As a Political Science major and hardcore Democrat, the looming hot topic: the unemployment extension bill seemed to strike my fancy the most. I was instantly intrigued and I wanted to investigate the concurring and opposing viewpoints of both the Democrats and Republicans in regards to the passing and signing of the recent unemployment extension bill by our legislature.
Just recently the unemployment extension bill was upheld by a wide margin in the House with a 272-152 vote and was signed by President Obama on Thursday, July 22, 2010. The unemployment extension bill will restore unemployment benefits to 2.5 million jobless Americans, who have stopped receiving their benefits since May. CBS News states that about half of the approximately 5 million people in the program have had their benefits cut off since its authorization expired June 2. The bill is being renewed till the end of November. If unemployment rates continue to skyrocket as many expect, another extension may be put on the table if necessary.
As reported in the New York Times and USA Today, many Republicans said they supported providing more jobless pay for struggling Americans but argued that the costs should be offset with spending cuts elsewhere to avoid adding to rising federal deficits. They proposed that money not yet spent from last year’s economic stimulus plan be used to cover the costs. “When given the option to pay for these benefits with unused stimulus funds, the President and Congressional Democrats chose adding to the country’s red ink over fiscal responsibility,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said.
Strong political sources from the powerhouses of CBS News, the New York Times, BBC, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal all seemed to favor the passing of the unemployment extension bill and had fair bi-partisan representation of both political parties with a brief mention of the two Republican Senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine who sided with the 56 Democrats in the vote that had successfully passed the unemployment extension bill.
Another powerful political contender, CNN had a different standpoint on the passing of the unemployment extension bill. In a CNN Opinion article by CNN Senior Political Contributor, Ed Rollins lambasted the passing of the bill, mainly bombarding the Democrats and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. As Rollins mentions a Bloomberg story quoting the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington research institution, he argues that Forty-six states are already facing budget gaps that total $112 billion. Although Rollins does not oppose the granting of unemployment benefits to their beneficiaries, he does not agree that giving someone unemployment benefits will stimulate the economy as Pelosi stated it would. In the end, what Rollins truly believes is that the benefits have to be paid for, and it hardly helps the economy to take hard-earning wages from working people in the form of increased taxes.
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All of these sources must have chosen to focus on the extension bill because of its "consequence"; the benefits would add to a giant list of expenses that the US is unable to pay for, but it would also considerably ease the lives of millions of jobless Americans (Hanson, 193). Rollins seems to be trying to uphold "journalistic objectivity and detachment" by realistically focusing on the source of the money (Hanson, 177-179). The other papers are unable to ignore the plight of five million fellow Americans, although they definitely acknowledge the state of the government's economy. All of the articles attempt to please "sources, advertisers, and readers"(Hanson, 193). Although it is essentially impossible for our government to allocate extra funds for anything at all, something must be done to curb the country's unemployment rate, and using the leftover stimulus money is probably the most sensible idea.
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