Democrats Use GOP Criticism of Job Report to Demand Restoration of Unemployment Benefits

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Republicans seem a little confused today, as the new jobs report shows a disappointing number of jobs added in December. The unemployment rate declined from 7.0 percent to 6.7 percent in December, while total nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 74,000 — so 74,000 jobs were added in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Republicans want to run around pointing fingers at Obama, chortling it up over his alleged failure while pretending that they did not kill public sector jobs with their sequester. The RNC tried this line, “Today’s jobs report reminds us that Obama’s policies simply aren’t creating nearly enough jobs and people are leaving the workforce because of it.” They even claimed that Obama was killing the private sector, “They have squandered opportunities to empower the private sector and get Americans back to work.” (This accusation is inaccurate and actually more of a mirror of the GOP.)

But on the other hand, if Republicans make too much of a deal out of the job numbers, then they have to discuss long term unemployment benefits and currently Republicans are very busy scurrying about trying to find a new reason to refuse to help the long term unemployed, after 1.3 million Americans lost their unemployment benefits in December.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid turned the GOP argument around and demanded that Republicans get on the bus to help Americans:

Today's report shows why Republicans must join with Democrats to immediately extend emergency unemployment insurance. #renewUI

— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) January 10, 2014

House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sandy Levin (D-MI) saw the moment of opportunity and seized it, issuing a statement regarding today’s job report, “Today’s employment report shows once again that long-term unemployment remains near historically high levels, with nearly 38 percent of the unemployed without work for over 6 months.” Levin pushed forcefully ahead, “It is therefore imperative that Republicans in Congress stop blocking and join efforts to restore unemployment benefits to nearly one and a half million jobseekers. Congress has never let federal jobless benefits expire when long-term unemployment has been anywhere close to its current level.”

Poor Republicans– caught between the ensuing endless cheering for failure that results from their fictional Obama narratives and trying to hide quickly enough that no one can ask them what they are doing to help.

Republicans were hanging their hat on making Democrats pay for the benefits, but then Harry Reid called that bluff yesterday by paying for them by extending the sequester’s mandatory savings for one year. So now Republicans are busy spinning their wheels.

Before Republicans get too carried away with their finger pointing, Steve Benen of The Rachel Maddow Show made the point that actually, we created more jobs last year than seven of the eight years under Bush. “… last year, the economy created more jobs than seven of the eight years Bush/Cheney was in office. This is not to say 2013 was a banner year for jobs; it’s more the result of the job landscape struggling badly during the Bush/Cheney era.”

Republicans can’t have it both ways. Sadly for them, they killed public sector jobs. Bizarrely, now private sector job growth is an Obama accomplishment, and job growth in general under Obama is much better than under Bush. Luckily for Republicans, few voters can follow the shell this far.

But still. One shell isn’t moving, and that’s the fact that Republicans can’t come up with a good excuse to deny unemployment, and they have been coached to pretend to understand that the unemployed are not the scum of the earth, so that leaves their usual victim blaming solution out in the cold.

If the numbers are so bad, why won’t Republicans renew long term unemployment benefits?

Sarah Jones

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