Don't Quit Your Day Job…

Unemployment benefits are back in the news: Senator Jim Bunning held up a $10 billion bill in the Senate because he felt it didn’t hold to the pay-as-you-go laws passed earlier this year (the law apparently doesn’t apply because of a technicality; the subjects of the bill were said to be ‘emergency provisions’). Unluckily for the senator, the provisions of the bill happened to concern the extension of unemployment benefits and the implementation of the so-called ‘Doctor Fix’ (preventing the pay cuts to doctors from Medicare). Even stranger to many politicians was the defense from Minority Whip Jon Kyl from Arizona stating that “… if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.” Unemployment benefits preventing the unemployed from seeking work? Blasphemy!

Alot of noise has been made about how the United States won a majority (20) of their Olympic medals in events that didn’t exist the last time the Winter Games were held in Canada (1988, Calgary).  Hopefully this point has been thoroughly dismissed by sites such as FiveThirtyEight.  However, another valid point can be raised [...]

For today, here’s a link to an article about the tax-exempt status of the United States Olympic Committee. Fresh off the American medal count win from the 2010 Winter Olympics (I’ll follow up with some numbers this week!), this is sure to cause some controversy – as the laws granting tax-exempt status are supposed to apply to amateur athletic organizations. The Olympics have become anything but an amateur event; witness the big team sports like basketball and hockey which field players from leagues like the National Basketball League and the National Hockey League. All of this might be under the spotlight soon if the USOC starts to ask the government for direct support.