Unemployed Furious at Contrarian Govs

Opposing the stimulus’ expansion of unemployment benefits may be good PR, but there’s one constituency it’s not playing well with: unemployed people. “It just seems unreasonable,” one jobless Texan tells the New York Times, “that when people probably need the help the most, that because of partisan activity … [Gov. Rick] Perry is willing to sacrifice the lives of so many Texans.”

The stimulus includes $7 billion to expand unemployment benefits, eliminating arcane rules that sometimes deny people coverage. But even those who are already covered worry that rejecting the cash—as governors of nine states have threatened—might affect them. “I don’t understand the whole thing,” said one unemployed woman from South Carolina, where Gov. Mark Sanford is considering a thanks-but-no-thanks. “Apparently because he has money and he doesn’t have to worry about everybody else who doesn’t.” (More unemployment stories.)