Democrat Rebecca Schneider's October Suprise

We're running a totally untraditional and unconventional campaign here at Richard Grayson Green Party AZ-06 HQ, so we're turning this post over to our fellow opponent of Jeff Flake, the Democratic candidate in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District, Rebecca Schneider. Here'a an email we got from her campaign today:

Please join Rebecca at a very important press conference tomorrow at 1pm in front of the State Capitol Building in Phoenix. (1700 W. Washington St. Phoenix, AZ 85007).

It is here that she will be making two very big announcements:

1) If she is elected as your representative in Congress, Rebecca will donate 50% of her net congressional salary to local organizations dedicated to getting the people of this district back to work. She will continue to personally fund these efforts throughout her first year in office.

Many political candidates make promises to improve our economy or "bring jobs to Arizona." Rebecca is willing to go a step further and put her money where her mouth is. She will work to improve our economy. She will bring jobs to the East Valley - and she will put her paycheck on the line to do it.

2) We have a great new series of videos called "Flakeville" that show what our district might be like if Jeff Flake gets another two years in office.

Here's the first episode, "The Lay-off," of Flakeville at Democratic candidate Rebecca Schneider's website,

and you can catch the subsequent nine episodes here.

Jeff Flake Tells Jobless Over-50 Workers: "Tough Luck. Not My Problem. In Fact, I'll Take Away Your Unemployment Benefits. The Rich Need Tax Cuts."

What does Jeff Flake tell the many East Valley residents and other Americans who have worked all their lives until the Great Recession but now find themselves among the long-term unemployed and who fear, because they are over 50 and no longer in demand, that they may never work again?

"Tough shit, ladies and gentlemen," Jeff Flake tells them. "It's not my problem. It's not the job of the federal government to help you in any way - not in a market economy. You lazy bastards shouldn't even be getting unemployment insurance benefits or food stamps or anything. My role is to make sure millionaires and billionaires pay less taxes."

That about sums up what the fanatic free-market extremist Congressman tells people like the ones highlighted in a front-page New York Times story about older workers who've been laid off and can't find jobs no matter how desperately they try and who are scared and desperate:

For the Unemployed Over 50, Fears of Never Working Again

By Motoko Rich

VASHON ISLAND, Wash. — Patricia Reid is not in her 70s, an age when many Americans continue to work. She is not even in her 60s. She is just 57.

But four years after losing her job she cannot, in her darkest moments, escape a nagging thought: she may never work again.

College educated, with a degree in business administration, she is experienced, having worked for two decades as an internal auditor and analyst at Boeing before losing that job.

But that does not seem to matter, not for her and not for a growing number of people in their 50s and 60s who desperately want or need to work to pay for retirement and who are starting to worry that they may be discarded from the work force — forever.

Since the economic collapse, there are not enough jobs being created for the population as a whole, much less for those in the twilight of their careers.

Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older. Nearly half of them have been unemployed six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in the group — 7.3 percent — is at a record, more than double what it was at the beginning of the latest recession.

After other recent downturns, older people who lost jobs fretted about how long it would take to return to the work force and worried that they might never recover their former incomes. But today, because it will take years to absorb the giant pool of unemployed at the economy’s recent pace, many of these older people may simply age out of the labor force before their luck changes.

For Ms. Reid, it has been four years of hunting — without a single job offer. She buzzes energetically as she describes the countless applications she has lobbed through the Internet, as well as the online courses she is taking to burnish her software skills.

Still, when she is pressed, her can-do spirit falters.

“There are these fears in the background, and they are suppressed,” said Ms. Reid, who is now selling some of her jewelry and clothes online and is late on some credit card payments. “I have had nightmares about becoming a bag lady,” she said. “It could happen to anyone. So many people are so close to it, and they don’t even realize it.”

Being unemployed at any age can be crushing. But older workers suspect their résumés often get shoved aside in favor of those from younger workers. Others discover that their job-seeking skills — as well as some technical skills sought by employers — are rusty after years of working for the same company.

Many had in fact anticipated working past conventional retirement ages to gird themselves financially for longer life spans, expensive health care and reduced pension guarantees.

The most recent recession has increased the need to extend working life. Home values, often a family’s most important asset, have been battered. Stock portfolios are only now starting to recover. According to a Gallup poll in April, more than a third of people not yet retired plan to work beyond age 65, compared with just 12 percent in 1995.

Older workers who lose their jobs could pose a policy problem if they lose their ability to be self-sufficient. “That’s what we should be worrying about,” said Carl E. Van Horn, professor of public policy and director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, “what it means to this class of the new unemployables, people who have been cast adrift at a very vulnerable part of their career and their life.”

Forced early retirement imposes an intense financial strain, particularly for those at lower incomes. The recession and its aftermath have already pushed down some older workers. In figures released last week by the Census Bureau, the poverty rate among those 55 to 64 increased to 9.4 percent in 2009, from 8.6 percent in 2007.

But even middle-class people who might skate by on savings or a spouse’s income are jarred by an abrupt end to working life and to a secure retirement.

“That’s what I spent my whole life in pursuit of, was security,” Ms. Reid said. “Until the last few years, I felt very secure in my job.”

As an auditor, Ms. Reid loved figuring out the kinks in a manufacturing or parts delivery process. But after more than 20 years of commuting across Puget Sound to Boeing, Ms. Reid was exhausted when she was let go from her $80,000-a-year job.

Stunned and depressed, she sent out résumés, but figured she had a little time to recover. So she took vacations to Turkey and Thailand with her husband, who is a home repairman. She sought chiropractic treatments for a neck injury and helped nurse a priest dying of cancer.

Most of her days now are spent in front of a laptop, holed up in a lighthouse garret atop the house that her husband, Denny Mielock, built in the 1990s on a breathtaking piece of property overlooking the sound.

As she browses the job listings that clog her e-mail in-box, she refuses to give in to her fears. “If I let myself think like that all the time,” she said, “I could not even bear getting out of bed in the morning.”

With her husband’s home repair business pummeled by the housing downturn, the bills are mounting. Although the couple do not have a mortgage on their 3,000-square-foot house, they pay close to $7,000 a year in property taxes. The roof is leaking. Their utility bills can be $300 a month in the winter, even though they often keep the thermostat turned down to 50 degrees.

They could try to sell their home, but given the depressed housing market, they are reluctant.

“We are circling the drain here, and I am bailing like hell,” said Ms. Reid, emitting an incongruous cackle, as if laughter is the only response to her plight. “But the boat is still sinking.”

It is not just the finances that have destabilized her life.

Her husband worries that she isolates herself and that she does not socialize enough. “We’ve both been hard workers our whole lives,” said Mr. Mielock, 59. Ms. Reid sometimes rose just after 3 a.m. to make the hourlong commute to Boeing’s data center in Bellevue and attended night school to earn a master’s in management information systems.

“A job is more than a job, you know,” Mr. Mielock said. “It’s where you fit in society.”

Here in the greater Seattle area, a fifth of those claiming extended unemployment benefits are 55 and older.

To help seniors polish their job-seeking skills, WorkSource, a local consortium of government and nonprofit groups, recently began offering seminars. On a recent morning, 14 people gathered in a windowless conference room at a local community college to get tips on how to age-proof their résumés and deflect questions about being overqualified.

Motivational posters hung on one wall, bearing slogans like “Failure is the path of least persistence.”

Using PowerPoint slides, Liz Howland, the chipper but no-nonsense session leader, projected some common myths about older job-seekers on a screen: “Older workers are less capable of evaluating information, making decisions and problem-solving” or “Older workers are rigid and inflexible and have trouble adapting to change.”

Ms. Howland, 61, ticked off the reasons those statements were inaccurate. But a clear undercurrent of anxiety ran through the room. “Is it really true that if you have the energy and the passion that they will overlook the age factor?” asked a 61-year-old man who had been laid off from a furniture maker last October.

Gallows humor reigned. As Ms. Howland — who suggested that applicants remove any dates older than 15 years from their résumé — advised the group on how to finesse interview questions like “When did you have the job that helped you develop that skill?” one out-of-work journalist deadpanned: “How about ‘during the 20th century?’ ”

During a break, Anne Richard, who declined to give her age, confessed she was afraid she would not be able to work again after losing her contract as a house director at a University of Washington sorority in June. Although she had 20 years of experience as an office clerk in Chattanooga, Tenn., she feared her technology skills had fallen behind.

“I don’t feel like I can compete with kids who have been on computers all their lives,” said Ms. Richard, who was sleeping on the couch of a couple she had met at church and contemplating imminent homelessness.

Older people who lose their jobs take longer to find work. In August, the average time unemployed for those 55 and older was slightly more than 39 weeks, according to the Labor Department, the longest of any age group. That is much worse than in August 1983, also after a deep recession, when someone unemployed in that age group spent an average of 27.5 weeks finding work.

At this year’s pace of an average of 82,000 new jobs a month, it will take at least eight more years to create the 8 million positions lost during the recession. And that does not even allow for population growth.

Advocates for the elderly worry that younger people are more likely to fill the new jobs as well.

Rep. Jeff Flake's attitude is shameful to people like me and his Democratic opponent Rebecca Schneider. Liberals believe that governmment should help those who have been thrown out of work and are facing desperate times through no fault of their own.

Just as in the Great Depression, the current Great Recession requires strong government intervention to help those who are suffering because of the inequities of the free market that Jeff Flake believes is working perfectly, even now.

Why, Jeff Flake doesn't believe in even the safety net of unemployment insurance benefits we've had since the 1930s. He's voted against them 23 times. If he and his right-wing buddies take control of Congress -- something he was crowing about this morning on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" -- he plans to eliminate unemployment benefits entirely, as well as end the food stamp program, take away Medicare from seniors, end Social Security.

You see, Jeff Flake believes the only job in a free market is to make sure millionaires and billionaires pay nothing in taxes. Well, that's reasonable - if you're Jeff Flake and corrupt billionaires like the Koch brothers have bankrolled your cushy political career for a decade.

If you're unemployed -- or you have a loved one who is -- or maybe you fear you might lose your job and find it hard to get another one, maybe you should think about voting for someone other than the billionaires' best friend and the enemy of decent hard-working families, four-term Congressman Jeff Flake.

Rep. Jeff Flake: "Deficits Don't Matter. The Federal Government Needs to Send Three Million Dollars Each to the Richest 120,000 Americans."

Here is Paul Krugman's column in the New York Times today. One thing Jeff Flake is passionate about is making sure checks averaging $3,000,000 to each of the richest people in America. How about sending $250 a week to Arizonans who've been laid off and can't find another job? Nah. Jeff Flake says that's wrong:

We need to pinch pennies these days. Don’t you know we have a budget deficit? For months that has been the word from Republicans and conservative Democrats, who have rejected every suggestion that we do more to avoid deep cuts in public services and help the ailing economy.

But these same politicians are eager to cut checks averaging $3 million each to the richest 120,000 people in the country.

What — you haven’t heard about this proposal? Actually, you have: I’m talking about demands that we make all of the Bush tax cuts, not just those for the middle class, permanent.

Some background: Back in 2001, when the first set of Bush tax cuts was rammed through Congress, the legislation was written with a peculiar provision — namely, that the whole thing would expire, with tax rates reverting to 2000 levels, on the last day of 2010.

Why the cutoff date? In part, it was used to disguise the fiscal irresponsibility of the tax cuts: lopping off that last year reduced the headline cost of the cuts, because such costs are normally calculated over a 10-year period. It also allowed the Bush administration to pass the tax cuts using reconciliation — yes, the same procedure that Republicans denounced when it was used to enact health reform — while sidestepping rules designed to prevent the use of that procedure to increase long-run budget deficits.

Obviously, the idea was to go back at a later date and make those tax cuts permanent. But things didn’t go according to plan. And now the witching hour is upon us.

So what’s the choice now? The Obama administration wants to preserve those parts of the original tax cuts that mainly benefit the middle class — which is an expensive proposition in its own right — but to let those provisions benefiting only people with very high incomes expire on schedule. Republicans, with support from some conservative Democrats, want to keep the whole thing.

And there’s a real chance that Republicans will get what they want. That’s a demonstration, if anyone needed one, that our political culture has become not just dysfunctional but deeply corrupt.

What’s at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. For the sake of comparison, it took months of hard negotiations to get Congressional approval for a mere $26 billion in desperately needed aid to state and local governments.

And where would this $680 billion go? Nearly all of it would go to the richest 1 percent of Americans, people with incomes of more than $500,000 a year. But that’s the least of it: the policy center’s estimates say that the majority of the tax cuts would go to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent. Take a group of 1,000 randomly selected Americans, and pick the one with the highest income; he’s going to get the majority of that group’s tax break. And the average tax break for those lucky few — the poorest members of the group have annual incomes of more than $2 million, and the average member makes more than $7 million a year — would be $3 million over the course of the next decade.

How can this kind of giveaway be justified at a time when politicians claim to care about budget deficits? Well, history is repeating itself. The original campaign for the Bush tax cuts relied on deception and dishonesty. In fact, my first suspicions that we were being misled into invading Iraq were based on the resemblance between the campaign for war and the campaign for tax cuts the previous year. And sure enough, that same trademark deception and dishonesty is being deployed on behalf of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

So, for example, we’re told that it’s all about helping small business; but only a tiny fraction of small-business owners would receive any tax break at all. And how many small-business owners do you know making several million a year?

Or we’re told that it’s about helping the economy recover. But it’s hard to think of a less cost-effective way to help the economy than giving money to people who already have plenty, and aren’t likely to spend a windfall.

No, this has nothing to do with sound economic policy. Instead, as I said, it’s about a dysfunctional and corrupt political culture, in which Congress won’t take action to revive the economy, pleads poverty when it comes to protecting the jobs of schoolteachers and firefighters, but declares cost no object when it comes to sparing the already wealthy even the slightest financial inconvenience.

So far, the Obama administration is standing firm against this outrage. Let’s hope that it prevails in its fight. Otherwise, it will be hard not to lose all faith in America’s future.

If you want to make sure the richest 120,000 Americans get their average checks for three million dollars and at the same time make sure laid-off Arizonans get bupkis in unemployment compensation, vote for Congressman Jeff Flake or his even more moronic opponent Jeff Smith in Tuesday's Republican primary.

What Right-Wing Extremist Jeff Flake Tells an Unemployed East Valley Voter: "Jobless Benefits HURT Laid-Off Employees"

A kind voter in the East Valley who's read my posts forwarded to me the response received when she wrote Jeff Flake about extending her unemployment benefits, which have expired:

Dear Ms. Jackson,

Thank you for contacting me about the extension of unemployment benefits.

You know all too well that a sluggish economy has resulted in increasing unemployment. The causes for the country's economic situation are complex and numerous. The federal/state unemployment compensation program provides partial wage replacement checks to people who are involuntarily unemployed. The federal Department
of Labor oversees the program, while each state designs and administers its own benefits packages.

The extension of unemployment benefits offers little in the way of job creation. Quite to the contrary of their stated intent, jobless benefits hurt laid-off employees in the long run because the programs seek to temporarily fix a problem, instead of implementing a long term-solution. The best jobless benefit an individual can receive is a job offer.

As such, I generally vote against these types of bills when they are considered by the House of Representatives.

A better approach would be to reduce the tax burden on individuals and small businesses. Reducing the the burden on small businesses would provide employers with the resources to hire additional workers.

I will continue to push for responsible federal policies that promote the growth of the economy that will, in turn, provide the resources for employers to hire additional people.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to do so again in the future. I also encourage you to visit my website, which may be found at http://flake.house.gov/.


Sincerely,


JEFF FLAKE
Member of Congress

What a miserable excuse for a human being. Jeff Flake is working hard to cut taxes for the rich and his corporate benefactors while denying struggling working-class people a lifeline. The corporation that laid off this worker and hundreds of others is one of Jeff Flake's biggest campaign donors!

There's not even a word of compassion for this American citizen's plight, no easy-to-say "I'm sorry you're suffering financially" throwaway line that would cost this cheap Flake nothing. The letter reeks of the condescension and contempt of the cold-hearted intellectual that Flake is.

How is this person supposed to live, you asshole career politician?

If you're as mad as I am about this, and as mad as Rebecca Schneider, the Democratic candidate running against Jeff Flake, please join her campaign's demonstration this Wednesday:

The Rebecca Schneider for Congress campaign will be staging a protest in front of Jeff Flake's Mesa Office. We will be wearing cardboard barrels, since Mr. Flake doesn't seem to care if his constituents lose their last remaining lifeline and self respect.

Join us on Wednesday, July 21th from 3:30 - 5:00 p.m., 1640 S. Stapley Drive, Mesa 85204.

Come dressed in grungy T-shirt and shorts. Barrels will be provided on site.

As President Obama said today, "That attitude [Jeff Flake's] reflects a lack of faith in the American people. They’re not looking for a handout. They desperately want to work."

Why Does Jeff Flake Hate This Good Christian Woman?

Family-hating Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake doesn't believe unemployment compensation benefits should exist. He's on record as saying, along with Senator John Kyl, as saying they deter people from looking for work. He's voted over seventeen times against expanding benefits. In fact, Jeff Flake has called for the repeal of the New Deal law that created unemployment insurance for the jobless.

Jeff Flake has contempt for the unemployed citizens of Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler, Apache Junction and Queen Creek. He has contempt for all those jobless people who are suffering in America.

Tomorrow's New York Times has a story by Michael Luo on one such person, the kind of woman Jeff Flake has contempt for:

CARLISLE, Ky. — In her well-thumbed, leather-bound Bible, Terri Sadler recently highlighted in bright pink a passage in the Gospel of Matthew.

Terri Sadler of Carlisle, Ky., listening to C-Span for news of Senate action on an extension of federal unem- ployment benefits. In it, Jesus urges his followers not to “worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”

But Ms. Sadler’s tightening throat and halting breath when she tries to read the words aloud make it clear that she is having trouble mustering enough faith to follow them.

Ms. Sadler, who lost her job at an automotive parts plant in October 2008, learned last month that her unemployment insurance had been cut off. She is one of an estimated 2.1 million Americans whose benefits have expired and who are waiting for an end to an impasse that has lasted months in the Senate over extending the payments once more to the long-term unemployed.

Times have changed politically, however, and opposition is growing in Washington and abroad to deficit-bloating government spending, even for those who are hurting.

For Ms. Sadler, and many like her, each passing day has become an excruciating countdown of debts and deadlines.

“I’m basically applying for everything, trying to get something,” said Ms. Sadler, 52, who since early June has not received an unemployment check, which used to be about $388 a week before taxes. “If I don’t, I’m going to lose everything. I’m not going to have a roof over my head. I’m just going to have to walk away with what I have on my back, and my dog.”

She is down to $44 in her purse and a quarter-tank of gas. She says she has exhausted the help of family and friends.

Members of her tiny Baptist church just up the road from her cramped mobile home pooled their money on Sunday to come up with her car payment and insurance. A county ministerial association paid her water bill. A nonprofit organization covered her last two electric bills.

A notepad on her refrigerator lists the other outstanding bills: $102 cellphone, $79 cable and Internet, which she relies on for job-hunting; $15 for her credit card; and $30 for an end table she had bought on layaway. Not listed was $275 for her rent this month, which she still owes.

Every morning, after Ms. Sadler takes her dog out and turns on the coffee maker, she switches on the television to C-Span. Then she cracks open her laptop to resume a job hunt that has become frantic.

But as she has run low on money, her search has also become increasingly circumscribed. She used to drive to drop off résumés with businesses; now she is mostly limited to scanning online listings.

Ms. Sadler eagerly tuned in to C-Span last Monday, mistakenly believing that Senate Democrats returning from recess would quickly take up the unemployment insurance extension. But they remain a vote short of being able to block a Republican filibuster, forcing them to wait for Carte Goodwin, the successor to Senator Robert C. Byrd, who died last month, to be sworn in. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said the vote on an extension would occur on Tuesday.

The measure is now expected to pass, but advocates for unemployment insurance are hardly declaring victory yet. Fears about the country’s skyrocketing deficit, which are at the heart of Republican objections, have gained growing prevalence, even with moderate Democrats. Economic arguments that additional government spending is needed to spur the economy have been swamped.

Some Republican politicians [like Jeff Flake, John Kyl, et al.] have argued that continuing to extend unemployment benefits offers a disincentive for the jobless to find work. Supporters of unemployment insurance counter that job openings remain in short supply.

Ms. Sadler estimates that she used to spend six hours a day searching for work; now it is at least double amount of time.

“There’s been times I’ve had to make myself stop looking for jobs because it was driving me nuts,” said Ms. Sadler, who admitted that she had contemplated suicide.

Every day has become a tense scramble, highlighting just how thin the governmental safety net for the jobless becomes beyond unemployment benefits. After Ms. Sadler was cut off from jobless benefits, she qualified for $200 a month in food stamps, but food stamps do not pay her bills, nor do they cover other necessities.

She recently wrote to Tom’s of Maine, because she uses the company’s toothpaste, mouthwash and deodorant, asking whether it might be able to donate some products to her. But she was informed that the company usually gives only to nonprofit organizations.

Ms. Sadler lives alone here in this small town in the northern part of the state, where Amish are sometimes spotted heading down the main road with horse and buggy. She has only her 2-year-old dog, Tootie-muffin, for company.

Before she lost her job, she had enrolled in community college to study medical billing and coding. She finished the program in May, but most of the medical billing jobs she has applied for require experience. The framed certificate, and another one for data entry, on her bedroom wall are just decorations at this point.

How she landed in this predicament is a product of both mistakes she made and forces beyond her control. She dropped out of high school and had her daughter, Chastity, at age 15. She started working in factories soon after and eventually earned her G.E.D. She had managed to scratch out a relatively comfortable life before she lost her job, making $14.65 an hour at Vuteq, in Georgetown, Ky., a company that makes sun roofs and windshields for Toyota.

But she never accumulated much savings, besides $3,000 she had socked away in a 401(k) account, which she quickly ran through. She has always had a thing for Ford Mustangs and bought a used red one in 2006 that she now admits was a bad decision.

She filed for bankruptcy in March 2009 and was allowed to keep her car on a reduced payment schedule, but she was barred from selling it.

After moving several times, she finally found her mobile home here, with cheap green siding and outdated wood paneling, at a monthly rent she could afford on unemployment insurance.

She had used up 79 weeks of benefits but was expecting an additional 20 weeks under the extended federal program.

On Tuesday, Ms. Sadler scored just her third interview since 2008, for a $7.50-an-hour job at a check-cashing business that is an hour’s drive from her home. It would have paid less than she received on unemployment benefits and left her still unable to cover her expenses, but she had little choice.

It took all her willpower not to reach across the table to shake her interviewer and beg for a chance. The company said she would know by Thursday, but as of Friday she had not heard back.

* * *
From Rebecca Schneider, Democratic candidate in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District:

Before the bill even got to the Senate, YOUR Congressman (Jeff Flake) voted to cut unemployment benefits to the thousands of men and women who can't find work.

This vote was not only fiscally irresponsible, but downright wrong!

The Rebecca Schneider for Congress campaign will be staging a protest in front of Jeff Flake's Mesa Office. We will be wearing cardboard barrels, since Mr. Flake doesn't seem to care if his constituents lose their last remaining lifeline and self respect.

Join us on Wednesday, July 21th from 3:30 - 5:00 p.m., 1640 S. Stapley Drive, Mesa 85204.

Come dressed in grungy T-shirt and shorts. Barrels will be provided on site.

We urge you to join Rebecca Schneider's demonstration if you can.

Phony Deficit Hawk Jeff Flake Supports Huge Tax Cuts for the Very Wealthy Despite Its Adding $650 Billion to Our Deficit

Here's an excerpt from Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times:

For a while, leading Republicans posed as stern foes of federal red ink. Two weeks ago, in the official G.O.P. response to President Obama’s weekly radio address, Senator Saxby Chambliss devoted his entire time to the evils of government debt, “one of the most dangerous threats confronting America today.” He went on, “At some point we have to say ‘enough is enough.’”

But this past Monday Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, was asked the obvious question: if deficits are so worrisome, what about the budgetary cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, which the Obama administration wants to let expire but Republicans want to make permanent? What should replace $650 billion or more in lost revenue over the next decade?

His answer was breathtaking: “You do need to offset the cost of increased spending. And that’s what Republicans object to. But you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.” So $30 billion in aid to the unemployed is unaffordable, but 20 times that much in tax cuts for the rich doesn’t count.

The next day, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, confirmed that Mr. Kyl was giving the official party line: “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject.”

Now there are many things one could call the Bush economy, an economy that, even before recession struck, was characterized by sluggish job growth and stagnant family incomes; “vibrant” isn’t one of them. But the real news here is the confirmation that Republicans remain committed to deep voodoo, the claim that cutting taxes actually increases revenues.

If anything, Jeff Flake, darling of the Club for Greed A/K/A the Club for Growth, is more for tax cuts than the rich than Kyl or McConnell. He's made his reputation with his moronic little press releases highlighting an earmark of the week: some piddling sum spent for a community center here or a park there - public facilities that Flake's contributors, uber-wealthy banksters and fat cats, don't use.

But he favors not just extending the wealthy-favoring Bush tax cuts but making them larger! Jeff Flake, supposed deficit hawk, would add over a billion dollars to the deficit with his risky scheme to cut taxes on the rich even more.

Yet he won't help middle-class people who find themselves unemployed. Yesterday we got an email from an Apache Junction voter in his fifties. Due to a corporate merger and subsequent cost-cutting, he was laid off at Christmas by a national chain as a manager in a Tempe Marketplace store. That day he'd got a letter that his lifeline, his unemployment check, would stop, "pending congressional action." Currently, Republican senators are blocking passage of this action.

From Rebecca Schneider, Democratic candidate in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District:

Before the bill even got to the Senate, YOUR Congressman (Jeff Flake) voted to cut unemployment benefits to the thousands of men and women who can't find work.

This vote was not only fiscally irresponsible, but downright wrong!

The Rebecca Schneider for Congress campaign will be staging a protest in front of Jeff Flake's Mesa Office. We will be wearing cardboard barrels, since Mr. Flake doesn't seem to care if his constituents lose their last remaining lifeline and self respect.

Join us on Wednesday, July 21th from 3:30 - 5:00 p.m., 1640 S. Stapley Drive, Mesa 85204.

Come dressed in grungy T-shirt and shorts. Barrels will be provided on site.

We urge you to join Rebecca Schneider's demonstration if you can.

Ayatollah of Austerity Jeff Flake Leads Coalition of the Cruel and the Clueless to Bring America Down

The ayatollahs of austerity, led by Arizona's fanatic laissez-faire congressman Jeff Flake, seem to be prevailing in their efforts to bring America's economy down even further. The prevailing "wisdom" is that of Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression: fight a severe economic downturn by imposing even more pain on American citizens. And keep those who are in pain worse off than they would otherwise be.

Jeff Flake has voted against extending unemployment benefits throughout his long tenure in Congress, during which the U.S. has lost nearly a million jobs. Like the radical Senate candidate in Nevada, Jeff Flake believes the jobless have no one but themselves to blame. He's against any unemployment benefits because he believes people collecting them are not desperate, just lazy.

Maybe it's easy to say when fat cats have bankrolled your entire career, throwing millions at you every quarter so you can avoid a serious campaign for re-election while you do their bidding and go against the ordinary people who you're supposed to represent.

Jeff Flake is more for Exxon Mobil than for Mesa, more for Goldman Sachs than for Gilbert, more for J.P. Morgan Chase than for Chandler, more for Qwest than for Queen Creek, more for AIG than for Apache Junction.

We're in a real danger of a double-dip recession, as last Friday's unemployment numbers show, and Jeff Flake neither wants to help those Americans who are under water or keep the rest of America from drowning in a second Great Depression. By saying no to all short-term stimulus, he makes the long-term debt and deficit worse and makes regular people's lives that much worse - just when states like Arizona are cutting their budgets, laying off police officers and teachers, and already causing a severe fiscal contraction.

But like the socialists and communists who denied economic reality in thrall to a theory, an intellectual fanatic like Jeff Flake doesn't give a shit about reality or real people.

Meanwhile, yesterday the economist Robert H. Frank proposed some innovative ways to promote economic recovery while bringing down the deficit. We highlight them (boldface ours) here:

There is no conflict — absolutely none — between our twin goals of putting the economy back on its feet and reducing long-term deficits. On the contrary, government could take many steps that would serve both goals simultaneously.

For example, it could create a program to restructure consumer debt. Although rates on 10-year Treasury bonds are only about 3 percent, many consumers still carry tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt at 20 percent or more. This burden has been a continuing drag on spending. The federal government could reduce it by borrowing at 3 percent and lending to consumers at 8 percent under a one-time debt-restructuring plan.

With their debt service payments cut by more than half, consumers could increase spending immediately. And the five-percentage-point spread on money lent under the program would help cover its administrative costs, and maybe even relieve short-run government budget pressure.

(Banks might complain, but because the money owed to them would be repaid in full, and because they insist that their high interest rates barely cover their costs, such complaints would ring hollow.)

Another useful measure would be a carbon tax — or its approximate equivalent, a cap-and-trade system — scheduled for a gradual phase-in after the economy has again reached full employment. This would stimulate an immediate, huge jump in private investment without the government having to spend a penny.

Why? Investment is currently depressed because companies can already produce much more than people want to buy. But once a carbon tax was announced, the design of nearly every existing machine or structure that uses or produces energy would be rendered suddenly obsolete. Motor vehicle engines, electric power plants, refrigerators, air-conditioners, furnaces — all would have to be redesigned for greater efficiency.

The resulting flood of research and investment would enhance our ability to cope with future energy shortages and would serve another crucial purpose. Taxing carbon could eliminate the catastrophic risk of vastly rising global temperatures by the end of this century; it would be a prudent act, quite apart from its utility as an economic stimulus.

The tax would generate no revenue until its phase-in, so it wouldn’t reduce the current deficit. But deficits are a long-run problem, and its enactment alone would increase creditors’ confidence that we are committed to solving it.

Another productive measure would be to increase public investment in infrastructure. When road repairs are deferred for just two to three years, total maintenance expenses can more than double — even if we ignore the cost of accidents and vehicle damage caused by potholes. Spending an extra dollar now to save two dollars three years from now is an investment with an annual rate of return of more than 18 percent.

Making that investment with money borrowed at 3 percent would not only put people to work immediately, but would also help balance government budgets. And after decades of infrastructure neglect, there are many other public investment opportunities that promise returns even higher than 18 percent.

Here’s a final example, which I’ve long advocated: The government could enact a progressive surtax on extremely high levels of consumption, with a phase-in beginning once the economy recovers. This would reduce long-run deficits while stimulating extra spending immediately. And, like the other examples, it would be a step worth taking even apart from those effects.

Because incomes of the wealthy have been growing sharply in recent decades, luxury consumption has also been rising rapidly. But beyond a certain point, additional consumption raises the bar that defines what counts as adequate, without any increase in objective measures of well-being. And because savings would be untouched by this surtax, it would help steer resources away from keep-up-with-the-Joneses spending races and into productive investment. That would increase productivity growth.

Under a consumption surtax, people would report their incomes and their annual savings to the I.R.S., as many now do for tax-exempt retirement accounts. A household’s annual consumption would be calculated as the difference between its income and savings. Congress might apply the surtax only to annual consumption beyond $500,000.

THE resulting revenue would reduce deficits after the phase-in. In the meantime, just the knowledge that the surtax was on the way would stimulate a temporary surge in consumption, as wealthy families rushed to build additions to their mansions and make other purchases before the tax took effect.

In short, the government could take many steps that immediately bolster spending and employment, while also addressing deficit worries. But that’s not where we appear to be headed, as big spending cuts are being proposed in the name of fiscal responsibility.

But as almost 10 percent of the labor force remains unemployed, such cuts would instead be the height of fiscal irresponsibility.

Don't let irresponsible fanatics like Jeff Flake get away with murdering American families' dreams.

Every effort to dig the nation out of the unemployment abyss "is being stymied by excuses about the deficit," said Richard L. Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO. "It is a national disgrace that members of Congress are heading home to celebrating our nation's birthday after having voted repeatedly not to create jobs or to extend unemployment aid."

You can either re-elect a fanatic career politician like Jeff Flake who will do nothing but sit on his gym-toned ass while American families' lives get worse or vote for a change.

Feckless Fanatic Congressman Jeff Flake Calls for "More Pain" for America; Entrenched Arizona Politician Wants New Great Depression to Balance Budget

Today at a Capitol Hill news conference, Arizona Republican Rep. Jeff Flake called on Americans to endure "more pain" and "a new Great Depression" in order to reach his goal of a balanced budget.

"Americans, and Arizonans, have not really suffered at all during this so-called recession," Flake told reporters. "Balancing the federal budget is something we have to do immediately. That's why I've voted twenty-three times against bills that would spend money to help those admittedly unfortunate Americans who've lost their jobs or are facing minor financial difficulties like not being able to afford probably uneccessary spending on items like junk food and needless medical care."

"I'm proud to have voted a total of seventeen times against increasing or extending unemployment benefits, which is a wasteful social spending scheme," Flake replied in answer to a reporter's question asking how the Congressman felt about Arizona's maximum weekly unemployment benefits, third lowest among the states, recently going down to $216 from $241. "The unemployed need to value the free market a bit more and pull in their belts."

"I had no problem surviving a week with no money at all on a desert island for a week," Rep. Flake said, "so I think everyone collecting unemployment benefits or other unnecessary government benefits like food stamps, Medicare or Medicaid need to be a little more self-reliant like me."

Flake derided commentators like Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman who've said that imposing financial austerity can cause a new Great Depression. "Maybe we need a new Great Depression," the Congressman told reporters. "It would help voters see that they've been living off the government teat for too long."