We'd be fools to think life is fair.
But the least we should expect from our government is that it try not to be arbitrary and capricious.
Sometimes we're just not that lucky.
The House of Representatives this week voted to extend another 13 weeks of unemployment benefits to those whose benefits are expiring, but in only 27 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
Previous legislation and President Barack Obama's economic stimulus bills extended the normal 26 weeks of jobless benefits to as much as 79 weeks - for all those eligible and in all states. The new measure would take that up to 92 weeks in states with an average unemployment rate of at least 8.5 percent over the past three months.
The bill would not give any extra benefits to unemployed people losing benefits in states that have lower levels of joblessness, including Nebraska.
Get this:This arbitrary extension of benefits would be paid for by deferring a scheduled reduction in the Federal Unemployment Tax paid by employers - all employers in all states, not just those in states that get the extra benefits.
The bill passed 331-83. Nebraska Republican Reps. Jeff Fortenberry, Adrian Smith and Lee Terry voted no. For those three votes, we are grateful.
More than 300,000 jobless people are expected to run out of unemployment compensation at the end of the month, and more than 1 million are expected to exhaust the benefits by the end of the year. This bill would cover about 75 percent of the unemployed in the nation.
This makes us want to quote the formidable John McEnroe in high dudgeon: "You cannot be serious!"
The House is telling us that unemployed people in Nebraska are unworthy of another quarter of benefits, but those in New York, California, Michigan, etc., are.
This is one of those patently cynical moves by a Congress trying in vain to prove how prudent they are with the public's money.
Balderdash. The way they're paying for it is by not ending a "temporary" unemployment tax surcharge they imposed in the 1970s.
Unemployed people in Nebraska are just as unemployed as those in Michigan.
And the low unemployment rates in Nebraska and other states are no assurance a job is going to be any easier to find.
That's just nonsense. Tell it to the 50,000 unemployed Nebraskans, or the 500 who are going to lose their jobs at the Monroe shock absorber plant in Cozad.
Last we looked, Nebraska was still losing jobs - not as many nor as quickly as some of our more unfortunate or profligate states, but still losing jobs.
"This bill discriminates against people who are suffering in Nebraska," Fortenberry of the 1st District said in a news release. "If you are without a job, you are 100 percent unemployed, and it should not matter whether you are unemployed in Nebraska, Ohio, Michigan, or anywhere else. It's wrong. It's unfair."
Jobless people shut out of this benefit extension live in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming.
We'd like to think the Senate will have more sense, but news reports say it's expected to pass there, too, and the president is expected to sign it into law immediately.
Anyone for tea?
