Remember Pat McCrory, the guy who just got trashed by his own party’s legislative leaders? He’s started his “extremely assertive” new year by….following the legislature’s lead. Round 2 of Unemployment Insurance “reform” is gratuitous and mean-spirited, and his support for it dispels any notion that the guv will move to the center.
The proposal begins with that old guilty-until-proven-innocent standby, photo ID requirements. In familiar high-and-mighty tones, the governor proclaimed “we are cutting down on unemployment insurance fraud.” As usual, he produced no evidence of such fraud. The main effect–and likely the purpose–of this requirement is to make people see getting earned benefits as a transgression.
If applicants succeed in getting benefits, the governor wants to ride them harder. The unemployed would now have to send out more than twice as many job applications just to keep their benefits. “You have to show you’re treating finding a job as a job,” lectures McCrory, who worked part-time from 1989-2009. Thus, he makes explicit the idea that unemployment is a sweet deal. It’s an ignorant and demeaning notion.
Then there’s (more) reduced transparency. Fresh off charging for public records requests, the governor wants “to restrict the public notices of contested unemployment cases.” This provision adds insult to injury. Not only would he harm the unemployed, he’d weaken everyone else’s right to know about state government.
The governor may feign compassion during publicity stunts. But at the very least, he has no problem kicking people while they’re down. He did so throughout the last session. And he continued by relentlessly scapegoating Medicaid for teacher-pay deficiencies. All indications are that he’ll continue this casual cruelty, with the GA’s new unemployment proposals as a start.
Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.
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