This year, 21,500 Maine people want only one thing for Christmas: a job.
Congress is about to sign off on another $700 billion in tax cuts - most going to the upper echelon reserved for the top 2% of income earners nationwide. But the $12.5 billion it takes to eek out a few more months of unemployment benefits for those who lost their jobs to corporate greed and outsourcing is considered detrimental to the "deficit."
I received an email yesterday from someone with nowhere to turn. He had just lost his job and had no idea how to apply for unemployment insurance - that benefit he earned week by week as he paid his insurance premium out of his paycheck. He can now earn the whopping maximum benefit of $359.00 per week as a newly minted member of the unemployment lines. If he has children, he can earn $10/week extra for each child - up to half of his weekly benefit amount.
Thankfully, this is someone I can help. For the 21,500 Maine people who are about to lose their benefits, I am at a loss for what to do.
It is the holidays, a time of giving, sharing and collective appreciation for those less fortunate than ourselves. And yet, we seem far more willing to look down on an individual for losing their job than we are to raise our fists at Wall Street tycoons who bilked our citizens, bought our government and devastated our economy.
At a time when our elected members of Congress bask in lush fundraisers, holiday luncheons and corporate gifts, our people starve. On December 31st, 21,500 Maine people on Maine Street will lose their unemployment benefits.
While good Maine people beg for bread, our US Senators say, "Let them eat cake."
Perhaps Santa will find it in his heart to send our people the only thing on their wish list this year: a good job.