Thursday, October 06, 2011

Republicans Kill the Jobs Bill

Ezra Klein wrote The jobs bill is dead "It's not much of a surprise, I guess. The American Jobs Act never had a particularly good chance of passing the House. But as of yesterday, it's officially dead. Majority Leader Eric Cantor isn't even pretending the two sides will work something out. "The $447 billion jobs package as a package: dead?" A reporter asked him. "Yes," Cantor replied."

"It's possible, of course, that the administration decided that this is all a moot point, and there is no political strategy right now that wil lead to a serious agreement on jobs spending with Cantor and his members. It's possible that everything is going exactly according to the administration's plan and they're putting the finishing touches on a Truman-like campaign against a do-nothing, block-everything Congress. But if so, that's quite a statement about how much help the American people can expect from the federal government in the face of a weakening economy and a possible double-dip recession. More evidence, I guess, for the thesis that the politicians who will decide America's presidential election all reside in Europe, if only because they're the politicians who are actually making decisions that will affect the global economy."

Jonathan Cohn calls out Eric Cantor and His Dysfunctional House. "According to Talking Points Memo, Cantor said “I think at this point Washington has become so dysfunctional that we’ve got to start focusing on the incremental progress we can make.”

Washington has become so dysfunctional. Yes it has. And why is it that, Mr. Majority Leader? Could it have something to do with the party that uses the filibuster as a matter of routine, imposing a super-majority requirement on all legislation and blocking even uncontroversial presidential nominees from coming to a vote? Could it have something to do with party that decided to play chicken with the country’s credit limit, a virtually unprecedented move that caused real harm to the economy? Could it have something to do with the party that turned down ridiculously lopsided compromises -- lopsided in its favor -- because it holds an absolutist position on taxes that would decimate the welfare state?"

Steve Benen adds Cantor's ironic cries about dysfunction, "Making matters slightly worse, Jason Zengerle has a new profile of the oft-confused Republican, and Cantor told him the message he’s shared with his caucus: “[W]e are in essence a blocking minority in Washington,” he told me. “We control half of one-third of government, and so we can for sure block bad things from happening legislatively"

Bruce Bartlett (from the Reagan and Bush I administrations) shreds the Republican spouted idea that government regulation is the problem, Misrepresentations, Regulations and Jobs. "The table below presents the bureau’s data. As one can see, the number of layoffs nationwide caused by government regulation is minuscule and shows no evidence of getting worse during the Obama administration. Lack of demand for business products and services is vastly more important."

David Frum (Bush IIs speech writer) wrote in What Romney Gets Right, "On the most urgent economic issue of the day – recovery from the Great Recession – the Republican consensus is seriously wrong." He goes on to list a bakers dozen including "It is wrong in its call for monetary tightening. It is wrong to demand immediate debt reduction rather than wait until after the economy recovers. It is wrong to deny that “we have a revenue problem.” It is wrong in worrying too much about (non-existent) inflation and disregarding the (very real) threat of a second slump into recession and deflation."

But really, we know the Republican talking points are just bullshit. They just want Obama to lose and they don't care about what happens to the economy or the country. Steve Benen describes how the Senate GOP plays silly stunt on jobs bill. "In reality, McConnell thought he was playing a fun little game. He knows Senate Democrats aren’t united on the American Jobs Act, so he figured if he could force a vote, there would be bipartisan opposition, which Republicans could then use against the White House. If Harry Reid blocked the move, McConnell could get a few cheap laughs by saying Dems blocked a vote on the president’s jobs bill. “Honoring” a presidential request was the furthest thing from McConnell’s mind. But even this stunt wasn’t quite what it appeared to be. For one thing, McConnell wasn’t trying to bring the jobs bill to the floor, he was trying to tack the entire package on as an amendment to a bill on Chinese currency manipulation. For another, McConnell swore up and down yesterday he wanted a vote on the American Jobs Act, but Republicans were still going to filibuster — he wasn’t calling for a vote on the bill, he was calling for an opportunity for the GOP to obstruct a vote on the bill."

Maybe there's hope. Suzy Khimm writes House Republican: Grover Norquist ‘is paralyzing Congress’. "Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is one of just six Republican in Congress who haven’t signed Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge. On the House floor Tuesday, he attacked Norquist for single-handedly enforcing this hard line within the GOP, creating a destructive impasse in the legislative process. “Everything must be on the table and I believe how the ‘pledge’ is interpreted and enforced by Mr. Norquist is a roadblock to realistically reforming our tax code,” Wolf said. “Have we really reached a point where one person’s demand for ideological purity is paralyzing Congress to the point that even a discussion of tax reform is viewed as breaking a no-tax pledge?”"

Maybe some Republican will come to their senses. But I wouldn't bet on it. I'm hoping that maybe OccupyWallStreet might be the start of something.

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