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Health & Fitness

Roskam the Grinch who stole unemployment benefits from the needy

OK, my Congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6) is really not a Grinch as no such creature exists, and he's not stolen anything from the chronically unemployed. He is however, a highly paid Congressional leader of the Tea Party that rules the US House and which allowed unemployment benefits to expire for 1.3 million unemployed December 28, just three days after Christmas. So much for holiday spirit, Mr. Congressman.

Congressman Roskam is sure keeping mum about those 1.3 million folks which his Tea Party Republicans have heartlessly cut off from their meager economic lifeline. Go to his website, www.roskam.house.gov and you will not see one word about these folks. You will see his endless fear-mongering against the Affordable Care Act which Roskam voted 43 times to abolish or defund, and his usual rant about Medicare fraud, which is simply a thinly veiled Tea Party attack about any government program which helps seniors and the needy. Possibly the Congressman's Washington office could untangle Roskam's reticence about the no longer covered unemployed. I talked to Young Luke who had no idea there was even an issue regarding these 1.3 million folks crashing through the social safety net, much less what Roskam's position was. I requested he query the Congressman and forward an answer to me but I'm not holding my breath a response will be forthcoming.  
 
Besides the pain needlessly inflicted upon the unemployed, Roskam's governing mantra further dents our recovering but fragile economy. Economists report this recent cutoff will 200,000 additional jobs and inflict a 25 billion dollar economic hit which represents a 0.2% drop in GDP. Last year this important insurance lifted 2.5 million folks out of poverty. Twenty-four million have been helped since 2008 when former president George W. Bush signed the Emergency Unemployment Insurance Act, at a time when the unemployment rate was just 5.6% compared to 7.0% today, and the average unemployment period was just 17 weeks compared to 34 weeks today. In Roskam's bizarro world, the worse the unemployment picture is, the less help these folks need.

Least we think Congressman Roskam is done with denying more benefits to the needy, within the next six months another 1.9 million unemployed will lose their unemployment benefits. This will give Congressman Roskam the opportunity to play the Grinch to the unemployed all year long.  

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