Two Ugly Defeats Dressed Up as One Big Win

Trey Smith

Democrats were crowing recently because they convinced enough of their GOP counterparts to extend the payroll tax cut -- the one President Obama pledged would be a mere one year deal when he signed it originally -- for another year. While they celebrated putting a few extra bucks each month into the pockets of the working poor and middle class, they failed to mention that the continuation of this tax cut only undermines the Social Security Fund even more than ever and may well serve as the impetus for politicians in the future to argue that said fund is so underfunded that it needs to be gutted.

From my perspective, this so-called short-term victory is genuinely a defeat. It has the Democrats now championing conservative Republican policies!

If that wasn't bad enough in its own right, the price that the Democrats paid to wrangle passage of this bad legislation is even worse. They caved in to Republican pressure to have the unemployed subject to drug testing before they can receive benefits!!

Republicans had initially called for drug testing for everybody seeking unemployment benefits, but Democrats balked before backtracking and agreeing to allow testing for those who lost their jobs because of drug use and those applying for jobs in industries where drug testing is prevalent.

It's worth noting that people fired from their jobs for drug use are fired "for cause" and not laid off for lack of work, and thus are ineligible for unemployment benefits anyway. But the provision allowing for drug testing in industries where it is common could expose hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers to drug tests before they could receive unemployment checks. None of those workers was laid off because of drug use.

And which professions are most likely to require drug testing prior to employment? It's certainly not white collar professions!! Janitors at schools are drug tested, but when is the last time you heard of a superintendent who was required to pass a drug test before starting work?

This part of the legislation is yet another salvo tossed at the poor. It erects barriers to needed help for a large segment of our society, while not touching the vast majority of the well-to-do.

If this what the Democratic Party calls a victory for America, I'd hate to see what they would call a defeat!!