“Lazy-Ass Americans like being unemployed” talking point a winner for GOP
March 7, 2010 by William K. Wolfrum
If you can say one thing about the GOP, it’s that they stick to the script when it comes to talking points. The latest GOP talking point - that Americans are lazy and like being unemployed - could very well be a winner for the Republicans come election time.
Ex-Speaker of the House Tom Delay was the latest conservative to make the claim, as he told CNN’s Candy Crowley that unemployment insurance was the root of all evil:
Crowley: People are unemployed because they want to be?
Delay: well, it is the truth. and people in the real world know it. And they have friends and they know it. Sure, we ought to be helping people that are unemployed find a job, but we also have budget considerations that are incredibly important, especially now that Obama is spending monies that we don’t have.
Earlier in the week, Republican Senator Jon Kyl jumped on that talking point, as well.
“[Unemployment] doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”
If there’s one thing that will guarantee a landslide November victory for the GOP, it’s Republicans telling the millions of jobless Americans that they’re lazy and just want to sit on their ass all day collecting a couple hundred bucks a week in unemployment. For the GOP, it’s a winning talking point.
--WKW
I certainly enjoyed my 11-month stint of unemployment (May 2007-April 2008), where I made 50% of my regular pay for about two months, and had to pull the 5:00 AM shift at Pier1 Imports, hauling ugly-ass furniture off a truck. Going into debt with my credit cards and losing my rented house and going couch-surfing for 8 1/2 months was an added bonus. It was also fun to run into people I used to work with, who would come to Pier1 to buy ugly-ass furniture. The conversation was always the same.
Me: Hey, how’s it going?
Them: Hey…(starts to grimace nervously)…how are you?
Me: I’ve seen better days.
Them: Yeah, I guess so. So, I saw this couch in the catalog…
That was one of the high points of my life. Thanks, Sen. Kyl and Criminal Delay, for exposing the truth of unemployment.
Well, Delay does know a little bit about being unemployed.
Congrats on comment 10,000 at the Chronicles, DGun (mind you, about 5K of them were spam not counting the 250K that were blocked by my spam software).
And about 7,000 were ‘lolz’.
lolz.
I’m still in shock and awe after reading a story about putting Ronald Reagan on a $50 bill?
This the same cat the had the highest deficit in the last 100 years?
This the same cat that put disabled homeless people on the streets?
This the same cat that claimed to be buffoon by the Iran-Contra affairs?
I promised I would never get a $50.00 bill if he makes it!!!!
C’mon are these guys for real??????
Unemployment - I hated the hell out of it, matter of fact, twice I was on twice I founded a job within 3 months….
Dear Mr. DeLay:
I wanted to let you know as an American ENJOYING his 13th straight month of unemployment that YES INDEED I just LOVE surviving on the pity of my parents and the will-call part-time job that pays $8 per hour and that the meager $550 I get every two weeks from the unemployment benefits are just the GRAVY I need to crash at my home and gaze at my navel for hours on end wondering how WORTHLESS I am to where no one is hiring me for a full-time job given all the work experience I’ve tallied and the exceptional skills and intellect I THOUGHT I had.
By the by, Mr. DeLay, how long on the unemployment lines did you stand after you were forced out of Congress? Two minutes? Three, maybe, before that GOP Think Tank propped you up and helped you sell another ‘bestseller’ book? Those must have been very scary minutes for you, sir. Oh no, actually you didn’t go to a think tank, you went to a celebrity has-been dance show! Your poor feet (NOTE: DeLay did indeed injure his feet, but the tears, they ain’t coming). I wish a celebrity has-been show would hire me, but sadly no I’ve been without an agent representing me since, oh, 1970.
It’s interesting that the idiots lambasting a government program never had to worry about being forced onto said program. Here’s a tip, -ssh-l-s: don’t bitch about something you haven’t endured. You wanna whine about us unemployed Americans? TRY BEING ONE FIRST.
Tom Delay might as well come out of the closet. It’s obvious after seeing him on “Dancing With the Stars” that he is Gay.
Sorry to all the gays out there. Just had to say it.
Kyl might have ’86-ed’ his chances of reelection as has McCain.
So if you work for a business which goes bankrupt, and you live in an area that’s experienced an economic downturn and can’t find a job for a while, that’s “your own fault”? If your company CEOs close down a branch and fire a couple hundred people just because they’re playing corporate politics, that’s “your own fault”?
There is a balance between being willing to do what’s difficult when it comes to finding work, and being unable to find work no matter what (especially if a person can’t afford to obtain retraining). And finding a job “flipping burgers” isn’t the solution, because 1) there aren’t enough such jobs to go around and 2) people have to have jobs to be able to afford to *buy* burgers.
Delay’s statement is all too characteristic of what seems to be an increasing idiocy-quotent in the population generally, and in politicians most especially.
[...] on christmas movement Jump to Comments The war against unemployment benefits continues. On CNN: Crowley: People are unemployed because they want to [...]
We Americans suffer from motivational and financial retardation. We are lazy and arrogant when we choose not to work because we think jobs available are beneath us. We are economically stupid when we live above our means. We choose not to make sacrifices to buy the things we need but instead buy the things we want. Case in point, my nephew will not pay a monthly health insurance premium of $325 for to cover himself, his wife and infant child but instead chooses to pay $450 each month for a cell phone and tobacco habit. Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day,…….look up the rest!
[...] only other lazy, don’t-want-to-work Alaskans would pull themselves up by their bootstraps, they too could score lucrative appearance fees, [...]
Good things do come to good people. Personally, I love unemployment and I am enjoying every minute of it. It’s the greatest thing that has happened to me in my adult life.
I myself would like to meet some people who do want to work. I am a physician and spend much of my day with patients that bring in disability forms so they don’t have to work. Some of these patients are younger than 20 and have never had a job before. Just today a woman wanted disability for an ingrown toenail not to mention a bunch of narcotics and i had a man who wanted to be disabled for a plantar fasciitis. Americans have gotten used to playing the system and expected hand outs. They are abusing it so much that those in true need are unable to get assistance because the courts are bogged down with fake claims.
i too am enjoying a check that pays less than half of my wages
it has been great telling my children they can only have POTATO CHIPS once a weak.
Part of the problem with being able to find a job is that the career that took me 10 years to build and got I am laid off from; due to state budget cuts; now requires a degree, that would take me two years to get .So if I have to collect unemployment for two years while I get it so be it.
That seems to be the trend now .Jobs that many of my peers have worked at for 10, 15, 20 years suddenly require degrees. Over the last 7 months I have applied for positions that want me to be book keeper, house keeper and counselor AND have a bachelors degree for 9.50 an hour. Give me a break. And of course a 21 year old with no children, no mortgage and right out of school with a degree in Philosophy or some such tripe will jump on it . They still have 20 years to establish themselves .I have already paid my dues . If I need to collect 900.00 from the state for the next 12 months to reestablish myself so be it. Perhaps I could run for political office and steal more.
Americans are hard working people and always have been… but it is not laziness if you earned 50-60K and now all you can get is 20K job. Why would you take it? Especially if you always did everything right: went to school, worked hard, built a career? Our country is in a situation when people are being blamed for not having jobs… IT IS NOT THEIR FAULT!!!!
Those who exported American jobs are having retreats where they get private spa massages (and who knows what else) while making deals and figuring out ways how to be richer and find more replacement for an American worker. At home, it is a doggy-dog world… those who kept jobs think the ones that lost jobs did something wrong, and they did something right (until capitalism has its way with them too),
I am an immigrant / naturalized USA citizen. Had I known what emotional and financial turmoil awaits me when I came here 15+ years ago, I would have not applied to come to this country. Now my children have to suffer my unemployment and stigma that surrounds it. Equal opportunity and all that non-discrimination stuff is long gone out of window - bigots rule in this recession *IMO… depression*!
I THINK KYL AND COMPANY MAY HAVE A POINT
@Sickntired;
I disagree, I do believe that there are jobs that are beneath me… I served my country, and was discharged due to a situation that was out of my control. I am currently on unemployment and REFUSE to “Flip Burgers” because it WONT pay for anything that needs to be payed. (Plus, even those places aren’t really hiring…)
Unrelated to sickntired:
My area, you are HARD STRUCK to find ANYTHING to rent that a minimum wage job will pay, then you have to worry about Car Payments, Gas, Insurance, Power, Water, Phone etc. how the hell are you to pay for $2500 worth of bills on Minimum wage & Part time?! YOU CANT! (And I don’t want to hear about public transportation, because it DOESN’T exist in my city)
Currently I make roughly 900 a month on Unemployment, 900 a month on VA’s Post 9/11 GI Bill, AND I am STILL Struggling to pay my bills….
I can PROMISE you that I do not have anything that i don’t absolutely NEED…
There is only ONE company in my area that does the same thing I did in the service (Aviation Electrician) and they aren’t hiring, so I chose to go back to school, to get my education…
The Unemployment laws say that if I don’t Have to take a job that doesn’t pay 85% of what I made previously, so I gave up on looking for work
Thanks for reading my rant-rave
Dave
Yep… I have enjoyed the last 6 months off…I’m living perfectly find off of $1700 month bc I have almost no expenses and had paid all my debts prior to losing my job, saved a shit-ton of money prior and continue to do so now..yeah..going to Puerto Rico in a month for a week’s vaca. Jealous yes? Too p.c to admit it? Yep.