The Week

Explaining his personal attacks on Mr. Reagan, the President said he got “carried away on a couple of occasions.” A lot of people think he ought to be, on every occasion.

The National Commission on Unemployment Compensation, headed by former HEW Secretary Wilbur Cohen, wants to raise the unemployment rate. The Commission recommended increasing unemployment benefits, indexing them to inflation, and removing them from the federal budget so they can’t ever be cut. To pay for all of this induced unemployment, the Commission wants a bigger employment tax on employers—just the thing to cause some real unemployment to go along with its proposal to make leisure free. After the Commission gets through extending coverage to babysitters who earn $200 a year, illegal aliens, and professional athletes during the off-season period, there won’t be anyone left working except the bureaucrats measuring the astronomical unemployment rate.

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Explaining his personal attacks on Mr. Reagan, the President said he got “carried away on a couple of occasions.” A lot of people think he ought to be, on every occasion.

The National Commission on Unemployment Compensation, headed by former HEW Secretary Wilbur Cohen, wants to raise the unemployment rate. The Commission recommended increasing unemployment benefits, indexing them to inflation, and removing them from the federal budget so they can’t ever be cut. To pay for all of this induced unemployment, the Commission wants a bigger employment tax on employers—just the thing to cause some real unemployment to go along with its proposal to make leisure free. After the Commission gets through extending coverage to babysitters who earn $200 a year, illegal aliens, and professional athletes during the off-season period, there won’t be anyone left working except the bureaucrats measuring the astronomical unemployment rate.