In 2020 Lindsey Graham is facing off with Democrat nominee Jamie Harrison.  Unlike previous challengers Graham has faced, Harrison has shown that he can raise money – lots of money. 

Talking season, as Coach Spurrier used to call the run-up time to the start of the college football season, has officially begun in South Carolina.  Except its politician talking season with no college football in sight thanks to the strangest of viruses that we call COVID-19.  With 113 days left until the Tuesday, November 3, 2020 elections, politicians and PAC’s are already blitzing the airways, television screens, and cyberspace with political ads.  Back-to-back, one ad runs for the democrat, the next ad is for a republican.  Millions and millions of dollars will be spent in South Carolina to keep the 1st Congressional District blue.  And millions and millions of dollars will be spent to flip the 1st, and elect Republican nominee Nancy Mace to represent the 1st District of South Carolina in the United States House of Representatives.  

Most people following the 1st Congressional District race in South Carolina expect a close race, with challenger Nancy Mace being the slight favorite.  Congressman Joe Cunningham is well funded though with liberal, out-of-state money – an indication that the DNC has no intention of conceding this race.  Not only do democrats think they can keep the 1st District blue, they believe they can knock off Senator Lindsey Graham and gain a senate seat too. 

Graham has served as a United States Senator since 2003.  He has been challenged by some viable republican candidates over the years during the republican party primary election, but has not had much of a fight from the democrat side of the ticket.  This year is different.  In 2020 Graham is facing off with Democrat nominee Jamie Harrison.  Unlike previous challengers Graham has faced, Harrison has shown that he can raise money – lots of money. 

And Harrison is well connected within the liberal establishment.  Democrats that are considered large donors within the party are becoming convinced that Harrison is a viable candidate that could defeat Lindsey Graham – if only they can convince South Carolina voters that the ‘D’ by his name stands for ‘determined’ instead of ‘democrat’.  This strategy worked for Joe Cunningham in 2018.  The DNC and liberal PAC’s have embraced the strategy of ‘people over party’ rhetoric to win in South Carolina. 

I have asked the Cunningham campaign why he is a democrat three times over the last six months.  There has been no response from the Cunningham team.  They don’t want to talk about the ‘D’ and neither does the Harrison campaign.  For instance, the political ad Harrison is running right now makes no mention of his party and ideological affiliations.   Instead, Harrison is banking on convincing South Carolina voters that Senator Graham doesn’t care about them. 

Harrison has taken aim at Graham for saying in April 2020 that re-authorization of the unemployment benefits would get passed “over our dead bodies”.  Senator Graham was referring to the extra $600 per week that was part of the $2.2 trillion Cares Act, and not all unemployment.  In March 2020 when the U.S. Senate was debating whether the extra $600 per week on top of the normal unemployment amount should be part of the CARES Act package, Graham and many other republican senators cautioned that recipients would be less likely to return to work because they would be receiving more money for not working than if they returned to their jobs.   All employees need to say is that they feel unsafe returning to work due to the COVID-19 virus, and they can ride the unemployment benefit out for 39 weeks!  Who wouldn’t do this?  Statistics indicate that only 32 percent of workers are willing to comeback to work to earn less money.

This pumped up unemployment benefit is making it hard on employers to ask employees to return to work.  They cannot compete with the money their employees are making for not working.  $600 per week equates to $15 per hour during a 40-hour work week.  If the employee was making $12.50 per hour at work ($500 per week based on 40-hours), in South Carolina the unemployment benefit would be $231 per week.  Add in the extra $600, and this recipient is receiving $831 per week to NOT work.  Jamie Harrison supports this boondoggle.  Senator Lindsey Graham doesn’t, and for good reason.  It is an economy disrupter.  It incentivizes not working.  It harms all businesses, but especially small businesses.  Clearly Jamie Harrison does not understand what role small businesses play in our national economy. 

Small business is the lifeblood of our economy.  It accounts for over 40 percent of our annual economic activity.  It is estimated that two-thirds on new jobs in the United States are created by small businesses.  Like most liberals, Jamie Harrison talks about growing the middle class and ending poverty.  He talks about livable wages while ignoring the variables.  He is trying to paint Graham as cold-hearted and out-of-touch for wanting to cut off a $600 weekly benefit that is harming the small-business employers that are creating jobs.  Harrison cannot see the hardship small businesses have endured during this pandemic.  Some will never recover.  Some have already closed their doors for good.  And the ones that have tried to reopen, even at half capacity, are having a difficult time getting their employees to come back to work.  The radical leftists, led by Congresswoman Pelosi and Senator Schumer, thought it was more important to score a point for their national $15 per hour mandatory minimum wage agenda than to listen to the sound prediction made by Senator Graham, and other republicans, that this scheme would have a harmful effect on businesses.

For reasons that most conservatives have never understood, liberals seem to view business, small to large, as a tax base instead of an employment base.  Liberals like Jamie Harrison ignore even the simplest economic principles found in our economy.  Like the social justice democrats, the vision of communes instead of companies must dance in his head.  Leftists want a larger take of profit, but you never hear them propose that employees share in any losses.    

The $600 extra in unemployment benefits needs to be left to expire on July 31, 2020.  And states need to tighten up their unemployment review process.  Unemployment benefits are being rewarded with few questions asked.  In South Carolina, employers are contesting certain former employees benefit requests because they quit or were terminated for stealing, insubordination, absenteeism, etc.  This time last year, these claims for unemployment benefits would have been contested and denied.  Today, these former employees are collecting benefits.  But it’s even worse than that in South Carolina.  There are people in South Carolina right now, who are working 30-40 hours per week, and are collecting unemployment benefits. 

Even after the unemployment office has been told that the individual had never been laid off or fired, the employee continues to get a pay check and an unemployment check.  It must be assumed that these unemployment offices are simply not staffed to handle this volume of benefit requests, let alone deal with hearings contesting claims.  This will ultimately harm the people that are gaming the system right now because when the dust settles, the government has no problem asking for its money back when it discovers a mistake was made.  Add penalties and interest too.  Most of the recipients that received these erroneous payments will certainly not have the money to pay back the government – so they will now be on the government hook for a very long time. 

So, who really cares about the workers and businesses in South Carolina – Senator Lindsey Graham or his democrat challenger Jamie Harrison?  Love him, hate him, or somewhere in between, Senator Lindsay Graham is right to fight against the renewal of the $600 per week additional unemployment benefit.  It’s bad for taxpayers and it’s bad for businesses.  If the government wants to give people an extra $600 per week, do so via a stimulus check not as an unemployment benefit.