Apparently, in a frantic effort to curb spending, usually in
the wrong places, Congress has opened a nest of worms to the delight of ABC News media …
Lyneka
Little, ABC News, 17 hours
ago, October 3, 2012:
A new report shows
that some 2,400 millionaires received unemployment insurance benefits during
the economic downturn, a number that has caught the attention of politicians
who funded extensions of benefits for up to 99 weeks as the economy crumbled.
In 2009, 2,362 millionaires received
unemployment benefits, down from 2,840 the year prior, according to a study
from the Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan arm of U.S. Congress
that provides policy and legal analysis. Of the 2,362 more than 1,000 receiving
unemployment benefits had a household adjusted gross income of $1.5 million in
2009. The
report titled “Receipt of Unemployment Insurance by Higher-Income Unemployed
Workers” found that 0.02 percent of tax filers that received unemployment
benefits in 2009 were millionaires. A total of $20.8 million in unemployment
benefits went to this group.
“It sounds scandalous when you hear
that millionaires are going to collect unemployment insurance,” Bill Frenzel,
guest scholar at the Brookings Institute and former Republican member of
Congress, told ABC News. “On the other
hand, millionaires get unemployed too and have made payments into the
unemployment insurance.” … Frenzel
says if they made a million dollars in income the year prior, “they could
probably stand being barred from unemployment this year. …
“Sending millionaires unemployment
checks is a case study in out-of-control spending. Providing welfare to the wealthy undermines
the program for those who need it most while burdening future generations with
senseless debt,” Republican Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. of Oklahoma said in a statement to ABC News. Based on the report from the Senator’s
office, millionaires received $74 million in unemployment insurance from 2005
to 2009. According
to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the average individual collects
about $300 per week from unemployment compensation.
So, early last year, Senator Coburn introduced a bill: Ending Unemployment
to Jobless Millionaires Act of 2011.
Which means that Senator Tom Coburn
is joining the ranks of sociocrats whose policy is that the wealthy must pay
for other citizens’ welfare benefit “entitlements”; despite admitting that they
qualified because they paid into the system. Everyone, directly or indirectly,
when working or earning income pays into the unemployment “insurance” program.
It makes as much sense as a person with a given amount of income is not
entitled to collect on any insurance program paid into because they are “wealthy”.
Next they will be telling Americans that if you make more than a given amount
per year you will not be able to collect social security, despite paying into
it all their working lives.
It is just not “millionaires” that are qualified to be on
the program. ABC News …
…A few other
high-income brackets receive compensation from the government. More than 8,000
tax filers making $500,000 to $1,000,000 received unemployment benefit income
in 2009 and more than 900,000 tax filers that made $100,000 to $500,000
received unemployment benefit income.
Who pays unemployment insurance and how does it work?
Wiki
Answers:
Each state has its own
unemployment insurance law and operates its own program. … In Texas: The state issues you the check
from its account, So in that sense it appears that the state pays you the
benefit check, but then the employer is the actual payee.
Each state
collects the unemployment funds from the employers through an unemployment tax
based on the business’ actual payroll.
Unemployment Payments and the Law:
Each state pays its
unemployed workers from the pool of unemployment taxes it collected from
employers, based on their number of employees and their turnover history. The formula
is different for each state. According to the Related Links below the state
collects payroll taxes from employers, based on their turnover rate. This
became a law under the Federal Social Security Act and is administered by the
individual states. The only time employers pay employees directly is when the
employer has an agreement to do so by the state that collects the taxes from
them, in order to opt out of paying the tax. The employer does not receive a
bill for payments made, but the state does adjust his tax rate based on his
turn over experience. The taxes collected pays for both operational costs as
well as benefit payments.
The state governments are in charge of their own
unemployment insurance programs. Employers pay a state tax for each employee
and that funding is for state-issued unemployment checks for at least 26 weeks.
Employers also pay a per-employee federal tax (double taxation) that funds
administrative costs of implementing the system.
The unemployment rate
is presently
at 9%, remaining at a high level for an extended period, which is why 30
states have exhausted their funds and had to borrow $41 billion from the
federal government. The biggest federal funding borrowing states are California, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania,
and Illinois. Comparatively,
those states also have high taxes and more entitlements paid out than other
states.
Can we connect the dots?
States that borrowed have begun to pay interest on those
loans (September), despite a break authorized by President Obama under the tax
stimulus bill that extended the payment of those loans. State governments will
most likely slap a “special assessment” on businesses in accordance with the
law – which means in the state of the economy may cause a higher unemployment
rate. In addition, in order to pay for the principal of those state loans,
employers’ federal taxes will increase, which will hit them towards the end of
this year to early next year. This is partly what Romney meant when he said
that taxes will be increasing by the end of this year and on into next year in
his condemnation of Obama’s economic broken policies. [Center
on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), Washington, DC – CS Monitor]
Obama’s plan is this:
The president's
proposed budget is expected to include a two-year postponement of the special
"state assessment" tax hikes on business, plus a similar delay in any
increase in federal unemployment insurance taxes.
This, like the last administration, is like putting a finger
in a hole in the dike while the rest of the dam cracks, ready to burst. It is
the way government has been doing business for decades, and it is the reason
why Ron Paul has insisted (at a
minimum) that the Federal Reserve receive a complete audit and made accountable
to Congress, who is constitutionally in charge of government funds. However,
no, he is just too “radical”. To the RINOs and democratic socialists in
Congress – anyone who insists upon the Constitution as the foundation and final
authority for operation of OUR government is “radical”.
Now Congress is wailing that people that paid into a program
should not receive its benefits. Unemployment is unemployment, no matter what
one’s income was when working.
This is like what happened to me and many veterans of
foreign wars. In 1996, because Congress felt there were too many claims for
disability and still did not admit that the so-called Gulf Syndrome
was real, it passed a bill that many Americans do not know about. It was a
bill, most likely passed within another bill so as to be undetected, that no
longer separated retirement funding issues from disability issues for veterans.
That means that if a veteran who becomes disabled enough to qualify for monthly
payments at time of leaving service or after, the funds paid into retirement up
to that time will be deducted from the amount owed in disability payments. This
includes those who suffered from a mysterious vaccine administered called Vaccine A & B – a dual booster
supposedly that boosted the immune system, of which the administration has
denied and Congress never followed up on. I sent a photocopy of proof, and my
senator and representative and other members I wrote to, as well as the
Veterans Administration ignored it. It was because I did not trust the system.
I kept the record that everyone should have turned in, and when receiving the
new one, the mysterious vaccine, which nurses administering it in Saudi Arabia,
could not identify either. After twenty years, I finally was authorized
disability payments that I will not see until spring of 2016 because they are
deducting it from the net amount received. Originally, they had tried to deduct
the gross amount until I sent them the legislative document number and quoted
paragraphs that stated differently.
Veterans are being screwed over, and have been for decades,
even those recently returning from war zones like Afghanistan. It is because
Congress overspends and then when they preach cutting, they cut the wrong
things. In example: Funds were cut from a federal program that put to work
unemployed citizens from age 50 to retirement age, the age bracket when it is
difficult to obtain work during an economic recession. That funding was cut
last year in half, which forced those operating the system to give some
employed a “pink slip”. Meanwhile, the same amount of funding was being sent by
our federal government to help poor people in Africa.
Can anyone see the problem here?
There are those in Congress who are admonishing and balking
against citizens (“millionaires” collecting unemployment legally) who pay into
the system, but find themselves not “eligible” because Congress does not want
to pay; yet our tax dollars are being spent in African countries, Egypt, and
even places where our citizens are being killed and embassies being stormed and
looted.
Everyone pays into unemployment, either indirectly through
employer or if self-employed, directly. State governments have one thing in
common – they determine your unemployment check amount received weekly for a
limit of 26 weeks according to a percentage of what you made weekly when
working. If everyone pays into the system, then everyone should receive
benefits when legally eligible.
I am not so shallow and brainwashed by socialism that I
believe that people who make more than I do should have their funds confiscated
and redistributed according to the whims of government. It is legal stealing; courtesy
of our government, that no longer pays attention to the limitations of
government within the articles of the Constitution of the United States.
We the People should
not be at the mercy of the whims of Congress or the White House. In order to do
that we need to reeducate ourselves as to the reasons why the Constitution was
written, as it was written and why – and what it requires. Those in OUR government
always presents a fabulous “gift” called “entitlements” and false promises of
financial and personal security – but are you willing to pay their price?
That price is why limitations were set upon the government
of the United States, and why powers were delegated to state legislation that
are closer to the People who must be responsible and ensure that who they elect
perform their duties For the People, not special interests, and earn their
annual salaries.
Senator Tom Coburn wails about the
wealthy receiving legal unemployment benefits while congressional members,
elected officials, can receive retirement benefits courtesy of taxpayers after
serving two terms in office. NO elected person should EVER receive benefits or
payments after they leave office. This is the same senator who put a monkey
wrench in the bill that would protect government whistleblowers under the First
Amendment of the Constitution, in the case of Garcetti v.
Ceballos. GW Bush stated he would veto the bill if it
went through and Senator Coburn put in a holding
pattern so if would not reach the floor for vote. It prevented the passage
of the bill. Senator Coburn a medical doctor was involved in a non-consensual
sterilization case as well as the state attorney general accusing him of
Medicaid fraud. He is also the politician that put up a fuss over the Schlinder’s List
film being broadcast during “prime time”. Senator Coburn has special “hold
privileges” to prevent certain bills from entering the Senate floor. Since the
procedures are “secret” – this violates all that the Constitution stands for.
Senator Cogburn has used this power to hold a veterans’
benefits bill. Senator Coburn like too many others, did not mind sending
American volunteers to war – but does
not want to keep the promise to America’s veterans.
Congress requires a thorough house cleaning – and not all of
them are Democrats.
Too many American citizens want to separate fellow citizens via race, politics, and financial status. Instead of being jealous of someone whose income is greater than yours, and if it is so important to you - than do something to increase your wealth instead of insisting that government steal it from certain citizens to give to other groups. That is NOT the American Dream or the American Way.
Pioneers set out on dangerous ventures to change their lives - on their own. That is the American heritage, not citizenry that whines that someone else has more and it is not "fair".
We must acknowledge the transgressions and failures of the past - but overall, we must also recognize and be proud of our traditions and accomplishments enacted in our past; and most importantly, honor, protect, and comply with the Constitution of the United States.
The Communist Manifesto by Marxism does not apply to our system of government - and never should..
