I knew the Republicans didn’t care about job creation. I knew they didn’t give a damn about the unemployed. I knew they wanted to turn the US of A into a third world country where the rich hold all the power, pull all the strings and the rest if us take what paltry wages and health care and social security they let us have and shut up about it so their “beautiful minds” wouldn’t be disturbed by any rude, grumbling noises from the peons and wage slaves who worked to make their lives better while they played golf or vacationed at resorts with the Koch Brothers.
I just never thought that the Republican Speaker of the House, the most powerful Republican Politician in the country (theoretically) would openly admit he doesn’t care at all if more jobs are lost because he wants to eliminate any part of the federal budget not dedicated to helping multinational corporations or his rich friends.
But he did, on the record. And he shed no tears about it either when he basically told the all Americans “so be it” if his massive budget cuts and refusal to even consider tax increases on the wealthiest Americans led to more lost jobs and higher unemployment:
If House Republicans succeed in cutting tens of billions of dollars in discretionary spending over the next six months, some of the most immediate victims will be federal employees, many of whose jobs will be slashed as their agencies pare back.
At a press conference in the lobby of RNC headquarters Tuesday morning, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) shrugged this off as collateral damage.
“In the last two years, under President Obama, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs,” Boehner said. “If some of those jobs are lost so be it. We’re broke.”
Hey Mr. Speaker. How do you turn a Great Recession into a Depression? It’s easy: you put more people out of work and you pay the ones that are left less and less and less. This was the same man who campaigned on the slogan “Where are the Jobs?” last year (from October 18, 2010).
(cont.)
Republicans have made House GOP Leader John Boehner’s refrain of “Where are the jobs?” into a central theme of the campaign, the Ohio lawmaker’s office claimed Monday. […]
“It has now been 20 months since President Obama signed the ‘stimulus’ into law amid promises it would create jobs ‘immediately’ and keep unemployment below 8 percent,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel, who also pointed to the continually high unemployment rate since then.
“Americans are still asking, ‘Where are the jobs?’ and as this video shows, Washington Democrats still have no answers,” Steel added.
The same man who said this after the GOP took control of the House of Representatives on Election Night:
With their voices and their votes, the American people are demanding a new way forward in Washington. And I’m here tonight to tell you that our new majority will be prepared to do things differently… to take a new approach that hasn’t been tried before in Washington – by either party.
* It starts with cutting spending instead of increasing it.
* Reducing the size of government instead of expanding it.
* Reforming the way Congress works and giving government back to the people.
* And for all those families asking ‘where are the jobs?,’ it means ending the uncertainty in our economy and helping small businesses get people back to work.
The people’s priorities will be our priorities. The people’s agenda will be our agenda. This is our Pledge to America … this is our pledge to you!
Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/11/03/34885/#ixzz1E78RHsUx
I guess extending tax breaks for the wealthiest people in America, which worked oh so well during the great jobless recovery of the Bush years, and cutting the Federal Budget (except for the military of course) was a bigger priority than job creation.
You know what creates jobs, Mr. Boehner? Demand for goods and services, not tax cuts.
The Obama stimulus created jobs, but not enough jobs and not fast enough. The charges from the Republican right are clearly wrong. Even most serious conservative economists who did not like the stimulus agree it created some jobs, and more jobs than would have been created without it.
The economic advocates who were the most clearly right, in retrospect, were Democratic liberal and populist economists who favored a larger and stronger stimulus, more job-creating public works in a larger overall stimulus and far stronger reform of financial institutions.
No jobs – no money. No money – no demand:
My view is that the record clearly shows that Stiglitz, Krugman, Johnson and Reich were far more correct than others in forecasting what would happen, and I dare anyone to quote their forecasts and debate me about where they were wrong.
The right may not like this, and the Democrats may fear to defend this, but Keynes was largely right. Employing more workers and stimulating more demand creates growth and jobs.
Trickle-down economics creates more wealth at the very top. What trickles down economically to the rest of the nation is pain, not prosperity. What trickles up politically to the electeds is that the ins get voted out, and the outs get voted in.
We had the highest tax rates in the 1950’s and guess what? The economy boomed. We had the lowest tax cuts in the Bush era and guess what? Speculation on Wall Street drove the stock market up and housing prices up but it didn’t do a damn thing to create jobs for most Americans. And then the bubble burst, thanks to those deficit busting tax ci=uts and the failure to regulate an out of control Wall Street. That;s what destroyed our economy and dramatically increased unemployment.
And now, after bludgeoning President Obama and Democrats for two years about “Where are the jobs?” and promising to make job creation a priority this is your answer to the American People about cutting more jobs to make your corporate masters happy?
“If some of those jobs are lost so be it.”
Well you can take your “so be it” and shove it where the sun don’t shine you spray-tanned little weeping weasel. You are quickly on the way to becoming the worst Speaker of the House in years. Certainly you are already one of the most cynical and heartless SOBs I’ve seen grace our political stage in my lifetime.
