Some folks say politics and politicians are cynical and self-serving. But that's not it, or at least not all of it. Most people in politics are in the business for reasons that, at least by their own lights, include making the planet - or some slice of it - a better place.
So what's holding up the unemployment benefits?
These are the 20 additional weeks of checks (drawn on the federal Treasury, not the state) that 37,000 North Carolinians who've been unemployed for months should be getting, but aren't. They aren't because Republicans in the General Assembly combined a routine extension of the jobless benefits, which should have been enacted a month ago, with a controversial budget measure that Gov. Beverly Perdue rightly refused to endorse. She vetoed a GOP-backed bill that linked two unrelated issues and put the jobless Tar Heels at risk.
At the heart of the dispute is a continuing resolution that would, if the Republican-controlled legislature and the Democratic governor fail to agree on a budget by June 30, cut current state spending by 13 percent and continue it into the new fiscal year at that level. Signing off on such a resolution, Perdue understood, would leave her with no leverage in budget negotiations, this month and next, in which she should have a say.
When it comes to the proper level of state spending, you may side with Perdue or you may side with the Republicans. But when it comes to authorizing unemployment compensation for 37,000 hard-pressed folks and their families, there really isn't room for debate. They should have it, yesterday.
After all, what do federal jobless benefits have to do with state budget negotiations? Nothing. And what did the unemployed do to cause this dispute? Again, nothing - except as victims of a cynical form of legislative blackmail. And surely no one in the legislature went into politics just to play that game.
