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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDrale
(7,932 posts)Grumpy Old People.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)Especially young governors who are taking their states in the wrong direction and who will be vying for the presidency in the coming years, and should they win, we're screwed.
Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, Scott Walker just to name a few.
And then there are a slew of "Paul Ryans" in the House.
Drale
(7,932 posts)act like Grump Old People so it still works.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)They are grumpy, belligerent, and bombastic.
And they're dangerous.
Lost-in-FL
(7,093 posts)Government Obstructionists Party.... too many choices.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)Well that's one that they surely are not ... a party of CHOICE.
(Unless you're Mitt, and then, to quote the late Sen. Kennedy, you're multiple choice.)
Response to Drale (Reply #1)
Festivito This message was self-deleted by its author.
Festivito
(13,452 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)Or just Evil for short.
Spirochete
(5,264 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)June 18, 2012
by Rmuse
It is now the lead-up to the 2012 General Election, and Speaker of the House John Boehner says the American people want to know; where are the jobs? It has been a year-and-a-half since Boehner and Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and besides not producing any jobs, Boehner has revealed himself to be the most incompetent House leader in recent memory.
In a rare bipartisan move, the Senate passed a highway and transportation bill that saves 1 million construction jobs and creates 2 million more, but led by Speaker John Boehner, the teabagger extremists in the House are failing to hold a vote on the transportation bill to keep unemployment numbers high and damage President Obamas re-election chances. What Republicans in the House did propose was an economically shortsighted bill that kills a half-a-million jobs next year alone. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, It defies imagination that the Republican leadership and chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee would turn their backs on the needs of our country and pretend it is good government. Even the ultra-conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce blasted the Republican version of the transportation bill as being devastating to construction and related industriesmaterials, equipment, design, engineering. As important, in the long run, disinvestment results in a less competitive economy and a drag on GDP due to underperforming infrastructure. In an even rarer letter to Rep. John Mica (R-FL), author of the Republican measure, two Democratic and two Republican representatives wrote, Reducing investment in Americas transportation system at this time will have a negative impact on the construction, engineering, manufacturing and materials companies which are already struggling with high unemployment. Transportation infrastructure is one of the most cost efficient and effective ways to reduce unemployment and stimulate the economy. Studies suggest that for every $1 billion spent on transportation projects more than 35,000 jobs are created.
The Senates transportation bill, worth $109 billion creates 3,815,000 construction jobs and yet, Republicans like Speaker John Boehner are asking; where are the jobs? They are sitting on your desk Speaker Boehner and you cannot see fit to hold a vote on helping the construction industry, the hardest hit by Bush-Republicans economic catastrophe, by creating over three-million construction jobs.
http://www.politicususa.com/john-boehner-deliberately-killing-3-million-construction-jobs.html
Dyedinthewoolliberal
(15,603 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)Erose999
(5,624 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)by Rmuse
June 14th, 2012
As a form of political warfare, sabotage varies from acts that require detailed planning utilizing specially trained operatives, to obstruction of legislation based on insignificant logical fallacies. Republicans planned to sabotage the economy on Inauguration Day 2009, and their specially trained operatives, congressional Republicans, deliberately placed obstacles to economic recovery as a means of portraying President Obama as ineffective at reversing the effects of the catastrophic Bush-Republican Great Recession. Subsequently, every measure the President and Democrats proposed to stimulate the economy and create jobs were held up or blocked by inserting unrelated amendments the Republicans knew Democrats would not accept, and their criminal hostage maneuvers preventing a more robust recovery that political observers have known for three years is finally recognized by American voters.
In a recent poll, 49% of all voters believe the Republicans are intentionally stalling efforts to jumpstart the economy to ensure that President Obama does not win re-election, and that includes 61% of moderates and 75% of liberals. Republicans telegraphed their agenda when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president, and not create jobs, help struggling Americans, or jumpstart the economy. True to his word, for a change, McConnell and his cohort blocked, obstructed, or added unrelated amendments to legislation Republicans normally support and would definitely hasten economic recovery, and their tactics as a governing strategy have retarded recovery and killed millions of Americans jobs.
In early March, in a rare bi-partisan move, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and James Inhofe (R-OK) collaborated on a transportation bill that will save 1.9 million construction jobs and create 1 million more. The bill will upgrade and repair the nations crumbling infrastructure that is crucial for business and Americans to move around the country. Now in the Republican-controlled House, the obstructionist Republicans are complicating passage of the bill by inserting extraneous issues to enrich a foreign oil company, U.S. refineries, and Speaker of the House John Boehner. The Keystone XL pipeline has become an obsession with Republicans whose priority is rewarding the oil industry, and effectively increase the price of gasoline at the pumps, jeopardize critical aquifer supplies, and employ 2,500 Canadian pipeline construction specialists. The benefit to the American people, the economy, and American jobs is negligible, if not non-existent, and besides moving dirty tar sands across environmentally fragile farmland, it redirects oil from the Midwest that will reduce supplies for Americans as Canadas refined oil is sold on the foreign market. There is no connection between the Keystone XL pipeline and the transportation bill except that Republicans are using it to obstruct 2.9 million Americans jobs unless Democrats join Republicans
For the past three-and-a-half years Republicans have gone all out to prevent President Obama from fixing the economic catastrophe they created, and their assault on Americans jobs is remarkable for the party that promised their highest priority after the 2010 midterm elections was jobs, jobs, jobs. Instead, they voted against, obstructed, or blocked measures like the stimulus that created well over 3.4 million jobs, all of the Presidents jobs bills, and worked to kill nearly 800,000 public sector jobs under the guise of creating jobs. Their entire focus has been sabotaging economic recovery ...
Read more:
http://www.politicususa.com/treasonous-republicans-stand-trial-sabotoging-american-economy.html
magnifisense
(285 posts)Especially the one with the Reagan reference. Clever!
napkinz
(17,199 posts)... anything Saint Ronnie says is sacrosanct.
magnifisense
(285 posts)Perhaps GOD would be a better name than GOP.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)[font size="4"]Did Republicans deliberately crash the US economy?[/font]
Be it ideology or stratagem, the GOP has blocked pro-growth policy and backed job-killing austerity all while blaming Obama
June 9, 2012
by Michael Cohen
In recent days, Democrats have started coming out and saying publicly what many have been mumbling privately for years Republicans are so intent on defeating President Obama for re-election that they are purposely sabotaging the country's economic recovery. These charges are now being levied by Democrats such as Senate majority leader Harry Reid and Obama's key political adviser, David Axelrod.
For Democrats, perhaps the most obvious piece of evidence of GOP premeditated malice is the 2010 quote from Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell:
"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."
Beyond McConnell's words, though, there is circumstantial evidence to make the case. Republicans have opposed a lion's share of stimulus measures that once they supported, such as a payroll tax break, which they grudgingly embraced earlier this year. Even unemployment insurance, a relatively uncontroversial tool for helping those in an economic downturn, has been consistently held up by Republicans or used as a bargaining chip for more tax cuts. Ten years ago, prominent conservatives were loudly making the case for fiscal stimulus to get the economy going; today, they treat such ideas like they're the plague.
Traditionally, during economic recessions, Republicans have been supportive of loose monetary policy. Not this time. Rather, Republicans have upbraided Ben Bernanke, head of the Federal Reserve, for even considering policies that focus on growing the economy and creating jobs.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/09/did-republicans-deliberately-crash-us-economy
[font size="4"]5 Ways Republicans Have Sabotaged Job Growth[/font]
July 6, 2012
by Jeff Spross
Republican intransigence on economic policy has been a key contributor to the sluggish recovery. As early as 2009, Republican fear-mongering over spending and their readiness to filibuster in the Senate helped convince the White House economic team that an $800 billion stimulus was the most they could hope to get through Congress. Reporting has since revealed that the team thought the country actually needed a stimulus on the order of $1.2 to $1.8 trillion. The economys path over the next three years proved them right. Here are the top five ways the Republicans have sabotaged the economic recovery since:
1. Filibustering the American Jobs Act. Last October, Senate Republicans killed a jobs bill proposed by President Obama that would have pumped $447 billion into the economy. Multiple economic analysts predicted the bill would add around two million jobs and hailed it as defense against a double-dip recession. The Congressional Budget Office also scored it as a net deficit reducer over ten years, and the American public supported the bill.
2. Stonewalling monetary stimulus. The Federal Reserve can do enormous good for a depressed economy through more aggressive monetary stimulus, and by tolerating a temporarily higher level of inflation. But with everything from Ron Pauls anti-inflationary crusade to Rick Perry threatening to lynch Chairman Ben Bernanke, Republicans have browbeaten the Fed into not going down this path. Most damagingly, the GOP repeatedly held up President Obamas nominations to the Federal Reserve Board during the critical months of the recession, leaving the board without the institutional clout it needed to help the economy.
3. Threatening a debt default. Even though the country didnt actually hit its debt ceiling last summer, the Republican threat to default on the United States outstanding obligations was sufficient to spook financial markets and do real damage to the economy.
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/06/511940/5-ways-republicans-sabotaged-job-growth/
napkinz
(17,199 posts)"Isn't the hidden story here that he has not been able to action job creation because Republicans in Congress have opposed every single jobs plan that he's put before them?"
soccer1
(343 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)July 08, 2012
by Blue Mark
The GOP has been on an economic wrecking mission ever since the election of Barack Obama - indeed we now know that leading Republican strategists and legislators met and planned a course of economic sabotage and complete obstruction on Obama's very first day in office.
This obstruction has had a huge price - a deliberate price that the GOP is betting the American people will blame on President Obama. GOP obstruction did not prevent the passage of ARRA - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - popularly know as "The Stimulus" bill of 2009 during the height of the economic disaster as the economy was falling off a cliff - the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that ARRA has saved up to 3 million jobs. But nearly every economic measure since then has been blocked by GOP obstruction, filibusters and brinksmanship.
What has been the result of GOP obstruction?
It is hard to quantify what constant obstruction has cost - you could tally up estimates of every measure that came along, but not all would have passed - nor even been introduced if previous measures had been adopted that obviated their need. But we can look at just two big examples and get a minimal measure of the human cost to American citizens of a deliberate policy to destroy the economy in order to bring down the president; 1) austerity, and 2) obstruction of the 2011 American Jobs Act. Taking just those into account, the unemployment rate would be under 6% were it not for deliberate GOP wrecking.
Read more: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/08/1107585/-Without-GOP-Unemployment-would-be-under-6
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