Republicans Sabotaging The Economy For Political Reasons, Obviously!

| ExtremeLiberal

From Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly, go read the whole thing, but these last couple of paragraphs were simply golden.

Republicans said a payroll tax cut would help create jobs, and now they’re opposed to their own idea. Republicans said the Economic Development Administration is great for the economy, and now they’re opposed to that, too. Republicans have traditionally supported infrastructure investment, but the “infrastructure bank” idea appears likely to be killed by the GOP. Many Republicans endorsed the TANF Emergency Fund last year as an incredibly effective method of lowering unemployment, and the congressional GOP killed that, too.

Republicans are blocking qualified Treasury Department nominees who could also be working on economic policy. Republicans are blocking qualified Federal Reserve nominees who could also help improve the economy, while demanding that the Fed do nothing to promote economic activity. The GOP is demanding that Congress and the White House agree to immediately take money out of the economy and eliminate public-sector jobs, even when conservative economists say that’s crazy. What’s more, these same Republican officials have made it abundantly clear that failure to give them the cuts they want would force them to crash the economy on purpose.

And it’s against this backdrop that one of the most powerful Republican officials on Capitol Hill has argued, more than once, that his “top priority” isn’t job creation, but rather, “denying President Obama a second term in office.”

This is a conversation worth having.

4 thoughts on “Republicans Sabotaging The Economy For Political Reasons, Obviously!”

  1. I swear to God, EL, Republicans make me fucking sick. They are the poster children of hypocrisy. They talk about things that might help our situation, but then they realize they would have to spend money, and they retract their statements. Whatever keeps money in THEIR pockets. I still don’t understand why they have made no efforts to better the nation’s economy, but they have made EVERY effort to antagonize President Obama and derail his every proposal. Is it just politics… or is it blatant racism?

  2. Just like a bunch of termites, Republicans are being successful eating away at Roe v Wade with hundreds of smaller local laws. Now in Congress the REICH is trying to eat away at anything President Obama promoted and helped to pass in the previous Democratic Congress.

    Wary of attempting to dismantle the entire statute [Obama’s financial overhaul law] and being portrayed as Wall Street’s allies — banks are among the nation’s most unpopular institutions – GOP lawmakers are attacking corners of it. They can’t prevail because they don’t control the White House or Senate, but they may be able to force some compromises on agency budgets, pressure regulators and influence some of Obama’s nominations.

    “It’s mostly setting a marker for the [next] election. And it helps with their campaign contributions,” said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who chaired the Financial Services Committee last year and was a chief author of the law. “But it also tells people in the financial community that if they win the next election, they’ll be able to undo it all.”

    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7640774.html

  3. America is FAILING….hip, hip, hooray! The cheers are heard coming from the “uber-patriotic REICH” starting with Rush Limbaugh the day after Obama’s inauguration. This “hate America” rhetoric was ratcheted up today by Republicans after the release of the June Jobs Report:

    Appearing on CNBC this morning, presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was asked about today’s dismal jobs report and whether higher unemployment rates might help her chances of winning in 2012. “Does it strike you that as the unemployment rate goes up, your chances of winning office also go up?” host Carl Quintanilla asked. “Well, that could be. Again, I hope so,” Bachmann replied.

    Millionaires are mostly doing GREAT with corporate profits and the stock market improving greatly under Obama so why should they have to worry about poor people?

    BTW, the big story in Houston is the Texas Child Protective Services taking away 6 children from a black family here because they were living in a 12×25 foot storage shed as they couldn’t afford an apartment! The children were clean, well-behaved, attending school where they were all making at least “B’s” in their classes. They were actually living better than hundreds of millions around the world, including many here in the USA. They had electricity, heat and air-conditioning, a compost toilet. They had a 55 gallon drum with city drinking water. The storage lot is a “gated” complex surrounded by razor wire so the parents felt they were providing a safer environment than can be found in many communities here with high crime and drive-by shootings! The manager of the storage complex knew they were there.

    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/side/7644302.html

  4. The Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland outraged Republicans at the National Governors Association meeting this past week. O’Malley said:

    “I think that there is an extreme wing within their [GOP] party who have as their primary goal not the jobs recovery, but the defeat of President Obama in 2012. They know that their formulations, their policies of less revenues and less regulation badly failed our country and plunged us into this recession. So their only way of evening the playing field is to keep the president from being successful in the jobs recovery. Through their intransigence, [the GOP Congress/Senate] cleverly set up a situation for America’s economy to fail, either by needlessly driving us to default, or needlessly driving us into massive public sector layoffs. I think that they are disgracefully cynical.”

    The Congress is full of millionaires who in reality have been doing well with Wall Street investments rebounding UNDER OBAMA and they can survive another two years. So many Republican politicians and their supporters could care less if millions of Americans have to put up with few more years of suffering. Just this weekend, Forbes revealed that Houston, with its vast oil/gas centered economy, has the most millionaires in the nation, nearly 97,000, and that number is UP nearly 10% over the past year (under Obama!). This millionaire survey is within city limits which may be a reason that Chicago is not as highly ranked since most of their wealthy live in the northern and western suburbs. In order, L.A., N.Y.C., D.C., and Boston round out the Top 5. Surprising is that so many millionaires are in D.C., a city with many poor minorities and which is surrounded by the most wealthy suburbs of Maryland and Virginia. So who are the millionaires in Washington? Politicians and lobbyists perhaps as D.C. hasn’t much other industry or business.

Leave a reply to grantinhouston