Reflecting this post by Atrios, Republicans have always been vigorously preoccupied with the notion that poor people -- as well as unemployed people in the aftermath of a deep recession -- are somehow spoiled and overly pampered. Meanwhile, they don't mind spoon-feeding billions of free dollars to the world's largest corporations.
I was asked recently: When do you think we should cut off unemployment benefits?
Obviously, this is a red herring. First of all, Republicans already have. Secondly, is there some form of national crisis demanding the cessation of unemployment benefits? Certainly not. Unemployment benefits aren't bankrupting us, and they're certainly not creating a class of citizens who are getting rich off the payments. If you've ever tried to live off unemployment checks, you know the deal.
In fact, there's an actual crisis -- high unemployment and a precarious recovery -- demanding that we continue extending the benefits until the crisis abates. Unemployment benefits will eventually expire when unemployment descends to a reasonable level. Nevertheless, the Republicans, for all of their own unemployed constituents, are trying to hurry along the expiration date before the crisis is over.
Hmm. It's almost as if they want to fuel the crisis so this president will be tarnished with the blame. And they're using unemployed Americans as pawns to do so. Injury, or as Krugman writes: "punishment," heaped on top of "spoiled" insult.
Adding... It's worth mentioning that, while examining at the jobless numbers, the Republicans are seriously blaming the jobless people (in part), and not the formerly recessionary economy and delicate recovery.