US Congress allows extended jobless benefits to expire: 5 million affected

[Hannah Bell]

Just hours after Obama pledged to work more closely with Republicans in slashing social spending, the US Congress Tuesday allowed extended unemployment benefits to expire for workers laid off for more than 26 weeks. More than 800,000 workers currently receiving extended benefits will be cut off by the end of next week, with the number increasing to two million by the end of December and five million by April.

During the summer, Republicans held up the bill for nearly two months, leaving millions without income. Benefits were restored after the Democratic-controlled Congress agreed to additional tax cuts and eliminated the $25-a-week additional compensation that had been available for jobless workers since February 2009.

With the benefits set to expire, President Obama emerged from a White House meeting with Congressional leaders from both parties Tuesday pledging to work more closely with the Republicans. Their agenda would include “deep budget cuts” that, the president said, would require “broad sacrifice” from the American people.

Obama said the meeting, the first with Republican leaders since the rout of the Democrats in the mid-term elections, would be the beginning of a series of meetings with Republicans to “confront long-term deficits that cloud our future” and insure the “safety and security” of the population, i.e., slash social spending, while increasing militarism and attacks on democratic rights in the name of the “war on terrorism.”

The mid-term elections, the president said, showed that voters did not want “gridlock” in Washington but cooperation and bipartisanship in making the “difficult choices.” Held one day after announcing a two-year pay freeze for 2.1 million federal government employees—a key demand of the Republicans—the meeting was a further sign that the administration is moving even further to the right, both domestically and in foreign policy, in the aftermath of the mid-term elections.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/obam-d01.shtml

[Duer 157099]

1. I think that, increasingly, "broad sacrifice" will mean "suicide"

In fact, I'm sure of it.

[dkf]

2. The fact that we are resigned to that many unemployed people is depressing.

God this is pathetic.