Joni Ernst: “The rise of China as a strategic competitor to the United States presents an array of challenges to our national…”

From the fields in Iowa to the battlefields in Iraq, I have worked my entire life. Unlike most of my colleagues in the Senate, I am not a millionaire. I know what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck.

Because unemployment programs are funded primarily by taxing employers, this federal mandate is effectively a reverse Robin Hood tax that takes from struggling small businesses to give to the idle rich and self-sufficient.

In 2024 alone, 10,100 million-dollar earners received nearly $97.4 million in unemployment compensation. That amounts to each being paid $9,650, roughly the cost of a new Rolex watch.

While government boondoggles abound, the term is now officially in the law books for the first time. No politician wants their prized pet project to carry that label, but now there's no escaping it.