Senator Says: Wealthy Should Not Get What They Paid For

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..