OC Republican Delegation Says Tough Luck To Unemployed and Troubled Homeowners

July 1, 2010 Uncategorized 7

UPDATED:From: @PoliticalTicker
“House votes to extend jobless benefits” – http://bit.ly/bKZhL2

On Tuesday, House Democrats revived legislation to extend unemployment benefits after previous legislation failed to pass the Senate.  The new House bill, HR 5618, only addresses the unemployment extension. If approved, it would have allowed the more recently-unemployed to continue getting extended benefits and  Fed-Ed aid through November. It would be retroactive to May and June. 

Orange County Congressmen Campbell, Royce, Rohrabacher, Calvert, and Miller all voted against the bill essentially telling the long-term unemployed in their districts; tough luck.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher

Congressman Rohrabacher’s was the only office to respond to our inquiry as to why they voted against the bill. Sticking to the same line repeated by the GOP leadership we were told:

“The Congressman voted against the extension because it was not paid for. It cost an additional $34 billion,” said Rohrabacher’s Communications Director Tara Setmayer.

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez had this take on the votes of her colleagues:

“It’s no secret that Orange County has been hit hard by this recession. Our housing industry continues to suffer and thousands of people are out of work. Providing emergency relief to struggling families in our community should not be a partisan issue. I hope those who failed to support Tuesday’s extension bill realize that over 300,000 Californians will lose their benefits as a result.”

I guess I’m not really that surprised that Rohrabacher, and the rest of his GOP caucus, would be so brazen to complain about a $34 billion extension of  unemployment benefits not being offset by budget cuts. He and his colleagues have had no problem supporting the $300 billion the Bush tax cuts have added to the national debt. The current economic crisis is responsible for more than $500 billion of our National debt. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have added another $200 billion. 

This chart from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that shows the primary inputs into the expected deficits for the next 10 years:

Adding to their hypocrisy, at the same time that the Republicans are demanding that the relatively small $34 billion cost of the unemployment benefits extension  be offset by budget cuts, they’re simultaneously demanding the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans — which will add trillions to the deficit over the next ten years and are responsible for more than 20 percent of the deficit this year.

Apparently deficit spending is only acceptable if it subsidizes if it benefits the wealthy; if it benefits working class Americans, it’s an outrage and must be stopped.

The Senate adjourned for the Fouth of July holiday on Wednesday evening and will  return for business until July 12th. The 200,000 unemployed Californians who will have lost their benets this weekend can consider this their Fourth of July gift from those subjective deficit hawks in the GOP.

But the OC Republican delegation doesn’t only hold this contempt for the long-term unemployed in their districts. Yesterday I wrote about Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez’s call for the Governor and his administration to release foreclosure-prevention funds already allocated for Orange County from federal funds. I followed up that post with a simple question to each member of the Orange County delegation. I asked them:

On Tuesday, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez called on the Governor of California and the California Housing Finance Agency to release federal dollars from the “Hardest Hit Fund” foreclosure-prevention fund that have been allocated for the Orange County region.

I am writing to ask if the Congressman, who represents portions of Orange County, is aware of the Congresswoman’s letter and if he will be joining her call for the release of these funds to the Orange County region?

The response I got to my inquiry…

Crickets! Not a sound from any of them.

We reached Irvine City Council member Beth Krom, who is challenging Congressman John Campbell for in the 48th district and she had this to say about these matters:

“Once again we see partisanship trump leadership at a time when Americans are continuing to face the hardships that come with unemployment. I’m disappointed that Orange County’s Congressional delegation has helped to undermine the economic security of millions of Americans who did not create the economic mess we’re in, but have become victims of it. It is clear that the needs of their constituents take a back seat to power plays and gamesmanship.”

7 Comments

  1. Congress would have the $34 billion to extend unemployment benefits if they would follow these steps to get out of Afghanistan:
    (1) Impeach Obama for protection the Afgan opium/heroin drug trade.
    (2) Eradicate the Afgan drugs, the warehouses, the opium to heroin labs.
    (3) Declare victory.
    (4) Withdrawal from Afghanistan.

    http://www.larouchepac.com/node/14096

    • I am amazed that all the “Potheads” haven’t weighed in on this one. These are the mental giants of society who have been smoking too much of their productand have a solution to solve the State’s bankruptcy problem. They want to lealize and tax marijuana.

      Hypothethically speaking, let’s say we go along with this solution. Under this philosophy that people should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies, let’s up the ante. How about we legalize and tax all the other vices including; Cocaine, Heroin, Methamphetamine and drugs of choice prescription and otherwise. While we are prostituting ourselves for the “tax dollar” we could also throw in prostitution, porn (adult & child) and any other form of personal deviation. “Holy moly,” Uncle Sugar has just tapped the source of unlimited funds, to move forward on all of Obama’s reinvention of America. While it may look appealing on the surface to those “free spirits,” in society, there there is only one drawback. As America in reinvented and moves into the thros of Marxist philosophy, remember that under such a hard fisted regime, addiction, deviate behavior and other such societal ills are not tolerated. All those lost souls would not fit into the Model of the New Society. They would be farmed out to join Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reily, Sara Palin, Ann Coulter in gulags, or worse. Sorry, my liberal friends you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

  2. Beth Krom stated: “Once again we see partisanship trump leadership at a time when Americans are continuing to face the hardships that come with unemployment. I’m disappointed that Orange County’s Congressional delegation has helped to undermine the economic security of millions of Americans who did not create the economic mess we’re in, but have become victims of it. It is clear that the needs of their constituents take a back seat to power plays and gamesmanship.”

    Beth, I know while your intentions are honorable, you continue to parrot the liberal philosophy and practice it in Irvine. Granted, times are tough and many people are hurting through no fault of their own. Where are all the jobs that the Pied Piper of Chicago and your Democrat colleagues promised when dumping billions of tax dollars into the toilet? Eureka ……. I have it!!!! The jobs are in the same place as the Not So Great Park, where you personally have helped dispense around 200 million dollars of Larry Agran’s gravy to your political allies. That gravy was of course made up of taxpayer money. Keep up that “deficit spending” on wasteful projects and then in a year or two when the economy is worse and the City of Irvine is broke, you can blame it all on George Bush. Hey folks, got to love those politicians living in the “Twilight Zone?”

    • But Pat, it’s far better to grant millions in tax breaks for what amounts to corporate welfare for business and industry who have been stockpiling cash instead of reinvesting it in the economy.

      And Pat, George Bush’s leadership led us to the brink of fiscal collapse. Do you really think this is all going to turn around in a year or two? Even the WSJ’s news pages say the stimulus is a success and rescue the nation’s economy from total collapse.

      • Dan, one thing for sure, you won’t hear me defending George Bush and the Congressional RINOS. There is adequate blame to go around from both political parties and then some. This is why my personal philosophy is to fire most of Congress and start all over again. Could we do any worse?

        As far as the WSJ goes, they have about as much credibility in my book as the firms on Wall Street that ripped us off. If the that boondoggle called “Stimulus” is working so well, where are the jobs. With the amount of money that has been thrown into the bottomless pit, each person out of work could have been put in a job skills training program, paid two years of their previous salary and we would have still have saved money. Instead, what do we have? 9.5% jobless rate, millions of workers with no job skills to get hired into today’s workforce and little hope for improvement in sight.

        Meanwhile, the Wizards of Washington are pushing mortgage lenders to make home loans, to people who are not qualified. They haven’t figured out that this was a large part of what got us in the housing mess in the first place. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are bleeding green, even after being bailed out with billions of tax dollars. I understand we have another round of adjustable mortgages coming due in 2010, which will add to more home losses. Dan, if this is improvement, I’d hate to see what it would look like if things weren’t getting better?

        Dan, my personal take is that President Obama is so inexperienced he hasn’t a clue about what leadership means, or how to deal with the issues faced. Add to this the incompetent staff he surrounded himself with (Just like GWB) and the fools in Congress (both parties), and it becomes a “No win” situation. To some degree, I feel sorry for the President, as the problems handed to him and those he created himself, would be overwhelming to any mortal.

        While trying to be optimistic, my gut feeling is that the country is closer to the brink of disaster than it has ever been in my lifetime. All it will take to push us over the cliff, is one of a number of possible scenarios, cooking on the back burner, to occur. If that happens, it won’t make any difference if you are a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or none of the above, we will all be in the boiling pot together. Sadly, perhaps that is what it will take to get the country back on track, at least for those who survive.

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