Page 168 - Extensions News Today

That is a big drop. and the lowest level in nearly two years. but is it good news? poppy harlow with cnnmoney.com. we see it over your shoulder there, jobless claims sank to a two-year low, it sounds like were moving in the right direction. but please, give us perspective here, poppy. >> look, the headline on this is its a better report than last week. the claims are down nearly 30,000 from the prior week. but overall, the bottom line on the report is its not good at all. more than 400,000 ameri...

>> at what point does paying unemployment benefits, if at all, impede self reliance? >> well, i think clearly once you get to very low unemployment rates, it will impede some economic activity. but generally the extensions -- weve stopped the extensions in the past of unemployment benefits, much lower unemployment rates. in the 1980s, unemployment rate of 7.2%. were at 9.5%. were nowhere near where we were the in the past. i think talking about the current extensions of unemployment benefits as ...

Astronomical rates. the only thing hes misfocused is we never get around to doing the cutting to help reduce the deficit. if he were pushing for now to say lets start cutting medicare and head kad, then i would be totally in agreement with him. but i dont hear him saying that. >> at what point does paying unemployment benefits, if at all, impede self-reliance. >> i think clearly once you get to very low unemployment rates, it will impede some economic activity. it will be a disincentive. general...

Least 99 weeks. and there is no further extension planned for them. lets turn now to "washington post" staff writer, "newsweek" magazine columnist, msnbc contributor ezra klein. ezra, good evening. >> good evening, keith. >> even with concern about rising debt and after the previous extensions of these jobless benefits the public broadly supports an additional extension. so why have the republicans gone into a bunker about this? >> well, they would tell you its because of the deficit, but thats ...

Extension planned for them. lets turn to "the washington post" staff writer, "newsweek" columnist and msnbc contributor, ezra klein. good evening. >> good evening. >> even with concern about rising debt and after the previous extensions of these jobless benefits the public broadly supports an additional extension so why have the republicans gone into a bunker about this? >> well, they would tell you its because of the deficit but that is a bit of a difficult excuse to give credence to now that t...

And there is no further extension planned for them. lets turn to "the washington post" staff writer, "newsweek" columnist and msnbc contributor, ezra klein. good evening. >> good evening. >> even with concern about rising debt and after the previous extensions of these jobless benefits the public broadly supports an additional extension so why have the republicans gone into a bunker about this? >> well, they would tell you its because of the deficit but that is a bit of a difficult excuse to giv...

Help the victims out of it. thats very convenient. >> mr. smirk, your chance. >> all this government spending from the stimulus hasnt worked. >> two to three million jobs, say the cbo. who is right? your or the cbo? >> lets take the unemployment comment. mark, and mr. shirk. take the unemployment comp. is unemployment compensation overused, underused? is it a necessity where you have 10% unemployment in the country or not? this is a real unemployment rate, by the way. its an objective fact. its ...

Released a paper on economic activity that found that the current unemployment extensions have increased the unemployment rate by about 1 percentage point. its not most of whats going on, but its contributing to it. thats the brookings institution, by no means a conservative institution. thats what the science shows. >> the science shows that. >> mr. shirk, do you know anybody who is out of work? >> i have several friends who are out of work. >> so you have some familiarity with that? >> are the...

>> larry: governor, should steele say good-bye? >> well, you know, larry, im going to leave that for the republicans but let me say this my reaction to the comments. the comes were outrageous to say that the afghanistan war was a war of obamas choosing, ignores 9/11, ignores president bush going to a bipartisan congress and getting their support for going after the terrorists who did us harm, ignores the international coalition that joins with us n another way, as outrageous the statements are, ...

Saying something negative about the president thats all they do. >> larry: he is also disagritting policies supported by the republicans. >> right. and you have had republican members of congress and others who have come out and said this was an unfortunate statement, it was an unwise statement. they have called him to task on the statement but do not see a ground swell of support within the rnc to fire him. i think main reason is it is a logical extensions of a game plan from day one has been, ...