Former Rep. and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay thinks that he knows the cure to unemployment. Get rid of the benefits.

DeLay gave his nod of agreement to the claim that the “People are unemployed because they want to be.”

“There is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don’t look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out,” DeLay said.

Basically, DeLay is saying that the first run of unemployment checks is the only money someone needs to get a job. Extensions keep unemployment high.

That reasoning did not seem to work in the 1930’s when unemployment was beyond what we experience now. People were unemployed for years without a financial incentive to stay unemployed.

My guess is that DeLay has never taken an unemployment check and realized that it does not begin to cover all of a household’s expenses.