Brewer doesn’t say Screw You to the unemployed

by David Safier

AZ Blue Meanie gave this more complete coverage below, but I want to chime in on Brewer's call for a special session to extend jobless benefits.

Yesterday I wrote about Republican plans to add more corporate tax cuts to the ones they already made this year, possibly during a special session. As an aside, I said their attitude is "Screw a special session to help the unemployed! The business of the AZ legislature is business!"

Well, I have to take Brewer off the Screw You list when it comes to the unemployed. We've reached a point where the heartless craziness of most Arizona Republican pols is so severe that Brewer looks like a moderate voice of reason by comparison. What it comes down to is, Brewer is a Chamber of Commerce Republican. Her advisors try to keep a balance between helping business make obscene profits and keeping the economy from going too much farther in the tank.

But here's the caveat about Brewer's special session bid. She has put in what Howie Fischer calls "a couple of sweeteners" to get reluctant Republicans to go along. I'll simply quote the last few lines of Fischer's article without comment, since I don't know enough about the back story to analyze how bitter the "sweeteners" will be for the unemployed.

Brewer is trying to make the deal more palatable to foes with a couple of sweeteners:

One would require that anyone getting federally extended benefits be required to actively look for work at least four days a week. That is twice as often as is now required.

She also wants those in the same group to have to certify what federal law already requires: That they understand they have to accept any job offered, no matter how low the pay.

And in a last-minute bid for GOP votes, she did agree to one more compromise: Repeal a law that would otherwise mean an automatic increase in state unemployment insurance premiums when the federal jobless tax rate drops at the end of this month.