John Boehner Snubs the Unemployed as Republicans Push for Unpaid For Business Tax Cuts

As they push for permanent unpaid tax subsidies for big business, House Republicans once again turn their noses up at the unemployed.

The Senate offered up yet another bill to renew long term unemployment benefits, according to Arthur Delaney at The Huffington Post, who reported that the bill is paid for, just like the previous one the Seante tried to get the House to pass.

But:

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A spokesman for Boehner told HuffPost on Tuesday that the speaker’s response would remain the same.

House Speaker John Boehner can’t be bothered to look at the new bill, which just like the old bill, addresses the alleged “issues” the Republicans had with it, according to HuffPo. It’s paid for with revenue increases, as required by Senate Republicans.

Apparently this isn’t good enough for House Republicans, who have invented truly creative excuses for their reliable refusal to legislate.

This bipartisan bill authored by Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Dean Heller (R-NV) should have at least garnered a longing glance by Republicans since it doesn’t provide retroactive benefits to those 3 million Americans House Republicans have been kicking in the gut since December.

However, it seems Boehner’s rejection is not about the actual bill. Boehner is already entrenched in his position and will not budge no matter how Republican the bill is. The only logical conclusion to draw from this is that Boehner doesn’t want to address the long term unemployment benefits, and he’s run out of excuses so now he’s just passing sight unseen.

Speaker Boehner’s shafting of the unemployed impacts more than just those folks who are looking for work. In March 2014 it was estimated that Boehner and his House of Cards had caused the economy to lose 5 billion dollars:

The U.S. economy has lost $4.7 billion ($4,698,892,545 to be exact – see the breakdown below) in the first three months of the year due to the Dec. 28 expiration of federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation, according to an analysis released today Monday by Ways and Means Committee Democrats.

(Click the above link to see a breakdown by state.)

Republicans were busted in March for trying to add 310 billion dollars — which Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) pointed out, “represents more than half of the entire federal deficit this year” — to the deficit with permanent, unpaid for tax provisions.

On June 12, Levin again pointed out the hypocrisy of Republicans hiding under the false excuse that the unemployment extensions are not paid for while they shred their own alleged budget principle by adding unpaid tax credits to the deficit.

“The inability of the House Republican Majority to take action to help our recovery, bolster small businesses, and grow our economy has resulted in smoke and mirror votes like the ones before us today. They want to signal that they support small business, but their action is so inconsistent with their past positions that it is rendered hypocritical,” Levin charged.

So, once again, Boehner won’t even look at a bill for the unemployed that would help our economy. It doesn’t matter that it’s paid for. It doesn’t matter that it pretends the last 6 months of misery for the unemployed didn’t happen or that Boehner is costing the economy billions of dollars just to appease the Republican base by giving the middle finger to hurting Americans.

Sarah Jones

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