Because that worked so well with Mexico paying for Trump's wall:

Walker voted last week for the unprecedented relief package, known as the CARES Act. The legislation’s scope includes direct one-time payments to Americans, financial assistance to struggling businesses, larger unemployment benefits and aid to health care providers.

Before the vote last week, Walker tweeted that he wants the U.S. government to pass along the costs to their Chinese counterparts. “China’s lack of transparency created this. Now we are asking American taxpayers to foot the bill?” wrote Walker in his tweet.

Even if we hadn't been in a complex and unnecessary trade war with China for the last year or more this would be a stupid idea. But with that in the picture, it's both moronic and delusional. Trump has pissed away any leverage we might have had to push such a policy, and we'd be lucky if China merely laughed at us for making such a demand. They actually hold over $1 Trillion in U.S. debt, and if they decided to sell those Treasury bonds off, it could cost us much more than just a Trillion:

Somewhere between a blessing and a curse:

Bright spot from today: @MarkMeadows is no longer a sitting member of Congress. One less racist, one less xenophobe, one less ideologue casting votes. #ncpol

— Lorcan Neill (@LorcanCNeill) March 31, 2020

Unfortunately, this just means he now has his hands on Cabinet agencies. If anybody could fuck up this administration more than Trump, it's Meadows...

The NC GOP should be ashamed when articles like this are published:

Because it’s administered by the states, the generosity of UI varies widely. Most states offer up to 26 weeks of UI, but some offer far less: Florida and North Carolina offer only 12 weeks currently, though their generosity increases with the state unemployment rate. Missouri offers only 13 weeks per statute, a number that doesn’t increase with the unemployment rate.

There’s similarly large variance in the recipiency rate — the share of unemployed people getting UI — and benefit size as a share of the average weekly wage. The highest recipiency rate is in Massachusetts, where 57 percent of unemployed people get benefits. In North Carolina, only 10 percent do.

Get that? Only one out of every ten unemployed North Carolinians receive benefits, which means they are out of work a hell of a lot longer than the paltry 12 weeks we offer. Said differently, the draconian measures Republicans enacted 7 years ago are not pushing people back to work, they are pushing families out of their homes. But that 2013 bill did something else, too, which was beyond idiotic:

Hat-tip to Rick Glazier and MaryBe McMillan:

In 2013, the North Carolina General Assembly and then-Gov. Pat McCrory approved House Bill 4 with the stated objective of bringing solvency to the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which is funded by taxes on employers and pays unemployment benefits to laid-off workers.

Ultimately, the bill achieved solvency for the trust fund, but only by permanently cutting the amount, duration, and eligibility for benefits for all unemployed workers. All told, the changes enacted in North Carolina amounted to the most severe cuts ever enacted by any state during the 80-plus-year history of American unemployment insurance. At the time, legislators claimed that when the trust fund was solvent, these draconian cuts would be revisited. That time has clearly arrived.

How many North Carolinians have lost their homes since this draconian policy was enacted? How many families have been ripped apart? How many suicides? Republicans in the General Assembly won't be asking those questions, but somebody needs to. We rate our education system by how well it stacks up against other states, and elected officials (from both parties) love to brag about our business climate rankings. But what about workers? Unemployment is not driven by worker behavior; it is driven by business trends, mergers and acquisitions, decisions made in corporate boardrooms often in other states or countries. Those workers produced the profits (and state revenues) diligently, and they deserve better compensation than $264 a week for 8 weeks: