-By Warner Todd Huston
If this isn’t the most perverse example of “reasoning” you’ve ever seen, then you haven’t seen any, yet. It seems the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is worried that the failure to pass an extension for unemployment insurance will deprive Illinois of “stimulus” money.
So, here is the perverse part… unemployment is for the unemployed, right? “Stimulus” is for economic growth (or at the very least economic water treading), right? So if we throw “stimulus” into the coffers of unemployment insurance, aren’t we “stimulating” unemployment and NOT stimulating economic activity?
Does this even make sense?
Of course it doesn’t but the SEIU is pushing the idea anyway on its “Illinois Progress” website. The SEIU-backed website is scolding Congress for not passing an extension for unemployment insurance because it will cause lost “stimulus” cash.
It all seems pretty backwards, doesn’t it?
Of course, we all know that there hasn’t been any “stimulus” of the economy regardless of the billions that Obama has thrown at the issue. Little of this money has gone to stimulate anything but the wallets of his buddies, his union supporters, and federal, state and local governments. No regular folks have gotten much of anything from the so-called stimulus.
As the good folks over at the Prairie Stater said, “Providing a safety net through unemployment insurance is one thing — but ignoring real job-creation policies in favor of scoring political points is certainly not.” And I couldn’t agree more.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDailyReview.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.