Florida Cuts Unemployment Benefits To Pay For Corporate Tax Cut
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on May 9th, 2011 4:34 am by HL
Florida Cuts Unemployment Benefits To Pay For Corporate Tax Cut
In the last few months, conservatives in several states have moved to limit unemployment benefits, even with the national unemployment rate at 9 percent and more than 40 percent of the unemployed having been out of work for six months or more. Conservative lawmakers in Utah falsely claimed that cutting jobless benefits would be “motivation for people to get back to work,” while Michigan gutted its unemployment insurance system despite having one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.
Florida Republicans this weekend also succeeded in reducing their state’s unemployment benefits, sending a bill to Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) for his signature:
A bill that would establish some of the deepest and most far-reaching cuts in unemployment benefits in the nation is heading for the desk of Gov. Rick Scott…The legislation would cut maximum state benefits to 23 weeks from 26 when the jobless rate is 10.5 percent or higher. If lower, the maximum would decline on a sliding scale until bottoming at 12 weeks if the jobless rate was 5 percent or less.
As the National Employment Law Project pointed out, with this bill, Florida will “go further than any other state in dismantling its unemployment insurance system.” The Republican sponsor of the bill, state Sen. Nancy Detert (R), relied on the same false assumption as the lawmakers in Utah, saying that cutting benefits “encourages people to get back into the job market.” Research by the San Francisco Federal Reserve has found that workers who qualify for unemployment benefits stay unemployed just 1.6 weeks longer than those who do not qualify for such benefits.
Even before this legislation, Florida’s benefits were amongst the stingiest in the nation. Once it becomes law, Floridians will not receive the national standard of 26 weeks of unemployment benefits unless the state’s unemployment rate, currently at 11.1 percent, tops 12 percent. As the Miami Herald pointed out, the bill also makes it “easier for companies to keep former workers from collecting benefits.”
Adding insult to injury, the money saved from cutting unemployment benefits will be used to reduce business taxes in a state where the corporate tax rate is already exceedingly low. Scott had been looking to cut corporate taxes even further, but was rebuffed by the legislature.
Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.
Cheney Defends Torture, Says Administration ?Not Up To The Task? In Libya
This morning in an interview on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, former Vice President Dick Cheney stridently defended Bush era torture programs, calling harsh interrogation tactics “the most important steps we took that kept us safe for 7 years.” He also advocated reinstating waterboarding, telling Wallace that enhanced interrogation “worked, and provided absolutely vital pieces of information.”
Cheney resurrected an old GOP talking point in insisting that waterboarding was not torture, despite testimony of people like CIA Director Leon Panetta to the contrary. “It was a good program, it was a legal program, it was not torture,” Cheney maintained. Watch it:
Many former Bush administration officials have falsely credited torture tactics with leading to the raid on Osama bin Laden, but Cheney went further by insisting that torture was the key policy that has kept the country safe for a decade after the September 11th attacks.
Cheney also echoed former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and chastised Obama for “prosecuting” the intelligence officers who tortured detainees. “These men deserve to be decorated, they don’t deserve to be prosecuted,” he told Wallace, calling it “an outrage that we would go after the people who deserve the credit for keeping us safe for seven and a half years.” While the Obama administration in fact decided long ago not to prosecute any CIA agents involved in torture, Cheney nevertheless suggested Obama has been so relentless in going after those responsible that “these guys…have to look over their shoulder.”
Finally, Cheney had tough words for the Obama administration when it came to Libya. He smirked when Wallace mentioned the policy described as “leading from behind,” and admonished Obama for turning over operational control of the mission to NATO. He further tried to suggest weakness on the president’s part by telling Wallace, “the policy of the administration has been to hope for Gadaffi’s departure but not be prepared to do enough to make sure it happens.” Most gallingly, one week after Obama took decisive action to eliminate the world’s most notorious terrorist, Cheney said “it’s not clear to me that this administration is up to the task” of taking out Gadaffi.
