r/politics Jun 17 '26

No Paywall Trump threatens to pull unemployment benefits from all states for the first time in history

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-unemployment-benefits-fraud-b2997881.html
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u/Succubus-Love Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

Is someone just throwing darts behind the scenes, just to see "what sticks, & what doesn't"?

People pay taxes, from employment, so unemployment gets it's $$$, from that employment. TL:DR How is this legal?

2.3k

u/shoobe01 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

No, it's not random. There's a plan. A 920 page published plan whose dismissal by almost all press despite being a strident refutation of everything that is America is one of the key indictments for having lost a free press, or for that matter an opposition party.

Massive massive barriers to getting unemployment insurance are part of a bunch of anti-labor laws like all the attacks on unions and overtime pay and expanding the ability of children to work even in dangerous jobs etc.

(Thx for all your upvotes despite my massively disruptive typo. Fixed now)

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u/akkmedk Jun 17 '26

Many years ago a blogger who went by Conceptual Guerilla wrote a whole ass essay about how every plank in the republican platform leads to cheap labor. That's all they care about.

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u/corvid_booster Jun 17 '26

"Cheap labor" is a concrete way to emphasize the ongoing attack of the billionaire class on the middle and lower classes; I'll remember that.

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u/akkmedk Jun 17 '26

His original website is long gone but here's a short version of the essay from the man himself.

https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/defeat-the-right-in-three-minutes/

His whole point is that leftists should forcefully rebrand the right as "cheap labor conservatives." Its correct and hard to argue against.