comparison.
In real dollars, delcine did not begin until after the Cap Gains Tax Cut.
You are also cuckoo. Your life is built around a set of facts that are wrong.
Deficits began shrinking in 1993 in real, inflation adjusted dollars and kept shrinking until the Bush administration.
Sorry, you are the one who has been caught. GDP growth was rising each year since 1993 except for a slight pause in 1995 which was still +2.5%. Growth resumed in 1996; the capital gains cut took effect in 1998, and GDP stayed essentially the same afterward until the bust.
The numbers are here; if you think the numbers are rigged, take it up with the Commerce Department.
It is just funny. Spending cuts had everything to do with balancing the budget otherwise we would have continued deficit spending. That was the Congress. Spending cuts were mostly slowing of growth not actual cuts, but they freed capital to invest in technology which the cap gains tax cut encouraged go into the private sector. The result was more growth. As both sides point out, more growth equals lower deficits.
There are many receiving unemployment insurance payouts who have been looking up, down, around, and thru for work, and who have not been hired. Not me, but I know many who are, and they aren’t lazy do-nothings.
And, recipients must demonstrate weekly that they are looking for work. Elsewise, no payout. Applying, interviewing…must do’s.
Many firms simply aren’t hiring, and this goes for both blue and white collar work. Too much economic uncertainty, especially with the Bush tax cuts set to expire on January 1, and the current assemblage of Congresscritters unwilling to make them permanent. Add in a White House that desires a federally, centrally planned economy straight out of the Karl Marx-Saul Alinsky playbooks, and you have disaster.
And, many would-be employers won’t hire educated and experienced people because they fear departure when things eventually improve, and/or they will bring too many of their own ideas to the business. Headhunters we know are reporting that firms wanting someone with 3-5 years experience are trashing resumes for folks with 10-20 years for this very reason. It’s an employers’ market now, but isn’t that a form of age discrimination?
I do believe that things will eventually turn around. But for now, the folks need UI to simply live. And, remember, UI doesn’t go on forever, despite what some believe.
I have a longer response in moderation. Take it out if you dare.
CBO reports clearly show the budget was balanced due to economic growth more than anything else. They are fascinating reading, if you care to educate yourselves on what actually happened during that time:
cbo.gov/publications/bysubject.cfm?cat=0
In 1995 Congress passed the “Balanced Budget Act of 1995″ which would balance the budget by 2002. Clinton submitted his own plan which would also balance the budget by 2002, but with higher spending enabled by adopting a rosier economic forecast. Clinton vetoed the Republican bill. It turned out the economic scenario was even rosier than Clinton’s forecast. Clinton was right.
What Richard said.
Sorry anon, I apologize for not being at my computer 24/7. thanks for having patience with me.
Michael, you say tax cuts will pay for themselves by increasing revenue. What is the formula there? Can we budget that way, or is it just a hunch? Let’s say cut income tax rates x amount, can you tell us how much more we should expect. That’s no way to run a budget. I guess if I cut taxes more will come in. No matter how in love with theory we may be, the fact remains in the last 30 years took national debt from $900 Billion to $11 Trillion when Bush left office. That’s because instead of math we had theories. Here is data from CBO showing revenue 2000-2006
2000 2,025.5
2001 1,991.4
2002 1,853.4
2003 1,782.5
2004 1,880.3
2005 2,153.6
2006 2,407.3
There may be something to the theory that if tax are too high lower rates might boost things and eventually create more revenue, but that experiment is over. We are past the time when we tolerate ivory tower fast talker who tell us tax cuts pay for themselves, and when we ask when and how much they say “you’ll see”. No, we want math not dogma, not promises. We got $13 Trillion on our back playing that con game.
No. We have $13 trillion on our backs because we cannot control the spending. The numbers you just posted make the conservative argument. The bulk of the Bush tax cuts did not take effect until accelerating legislation was passed in 2003. By the numbers you just posted, revenue to the Treasury increased by 35% in three years following full implementation of the tax cuts.
Now of course revenues fell from 2000 to 2003. We were in a recession for part of that time and more than one trillion dollars worth of our GDP literally vanished in about ninety minutes on 9/11. Those tax cuts brought us roaring back and shrunk the federal deficit from $430 billion in 2003 to $147 billion for FY 2007.
Dogma on the other hand taking a recession caused in part by racking up too much debt, racking up more deficit in eighteen months than your predecessor did in eight years, and blaming your him when predictably you plan fails miserably.
By the numbers you just posted, revenue to the Treasury increased by 35% in three years following full implementation of the tax cuts.
Unfortunately it turned out to be a quick sugar buzz.
And during those three years, we were financing our consumer purchases with home equity backed up by fraudulent securities.
Sugar buzz? And what on Earth does that mean? Please offer a coherent thought.
Home equity backed up by fraudulent securities. Brought to you by Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, assisted by Barack Obama.
Michael, when the Bush tax cuts were proposed nobody said more money would come in. White House budget office and CBO estimated it would cost us $1.5 trillion in revenue if all went well.
I agree with you about cutting spending. That is what I am complaining about. Cut spending first. Pay down the debt first. And then when everything is wonderful cut taxes.
The facts are we did things the half assed way. Cut taxes first, forgot to cut spending adding $6 Trillion in debt in the last ten years. $13 trillion in 30 years. And the excuse has always been the same blah blah blah lower taxes will boost this and that and geez the problem is spending but I just can’t figure out were to cut $1.6 trillion and look here at the Laffer curve and this crystal ball.
Here’s a flashback to 2001
http://tech.mit.edu/V121/N37/Balkans_37.37w.html
If you are arguing that we should cut spending, I am all for that regardless. Tell me a spending program that you don’t like.
Bush himself and many surrogates pointed at the Gingrich, Reagan & Kennedy tax cuts as evidence of the validity of the Laffer curve. Your own numbers, posted in number 26 bear that out.
Cut spending? Absolutely. Close the Departments of Energy, Agriculture and Education. They are useless failures. Reduce the EPA to a research agency modeled on NASA, not an enforcement agency modeled on the IRS. And speaking of the IRS, when the FairTax is enacted, we’ll be rid of that too. Should we cut the F-35? If the generals say so, yes. End the Nanny Entitlement State, leaving the safety net in place. Any research projects funded by the federal government must meet strict national needs requirements. No more funding studies of the mating habits of tse-tse flies. The list of things we can cut spending on is endless.
No more funding studies of the mating habits of tse-tse flies.
I see you think tse-tse is a funny foreign sounding word and must therefore be something frivolous. Is there no end to your ignorance? It would be comical, except that you probably vote.
Tsetse flies spread trypanosomiasis which is fatal and killed fifty thousand people last year. One of the promising techniques for controlling the flies is the release of irradiated males. This technique was developed according to research into the mating habits of the flies:
Michael, you could cut everything you don’t like like EPA Energy Education it would not make a dent. Do the math. (I like having the six month supply of emergency crude the Energy Department created. Maybe you were not around in 1973 when we could not drive our cars.)
You do understand the Bush tax cuts were passed with both White House and CBO saying tax cuts would CUT (reduce) revenue by an estimated $1.5 trillion over ten years? Recall in 2001, just as we started to pay down national debt with an emerging surplus, a fiscal policy was put in place that said, instead of paying down debt, the money would be returned to taxpayers? That was followed by a flood of $600 “rebate” checks? Then huge rate cuts. Then you notice national debt almost doubles. What is the argument here?
During Reagan national debt increased a whopping 189%. HWBush racked up 55% more. Clinton 36% more. GWBush 89% more. GW holds the record dollar amount adding around $6 Trillion in national debt.
Is there some reason you want to defend this crap? Want more of the same. You don’t cut revenue unless you cut spending. You don’t spend unless there is tax revenue to pay for it.
Alpha…
Being the liberal-progressive-socialitst that you are, you really have no right to call anyone “ignorant” while you advocate ruinous ideas that have destroyed Europe’s once prosperous society.
I do vote and through my writings and other efforts encourage many others to vote…the right way… Just wait until November. I am sad only that your vote has the same value as mine. No matter. I’ll get ten other people there.
I notice you have no defense for spending federal dollars to study their mating habits. How many Americans are killed by them in the United States? If the answer is what I think it is, you have just proved my point.
For Anon…
Why did we need the Energy Department to create it. That could have been done by executive order and existing resources.
I do remember what CBO and the White House and I blogged at the time that they were going to get a pleasant surprise in a few years. I also roundly criticized them for a staggered approach to implementing tax relief, instead of going “all in.” People push economic activity outward so that they earn money during the time of lowest taxes. That’s why it took so long for Reagan’s tax cuts to spur growth. People waited until after the last phase was implemented to put their money to work so they could get the most for it. For the acutal results, you are referred to your own table in post 26. After the tax cuts were accelerated to an “all in” configuration, revenue to the government exploded.
“Crap” Anon is defending higher taxes, higher spending (because if you let them have it they will spend it) as something that works. Allowing the government to have more money and more power (they go together) is always ruinous. That’s why between 1980 and 2008, the United States created 70 million jobs. Europe created 4 million. They tax their people into poverty, spend their way into ruin and have left their children the burnt out hulk of an economy to live with. Most European nations employ confiscatory taxes, pay little or nothing for their own defense and many are going bankrupt due to excessive social spending and antiquated progressive tax policies.
Now no one can be happy with the increases in the debt, and its only going to get worse as long as we retain this antiquated and inadequate tax system.
America needs a tax system that unshackles its people, fires up its growth and that can provide the revenue streams to keep our promises to our people and reduce our debt.
The system we have is not it.