UPDATE: Dan Barlow is all over this story like white on rice in today’s Times Argus.
Money quotes include:
“That is not what we would recommend,” Moulton-Powden said, when asked about Salmon’s idea. “We think that is too deep of a cut.”
AND:
When asked if he believes that an average Vermonter could live off of $300 a week, Salmon said “no.” But he quickly added that unemployment checks should not be seen as a form of income, but a “lifeline to the next job.”
If you’ve ever been unemployed, you know it’s no picnic. You lose your health insurance, you lose a reason to get up and get out in the morning, and, most of all, you lose most of your income. In Vermont, unemployment benefits, to oversimplify just a little, are 50% of your previous wages, up to a maximum of $425.00 a week. Obviously you can see that if you lost a job that paid you $850, $900, or even $1,000 a week, and suddenly you have to survive on $425, you’re in big trouble. Like trying to figure out whether to pay the house payment or the car payment trouble.
This afternoon Tom Salmon, who, at a minimum, has internalized the values of his new party masters, attended the summer study committee meeting to evaluate mechanisms to improve the stability of Vermont’s unemployment trust fund, and he talked about benefit levels.
Although he didn’t testify, on his way out he said that not right now, but maybe in a year or so, it might be a good idea to save money by cutting the maximum unemployment benefit from $425 a week down to, oh, $300 a week.*
$300 a week to pay your rent, buy all your groceries, keep your utilities on, keep your car on the road, buy clothes for the kids. $300 a week.
I wasn’t there, but I’m told this didn’t go over that well even among the Republicans on the committee.
Is this the new convert, holier than the Pope phenomenon we’re seeing, or has he just lost it?
It’s almost getting to the point where we have to hope he does run for statewide office, isn’t it?
Oh yeah, one other thing. When every other state employee paid more than $60,000 was taking a pay cut, Salmon was the only one who didn’t, right?
*CORRECTION: GMD had earlier heard that Salmon had testified at the hearing. The diary has been corrected to reflect that his statement was not in the context of formal testimony to the committee.
And I suppose he also has a proposal for reducing the cost of living by $125. per week?
With both of us out of work, and only one of us receiving unemployment, preparing for what promises to be a financial bloodbath in the very near term, I’ve got a bone to pick with our newly-minted Republican auditor.
I’ll make him a deal. I’ll take his salary, and he can take our “income,” and tell me how it all works out, especially when I then yank 25% of it from his pocket.
It’s not like feeding your kids and buying them clothes that fit is really a priority. Never mind the car payments on the used car. Or taxes. Or the car and home-owner’s insurance. Or the credit card bills you ran up the last time you were both unemployed (and were finally starting to catch up on before the credit card companies decided to randomly hike interest rates by 18%, so you coasted along, maintaining a constant debt level, until the company laid off 20% of its workers without warning..). Or the COBRA payments that take up half of your unemployment, but which you need to pay in order to get dental care.
Perhaps I should go eat cake.
If only we weren’t out of eggs … and milk.
Almost?
I’m counting on a Salmon for Governor campaign. Fish in a barrel, baby.
…if you’re on unemployment long enough you have to worry about the taxes that are coming out of that weekly check sooner or later, so it’s actually even less than the nominal amount.
Obviously, no one Salmon knows – or at least cares about – has been on unemployment or he wouldn’t have suggested this. People with Salmon’s mindset are typically indifferent to many kinds of human suffering, and hostile to government intervention to ameliorate it, until it strikes close enough to home to make it personal. Then they become obsessive advocates for that one cause, tearfully testifying before a congressional committee like Jerry weeping for his kids. And everyone applauds them for their “compassion.”
Salmon’s just an unimaginative bookkeeper for whom life, outside of his privileged circle, is just a series of balancing general ledger entries. He won’t be able to fake it in a real statewide campaign.
Looks like Tommy is adapting well to his new doctrine and ideology. Life from the top of the ivory tower is good Tommy. Good.