THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2009

THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2009

Being cheap

According to a report last week, some leading

economists have abandoned the optimistic

view that the economy could start to recover in the second half of this year. ’ Far too rosy, they said.

They also have offered some equally gloomy jobmarket appraisals, suggesting that unemployment will top 10 percent nationally by the end of the year, and that usual, stable employment will not return until at least 2013.

We are disheartened and discouraged by these forecasts.

Disheartened and discouraged doesn’t even begin to describe how we feel about the House of Delegates’ response to the economic data.

Last Wednesday, Virginia delegates rejected a plan to expand unemployment benefits to out-ofwork Virginians.

Gov. Tim Kaine (D) had amended an unemployment bill to expand coverage by picking up $125 million in federal stimulus funding for the state.

Under changes to current unemployment-benefit rules, Virginians laid off from part-time jobs or participating in job- training programs would be eligible for the insurance for the first time.

State senators gave Kaine’s plan a thumbs up, 21-Id, but the delegates rejected it, mostly along party lines, 46-53, so the benefit expansion will not happen.

Proponents of the plan maintained that the federal money would last for seven years. Once the federal money ran out, the General Assembly would have the option to use state money to continue the benefits, or change the law back to its current reading.

Republican delegates disagreed, insisting that the money would run out as soon as 2010, sticking the state with a bill it can ill afford.

Well, not the state, exactly. States simply adminv ister unemployment compensation funds, which get their financial support from businesses. So the commonwealth would, in turn, just stick it to businesses by upping the premium they pay to support the program.