Let me start this essay with a story about the most corrupt Judge in Hoboken N.J. This was just a normal day, and he had just accepted a $10,000 payment from the lawyer for the plaintiff in contractual suit. As soon as they had shaken hands and he had walked out the door, in came the Judge's bag man, who announced that he had just agreed to give preference to the defendant for 10K that he had in crisp hundred dollar bills.
The Judge was perplexed. He sent a memo to each lawyers to appear in his chambers the next morning with no explanation. When they arrived, surprised to see each other there, the Judge, bedecked in his robes, after describing the dual payment spoke somberly:
Gentlemen, this rare event presents an unusual ethical and jurisprudential conundrum. After many hours of thought, I have come to an equitable conclusion. I have decided to keep the money from both of you, and decide the case on its merits.
The Judge didn't get it, and either does our President.
Allowing tax cuts for those making over a quarter of a million, or even a million a year is not balanced by increasing unemployment payments. Like the payoffs to the two lawyers where equity of balance, is not the same as equity of fairness. Both increase in unemployment and maintaining tax cuts to the wealthy do nothing for the very lowest income strata of our society.
Unemployment compensation is quite complex, as each state has it's own unique rules, payments and standards. The maximum weekly rate of payment varies widely, from $900 down to $250. Means testing is not allowed, so at the very highest levels someone who had been making over six figures annually, and who has considerable assets or a high income spouse will still receive up to $50,000 a year.
Ironically, this government expense was balanced by a lessening of revenue (which is fiscally the same as expense) both not targeted to the lowest, or most desperate in our society. Every pundit, scholar and politician acknowledges that our national debt will in the next few decades result in a monetary crisis of dire proportions, unless two painful actions are taken, lessening government expense and increasing revenue.
This so called compromise does exactly the opposite, increasing expense and decreasing revenue, and it does it in the most ugly way possible. While at this moment San Diego County is eliminating public health immunizations for children, while Arizona is eliminating life saving transplants- our federal government will be increasing unemployment compensation that is based on giving more to those who earned more, and probably need it less. And this is balanced by allowing more retained income among those who universally, by definition, are those who have the least need for this additional income.
The expense of the cost of extending unemployment compensation should be provided to each state on a per capita basis, to be allocated to those who are indigent, whose lives and those of their children will be directly affected. And of course the tax reduction on those making over a quarter of a million should be ended. This can be done in a way that will be politically advantages to Democrats, as I described in this essay, Shazam! Bush Tax Cuts become Obama Tax Cuts
This unholy "compromise" will only hasten the day to either a new third party, or worse, the collapse of our existing social consensus that has survived through some rough times for over two centuries.