Indy Week asks "Where's McCrory?" in debate on unemployment benefits

On whose side will Governor stand?

Pat McCrory has yet to comment publicly on a radical proposal to cut unemployment benefits in North Carolina since that bill was voted out of a state house committee last week.

This week reporter Bob Geary covered the proposal, a scheme to pay off on the backs of jobless workers debt that was created by years of business tax cuts, for Indy Week:

"The bill (so far unnumbered) is described by George Wentworth, senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project, as a "parade of horribles," meaning that it encapsulates the worst anti-worker provisions ever dreamed up in any state.

"It's been denounced by the state AFL-CIO, the N.C Justice Center and other progressive and labor groups.

"The point is, if McCrory heard only one side of the unemployment insurance story before, then he's hearing the other side now. It should give him more than pause. The question is, will it? Will our Republican governor push back against this one-sided measure that seeks to punish the jobless to save their former employers some coins? Or will he give the bill the old olé—from ignorance or a lack of spine to tell other Republicans they've gone too far?" -- Indy Week, 1/16/13

The bill is likely to be one of the first orders of business when the state legislature reconvenes at the end of this month. If Governor McCrory is going to put the brakes on a plan that would not only inflict permanent pain on jobless workers but threaten our state's economic recovery, now is the time for him to speak up.

Read the rest of the story at http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/where-is-mccrory-on-a-bill-to-cut-unemployment-benefits/Content?oid=3244688.