Happy Anniversary!

In fact, I am actually inclined to think that the effect of extended unemployment benefits on unemployment rates is minimal, if it exists at all. Your point regarding the disinclination of employers to hire overqualified individuals who will almost certainly leave at the first opportunity speaks well to this point. Your own lack of success seeking employment is a tragedy, and I know the government’s assistance has been extremely helpful. However, as I said, none of that is relevant as to whether or not unemployment assistance should be extended.

I think we disagree regarding legislative deadlock. I like it. Actually, I LOVE it. You have often said to your clients and me – usually in response to my requests for personal advice – that the best and hardest thing to do is often nothing. That is some of the most valuable wisdom I have ever taken to heart. And it applies to our lawmakers in spades.

Keynesian economics is, in my opinion, a popular refuge for lawmakers who feel the need to do something – anything! – about impending economic doom. This is understandable and defensible to an extent; specifically, to the extent of about a trillion dollars the government doesn’t have. Whoops! Two trillion. Three? Who knows. There seems to be no end, and our lawmakers have absolutely no incentive to think about these things in extended chronological terms. They won’t live long enough (or be in office long enough) for it to matter. The economy has become one giant mouth sore that Congress just can’t stop goosing with its proverbial tongue. The damn thing would heal if they would just leave it alone. But they won’t.

So I think deadlock is swell. The fact that a minority party can hold up poorly crafted legislation that most people don’t want and the government can’t pay for is a testament to the resiliency of our republic. I’ve often said that I would gladly vote for any candidate who vowed to spend the entirety of her term in her home district. That may not happen, but keeping Congress talking endlessly (and probably getting sauced in DC area bars, trying unsuccessfully to wheel and deal) is probably the next best thing.

But a news story on ABC’s Good Morning America this AM changed my mind.

To begin with, the government extends all manner of benefits to a variety of people/institutions without having any clue as to the means to pay for it. That has been the pattern of our national government since at least 1933. My generation, the baby-boomers, has carried this practice to dizzying heights and deficit spending seems to know no partisanship. Republicans spend the future generations’ money on one set of values and Democrats on another. The present administration has spent a trillion dollars of your (not my) money rescuing the economy from a host of scoundrels (after the Bush administration had already spent an amount sufficient to dwarf the economies of all of Central America) and I am prepared to say that both administrations’ actions probably — the jury is still out — rescued the world from an international catastrophe.

As to the notion that extending unemployment benefits actually contributes to the length of a recession, I believe that is true. When I was “on the dole”, there was no sound economic reason for me to accept a minimum wage job because it would pay me almost the same amount per week as I was receiving from the taxpayers and make it impossible for me to accept interviews for more lucrative possible positions. More on that below.

However, some additional information needs to be added to this debate. I live in a country with an unemployment rate of almost 10%; in a state with an unemployment rate of 10.1%; in a region with an unemployment rate of 14% (dominated by the carpet industry); and an industry (construction) with an unemployment rate of over 23%. Remember, to be counted among the “unemployed” means that you are actively seeking work and the only way the state and federal labor sachems can know if that is the case for a particular individual is if he or she is applying for and/or receiving unemployment. Therefore, the ACTUAL unemployment rate is MUCH higher. Consumer reporter Clark Howard made reference some months ago to something called “Unemployment-6″ (the title is probably wrong, but pretty close) which makes the above point much more succinctly than I am able to conjure.

What does all this have to do with Good Morning America. The story concerned the “99′ers” — people who have received 99 weeks of unemployment and no longer get to bite the apple. The current bill oozing through Congress does nothing for them. What followed was a portrait of who these people largely are. They tend to be middle-to-older-aged people who once occupied the middle-to-upper levels of businesses and industries that went under — construction was specifically mentioned. One common experience mentioned by them was that they were not even able to secure minimum-wage jobs at McDonalds and Wal-Mart. Neither have I. Why should these firms devote time, money and effort on people who will leave once the economy turns the corner and even the construction industry comes back.

I no longer receive unemployment benefits and am not certain if I have already received 99 weeks’ worth, so I don’t know if passage of the current bill will help me personally or not. That is not the point. It’s bad enough to be young and unable to find work. It is frightening to be unskilled and unable to find work. But to be well-educated, skilled in a myriad of disciplines, and possessing decades of valuable experience and unable to find work FOR THOSE VERY REASONS is both terrifying and humiliating.

No piece of national legislation, no matter how high-minded, compassionate or sensible should be based on the experience of any individual. Nor should it be based on the “feelings” of any single Representative or coterie of same. The American people are completely entitled to issue a thundering “Ho-Hum” to the plight of any individual when the aim of that individual is to ease his plight at the expense of unwilling others.

But the situation in the United States Senate is intolerable and I will close with that. Back in the day, a minority of Senators could block a particular piece of legislation by “talking it to death” with a filibuster. Senate rules demanded that at least 60 Senators vote to end debate in a maneuver called cloture. But someone in that minority had to actually stand in the well of the Senate and actually talk. He could recite recipes, discuss the bill or read the newspaper aloud — it didn’t matter, but someone had to actually do the work implied in a filibuster.

The unemployment legislation, like the health care legislation was held up for weeks by the mere THREAT of a filibuster because the Senate changed its rules years ago and now, no one needs to utter a word or do any other hard work. The result is that passing legislation in the United States can be stalled or killed by 40 Senators; that’s less than 10% of the elected representatives in both houses and it is WRONG.