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Republicans are suffering grievously from the syndrome that singer Joni Mitchell memorialized in the hit “Big Yellow Taxi” in 1970. The chorus says it all:

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Republicans bellyached for years that government must shrink. It had to be smaller. Cut the budget come hell or high water, they yammered. Well, darn if the sequester hasn’t brought hell and high water to Republican districts across America. Now Republican lawmakers can’t stop carping about how small government shouldn’t occur in their districts.  Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till you vote to kill it?

Paradise was among the first to go. Specifically, the paradise of American parks. The National Park Service, complying with the mandate that it slash about 9 percent of its budget through September, reduced hours, cut staff and stopped providing some services such as campgrounds, based on recommendations from each park superintendent.

Among the campgrounds shut down are those at Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota. The state’s Republican Senator John Thune is feeling particularly grumpy about that. He accused the Park Service of closing his campgrounds instead of cutting wasteful and duplicative spending, examples of which he neglected to offer.

He’s singing the whiny sequester tune popularized by Republicans who refused to raise taxes on the rich to reduce the impact of $1 trillion in indiscriminate, across-the-board budget cuts they demanded. They all said they wanted smaller government. They huffed and they puffed and they threatened to take down the nation’s economy until they got it.

Now that it’s here, now that it’s affecting their constituents, Republicans contend the $1 trillion in indiscriminate, across-the-board budget cuts they demanded should have been specifically targeted to eliminate only “waste, fraud and abuse.”

That’s a confusing assertion, though, from the party insisting on smaller government, the party whose members swore loyalty oaths to Grover Norquist, the anti-government lobbyist who infamously said government must be shrunk small enough to drown in a bathtub. Even if every speck of waste, fraud and abuse that anyone could ever uncover were eliminated, it wouldn’t add up to $1 trillion. And it wouldn’t shrink government.

Government might be more efficient, but it wouldn’t be smaller.  Smaller government requires cutting actual services and programs – like Thune’s campground.

So far, Republicans haven’t wailed about cuts to programs for struggling families such as unemployment benefits, public housing, daycare aid for poor working women, the home heating help called LIHEAP, or the food assistance called WIC that impoverished mothers use to feed their babies. (more…)

By Robert Reich
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Professor at Berkeley

One of the few things Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich agree on is that President Obama is turning America into “European-style welfare culture.”

In his standard stump speech Romney charges Obama with creating a nation of dependents. “Over the past three years Barack Obama has been replacing our merit-based society with an entitlement society.”

Gingrich calls Obama “the best food-stamp president in American history.”

What’s their evidence? Both rely on federal budget data showing direct payments to individuals shot up by almost $600 billion, a 32 percent increase, since the start of 2009.

They also point to Census data showing that 49 percent of Americans now live in homes where at least one person is collecting a federal benefit – Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, or subsidized housing. That’s up from 44 percent in 2008.

Finally, they trumpet Social Security Administration figures showing that the number of people on Social Security disability jumped 10 percent in Obama’s first two years in office.

They argue our economic problems stem from this sharp rise in “dependency.” Get rid of these benefits and people will work harder. (more…)

Christine Owens

By Christine Owens
Executive Director, National Employment Law Project (NELP)

In the most damaging blow to unemployed workers yet, both houses of the Florida legislature have over the past two days approved measures that would go further than any other state in dismantling its unemployment insurance system, undermining the state’s ability to help sustain workers who suffer job loss during their search for new employment.

If enacted, HB 7005 would make Florida the only state in the country to vary the maximum allowable weeks of state unemployment benefits based upon the state’s unemployment rate. Under the House version, the national standard of 26 weeks of benefits would no longer be available to unemployed Florida workers.  Instead, the maximum number of weeks would vary from 23 weeks when the state’s unemployment rate is as high as 10.5 percent to as low as 12 weeks when the rate drops to 5 percent. Under the Senate-passed version, the current maximum of 26 weeks would only be available when the state’s unemployment rate is at or above the extremely high rate of 12 percent – a rate Florida has reached only once in recent history – in December of last year.

There is no good reason why Florida workers should be entitled to less financial protection from the state-federal unemployment insurance program than workers who lose jobs in other states, nor should jobless Floridians unable to find work receive less unemployment insurance than others simply because they lost their jobs during a period of lower unemployment. (more…)

Mitchell Hirsch

By Mitchell Hirsch
Web and Campaign Associate, National Employment Law Project

Less than five months after approving a reauthorization of federally-funded unemployment insurance benefits as part of an agreement to extend tax cuts for those with the highest incomes, leading members of Congress are looking to break that agreement and dismantle the unemployment benefits program while leaving the tax cuts for the wealthy in place.

A bill introduced yesterday in the House by Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and in the Senate by Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, would give states the ability to seize the federal funds allocated for unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and use them for other purposes, including bailing out state government funds and substituting for employer unemployment taxes.

The measure would also allow states to reduce the number of weeks of federally-paid emergency and extended unemployment benefits, reduce the amounts paid or eliminate the benefits entirely.  One provision would allow a state to take the federal benefits funds and use them to finance its depleted unemployment trust fund rather than collect employer taxes, or to pay regular state benefits instead.

The bill is rather cynically titled the Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits and Services Act of 2011 (pdf)  – the “JOBS Act”.  They can call it whatever they want – it’s still just a vehicle to steal the guaranteed benefits from long-term unemployed job-seekers, those workers hurt the worst by the continuing unemployment crisis.  More than 4 million workers currently receive federal benefits through either the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) or Extended Benefits (EB) programs.  And, as Congressional research has shown, the nation’s unemployment insurance system has kept more than 3 million Americans from falling into poverty. (more…)

Dave Johnson

By Dave Johnson
Fellow with Campaign for America’s Future

The country has been waiting for the promised action on jobs and unemployment since the new Congress came in. Nothing yet. We’ve had the show-vote on health care, we’ve had abortion, we’ve had silly conservative fluff bill after sily conservative fluff bill, but nothing at all on the important issue: JOBS!

Instead we get quite the opposite: they are cutting programs that create jobs, and programs that help people who are out of work. 3.9 million people ran out of unemployment benefits last year. (Remember when they refused to keep unemployment benefits going, unless they got tax cuts for the rich? It’s just more Tax Cuts For The Rich, Painful Cuts For The Rest.)

Now they are cutting assistant for workers displaced by the bad trade deals that encourage outsourcing. GOP Reveals Plan for Deep Cuts to EPA, Job Training and More,

Republicans unveiled a budget plan last week for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year that would give billions less than President Obama would have liked to programs like the Environmental Protection Agency, federal job training, high speed rail development and more.

High-speed rail projects don’t create jobs? And when complete they don’t boost the economy forever after, creating even more jobs? Huh? (more…)

Leo W. Gerard

By Leo W. Gerard
USW International President

Robin Hood, the guy who robbed the rich and gave to the poor, wore a short frock and tights. From the get-go, the guy serving the disadvantaged while sporting gay attire would fail the entrance exam required to become a card-carrying Republican.

The GOP is, after all, the anti-gay marriage, anti-repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell crew. More than that, Republicans are anti-working class. Their recent policies and activities show them clobbering the middle class while kissing the wealthy’s, well, you know.

Consider health insurance reform and tax cuts for the rich.

The GOP spent the entire fall election cycle yammering about the federal deficit. The world as we know it was coming to an end because of the deficit, they contended loudly and repeatedly.

Then, immediately after Election Day, Republicans insisted on extending tax cuts for the rich. They added more than $36 billion to that supposedly-cataclysmic federal deficit in 2011 so that they could pad the pockets of the nation’s millionaires.

To secure that bonus for millionaires, Republicans held hostage extension of unemployment compensation, which during this grave recession, sustains the nation’s workers who are out of jobs and, all too often, also out of foreclosed-on homes.  The deal comes down to this: The average millionaire will be $100,000 richer as a result in 2011. The average worker will get $15,236 in unemployment benefits if jobless the entire year of 2011.

Republicans insisted on giving the rich $84,764 a year more than the poor.

Repealing health insurance reform, as the GOP has said it hopes to do before month’s end, would have the same result – increasing that supposedly-cataclysmic federal deficit while slamming the poor and middle class.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has calculated that the Affordable Care Act will decrease the federal deficit by $140 billion over 10 years. That’s what the GOP wants to repeal – a deficit reduction measure. Republicans want to add $140 billion to the debt.

Most injured by repeal would be the nation’s poor and middle class. That’s because rescinding the law would once again allow insurers to deny health care to children with pre-existing conditions. It would mean the elderly would once again pay more for preventative care and prescriptions.  It would permit insurers to once again withdraw coverage from people when they get sick. It would mean insurers could kick out young adults who are now covered under their parents’ plans until age 26. It would permit insurers to re-impose “lifetime maximums,” so that they could cancel the coverage of people with costly illnesses. It would permit insurers to once again pocket for profit and “administrative expenses” an unlimited percentage of premiums paid by workers and employers. It would mean small businesses would lose tax breaks that will help them pay for health insurance for workers.

The GOP intends to deny tens of millions of uninsured Americans the hope that soon they’ll be able to afford coverage.

Republicans want to, as they put it, “undo” the health insurance benefits that the Affordable Care Act provides to Americans. And they’re offering nothing in return, nothing to help the uninsured, nothing to help the untold millions cheated by insurance corporations, nothing to require premiums to be spent on health care.

That’s the way Republican-hood rolls, protecting the wealthy, pummeling the poor. The rich, in the case of health insurance, are CEOs earning millions while increasing rates in double digits during a recession. The Los Angeles Times reported in August, for example, that the top executives of the nation’s five largest for-profit health insurers pulled down $200 million in compensation in 2009. The poor, in this case, are policy holders who the insurers charged rate increases as high as 39 percent.

House Republicans would exempt their cancelling of health insurance reform from their own rule that new legislation be paid for. So they wouldn’t have to find an additional $14 billion when they attempt to fulfill their campaign pledge to slash $100 billion from domestic programs – that would be from the programs most needed by the nation’s workers – those that help pay for education and transportation, for example. Because these domestic programs are such a small part of the budget, securing $100 billion from them would cost each department approximately 20 percent of its funds this year. That means painful reductions to areas like law enforcement and medical research. This is accompanied by Republican demands for cuts to many workers’ only retirement plan – Social Security.

In the meantime, the main concern of most Americans, as it was in the grueling days of Robin Hood, is jobs. Not the deficit. The GOP offers no plan to increase jobs for formerly working people, to end the suffering of tens of millions of Americans. Republican-hood is, instead, focused on pampering those who don’t need it.

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Leo W. Gerard also is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee and chairs the labor federation’s Public Policy Committee. President Barack Obama recently appointed him to the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. He serves as co-chairman of the BlueGreen Alliance and on the boards of the Apollo Alliance, Campaign for America’s Future and the Economic Policy Institute.  He is a member of the IMF and ICEM global labor federations and was instrumental in creating Workers Uniting, the first global union.

David Sirota

By David Sirota
Political journalist, best-selling author and syndicated newspaper columnist

During the recent fight over extending unemployment benefits, conservatives trotted out the shibboleth that says the program fosters sloth. Sen. Judd Gregg, for instance, said added unemployment benefits mean people are “encouraged not to go look for work.” Columnist Pat Buchanan said expanding these benefits means “more people will hold off going back looking for a job.” And Fox News’ Charles Payne applauded the effort to deny future unemployment checks because he said it would compel layabouts “to get off the sofa.”

The thesis undergirding all the rhetoric was summed up by conservative commentator Ben Stein, who insisted that “the people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities.”

The idea is that unemployment has nothing to do with structural economic forces or rigged public policies and everything to do with individual motivation. Yes, we’re asked to believe that the 15 million jobless Americans are all George Costanzas — parasitic loafers occasionally pretending to seek work as latex salesmen, but really just aiming to decompress on a refrigerator-equipped recliner during a lifelong Summer of George.

Of course, this storyline makes no sense. From liberal Paul Krugman to archconservative Alan Greenspan, economists agree that joblessness is not caused by unemployment benefits. With five applicants for every one job opening, the overarching problem is a lack of available positions — not a dearth of personal initiative. (more…)

Robert Reich

By Robert Reich
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Professor at Berkeley

This is not a recovery. It’s a continuing jobs emergency and it demands action.

We learned this morning that unemployment rose to 9.8 percent in November and employers added only 39,000 jobs. Private employers added 50,000 — the smallest gain since January. Government employment continued to shrink.

We’re heading in the wrong direction. In October, the jobless rate was 9.6 percent, and employers added 172,000 jobs. Private-sector job growth totaled 160,000. At this rate unemployment won’t return to its pre-recession level for more than a decade, if ever.

Over 15 million Americans were jobless in November. This doesn’t include those who are working part-time but would prefer to work full time. Nor does it include a record 1.3 million who are too discouraged even to look for work. Nor does it take account of the fact that most families are dependent on two breadwinners. So to figure out the true impact on most families, all these numbers have to be doubled. (more…)

David Moberg

By David Moberg
Senior Editor, In These Times

Everyone—well, perhaps everyone except the Congressional Republicans—recognizes what a lifesaver unemployment insurance (UI) benefits are for workers who have lost their job. That’s especially true in a deep job market slump like the present, with five job-seekers for every job opening, and a record 42 percent of the jobless who have been out of work six months or more—the standard duration of state unemployment benefits.

But even UI supporters may not realize how many other people benefit, including people who have held on to their jobs, from the two programs extending unemployment payments up to 99 weeks in states with high unemployment. Both expired this week as a result of opposition from Republicans, who insisted that any extension be paid through cuts elsewhere.

By the end of October, 14 million people had received some extended benefit since 2008, according to a report released Thursday from the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA). Five million out of the 6 million workers considered long-term unemployed currently receive benefits.

The average household receiving extended UI relies on those payments for roughly a third of its income. For sole wage earners, those UI checks make up 90 percent of their income, a bit less—80 percent—if they have children.  And 42 percent of unemployed receiving extended benefits do have children.

The CEA figures that from the passage of the extension through October, 10.5 million children living in households with recipients of extended aid have benefited. So have 15.5 million other adults in those households. That brings the total number of people helped by extended unemployment benefits to 40 million. (more…)

By Robert Reich
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Professor at Berkeley

Welcome to National Fiscal Hypocrisy Week.

Today (Monday), Congress takes up a measure delaying by one month a scheduled 23 percent cut in federal reimbursements to doctors. The cut will automatically go into effect unless Congress acts. But of course Congress will act. Doctors threaten to drop Medicare patients if their rates are cut. Congress has delayed scheduled Medicare cuts for years.

The best outcome would be an agreement to contain future health-care costs by allowing Medicare to use its bargaining power with drug companies and medical suppliers to reduce rates; by allowing Americans to buy drugs from Canada; by applying the antitrust laws to health insurers; and by giving the public an option to buy their health care from a government-run public option.

The likelihood of any of this happening over Republican and Democrats-in-name-only (DINO) objections is zero.

Tuesday, the president meets with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders to begin working out a compromise for extending the Bush tax cuts. Both parties say they want to preserve the tax cuts for lower- and middle-income families. But this would cost $3 trillion over the next decade. Republicans also want to extend them permanently for the top 2 percent of earners, for an added $700 billion. The top don’t need the cuts, don’t deserve them, and won’t spend the windfall (and thereby stimulate the economy).

The best outcome would be an agreement to extend the tax cuts for the bottom 99 percent, for two years. This would stimulate the economy in the short term when it most needs it, and reduce the long-term deficit.

The likelihood of this happening over Republican and DINO objections is zero.

Meanwhile, unless Congress agrees to extend unemployment benefits by Tuesday, 800,000 long-term unemployed will start running out. Extended benefits are not only necessary given the record number and level of long-term unemployed, but they’re also one of the best means of stimulating spending. The unemployed will spend every dollar of benefits they receive.

The best outcome would be another six-month extension, at a cost of $34 billion. This would help an additional 4 million long-term jobless who would otherwise run out of benefits over the next few months. Add in a new WPA that offers work to the jobless — everything from teacher’s aides to improving public parks and installing insulation in public buildings.

The likelihood of this happening over Republican and DINO objections is zero.

Finally, on Wednesday, the president’s deficit commission will issue a report on how to reduce the nation’s long-term deficit. The initial draft was regressive — cutting $3 of spending for every $1 of tax increase, and decimating the Earned Income Tax Credit, among other things.

The best outcome would be a unanimous report that focused on taming rising health-care costs (see first item above), rejected Republican calls to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy (see second item above), and supported extending unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and a new WPA (third item). Ideally, the report would also call for new investments in infrastructure and education that would grow the economy and thereby shrink the deficit as a share of GDP.

Likelihood, zero.

National Fiscal Hypocrisy Week may be carried over into next week, too.

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Cross-posted from Robert Reich’s Blog

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Robert Reich served as the nation’s 22nd Secretary of Labor and now is a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future, now in bookstores. His earlier book, “Supercapitalism,” is out in paperback. For copies of his articles, books, and public radio commentaries, go to www.robertreich.org.