Earlier this month, our Republican State Auditor Tom Salmon said

Not surprisingling for someone being told by the right people that he’s gubentorial material, the RIGHT PEOPLE’s well handled auditor took back his statement.  In the Saint Albans Messenger, our Republican Auditor said:

I made the suggestion that the consequences of further inaction could be cutting the maximum benefit from $427 per month down to $300 per month to make the fund solvent. While this would not be my choice or the choice of most other public officials, this could be one of the outcomes if legislative leaders continue down the path they are on.

There are a couple of things happening here.  

First, the Republican Auditor, in the space of a few days, forgot that he advocated cutting workers insurance benefits and remembered (despite the written and recorded accounts of his testimony), and claimed instead that he was not an advocate of this insane policy.  At GMD, we are glad that our Republican Auditor has at least forgotten what he said last week and has remembered an approach that is far less ridiculous.

Second, Apparently one of the “right people” responsible for pulling his strings whacked him on the nose for that comment.  His reactionary handlers don’t necessarily oppose his position, they are just opposed to their puppet jetisoning his stupid filter along with his former party identification.

Mr. Salmon’s flip-flopping and backtracking is not the big problem. What is troubling is the total failure of Mr. Salmon, since he became a Republican-American, to understand the policy basics of unemployment insurance benefits.

At the outset, our Republican-American Auditor

   The good worthy keeps talking about “businesses” footing the bill.

   The fact is, unemployment insurance is paid by workers’ labor.  It is a built-in cost of employment, it is reflected in worker’s wages and it is the workers’ toil that generates the revenue to fund the INSURANCE in the first place.  This is “insurance” not welfare.  These workers have already paid for this benefit.

   The unemployed are the very people who paid for their unemployment insurance with their labor.  The unemployed are the ones who originally paid the unemployment insurance “premiums.” Had the dollars generated by workers’ productivity not been available to their employers for UI premiums, the employers would have otherwise been able to pay their workers higher wages and/or the employers could have had more people on the payroll in the first place.  UI insurance is not a “business tax,” it is a wage tax AND it is one that has ALREADY BEEN PAID!

   Cutting the insurance benefits that workers have already paid for and earned, after the fact, is like a health insurance company slashing your reimbursements after you have paid your premiums for years and are now suddenly sick and need to go to the hospital.

   Salmon’s argument shows a complete lack of understanding of the underlying economics and basic contractual philosophy underpinning the entire program