One of the cornerstones of the Republican Platform is personal independence. Not depending on the government. Now I think most of us actually agree with the desire, but I am betting we differ on how to actually get there.
Republicans vote to give taxpayer support to companies that close down American factories and move jobs to China and then turn around and vote against extending unemployment benefits. So they are ok with using tax dollars for helping businesses kill jobs but not ok with using tax dollars to help those thrown out of work. There reasoning goes something like this. Unemployment benefits discourages the unemployed from looking for a job. Therefore by eliminating the unemployment benefits, unemployment levels should go down. (If you believe that, maybe you'd be interested in a share of a bridge in Brooklyn).
From Paul Krugman's blog:
Ben Casselman points out that we’ve had a sort of natural experiment in the alleged effects of unemployment benefits in reducing employment. Extended benefits were cancelled at the beginning of this year; have the long-term unemployed shown any tendency to find jobs faster? And the answer is no. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/supply-demand-and-unemployment-benefits/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto&_r=1&
Really? Who could have seen that coming? Not the Republican Party.
Oh yeah, we can't forget that the Republicans think that cutting off the free lunch program will encourage poor children to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps" and force their parents to give them lunch money. What the hell, what's the worst that can happen? Hungry children? At least they have their independence.
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