USA Today writes up some 2014 resolutions:
... take the Quiet Car next time.
— Former NSA director Michael Hayden, overheard on the Amtrak Acela discussing national security issues with reporters
... go to Las Vegas next time.
— Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., busted playing video poker during a Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Syria
... hydrate before my next nationally televised speech.
— Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
Farah Stockman at
The Boston Globe looks at the meaning of New Year's Day:
[T]onight, as you toast your own new beginning, take a moment to consider the miracle of collective human experience across the ages. The fact that billions around the world take tomorrow to be the first day of something new is nothing short of astonishing.
More below the fold.
The Boston Globe takes a look back at 2013 as a horrific year for mass shootings and a bad year for gun control:
In 2013, the failure to pass gun legislation stood as the strongest example of how money and special interests can influence the country’s political system, and how Congress is incapable of responding pragmatically to matters of urgent national concern. Confronted with Congress’s inexplicable failure to pass a background-check bill that was supported by more than 80 percent of the people, many Americans simply gave up. They risk becoming inured to the fact that another 32,000 to 33,000 people will likely die from a bullet in suicides and homicides in the United States in 2014.
Instead, Americans should be indignant. There were a whopping 24 additional mass killings — defined as the murders of more than four people in one spree — using guns in the year after Newtown. They appear like regular marks on the calendar:
Many papers are using their last editorials of 2013 to argue in favor of extending unemployment benefits. First up,
The Detroit Free Press:
Poor families spend a higher percentage of what they take in than wealthier people. That money winds up in stores and goods whose sales are helping to drive the recovery. Subtract that money from the economy, and you’re making things worse for everyone, not better. The Congressional Budget Office estimates a $25-billion hit to the economy from the loss of jobless benefits in 2014.
There’s also great irony in the Republican insistence on self-sufficiency, when the budget fights they’ve prolonged were about the GOP insistence on preserving gargantuan tax loopholes for wealthy people and for corporations. Apparently, it’s only important that those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder show their industriousness. Sponging is OK if you’re already doing well.
There’s simply no good justification — economic or social — to heap more hardship on those who were hardest hit by the economic downturn. It’s not good for them. It won’t be good for the country. When Congress gets back to work after the new year, restoring jobless benefits needs to be high on its agenda.
Eugene Robinson:
To 1.3 million jobless Americans: The Republican Party wishes you a Very Unhappy New Year!
It would be one thing if there were a logical reason to cut off unemployment benefits for those who have been out of work the longest. But no such rationale exists. On both economic and moral grounds, extending benefits for the long-term unemployed should have received an automatic, bipartisan vote in both houses of Congress. It didn’t. Nothing is automatic and bipartisan anymore, not with today’s radicalized GOP on the scene. In this case, a sensible and humane policy option is hostage to bruised Republican egos and the ideological myth of “makers” vs. “takers.”
The result is a cruel blow to families that are already suffering.
David Frum:
People who can't work still must eat. Americans in distress have a claim on the rest of the nation. Extend unemployment insurance. Sustain food stamps. While we're looking for a new deal, at least quit deluding ourselves that the old deal is still operable. It's not. It has passed on, from everywhere except our increasingly outdated memories.
Finally,
Dana Milbank adds his take on his issue and calls out the media for not properly covering the unemployment benefit cruelty:
On Saturday, 1.3 million unemployed Americans were kicked off unemployment benefits. And if our vacationing lawmakers don’t do something about it when they return, millions more will follow. The matter is getting less attention than Phil Robertson of “Duck Dynasty,” but it’s a real crisis for those affected and a disgrace for the rest of us.
As The Post’s Brad Plumer expertly outlined on Friday, there are 4 million people who have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer, translating to the highest long-term unemployment rate since World War II. These people — young, old and from all kinds of demographics — have a 12 percent chance of finding a job in any given month, and, contrary to the theories of Rand Paul Republicans, there’s little evidence that they’re more likely to find work after losing benefits. Cutting off their benefits only causes more suffering for them and more damage to the economy.