Republicans can’t let the Tea Party catch them caring about the unemployed.
UPDATE: Land came out for the extension right before the Senate’s first procedural vote on the bill, which surprisingly passed with 6 Republican votes.
Last weekend, 43,800 Michiganders who have been out of work for more than 5 months lost their unemployment insurance.
If Congress doesn’t act 86,500 more of our struggling neighbors will lose their only income in the first half of this year.
Michigan’s unemployment rate is 8.8% almost most 2% higher than the national rate of 7.0%, which is higher than than it has ever been when Congress cut off emergency unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed.
These benefits pumped $1 billion into our state’s economy last year.
Where does the likely Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate stand on extending unemployment insurance for these struggling Michiganders who are among the 1.3 million Americans — including 20,000 veterans — who have been cut off?
Who knows?
I can’t find her position in any publication online or on her campaign website, which doesn’t even have an issues section.
This silence goes along with Land’s silence about the never-ending stream of anti-gay comments coming from her fellow Republican National Committee member Dave Agema.
Land doesn’t appear to have taken any stand on the extreme measure that would require women to purchase a separate insurance waiver to cover emergency abortions, even in cases of rape.
Apparently she learned her lesson in November when she dared to say we’re past repealing Obamacare and need to fix it. Within hours, she flip-flopped and aligned herself with Senator Ted Cruz by tweeting that she supports defunding and repealing the law.
So we know she supports taking health insurance from as many as 470,000 of our states hardest working people — but that’s about it.
Likely, Land is trying to do whatever she can to avoid a Tea Party challenger then hoping she can move to the center when the primary filing deadline is past.
We’re used to this in Michigan now: moderate Republicans running scared from the Tea Party and giving in to them on issues that drive down wages and turn women into second-class citizens.
By speaking out for the people who are in this state who struggling most, Land could help drive this debate that now hinges on finding just a few moderate Republicans in the Senate willing to stand up for the unemployed.
Instead, her silence is speaking for her.
