Arizona Daily Star issues a challenge to Sen. Jon Kyl

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The editors of the Arizona Daily Star have joined this blog in our outrage over Sen. Jon Kyl's caricature of the unemployed as lazy, unmotivated slackers who should get off the couch and go out and get a job. From today's editorial Unemployed Arizonans snubbed by Kyl:

Consider the life of a U.S. senator. Guaranteed employment for at least six years and no matter how poorly you perform you receive a paycheck plus health and retirement benefits. And if you screw up so badly that there is an effort to fire you, you have plenty of warning and a chance to defend yourself.

Must be nice. This is the life that our junior Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, a Republican, leads on the taxpayers' dime.

Compare that with the life most Arizonans live: We go to our jobs, do our own work plus extra duties that had been done by our colleagues and friends who've been laid off, our pay has been cut, retirement benefits eliminated and we live each day knowing that it could all fall apart and we have no real recourse.

And when it does fall apart and we're the ones packing up our desks in a cardboard box and joining the millions of unemployed people, we expect that the work we've put in and the taxes we've paid will go toward helping us get by until we can find another job.

We mention Kyl because he has been a key force in the Senate's refusal to extend long-term unemployment benefits to people. He has gone so far as to say that unemployment benefits discourage people from looking for a job, an accusation against his own consituents that would be laughable if it were not so destructive.

Kyl recently told a Fox News Sunday interviewer that the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans should remain in effect, even at a cost of billions to the federal budget – yet unemployment benefits should not be extended because it would cost too much without offsetting the expense elsewhere.

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Kyl's contorted sense of priorities is an affront to every Arizonan who has lost a job.

Not to mention that those unemployment checks – which max out at about $260 per week – are spent almost immediately, putting cash into the hands of grocers, gas-station owners, landlords and utility companies. Cutting off the long-term unemployment benefits takes money out of the hands of local business owners and communities. It's simply not smart.

We have a challenge for Kyl, and other politicians who oppose the extension of long-term unemployment benefits (which includes Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who is running for re-election): Instead of receiving your Senate salary of more than $3,000 per week, you get a check of $260 each week – and no health insurace.

Come to Tucson and find an apartment for $650 per month or less, which is roughly the average monthly rent. Put food on the table for a family of four, including two young children, for $116.20 per week (which is what it costs per week for a "thrifty" meal plan, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture). Don't forget transportation (gas is about $2.50 per gallon and you have to include car payments and insurance, or deal with bus fare and limited routes and schedules) and any other expenses a family must meet, like buying diapers.

Oh, and find a job in a state with an unemployment rate of around 9 percent – and that doesn't count the people who've given up looking for work or who are working in jobs they're overqualified for.

Do this for a month – long enough for the novelty to wear off – and then explain to your constituents why extending tax cuts for wealthy folks is worthwhile, but extending a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of Americans who can't find a job is just too darn expensive.