The Arizona Legislature has refused to infuse millions into our state economy by changing ONE WORD to allow an extension of unemployment benefits for thousands of Arizonans who can’t find work.
When explaining their “no” votes, Republican Senate Majority Whip Steve Pierce said “We think it’s stupid.”
It’s stupid all right, but the stupidity is held firmly by the radical Republicans running our Legislature. They think Arizona working men and women are so lazy that they’ll go with $210 a week in unemployment insurance instead of a job–they actually said that extending unemployment would be a “disincentive for finding a job.” Tell that to all those who have been searching and searching for jobs and can’t find them. Tell that to their kids, who will now go hungry. Tell that to parents who will now face homelessness because that measly check was all that stood in the way of them being out on the street.
Other radicals in our statehouse thought the Governor had some awful plot to sandbag them over this issue–this is a conspiracy theory that can only be conjured up by folks who live under rocks, but apparently, some of our lawmakers do.
Oh, and while it at it, tell Arizona’s business community why it was a great idea to forgo millions in federal funds–money we’d already sent to Washington and deserved back–so that some ideological pigmys can rule. I can just hear the talk in boardrooms all over the state now: “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”