Morning Reading and Cartoon - Afflicting the Afflicted

With potential cuts in the Food Stamp program looming, Republicans continue to pile on with their refusal (so far) to extend unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed.  Paul Krugman writes how this is not only callous, but bad economics:

Now, the G.O.P.’s desire to punish the unemployed doesn’t arise solely from bad economics; it’s part of a general pattern of afflicting the afflicted while comforting the comfortable (no to food stamps, yes to farm subsidies). But ideas do matter — as John Maynard Keynes famously wrote, they are “dangerous for good or evil.” And the case of unemployment benefits is an especially clear example of superficially plausible but wrong economic ideas being dangerous for evil. [snip]

The point is that employment in today’s American economy is limited by demand, not supply. Businesses aren’t failing to hire because they can’t find willing workers; they’re failing to hire because they can’t find enough customers. And slashing unemployment benefits — which would have the side effect of reducing incomes and hence consumer spending — would just make the situation worse. 

Of course, "making the situation worse" has been part of the Republican game plan since 2009.  The entire piece is worth a read, of course, because Krugman pops the various right-wing balloons about "motivating" the unemployed through cut-offs in their unemployment benefits.

Here, too, are all the economic fairness issues in a nutshell, as provided by Tom Tomorrow, via Kos (click to enlarge):

As Krugman says, "Merry Christmas."