Howie Carr: Time to end $300 unemployment bonus and get working

It is an axiom that whatever government subsidizes, it gets more of.

Right now Uncle Sam is subsidizing unemployment — also known as summer vacation — for millions of layabouts, paying them an extra $300 a week on top of their normal “unemployment” insurance for pretending that they can’t find jobs.

This is an increasingly difficult scam to put over, considering that at last count there were 9 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. And it seems like every business in America has a big two-word sign in its front window, and on the company website:

HELP WANTED!

But over the last year, millions of Americans seem to have become allergic to work, at least not as long as free stuff is being handed out.

Sadly, however, millions of these members of the non-working classes live in states controlled by GOP governors. And except for Charlie Baker (hardly a Republican), these governors are opting out of the extra $300-a-week welfare payments in order to get these bums back to work.

Talk about cruel and unusual punishment — making people actually get a job, at a time when there are plenty of jobs. These red states are clearly violating the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

And so of course a lawsuit has been filed, in Maryland, by six members of the leisure class, claiming that they will suffer “severe emotional and economic crisis” when their extra $300-a-week handouts end tomorrow in the Old Line State.

By their names you shall know them, and the plaintiffs’ lawyer is from the “Public Justice Center.”

The lawsuit was announced by the “Unemployed Workers Union,” even though if you’re unemployed how can you really be a “worker?” That union, by the way, was organized by “the People’s Power Assembly.”

The main power the non-workers in Maryland are seeking, apparently, is to keep not working, and getting paid for it.

Let’s go straight to the complaint, which will be considered Friday morning by a federal judge in Baltimore.

Oddly, three of the six plaintiffs “are identified only by initials only to protect (them) from harassment, injury, ridicule or personal embarrassment.”

Ridicule? These people are victims, dammit, every last one of them.

Consider D.A., an erstwhile chef who is now grabbing a total of $689 a week, including her $300 handout. If the evil Republican (actually RINO) Gov. Larry Hogan isn’t stopped, D.A. “will be forced to live in an overcrowded situation with relatives until (she) can find suitable work.”

Again, D.A. is a chef. Don’t you think she could find work, yesterday, if she were really looking?

D.M. is from Baltimore, a “freelance production worker who worked on media production sets.” From that job description, I’m guessing D.M.’s work history was spotty even before the Panic.

Now, though, he’s grabbing $543 a week.

“D.M. will be unable to cover rent at his sober living house, which is part of his recovery from addiction. He will be forced to find other living arrangements and will be at serious risk of relapse.”

Jennifer Graham is a one-time massage therapist from affluent Montgomery County now collecting $476 a week.

“She was depending on receiving benefits through early September and had budgeted to be able to reopen her business at that time.”

By a strange coincidence, September is when the bonus welfare payments are scheduled to end even in blue states. And that’s when she was … planning to go back to work. Go figure.

Without these extra two months on the dole, though, Graham “will suffer from exacerbated post-traumatic stress disorder and clinical depression.”

This lawsuit was thrown so quickly and carelessly by the welfare-industrial complex in Baltimore that the next plaintiff is identified first as “A.M.” and then as “Mitchell.”

He’s grabbing $730 a week from the taxpayers, which isn’t bad for a guy who was a “dining room attendant” at Johns Hopkins University for 40 years.

“Mitch” was laid off in May of this year (not last year) and “his employer has indicated he may be rehired later this summer.”

But if he’s not allowed to keep pocketing that extra $300 a week for another few weeks, he and the missus “will be unable to pay their mortgage and may lose the home they have lived in for 20 years. Mr. Mitchell also suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure and will be unable to pay for his prescriptions.”

Meet Kevin Baxter, who used to work in a “hotel cafeteria” and now collects $621 a week.

If his handouts end tomorrow, “Mr. Baxter will lose his cell phone and transportation money, making it more difficult to find work, and increasing his feelings of depression and anxiety.”

His cellphone! Oh, the humanity!

Shad Baban was a “cook for several years” and is now gainfully unemployed to the tune of $514 a week, which he uses for “formula for his nine-month-old daughter.”

He is described as the family’s “sole breadwinner,” although from the description he seems to be a ward of the state.

“Mr. Baban suffers anxiety and insomnia as a result of the decision to terminate federal benefits early.”

So four of the six plaintiffs used to work in the hospitality industry, but they can’t find jobs now? Really?

The hearing in Baltimore starts at 11 a.m. How long will it take the lawyers from the Public Justice Center to blame President Donald J. Trump for this terrible tragedy?

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3AmaaS4