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December 3rd, 2010
09:47 PM ET

What About Jobs?: Join the Live Chat

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Tonight, with unemployment rising, and jobless benefits expiring, what are your elected representatives doing about it? One's saying that working with republicans is almost like negotiating with terrorists. Another is calling a democratic bill poultry poop. We're Keeping Them Honest. Plus, tonight's other headlines.

Scroll down to join the live chat during the program. It's your chance to share your thoughts on tonight's headlines. Keep in mind, you have a better chance of having your comment get past our moderators if you follow our rules.

Here are some of them:

1) Keep it short (we don't have time to read a "book")
2) Don't write in ALL CAPS (there's no need to yell)
3) Use your real name (first name only is fine)
4) No links
5) Watch your language (keep it G-rated; PG at worst - and that includes $#&*)


Filed under: Live Blog
soundoff (162 Responses)
  1. michelle

    i always had a job or two. i am very disappointed to see this country in this mess. the government has to help the American people,they will have a Christmas we wont.after all i feel these politicians got us here!they are aloud to keep playing with the American peoples life.

    December 4, 2010 at 2:27 pm |
  2. tecloy

    God those Reps are evil they live in a world of the super rich they know nothing of the unemployed they want the unemployed to work for their rich companies for 2 $ an hr, like in China or India. The Reps are terrorist like to the unemployed they only care for the RICH. They never see eat meet or live near by the non rich. There will be a class war coming it is brewing now. The Reps got elected because folks were so mad the Banks were helped but the ordinary folks got NO help. That is what dissed the voters.

    December 4, 2010 at 1:44 pm |
  3. Vonda

    Could the Republican Party and newly elected Republican Party please explain why they chose not to at least extend tax cuts for the poor and middle class Americans? Does the wealthy really need the tax cuts extended for them? Our country needs to reduce the defecit, tax cuts for the wealthy would greatly help. Explain!

    December 4, 2010 at 12:03 pm |
  4. Carol Galbert

    I am VERY concerned that our representatives appear to be totally occupied/focused on the tax breaks for those folks who have very lucrative, sometimes not earned, incomes and not concentrating on those folks who have NO income and are relying on unemployment money to help them feed their families and pay some bills ie: heat, food, electricity and other basic necetities not luxuries. This is a digrace to our country and aligns us with 3rd world countries who do not notice those who do not have their basic needs met. Look up Abraham Maslow, an old psychologist, who formed a triangle that displayed the basic and life needs for humans and concentrate on the 1st level that currently we as a suppose civilized country are ignoring by not considering the unemployed. I wish you well Carol A Galbert,RN,MA,LPC,NCC,MAC

    December 4, 2010 at 12:00 pm |
  5. Jeanne

    As you head out to do your Holiday shopping for friends and family who already have more then enough... Reach out for once in your lives and do something for those that are visibly living in poverty. Do something significant in life. There are people in your community seriously suffering... HELP THEM!

    December 4, 2010 at 11:44 am |
  6. Kim Doyle Wille

    While CNN is at the top of my list for doing a good job of coverage of the RESULTS of epic unemployment, the remainder of U.S. media are doing a pathetic job. We are reminded of the Great Depression by the images imprinted on our brains because the media lens was on We, the people, NOT on news driven by polls, rhetoric between talk show hosts and our elected officials.

    54 MILLION people are flocking to America's food banks daily, 17.2 million of them children. Food banks and homeless shelters are overwhelmed and many are closing due to lack of financial and food resources to meet the demand. Perhaps we wouldn't be watching our elected leaders act so negligently if the lens were on the people and they could see daily, the misery their actions and/or inactions are creating for the unemployed. News took a steep decline when the recession began and so many local media outlets shut down, leaving the journalists that used to do all the groundwork for the big media, unemployed.

    It's time for the talking heads to return to true journalism, built on integrity and due diligence. The American public deserves the respect of the lens turned to them and the suffering and SOLUTIONS that are happening but going unreported, that could turn our country around if communities could see the ideas.

    December 4, 2010 at 10:18 am |
  7. waylon

    Only 25% of Americans approve of extending the Bush tax breaks. Republicans overwhelmingly won the recent elections. Our forefathers put a system in place to have the elected officals be the voice of the people. They were obviously alot smarter than us. We cant even take advantage of it. We are a nation of sheep! They were free thinkers! We are spoon fed bites of manipulation, with elections being nothing more than popularity contest void of substance! @ present time, Washington gets little done with a ton of schoolkid fighting! Instead of achieving greatness. WE HAVE BECOME GREAT AT THIS!!!

    December 4, 2010 at 9:35 am |
  8. Jo

    Pardon my gaff. I just realized that my 2:32pm comment said $106.3 Billion over 4 years if the DREAM Act passes. I should have said, "So how is it that we can even consider doling out, yes dole, an estimated $553.5 Billion dollars over 9 years (incredibly conservative since the projected cost by 2020 alone is $106.3 Billion) for non-citizens and right now seriously considering not extending unemployment for tax payers???? Some politician please enlighten me because I'm going to be voting again in 2012. Thanks." Again, sorry for the gaff, it's been a rough day.

    December 4, 2010 at 2:50 am |
  9. Jo

    I find it hard to believe that any politician, D or R, can keep a straight face when discussing the possibility of not extending unemployment benefits to citizens and yet entertain passing the Dream Act which is, assuming no fraud, conservatively estimated that 1.03 million illegal immigrants would eventually enroll in public institutions (state universities or community colleges) as a result of passage of the DREAM Act, subsidized by the rest of us according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

    According to FAIR (the Federation for American Immigration Reform) estimates the current local (that's where we actually live people) annual costs of illegal immigration from just three program areas — educating the children in public primary and secondary schools, providing medical services in emergency rooms, and incarceration — would amount to about $36 billion. If the population of foreign low wage workers is allowed to increase as a result of not effectively denying new illegal immigrants access American jobs, current illegal immigrants are allowed to stay and bring their relatives to join them, and additional low wage workers are allowed into the country in a new guest worker program the costs to local communities will increase. FAIR estimates the annual fiscal costs in 2010 would increase by nearly 70 percent to $61.5 billion for just these same three program areas. The amount would swell by an additional nearly 73 percent to $106.3 billion by 2020.

    So how is it that we can even consider doling out, yes dole, an estimated $106.3 Billion dollars over 4 years for non-citizens and right now seriously considering not extending unemployment for tax payers???? Some politician please enlighten me because I'm going to be voting again in 2012. Thanks.

    December 4, 2010 at 2:32 am |
  10. Sam Daniels

    If the Bush's tax cut for the rich suppose to create jobs, Why it has not created any jobs for ten years, eight yrs under Bush and two yrs Under President Obama. Let's deal with reality!

    December 4, 2010 at 2:29 am |
  11. Calvin Henderson

    This is all a big political game.. A meanuvering of those that has over those that have not.. at the expense of hard working blue-collar Americans who are fighting to survive on a daily basis.. Isnt the crime rate high enough due to the struggles of this ecomomy? What do you want, total anarchy? Its time to stop the games- get together, Elected Officials and lets get this unemployment issue resolved.. Our kids are waiting for you.

    December 4, 2010 at 2:23 am |
  12. elisabeth Montgomery

    Its getting really tiring having the so-called face off dialogues between obvious conservative and liberal pundits. Can't we get some real facts going about the 250,000 tax bracket? Is that tax on profits? Most small businesses I know (I am one) will have a lot of deductions and if they have 250,000 in profits, shouldn't they pay their tazes? No one on CNN is taking this issue and making it serious journalism. Stop throwing talking heads against talking heads: its nonsense. Sorry I love you guys.

    December 4, 2010 at 2:19 am |
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