News Cut: April 5, 2011 Archive

Cravaack throws in with Ryan on budget plan

Posted at 11:12 AM on April 5, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

Eighth District Congressman Chip Cravaack has apparently signed on to Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's budget-cutting plan that constitutes the line in the sand some Republicans are drawing in Washington.

Ryan unveiled his proposal in a Wall Street Journal column this morning (and a very spiffy Web site here), calling for cuts in domestic spending, Social Security (it's called reform, however), welfare, Medicare, the health care law, alternative energy programs etc.

Says Ryan:

A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritage's analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.

It also says the unemployment rate will be 2.8% by the next decade. "It's an assumption, in other words, that's unrealistic enough to be considered somewhat bizarre," The Economist says. "Everyone puts a positive spin on their policy proposals. But fundamentally worthy policies shouldn't need to promise laughably overoptimistic outcomes to win support."

For the record, the unemployment rate has only been that low once -- 1953.

The study is not from a non-partial source. It's from the Heritage Foundation, "whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."

The Economic Policy Institute leans in the other direction and -- funny -- has a different view:

"This budget is impressive in its ability to not only inflict maximum harm on the economy, but to concentrate that harm on those most in need," its director, John Irons, said today. "This will not only cost the economy hundreds of thousands (and perhaps millions) of jobs over the next five years, it will also destroy the social safety net and undermine policies that support the middle class."

It's just the kind of debate that demands the curmudgeonly hand of CNBC's Mark Haines

Employee mistake not enough to lose unemployment

Posted at 1:47 PM on April 5, 2011 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

Being fired for making an inadvertent mistake at work is not a reason for losing the right to unemployment benefits, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled today.

The court settled the case of Joan Dourney, who was fired from Panino's Restaurant in Shoreview, where she'd worked for 11 years, because she served alcohol to a minor (see update below). Dourney said she thought a woman, who was accompanying a man she knew was over 21, was old enough to drink.

Her boss ordered her to card the woman, Dourney removed the drink, and then she was fired. But the restaurant objected to her unemployment claim , saying she was guilty of employment misconduct and, therefore, ineligible for unemployment benefits.It appealed the unemployment claim that was approved by the state.

Today, the court said "even if a reasonable person would have carded the customer whom Dourney failed to card and Dourney's conduct could be considered negligent, (state law) expressly provides that inadvertence is not employment misconduct... Because Dourney's forgetting to card the customer was conduct marked by unintentional lack of care, the conduct was inadvertence." (Decision here)

The case, however, shows the extent to which a worker occasionally has to go to get unemployment

Update 10:29 a.m. 4/11 - The Department of Employment and Economic Development disputes two items in this post. Lee Nelson, an attorney for the department writes.

(1) The applicant, Joan Dourney, did not serve alcohol to a minor. A Department Unemployment Law Judge found, adn the Court of Appeals agreed on page six of its decision, that "We have no evidence that the individual was actually too young [to drink]." This would have been a very different case indeed had Dourney served a minor, and certainly a more sensational one, particular in light of the recent "Wally the Beer Man" verdict. But by all accounts the woman that Dourney served was at least 23 years old, and Dourney broke no law by serving her.

The "Wally the Beer Man" story is irrelevant to the context of the case regardless of whether Ms. Dourney did or did not serve a minor. The assertion that the woman was a minor was based on the reading that the server removed the drinks. I neglected to note that it was because the woman could not produce identification.

(2) Dourney was not involved in the case pending before the Court of Appeals. While Dourney was a seconday respondent, the Department was the primary responding party to the case under Minn. State. 268.1056 subd. 7(e), as unemployment benefits are paid from state funds. The Department drafted the brief defending Dourney's receipts of benefits, and argued the case in front of the Court of Appeals. Dourney played no role at all in this process. The "extent" wo which Dourney had to go to get benefits was actually quite minimal; a year ago she filled out the questionnaires that the Department sent to her, and participated in a brief telephone hearing before an Unemployment Law Judge.

The characterization of the difficulty an employee often has to go to get unemployment is based on the assertions of the establishment, not the work the Department has to go to at the Court of Appeals. The initial post stated, in fact, that the department approved her unemployment claim.