Republicans Have a Plan
The Republican Party, whose favorite slogan is Obama is a Muslim America First, has finally delivered on its campaign promise to focus like a laser beam on jobs, jobs, jobs. How nice of them. They have released a multipage report (well, the print is very big) entitled The House Republican Plan For America's Job Creators...Empowering Families, Small Businesses and Enterpreneurs, and let me tell you, in its seriousness as a guide to the future it is fully up to previous Republican efforts along these lines.
But let me not speak for them. Green Eagle has carefully extracted from this document every single sentence that could be regarded as presenting a concrete proposal, and here it is:
I.e. making it essentially impossible to impose any regulation whatsoever on corporations
I.e. tax cuts for the rich
I.e. rewarding American corporations for moving our jobs to third world countries.
I.e. doing even more to encourage American corporations to move our jobs to third world countries.
I.e. allow corporations to steal ideas from inventors without fear of legal reprisals.
I.e. while we scream about illegal immigrants, we will see to it that businesses are free to bring in as many as they want if it helps them lower wages.
I.e.- no government medical care, but large subsidies for pharmaceutical companies
I.e. drill wherever you want, baby, and to hell with the environment.
By destroying medicare and Social Security.
Well, there you have it. I promise- you have now read every single word of concrete proposal in this sick "jobs" plan. Remember this when, in the coming months, you hear the press and the wise and noble Washington pundits praising this cynical document as a courageous, constructive step toward dealing with the country's problems, and pretending that another round of theft by the rich is a perfect solution for this country's problems.
Update: And here's a perfect example already. From the Washington Post, this headline:
It is embarrassingly obvious that the GOP plan is not a "plan for job growth," but the same old giveaway to the hyper-rich that they have been promoting since they drove Teddy Roosevelt out of the party, this time with a title that speciously claims to be about jobs. But we get this grotesque false equivalence rather than a headline like "Obama unveils plan for job growth while GOP once again serves the wealthy;" which would have the advantage of being true. They know this perfectly well at the Washington Post, but they are still willing to participate in the Republican lying, regardless of the cost to the country. And this is what passes for news in America today.
But let me not speak for them. Green Eagle has carefully extracted from this document every single sentence that could be regarded as presenting a concrete proposal, and here it is:
"In order to ease the regulatory burden on the economy and to promote job creation, we will approve legislation that requires a congressional review and approval of any proposed federal government regulation that will have a significant impact on the economy."
"We will set the top tax rates at no more than 25% for job creating businesses."
"Congress should also reform the tax code to allow worldwide American companies to bring back their overseas profits without being subject to double taxation so they can invest in our economy."
"We will pass three pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. This will be a shot in the arm for businesses small and large and will create jobs."
I.e. doing even more to encourage American corporations to move our jobs to third world countries.
"We will modernize and improve the patent system to discourage frivolous lawsuits, expedite reviews, and provide better protection for job creating entrepreneurs."
I.e. allow corporations to steal ideas from inventors without fear of legal reprisals.
"After a systematic review of our visa system, the Congress should undertake prudent reforms. The House Judiciary Committee is reviewing our visa system to determine the needs of American employers."
"There are two major programs that must be reauthorized next year by Congress to improve the FDA approval process: the prescription drug user fee program and the medical device user fee program. Under these two programs, the FDA collects funds from industry to help expedite the drug and device approval process."
I.e.- no government medical care, but large subsidies for pharmaceutical companies
"House Republicans are taking immediate action through our American Energy Initiative by passing bipartisan legislation to expand energy exploration and production."
"We will work to control the federal deficit"
Well, there you have it. I promise- you have now read every single word of concrete proposal in this sick "jobs" plan. Remember this when, in the coming months, you hear the press and the wise and noble Washington pundits praising this cynical document as a courageous, constructive step toward dealing with the country's problems, and pretending that another round of theft by the rich is a perfect solution for this country's problems.
Update: And here's a perfect example already. From the Washington Post, this headline:
"Obama, GOP unveil competing plans for job growth"
It is embarrassingly obvious that the GOP plan is not a "plan for job growth," but the same old giveaway to the hyper-rich that they have been promoting since they drove Teddy Roosevelt out of the party, this time with a title that speciously claims to be about jobs. But we get this grotesque false equivalence rather than a headline like "Obama unveils plan for job growth while GOP once again serves the wealthy;" which would have the advantage of being true. They know this perfectly well at the Washington Post, but they are still willing to participate in the Republican lying, regardless of the cost to the country. And this is what passes for news in America today.
Comments
Destroying education, so no one can reason anymore. What else?
May 27, 2011, 2:32 AM
No Ideas
Ezra Klein points us to the House GOP’s rather pitiful jobs manifesto. Ezra describes it as “now more than ever”: the GOP’s response to the employment crisis is to demand exactly the same things it demands when the economy is doing well.
Actually, the same is true of the Ryan plan: when the GOP claimed that deficits don’t matter, it called for privatizing major social insurance programs while cutting taxes on the rich, and now that it claims to be deeply concerned about deficits, it calls for privatizing major social insurance programs while cutting taxes on the rich.
This is a major asymmetry: people on the other side really do offer different prescriptions for different problems. I’m often accused of inconsistency for warning about deficits back in 2003 while favoring continuing deficits now — but the point is that these were responses to different issues. The Bush tax cuts were intended to be permanent — so they were designed to increase deficits even when the economy was at more or less full employment. This was a bad thing. By contrast, deficits are helpful when the economy is depressed and in a liquidity trap, as it is now.
Anyway, the new “jobs plan” illustrates, once again, the foolishness of believing that we can reach any real bipartisan agreement on economic policy. The GOP stopped thinking a long time ago; all it knows how to do is parrot Reaganite rhetoric over and over. And there’s so little there there that the document — look at it! — has to rely on extra-large type and lots of pointless pictures to bulk it out even to 10 pages.
Of course, it's all pissing in the wind.