MESSAGING AND A NOVEL IDEA:
Only a few months ago the Democrats and their friends in the media were calling the Republicans cruel, uncaring and insensitive. Why that time?
Because they wanted to cut the long term extra unemployment to “only $300 per week” and not extend it as Democrats wanted for the balance of the year. Now take that in for a second and apply it to all you are hearing today that businesses cannot hire workers because people are getting more not to work.
My first reaction is:
Shouldn’t the Republicans be messaging how they were called those names and look at how wrong and irresponsible the Democratic left is. Shouldn’t they be painting the Democrats with their own words that were so misguided? Shouldn’t they be painting the left as nothing more than big spenders who are passing a debt of unimaginable numbers to your children and grandchildren?
If the situation were reversed wouldn’t Schumer and Pelosi be all over the airwaves? Where are the Republicans? Don’t they know how to message a winning argument?
Even the President gets the message on this. Here is what he is saying now. “It makes sense to let supercharged federal unemployment benefits expire as scheduled in September.” After the new employment numbers were released last week he got the message.
Well, twenty five governors are ending it now, because they see what the extension caused. The White House refused to denounce them to the media. Even though all 25 are Republicans and not one Democratic Governor has done it. They said the governors have “every right” to end the supercharged unemployment benefits ahead of the September expiration date. “Those governors, who have made the decision have every right to pull back on unemployment benefits,” said press secretary Jen Psaki.
You can be sure if they weren’t sure those governors weren’t right they would be attacking the mean and uncaring right.
Shouldn’t the MSM be asking some tough questions of those they called heroes for the downtrodden when the extension fight was on? Shouldn’t the MSM be taking some tough questions themselves for their failed reporting and failure now to do the right thing? In fact, here’s a good challenge for the media.
We have 25 Republican Governors ending the added benefit (only 2 aren’t). We have 23 Democratic Governors keeping them in place. Why don’t you measure jobs, unemployment and work place participation in those states come the fall and winter? It would be a great measure of the question, are we better off when people do for themselves or the government does for them.
By the way, the unemployment number declined in May, but labor force participation dropped. There was a 1.7 decline in this key number from the pre epidemic in Feb. 2020, and the number on unemployment benefits was higher than two months ago. How can that be? Aren’t there 8.1 million jobs open?
The best explanation is, of course, the obvious one: if you pay people to stay unemployed, guess what, millions of workers stay home.
Here’s a novel idea. Maybe instead of just more and more spending how about we begin to focus on living within our means and try balancing the budget again? How about something really radical, like balancing the budget and then begin paying the debt back so we can give our children a country?