Cross-posted at Winning Progressive
As you probably heard, John Boehner (R-Tanning Salon) today released the Republicans’ “pledge” to inflict America with a warmed over version of the Bush Administration policies that drove our economy into the ditch. The plan has been widely panned, as demonstrated by these reviews that were collected by Speaker Pelosi’s office.
Nothing more really needs to be said about the pledge. But I did want to highlight one line that I found quite amusing coming from Republicans: “Rising joblessness, crushing debt, and a polarizing political environment are fraying the bonds among our people and blurring our sense of national purpose.”
Rising joblessness? That was caused by the Bush Recession and Republican opposition to any effort to overome it. The economy has actually been creating jobs recently (though not fast enough), as shown in this chart.
Crushing debt? Reagan and Bush both caused the debt to skyrocket and the Republicans want to add another $1.3 trillion to it for tax cuts for the wealthy elite.
A polarizing political environment? A party that is aligned with tea partiers and birthers really cannot talk about polarization, especially when they have rebuked every Democratic effort to reach across the aisle.
I did note that the Republican plan says “Draft” on it. I guess that means after the election they’ll add their plans to privatize Social Security and eliminate Medicare.