According to Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unemployment benefits are the best way to create jobs, so why didn’t she get with Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and press him to schedule a pre-recess vote on the Republican alternative to the Democrat’s jobs/unemployment benefits bill introduced on June 30, 2010 by Senator Scott Brown (R-MA).
Brown’s bill is deficit neutral and could easily solve the current problems in passing the unemployment benefits package:
My compromise bill uses unspent stimulus funds and cuts wasteful and unnecessary spending in other areas to pay for these important programs. Believe it or not, there is about $37 billion in stimulus money just sitting in a Washington slush fund when it should be put to good use immediately.
While my bill pays for additional FMAP assistance for one more year, this phase-down provides states an opportunity to get their fiscal houses in order — but also makes it clear that they can no longer pass the buck to the federal government, which has budgetary problems of its own. emphasis mine
Obama, Pelosi, and Reid should be called out on why they blatantly ignored Brown’s bill and also answer why they couldn’t fast track this one like they did with the passage of the original stimulus and Obamacare. Of course, the answer is obvious: Brown is a Republican and they couldn’t possibly give a win to the GOP. So much for bipartisanship.
For the record, Democrats own this economy; they had the supermajority. It’s their agenda, their stimulus, their failed policies. Americans deserve and should be demanding answers from Obama and the Democrat leadership regarding their policies–Bush has been out of office for 18 months–there is no more childish blame shifting and finger pointing.
It is time for the Republicans to go on the offensive and force the Democrats to explain themselves to the American people on where are the jobs and why they squandered $800 billion of taxpayer money. They need to stop fearing any backlash, because I’m not sure if there would be one, or maybe just from the left-wing MSM. Americans are starving for someone to fight back and call out Obama and Congress for what they are doing to our country (paging NJ Governor Chris Christie).
This is not what was promised during the election and this is why the new conservatives emerging from the grassroots are so effective–they have no fear in pointing out both party’s guilt and that these politicians have gotten too cozy in Washington. Incumbents and new candidates (from the left) are scrambling to move towards the right because that is what the voter wants. Obama and Congress have finally exposed the ultimate death blow to the Democrat party. We now know for sure that there are no prolife, conservative Democrats; there are only Democrats willing to act conservative to get elected and their overall agenda is a giant rubber stamp of Obama’s vision for the transformation of the USA.
Finally, knowing that the original stimulus was to create 4.1 million jobs, the health care bill was to create 400,000 jobs almost immediately, and the second jobs bill was [is] projected to create 250,000 jobs by the end of 2010. With all of this “stimulus,” Americans should be back to work, not begging the government to extend unemployment benefits beyond the 99 weeks already provided.