Why are Jones St. GOPers spending $$$ like drunken sailors? (Better yet, why is Cooper working the Chick-fil-A drive-thru?)
These have been strange days indeed. Apparently our governor, Roy Cooper, has enough time on his hands to go work the drive-thru at a local Chick-fil-A.
The GOP establishment has been running away as fast as it can from social issues for years. Now, the GOPe appears to be ditching the whole fiscal conservatism thingie:
Giving bonuses to North Carolina’s unemployment benefit recipients who get a job soon would help both business struggling to fill vacancies and residents who need a nudge to return to work, Republican lawmakers said Tuesday.
The state Senate voted 35-10 for legislation that would provide $1,500 to people who accept reemployment within 30 days of the bonus program starting. The bonus would drop to $800 if they begin employment on or after 30 days but before 60 days.
The bonuses would come from federal funds that have raised individual unemployment benefits by $300 per week during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the one-time payments won’t happen unless the U.S. Department of Labor allows the state to use the money that way. That can’t occur unless Congress first passes its own law permitting such use, said Sen. Chuck Edwards, a Henderson County Republican and chief proponent of the bill.
Edwards said he’s worried the supplemental benefits on top of state payments are acting as a disincentive for people to return to work at a time when the economy is ready to surge as the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs and employers can’t attract applicants.
“I’m not going to analyze the precise cause and effect, but let’s face it, it is easier to not work than it is to work,” Edwards said. “I believe there is a percentage of the population that’s gotten comfortable and gotten out of the habit of looking for a job … and it’s going to take something to energize them.”
The bill now goes to the House, which hasn’t yet voted on such a measure.
U.S. Rep. Ted Budd, R-N.C., who attended a Legislative Building news conference with Edwards on Tuesday, has filed a bill in Congress that would offer $900 bonuses nationwide to displaced workers who get hired. Unlike Edwards’ bill, the supplemental weekly benefits also would be eliminated at the same time under Budd’s bill. Those benefits are already due to run out in early September.
Why is it easier to ‘not work’? That is the real question here. Dealing with that question honestly would likely keep us from spending even more worthless money from our broke-broke federal government.
‘Help Wanted’ signs are dotting the landscape around here like dandelions. They may not be the job you want, but they’re paychecks. I can’t believe the GOP has accepted the premise that you have to pay people to get off the couch and go find a job.
Now that the pandemic is over, and jobs appear to be in abundant supply, it might just be time to cut unemployment benefits back to pre-pandemic levels.
Some Raleigh Republicans are using the excuse that they HAVE to spend this money. How about setting it aside and NOT spending it? Many of us do it in our households all the time.
Also, the GOP-controlled state House and the GOP-controlled Senate can’t agree on how much of our money to spend:
[…]On Tuesday, Cooper ended the Council of State meeting with a message to the General Assembly.
“I know a lot of you are working on the budget over in the General Assembly,” he said. “I know that the House started out at $26.4 billion and Senate at $25.5 billion and now the House [came] down to $26 billion. I want to remind both chambers that [his budget proposal] was $26.6 billion and that this is a three-way street, in order to be able to get a budget.
“We don’t want to be where we were last time,” Cooper said. “So I just want to remind people of that.”[…]
[… Senate president pro term Phil Berger] also doesn’t want to present a comprehensive budget to the House without that agreed-upon spending number.
“The last time we tried that was in 2015, at a time when we had a Republican House, a Republican Senate and a Republican governor. And it was October before we got the budget done. So we resolved at that point in time that the first time in doing the budget is for us to agree on a spend number,” Berger said.
He said the legislature is “probably past that milepost already” of it becoming a long summer budget process.
With Chick Fil-A having been caught last year funding Drag Queen Story Hour (and other liberal causes, while cutting off conservatives), maybe Cooper was hoping to meet one of them at the Chick Fil-A?
It seems our GOP lawmakers are attacking this problem from the wrong end. The problem is a labor force being paid so much government money that going back to work doesn’t make sense. The present situation is too lucrative for some folks to find the incentive to go back to work. The mindset behind this government solution is that Big Daddy Government should just pay out MORE public cash.
Some say it’s no matter because this some that “free” federal money. No wonder the GOP is often accused of being the Democrat light party. It truly boggles my mind.
It is the Democrat-lite party when actually not even more liberal than the Democrats. Remember that the elites of the NC GOP just hired the biggest race-baiter in the nation to a prestigious professorship at UNC. The GOP elites are also removing the names of conservative leaders off of buildings. And, of course, last year they caved to Antifa and Roy Cooper when monuments were torn down. Some party.
Two of the three top US Senate candidates have pushed the left’s cancel culture against Southerners. Pat McCrory tried to end the Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates to jump on Nikki Haley’s anti-southern bandwagon, only to have Phil Berger tell him in public that the State Senate would fight him on that. Mark Walker voted for Nancy Pelosi’s legislation to rename Fort Bragg and other facilities named for Confederate officers, and also for another Pelosi bill to remove any memorial from anyone who had any connection to the Confederate States from the Capitol. Ted Budd, on the other hand, stood up for our heritage and voted against both of those cancel culture bills.
Well, McCrory’s campaign certainly seems to be heading “south”. 😉
Good point. It has been disclosed that the creator of the 1619 Project for the New York Times, Nikole Hannah-James, will not YET be receiving tenure in her professorship post at UNC-Chapel Hill but will be given a five-year fixed contract. She will have the option of being reviewed for tenure at the end of that period.
In the current climate this is being portrayed as a conservative victory by some. It seems to me, many of our ‘conservative’ Republican leadership have very low expectations.
Don’t get me started concerning the pathetic lack of response and outright acquiescence to the lawless destruction of memorials and monuments.
Most, if not all, universities have given up their heritage and namesakes. Heard recently, Wingate may be next. You couldn’t have one living person, incensed, tell what most or any of these people whose names were on buildings did, their experiences, their backgrounds, period. NO CLUE. Yet, the names had to come. After 30+Y of giving to our alma mater, my wife and I ceased giving two years ago. When names came down, so did our giving. When called annually to ante-up, I took the opportunity to state precisely why not one penny was being given and why. Won’t ever give another penny and hoping zero of the grandkids attend college there. FIND a university that is principled, disciplined and treasures history, good and bad. That is what history is. Removing building names, tearing down statutes does not remove, remake history.
Yeah. I stopped giving to my alma mater, too. A few years ago, the caller from my school responded to my inquiries about all the campus wokeness going on by arguing about “making a difference” or some such ridiculousness. Since then, the annual callers seem to know nothing about anything I ask about. I certainly didn’t get an answer to one of my questions: ‘How about if I give a gift that has my name connected to it and some panel of wokites decide someday that I served in the wrong war, or opposed the right to choose to murder babies, or that I voted for someone not on their approved list.’ How much do you want to bet my grandchildren wouldn’t be getting a refund after the leaders of the institution or their sanctioned mob removed my name and stomped on the plaque it was removed from?
As long as our public colleges and universities are in the condition they are now in, I recommend making other educational arrangements.
The Republican legislature has appointed every single member of the UNC Board of Governors and UNC trustees—but they are all RINOs who cave to the radical left on everything. Yet not a single member of the GOP legislature will take responsibility for these awful appointees they made and are still making. They beg us for money and campaign work but turn right around and betray our conservative values by appointing liberal RINOs to critical positions in the university system. How long will we continue to fall for their lies?