United States job's bill killing Republicans
Posted on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 09:30 AM
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This morning I have a simple question: can anyone name a specific jobs bill that has been brought forward by the GOP?
I'm just asking because once upon a time in American politics if you voted against a major jobs bill it's because you had a better one of your own.
Remember those days? They're apparently gone for good.
Protecting tax cuts for millionaires and concocting even more of them isn't a jobs bill. If it was then the Bush era would have been an economic golden age instead of what it actually was - a lost decade.
So is that all the GOP has got left for us? The voodoo economics that says trickle down benefits flow from billionaire boom times? Or a scorched earth campaign against every initiative President Obama takes? Because, you know, they haven't been working.
So is that really all they've got?
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eiriamach | Oct 14, 2011, 09:29 AM EDT
Below are comments claiming that this approach to politics, or at IC in general, is New York, East Coast liberal, yet the comments are mostly far-right complaints with no specifics. One comment about this article not mentioning the national debt is an exception, but I don't see how it is relevant. Is francisquinn suggesting that we cannot afford to create work for the unemployed until we get rid of the deficit? No economist has figured out a way to do that; we know that it will take government funding even though corporations are socking away billions in profit. They hold the future of workers hostage to their greed for more tax cuts, bigger profits. Paul Krugman has an article worth reading in today's NY Times, on "Rabbit-hole economics": "it’s now obviously orthodoxy on the Republican side that government caused the whole problem. So what you need to know is that this orthodoxy has hardened even as the supposed evidence for government as a major villain in the crisis has been discredited. The fact is that government rules didn’t force banks to make bad loans, and that government-sponsored lenders, while they behaved badly in many ways, accounted for few of the truly high-risk loans that fueled the housing bubble." As Krugman laments, "It’s a terrible thing when an individual loses his or her grip on reality," when one plunges down the rabbit hole chasing an Alice-in-Wonderland crazy idea of economic cause-effect. There's no way back to near-full employment to be found down that rabbit hole.
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hooligan6a | Oct 14, 2011, 07:46 AM EDT
They call it a jobs bill, it is nothing bt a spending bill. More money down the drain.
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seanomelbourne | Oct 13, 2011, 07:24 PM EDT
Falconflash would make the Koch brothers richer and himself poorer it's sort of like shooting yourself in the foot.Why would the uber rich go for 9-9-9 when they pay 15% or less in income tax.Do the math buddy.
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jamieLM | Oct 13, 2011, 10:05 AM EDT
@joan1954, I agree with you. IC is less about Irish and Irish American news and heritage and more and more about how liberal New Yorkers think about politicians and political and social issues. Other non-NY Americans don't always care about, or agree with, the New York point of view on everything. @katiemac - good idea about giving tax credits to corporations bringing jobs BACK to the U.S. 9-9-9 would be a total disaster. 9% on everything you buy and then 9% on your income? Talk about a smack-down. A tax code overhaul is needed, but that isn't it.
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hollabackgurl | Oct 12, 2011, 11:54 PM EDT
9-9-9 is the number you call when you've been robbed in Britain. Ironically enough.
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seanomelbourne | Oct 12, 2011, 06:36 PM EDT
9-9-9 may be a trick it most probably should read 666 the devils number. The party of no is split and moribund.
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Murph46 | Oct 12, 2011, 02:15 PM EDT
9-9-9 Would create six million jobs and jump start the Obama froze economy!
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patrickesq | Oct 12, 2011, 01:43 PM EDT
I can only hope that the Republican representatives are continuing to sow the seeds of their defeat in 2012. Their total disregard of protecting and promoting the interests of the majority of Americans is appalling. They are the 21st century equivalents of Marie Antoinette -'let them eat cake' disdain for the plight of those in great need.
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Nicomax | Oct 12, 2011, 01:30 PM EDT
Here's a jobs plan. Cut back almost all regulations on business, particularly banking, at least to Bush II levels, if not pre-Great Depression, Hoover supported levels; institute a flat tax that forces everyone to pay just 15% of their AGI, drop all corporate taxes, and reduce capital gains and carried-interest taxes to 7.5%-half of what they are now. Then hope for the best.
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feeneycj | Oct 12, 2011, 12:54 PM EDT
even Harry Reid wouldn't vote for it. what happened to the grand $800 BILLION spending spree stimulus in 2009? Several billions went to tax relief. Several billions went to unemployment checks and many of those people have still not gotten jobs. I'd rather see the money place people on permanent jobs but Obama isn't making it happen. Permanent jobs = more federal tax income. Obama is draining the well dry, not replenishing it. Look Cahir, reality is that money doesn't grow on trees.
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jerrydonovan | Oct 12, 2011, 12:22 PM EDT
I cannot believe the ignorance of some who posted comments on this article.The bill passed but cannot proceed at this time BECAUSE it needed 60 votes to be sent to the house.Harry Reid changed his vote as a strategic move to allow him to bring the bill back at a later time.
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hollabackgurl | Oct 12, 2011, 12:18 PM EDT
Bush presided over a decade of unparalleled thievery and corruption on Wall Street, with tens of millions entering the ranks of the hungry thanks to artificially inflated commodity prices, and millions more displaced from their homes by corruption in the mortgage markets.
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Scrivner | Oct 12, 2011, 11:55 AM EDT
Cahir, you've been drinkng the Koolaid again! GWB was not the greatest Prez we ever saw, but unemployment was under 5%, inflation was moderate and we could even afford a yearly holiday in the Big Apple. Those in the rreal estate biz saw that a bubble was coming, but it was the culmination of FNMA & FreddieMac policies, which GWB had little control over when the Congress went completely Democrat.
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hollabackgurl | Oct 12, 2011, 11:55 AM EDT
60 votes are required to end filibusters so they can vote up or down. 51 Dems voted for it 2 against and all Republicans voted against it. It had 51 votes, but not the 60 REQUIRED to end debate.
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