Having not extended long-term unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans, Congress is now arguing over an extension costing 6.5 billion dollars for three months worth of benefits. Certainly, the US government spends far more money on far more wasteful things. On the one side, Democrats simply want to pass the extension as is the typical course of action when it comes to helping Americans taxpayers in need. On the other side, Republicans oppose the extension for two basic reasons. First, they want the extension paid for, which is not entirely unreasonable. Clearly, there is a certain degree of hypocrisy to these requirements, considering Republicans rarely want to pay for their priorities, such as easing Sequester cuts for the military or increasing tax cuts for businesses. Even when they do pay for their wants, it is questionable as to whether cost savings and revenue increases will be seen. Perhaps, Democrats should propose a tax on Wall Street firms to pay for their role in engineering the Great Recession and the ongoing ripple effects.
Second, Republicans view unemployment as encouraging unemployment. Certainly, the unemployed need to be able to survive until they can find a job or they will lose all of the wealth they have built up over their entire career as they become more dependent on other social welfare programs. They also need to try to find jobs with comparable salaries; otherwise, their standards of living in the short-term and long-term will be undermined. That said, self-proclaimed Conservatives argue being on unemployment benefits for too long also hurts an individual’s earning ability as employers view employee skills as highly perishable, whether right or wrong. Certainly, there is truth to this argument; however, job seekers are not job creators. This means incentivizing the long-term unemployed to get a job by punishing them is not going to make them get a job, because they do not decide if they are offered a job, let alone one that will meet their living expenses. It is important to remember that national unemployment rate is around seven percent, people who have been unemployed for a long period of time are less likely to get a job than those who want to leave their job for a new one, and our economy is not creating jobs, let alone quality jobs, at a rate the American People need our economy to do so. It is also important to remember the 1.3 million Americans in need of long-term unemployment benefits are not a static group. In other words, different people are losing and finding jobs all the time, but the time period between jobs is expected to be longer. As such, long-term unemployment benefits are necessary. In fact, nonemergency benefits may need to be expanded as part of a new standard for our new economy. Unfortunately, this means our government needs to focus on recalibrating our economy so it better serves the American People, rebuilding our economy so it actually produces quality jobs, reworking our education/training programs to better serve the workforce, and restructuring unemployment so it meets the unemployment needs of the era. In short, Republicans and Democrats should pass this small extension then move onto dealing with the larger problems our Nation is facing. Instead of going back to gridlock over a small extension of unemployment benefits for a large number of vulnerable Americans, our political elites should be problem solving. If they take care of our economic problems now, unemployment benefits will not be an issue nor will the Deficit.
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There is a brewing political movement dedicated bringing our Country’s growing economic inequality into the spotlight. Unfortunately, Americans do not want to see another political movement, so they will not support a political movement focused on the issue of economic inequality. Movements like the Tea Party and Occupy protests have had limited success in affecting actual public policy. Certainly, they garner the attention of the professional media and rally up a bunch of people, but the only thing they have managed to do is get a handful of people elected and undermine government. At their core, political movements are composed of activities whose goal is to make a difference and get attention for their current cause. An activist is someone who is always seeking a cause and never satisfied with any solution or accomplishment. In many respects, the American People are tired of activists, because they are a large part of the reason our political system constantly sway back and forth from one extreme to the next. That said, people do want to see change that gives us a better America and world. People will not support a political movement to address economic inequality. What people will support are meaningful, credible policy solutions that address economic inequality.
In the hours just before January 1st, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor blocked an Affordable Care Act provision that required birth control to be covered by all employers. An exception for certain religious groups was later added and the provision was reworked, so contraception would be included in every insurance policy as a basic policy provision after religious groups, most notably those affiliated with the Catholic Church, argued the mandate violated their First Amendment Rights, because the use contraceptives violate their religious doctrines.
In that spirit, it is important to remember there are one to two million Jehovah Witnesses who are also US citizens mandated to buy health insurance and view blood transfusions as violating their religious doctrine, because it is the consumption of blood. If the Obama Administration’s compromise is invalided, this could mean other religious groups have the right to demand health insurance policies exclude any offensive provisions, including essential treatment options like blood transfusion. Obviously, a failure to cover emergency services like blood transfusions would be problematic and endanger lives. In tandem, interpreting the First Amendment protections of Catholics, and other groups that view birth control as immoral to include any indirect financial support of a mandate they find offensive would have far-reaching effects. Certainly, Catholics, whether a religious institution or individual, should not be mandated to violate their religious beliefs; however, the First Amendment does not prevent society from creating legislation and other mandates, which indirectly affect individuals, just because a religion finds certain provisions offensive. Although Catholics may indirectly pay for birth control through mandated health insurance, which all religious individuals pay for activities potentially offensive to their religious beliefs, such as war, through various taxes and fees, it is not a violation of their First Amendment freedoms. Say someone views the color red and the imagine of a ram to be Satanic. While he always has the choice to not buy a Dodge, his insurance company, no matter what insurance company he chooses, probably, with a near one hundred percent certainty, provides a policy for at least one Dodge Ram and will just as likely end up paying out a claim on a Dodge Ram. Because insurance is mandated by State law, we can ask if he and his church have the right to demand their premiums are not used to cover red vehicles and vehicles with imagines of rams on them. I don’t think so. Meanwhile, the need to protect one’s individual First Amendment Rights does not make it acceptable for the state to violate the rights of other individuals. In this case, the government cannot respect the Catholic Church’s right to not pay for birth control by restricting the rights of women, even if they work for the Church, to have the same access to birth control as afforded by law to others, i.e. Equal Protection. Consequently, the Supreme Court would be in the wrong if it should eventually judge this indirect implementation of the birth control mandate be stripped away. On the PBS NewsHour, Thurdays, January 2, 2013, there was the following exchange between Jaron Lanier and Andrew Mcafee on the impact of technically advances that are radically changing our way of life and economy:
“The economy has to be honest. And so what I am concerned about is that by getting everybody to input all their productivity for free to these Silicon Valley companies, including the one that funds my lab…but in order to pretend that all this stuff, you know, it comes in for free, and what we give people in exchange is access to services, we're taking them out of the economic cycle….. We're putting them into an informal economy, which is an unbalanced way to grow a society. And that's also a road to ruin. I'm not asking for artificial make-work projects. I'm asking for honesty, where we acknowledge when people generate value, and make them first-class economic citizens.” To which Mr. Mcaffe responded…”would you charge my brother to upload pictures of his daughters to Facebook, or would you charge me to look at my nieces….“ The fear is that our economy is producing a two-tier system where a wealthy, technologically proficient elite enjoys all the benefits of our society while everyone else rots in inescapable poverty. Part of the driving force behind this type of disparity is the tendencies of social media and crowd sourcing tech firms to utilize free user input to develop programs and technologies that undermine and negate the need for professional human services that these technologies learn from, i.e. destroy viable sources of income for a lot of people for necessary services. While Mr. Lanier is correct that our technology based economy is focused far too much on finding ways for people to consume more and far too little on finding ways for people to get paid enough for their work, so they can afford their needs and enjoy the benefits of our society/technology, Mr. Mcaffee’s response suggests fixing the unsustainably and economic disparity/poverty created by our current economic system is a very tough problem, especially considering technology jobs and jobs destroyed or undermined by advanced technologies are generally better paying jobs. In fact, the solutions are far from apparent, especially considering ad revenue, which feeds much of the online tech giants’ activities, is little for the massive numbers of small internet users trying to make an income online. Finding solutions, however, starts with recognizing technology is creating economic and social problems while a stable, balanced economy can only be built if our social/technology leaders are willing to take on the problem. The world is relying on Turkey to serve as a linchpin country in the highly unstable Middle East. Unfortunately, Turkey is currently embroiled in a massive political scandal never before seen in the democratic nation’s history. Because a large part of the scandal involves the exchange of gold for Iranian oil against international sanctions perpetrated by high ranking officials and their relatives, the United States finds itself condemning a friend it needs more than ever in a region of uncertain allies. Unlike Saudi Arabia, which is another linchpin state, Turkey’s status as a democracy gave Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government a certain degree of legitimacy in the eyes of those seeking political changes. Following the example of Western and American politicians, the Prime Minister has chosen to take on corruption by denying it, attacking critics, and engineering conspiracy theories instead of facing the problem head. In essence, this means Turkey’s need to turn its attention inward makes it a far less reliable partner for dealing with regional issues.
Democracy encourages political participation and public protest as a means of redirecting public outcry away from mass violence and ensuring conflicts will be resolved in a peaceful manner. That said, politics can also be a source of instability and violence, as we all know, when the political system becomes a means of legitimizing or shielding the self-serving behavior of elites. The one advantage democracy has over all other forms of governance is that its structure is more likely to cater to and balance the interests of the People as a whole. If a democracy fails to do that, it is no better than any other kind of government. While Saudi Arabia certainly saw protests during the Arab Spring revolutions, which the Kingdom suppressed with armed intervention, it has long tried to address many of its People’s interests and has since redoubled its efforts to do so. This mechanical approach to serving the interests of a People can be better than the automated approach built into a democratic structure when those in the democratic government cater mainly to special interests. As such, the corruptions scandals in Turkey must be addressed head on by demonstrating the government is there to serve the interests of the People and the interests of the power elite; otherwise, the conflict will only intensify. Moreover, the current controversy must be resolved in satisfactory manner, not avoided, before Turkey can properly take on its role in the Middle East. |
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