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Economic analysis exists to show that people take longer to find new jobs when they are receiving unemployment payments.
That is according to Stephen Slivinski, a senior economist with the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank. "Studies show that people put off their search for work until their benefits are about to run out," Slivinski said. He will expand on his comments on Arizona Week Friday.
Meantime, George Cunningham, chair of the Grand Canyon Institute, which describes itself as a centrist think tank, said the payments are needed to bridge people to new jobs and to boost the economy. "This is not about lazy people, this is not about people with entitlement. This is about economics, this is about bringing money into this state.”
Cunningham, also on Arizona Week Friday, argued that the multiplier effect of infusing money into the economy would make the 20 extra weeks of benefits being considered for out-of-work Arizonans worth more than $167 million to the state's economy.
Slivinski said even if such payments are approved, they shouldn't come before an audit to show that people are complying and the money is being properly spent.
June 9th 2011 at 16:25 —
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Gov. Jan Brewer took a considerable political risk in calling this week’s special legislative session on unemployment benefits.
That’s because it continues Brewer’s recent departure from the lock-step conservative agenda that she and the Republican legislative leadership have carried out in the last couple of years.
She first broke that spell in April, vetoing more than two dozen bills, some of them the pet projects of her fellow conservatives. One GOP senator said in reaction that the governor wasn’t even conservative any more.
Now comes the governor’s call for extending benefits to thousands of Arizonans who have been unemployed for more than a year and a half.
Brewer argues that while she isn’t happy doing it, changing the law to allow the state’s unemployed another 20 weeks of benefits at federal expense is needed.
Legislators argue that it adds to the federal debt and discourages people from finding work.
Brewer’s approach could be labeled pragmatic, while the legislators are sticking to ideology.
In this era of political intransigence, wandering from the ideological base on either end of the political spectrum can be considered heresy. That’s the risk Brewer is taking with her long-time political allies in the Legislature.
The governor may consider it a risk worth taking, for a couple of reasons.
First, it can define her independence from the stranglehold that Senate President Russell Pearce has on the state’s political agenda, to the point that some have called him the de facto governor telling Brewer what to do.
Second, her stand on this and other important issues could define Brewer’s tenure as governor.
It’s political theater to most of us, but perhaps not to those 15,000 out of work Arizonans.
June 9th 2011 at 13:01 —
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Gov. Jan Brewer penned an opinion piece for today's Arizona Republic calling on the Legislature to come to grips with extending unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless in the state.
"Believe me, extending unemployment assistance isn't something I want to do. In fact, the idea of anyone being on unemployment aid for nearly two full years is contrary to everything I believe as a conservative," Brewer wrote before taking a slap at President Obama's "failure to jump-start the job market."
The governor wants the Legislature to make a one-word change in Arizona's formula for unemployment payments so that 15,000 state residents who have been out of work for 18 months are eligible for another 20 weeks of pay from federal money.
Legislators are reluctant, saying they don't want to add to the federal deficit and they don't want to take an action that could lead people to be less willing to find work.
State law requires people collecting unemployment payments to be actively seeking work and to be ready and willing to accept work if offered.
Stephen Slivinski, an economist with the Goldwater Institute, argued in a blog posting this week that no unemployment extension should be granted until the state audits the system to ensure people are seeking work and to weed out ineligible people.
Brewer makes the same argument that Grand Canyon Institute Chairman George Cunningham made in an Arizona Republic opinion piece earlier this week: that the extended payments would add $3.5 million to the state's economy, at no cost to the state.
Cunningham and Slivinski will make their cases in separate interviews on Friday's Arizona Week, followed by a journalists' panel discussion of the issues.
June 8th 2011 at 16:29 —
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posted to Political Buzz by Christopher Conover
Senator Mark Udall (D-Colorado) has rolled out a bill designed to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used by the Department of Defense. The proposal is of note because Senator Udall is calling it the Udall-Giffords DOD Energy Security Act. A similar proposal was sponsored by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords last year. Udall also sponsored similar legislation last year. When the proposals were floated in 2010 neither received much support in Washington. Udall’s bill had just four cosponsors and was referred to a committee where it was never heard. The House version sponsored by Giffords found support only from the Congresswoman and also never received a hearing.
June 8th 2011 at 16:15 —
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Former Democratic legislator and state budget director George Cunningham argues in an op-ed piece in today's Arizona Republic that extending unemployment benefits would be good for Arizona's economy.
"When the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office evaluated components of the federal stimulus program from spending to tax cuts, it found extending unemployment benefits was the most effective instrument," Cunningham wrote, citing what he said are $3.2 million in weekly payments that are set to expire on Saturday.
Those payments would go in weekly increments to an estimated 15,000 Arizonans who have been out of work 18 months, the period covered by regular state and federal unemployment payment programs.
Republicans in control of the state Senate say they aren't interested in extending the benefits, for a range of reasons. One says people getting unemployment payments don't have an incentive to find work; others say that although the money used for the extended benefits is federal, it adds to the nation's overall debt.
Cunningham said in his op-ed piece that statistical modeling shows a near doubling of economic impact and that it would support for than 1,100 jobs in the state.
June 7th 2011 at 12:07 —
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Arizona faces a "dire situation" in education, economics and -- purported to be the root cause -- its ideologically driven public policy-making.
That's the starting point for a new state research organization, the Grand Canyon Institute.
It's a collection of former legislators and others involved in public policy and research, assembled with the intention of bringing "a pragmatic approach to addressing economic, fiscal, budgetary and taxation challenges confronting Americans with a special emphasis on Arizona issues," according to its statement of purpose on the institute's Website.
The institute, which will function as a policy research organization, describes itself on the Website as a "nonpartisan think tank ... led by a bipartisan group of former state lawmakers, economists, community leaders, and academicians."
Leading its board are two former legislators, Democrat George Cunningham and Republican Susan Gerard. Cunningham served as former Gov. Rose Mofford's chief of staff and former Gov. Janet Napolitano's budget director. Gerard is "a former director of the Arizona Department of Health Services and was health policy adviser to Napolitano in Napolitano's first term as governor.
The institute weighed in for the first time on a policy issue today, with a Cunningham op-ed in the Arizona Republic calling for extension of unemployment benefits that are about to expire for an estimated 15,000 Arizonans.
Here's how the institute describes what it will do to try moving Arizona's political discussions and subsequent policy-making to the center of the spectrum:
"This Centrist Research Center will serve as an independent think tank that reflects mainstream American values and a pragmatic approach to economic, fiscal, budgetary, and taxation issues that confront all Americans but with a special emphasis on Arizona’s current and future challenges."
June 7th 2011 at 10:53 —
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