Senate – Alex Pickett

This is an interesting bill from Rep. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Apparently, there are about 3,000 millionaires that currently receive unemployment benefits from the government. So, while the country suffers from a growing deficit, Rep. Coburn wants to kick those millionaires off the unemployment rolls with S. 310, also known as the “Ending Unemployment Payments to Jobless Millionaires Act of 2011.”

At first glance, it seems like a good idea. But no matter how distasteful it might be, it’s not a logical solution.

People don’t receive unemployment benefits for being poor. They receive benefits because they were laid off through no fault of their own. As part of their benefits package while working, their companies paid the unemployment tax. So, these jobless millionaires deserve that money just like anyone else. They earned it. You can’t retroactively take that benefit away.

Of course, a good millionaire would try to give back that money or donate it some cause (preferably to help other unemployed people). But creating a law to deal with a few thousand people would be more than a waste of time, it would create a class system with respect to unemployment benefits.

And aren’t conservatives always going on about how rich people shouldn’t be punished for success?

Rating: 3 teabags

Click here to learn about the rating system. For archives of the Bipartisan Guide to Ridiculous Legislation, click here.

It’s been two years since the last Bipartisan Guide to Ridiculous Legislation, but I’m happy to announce the Guide is back to track the most absurd bills in the 2011 legislative cycle.

It’s the perfect year, too.

Both locally and nationally, U.S. citizens are seeing some of the most reactionary law-making in years. The political atmosphere is decidedly partisan … and sometimes just plain mean. There are hundreds of new politicians looking to make a name for themselves with opportunistic legislation. And with record numbers of laid-off reporters and bankrupt media companies, it’s an impossible task to track the hundreds (thousands?) of bills coming up for a vote.

That’s where the Guide comes in.

But this year, I’m doing something different: I will focus mostly on federal legislation as oppose to only focusing on Florida’s fair share of foolish ideas.

If you remember from the past two installments of the Guide, I’ve used some kind of graphic to rate the idiocy of featured bills from 1 to 5. In 2008, I used “Bumper Nutz,” those wildly-colored genitals that rednecks like to put on the back of their trucks. In 2009, in honor of Florida Rep. Darryl Rouson’s “bong tax,” I rated ridiculous legislation with 1-5 bong hits, with “5 bong hits” being the most stoned bills coming out of the Florida Legislature.

This year, with the Tea Party movement changing the face of politics in Florida and nationally, I thought the rating system should reflect this new (bizarre) phenomenon of U.S. politics.

So I’m using teabags. I will rate bills by 1 to 5 teabags, with five teabags representing the worst concoction of a law – reactionary, wasteful, and of course, ridiculous.

For a complete list of all previous posts, click here.

(Photos of teabags courtesy of Andrew Coulter Enright / Flickr under Creative Commons licensing)

Tag: Senate

Bipartisan Guide to Ridiculous Legislation: Senate bill seeks to take away unemployment benefits from millionaires

Bipartisan Guide to Ridiculous Legislation is back for 2011!