Unemployment Extensions and Jim Bunning

"A law that provided stopgap road funding and longer and more generous unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless expired Monday."

Jim Bunning seems to be the first person to finally get specific on spending. Unfortunately for him, he found out what every politician already knows: Don't get specific on cutting spending. When the last stimulus bill was passed over a year ago, 62% of U.S. voters wanted the plan to include more tax cuts and less government spending.

We have to assume that the percentage would be much higher if you simply asked people whether the government should just cut spending, but here we have a case where a lawmaker finally takes a concrete stand on the issue of government spending, and he's getting slammed in the media, and by his own party.

I have a few examples of the many problems with unemployment benefits.
1. I know a couple and the husband receives unemployment and did not even ATTEMPT to find work until a few weeks before his benefits were scheduled to run out.
2. A few of my employees have called out of work to attend unemployment hearings even though that is highly frowned upon by the EDD and they offer telephone hearings. This is indicative of how much they really want to work because they know they have that government safety net.
3. I've seen a few people that would not have cared if the government offered unemployment to the underemployed but now that they know the government offers it, they apply for it.

If you take people that could otherwise find employment, and allow them to do nothing but collect government benefits, you're reducing our country's gdp, which in turn, makes us all that much poorer.

Besides, the President could easily just use stimulus funds to extend these benefits. He won't because he's the biggest government spender in US history and the stimulus is going to be used for reelecting Democrats. I applaud Jim Bunning for NOT being a politician on this issue.