{"id":4650,"date":"2013-12-13T10:06:10","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T15:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/?p=4650"},"modified":"2013-12-13T10:09:03","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T15:09:03","slug":"the-federal-budget-deal-will-be-death-for-many-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/the-federal-budget-deal-will-be-death-for-many-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"The federal budget deal will be death for many Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Eskow<\/a> reviews the federal budget deal in the Huffington Post<\/a>. He finds it seriously lacking, both in compassion and solutions to prevent today’s vulnerable from being completely consumed by the wealthy.<\/p>\n

Man’s inhumanity to man.<\/p>\n

I know, I know. That’s a pretty depressing thing to say. But let’s look at the facts: Federal workers will be expected to subsidize this deal with an increase in their out-of-pocket pension costs. There will be cuts to Medicare. Airline passengers will pay a new tax. Military retirees — military retirees — will see their benefits cut.<\/p>\n

And the long-term unemployed, who have paid dearly for Wall Street’s excesses, will receive no extension of benefits. The sequester’s cuts were disastrous, but this deal is needlessly punitive. It’s mean-spirited toward people who are struggling through no fault of their own, people who have chosen a life of public service, and the middle class in general.<\/p>\n

\"long<\/a>… The current unemployment rate doesn’t include the workers who have become discouraged and left the workforce, and workforce participation rates remain at historic lows.<\/p>\n

… The jobs numbers don’t include the underemployed who are working part-time and prefer to work full-time. And, as economist Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute explains<\/a>, the ratio of job seekers to available jobs remains discouragingly high. There are no jobs for nearly two out of every three job seekers, no matter how hard they look.<\/p>\n

… As the American Psychological Association<\/a> reports, long-term unemployment is harmful to a person’s physical and emotional well-being. The children suffer, too. The APA writes that the difficulties experienced by children of the unemployed include “more distress and depressive symptoms” as well as “academic problems, substance abuse, high-risk sexual behavior, physical health problems, impaired social relationships and increased risk of suicide.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read and weep, America. Then get on your feet and push back. What does that mean?<\/p>\n

Make your voices and opinions heard to neighbors, politicians, the meda. Vote in the good guys. Get involved in your communities. Make a positive difference every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Eskow reviews the federal budget deal in the Huffington Post. He finds it seriously lacking, both in compassion and solutions to prevent today’s vulnerable from being completely consumed by the wealthy. Man’s inhumanity to man. I know, I know. That’s a pretty depressing thing to say. But let’s look at the facts: Federal workers … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The federal budget deal will be death for many Americans”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,5,160,1192,565],"tags":[1343,1348,1345,1344,1347,387,1346],"class_list":["post-4650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-government-trade","category-news-truths","category-politics-2","category-rich-v-poor","tag-budget","tag-budget-deal","tag-death","tag-dirge","tag-long-term","tag-middle-class","tag-unemployed"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4650"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4657,"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4650\/revisions\/4657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}