Before getting to the substance, I want to make one personal observation. Many of my specific policy prescriptions come off as sounding 'liberal' in the big sense of the word because our range of acceptable discourse has been pushed so far to the 'right' by monied interests in our country over the past generation.
But I'm not a 'leftist'. I am a rather centrist, moderate, religious, midwestern, caucasian, male capitalist. I think ideas like cash for clunkers/caulkers/crap and housing tax credits and the drug war and unaccountable detainee treatment and military occupations are silly; it should be embarrassing to advocate such ridiculous policies, as much as many people think of the notion of going to church or eating red meat or not recycling. I enjoy the give and take with political forums because we're trained to see things so starkly, to have camps of 'us' and 'them', that I think one of the most valuable aspects of dialogue is simply finding our common humanity in the fact that we're all different, that our individual differences are what make us similar in the end - the choice isn't between the blue team and the red team, the home team and the visiting team, but rather, between democracy and plutocracy/theocracy (depending upon which rightists win that battle). The teabaggers and the fundamentalists and the Ron Paul supporters can be extreme, yes, but they can also be quite fun, because they are doing what the great American experiment is designed to do: throw ideas out into the world and see what sticks. We don't need to be afraid of the (vast majority) of these people; they can even be great allies on specific issues.
The corporate wing of both parties, representing the monied interests, is a little bit different. Concentration of wealth and power, unlike fringe ideas, really is a direct threat to both our democracy and our economy. But even here, we have to be careful to distinguish between two very important categories of behavior.
- Behavior for which corporations, The Rich, The Best and the Brightest, are responsible.
- Behavior for which We the People, the citizenry, the governed, are responsible.
You see, it's one thing for corporations to break the law. That should be investigated and punished. But it's quite another for corporations to follow the law.
In the latter case, if we prefer different conduct, then we have to change the legislation.
Specifically, there was a recent New York Times article about companies fighting unemployment claims. And of course, some of the extreme cases are, well, extreme. Employers in fact can be liable for trying to block legitimate filings. But what strikes me as interesting is that there seems to be a fair amount of surprise and exasperation that employers would do something so dastardly as protest an unemployment claim.
Well, that's how the laws are written. Most Americans aren't eligible for unemployment insurance. And employers bear the costs directly to provide it, so the system is set up to make the incentives of employer and employee in conflict from the get-go*.
Unemployment insurance is a complex issue, but it's also a pretty simple one. The Social Security Act was amended with several Titles to outline unemployment insurance. It directs the states to set up programs. And states did. The programs are built on the same employer-based benefits system we've been discussing related to health insurance. In both cases, employers, not taxpayers, pay for the system*. In both cases, not everyone is covered. In fact, if you think there are too many uninsured Americans when it comes to health insurance, there are far more uninsured Americans when it comes to unemployment insurance.
Things vary from state to state, but there are several reasons why an employer would legitimately fight an unemployment claim. These reasons are created by the government. If we want to cover all workers, then we have to change the legislation to cover all workers.
It's really that simple. Our current system makes employers pay for their employees' insurance. Why would an employer not fight an unemployment claim if there's a shred of merit to the protest? It's a bill, a liability, an accounts payable, whatever. Any responsible HR manager would try to limit unemployment payouts just like any responsible IT manager would try to limit the costs of buying new hardware.
If you're like me, and you don't like the employer-based unemployment insurance system, don't get mad at employers. Get mad at the legislation - and advocate to change it. Unemployment insurance should be a universal, national insurance product funded by general tax revenue run by the Social Security Administration covering all workers. Or at minimum, there should be a 'public option' alternative - although, as such, it would face the same limitations and tradeoffs that confront Jacob Hacker's health insurance public option approach.
But until We the People take on the role of paying for and providing unemployment insurance, don't expect employers to pay any more for it than necessary out of the goodness of their hearts. That's just silly.
You can read these words all over again at The Seminal at FDL.
*Of course, it's not quite that simple. One of the fun facts about unemployment insurance is that there are several different programs of benefits and they're each on different timetables and extensions and whatnot which is why we're hearing about benefits expiring and Congress extending them and so forth about every other week. This is one of the major ineffeciencies that would be corrected by one national, standard system of eligibility and program benefits.