Non News Story of the Day: House GOP Rejects Obama’s Jobs Proposal
This was highly predictable if you view the responses of the House GOP as not just piecemeal reactions but part of a general strategy as poll numbers see President Barack Obama on the (increasingly shaky) ropes:
House Republican leaders say they are rejecting President Barack Obama’s jobs proposals to rebuild schools and blighted neighborhoods, and help keep state and local employees on the job.
In a memo to GOP lawmakers that was also issued publicly and reprinted in The New York Times, House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and other Republican leaders also objected to the president’s proposal for a temporary reduction in payroll taxes, in order to boost consumer spending and increase demand.
The GOP leaders say such a temporary reduction means taxes will go up later when the reduction expires in 2013.
“While employees would see an additional temporary benefit from this proposal in 2012,” they wrote, “they would experience a larger effective tax increase 12 months later when the payroll tax reverted back to its full level.
“There may be significant unforeseen downsides to large temporary tax cuts immediately followed by large tax increases,” they added.
Boehner and his GOP colleagues also say that Mr. Obama’s move to tax the wealthy claiming itemized deductions will hurt churches and other nonprofits.
Basically, unless it involves cutting taxes if Barack Obama is for it, the House GOP is against it.
On the other hand, various reports indicate that the White House never really expected GOPers to agree to the plan but it lays down Obama’s positions to run on in 2012 and also strengthens his contention that Republicans are obstructionists — a contention polls indicate many Americans now share.
The question in 2012 will be who voters are disgusted with the most — and which party is able to get its voters out (right now it appears the Republicans will vote and some Democrats will stay at home or decide to punish their part).P
11 Responses to “Non News Story of the Day: House GOP Rejects Obama’s Jobs Proposal”
Their strategy is simply to keep the economy bad enough through 2012 so that Obama will take the blame and lose. What does this say about their compassion for their fellow Americans? If this works does anyone think that they have any viable plans to put in place come January 2013? I don’t.
I’m with ya, Jim. The GOP has one goal in mind: taking back the reigns of power. Nothing about actually improving the economy or the lot in life of ordinary Americans. I’m sure once they’re in power, they’ll be back to their culture-war crap whilst turning a blind eye to the raping-and-pillaging of their campaign donors.
Of course, Obama’s plan is at least half nonsense. We do need the investments in infrastructure (badly, in some cases), but the rest is more temporary fluff and not the real change we need.
Agreed Joe. It was highly predictable.
“Their strategy is simply to keep the economy bad enough through 2012 so that Obama will take the blame and lose. What does this say about their compassion for their fellow Americans?” ~ Jim S.
Well Jim, what they consider their “fellow Americans” is certainly a minority of the citizenry, but you already know that. This is of course a continuing desire for “fail”, meaning most of America, not just Obama.
“There may be significant unforeseen downsides to large temporary tax cuts immediately followed by large tax increases,” they added.
Talk about tortured logic. The GOP is reversing it’s usual support of tax cuts for purely partisan reasons.
On the whole though this isn’t much of a bill and I wouldn’t support it either.
This is truly hard to take.
In my entire life I have not seen more destructive behavior in government than what the Republican party is displaying right now. My depression era parents told me that the Republican party, above all things, is the party of the rich. They told me that the Republican party consistently sold out the people during the Depression, by opposing almost everything President Roosevelt was trying to do to help the people recover. Indeed it was the Republican party, under Hoover, that caused the Depression in the first place, with their constant opposition to any thought of creating trading and banking regulation before the fall, inspite of warnings.
So when the chips are down, and the Republican party is up against the wall with little to offer America but stupid Tea Party rhetoric, they hold steadfast to their core belief; That the rich should be preserved in their money grabbing preeminent glory and the rest of the American population be damned.
The really depressing part of all of this is that neither side is willing to do what needs to be done to improve the economy, increase demand in both the short and the long term. Convert the massive amount of non-productive, excess capital into growth producing demand.
The Republicans are happy to continue the policies that caused the serious imbalance and in fact are promising to double down on them. Over the last thirty years they have achieved their goal of changing the focus of government policy and the economy to increasing the income and wealth of the upper 2% in society at the cost of the lower 98%. They want to regain power to continue squeezing the middle class.
The Democrats have bought into only about 80% of the Republican’s goal of enriching the rich but some dim institutional memory has them dragging their feet on the rest. Somehow they still hear the faint whispers of their past to build the middle class instead of destroying it. But a few more hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions and lobbying fees will probably be enough to enable them to ignore even those.
From a broad based democracy to a pay to play oligarchy in thirty years. Amazing.
merkin-
Pursue the policies of wealth imbalance, ( I assume you mean “wealth” imbalance)?
The Republicans created this current wealth imbalance with their massive redistribution of wealth caused by the massive tax cuts provided under George W. Bush! As we can clearly see, “trickle down” does not by any stretch of the imagination work! How much more proof does the completely beguiled Republican constituency need?
As for the Democrats you paint a depressing picture with skewed data. It ain’t no were near 80% and you can blame the blue dogs for all of it. Though I must say that Democrats overall are not vocal enough for my taste in opposition of these Tea Party maniacs, while they oppose the Republicans in general.
Blue Dog Democrats should have BLUE DOG tattooed on their forehead, in bright blue ink, so that everybody knows that they suck up to Republicans on a consistent basis. They need to be exposed and voted out, replaced with proper Democrats rather than the half cast mongrels that they are.
[...] jobs focuseTaiwan NewsInternational Business Times (press release) -Capitol Hill Blue -The Moderate Voiceall 1,687 news [...]
“The Democrats have bought into only about 80% of the Republican’s goal of enriching the rich but some dim institutional memory has them dragging their feet on the rest. Somehow they still hear the faint whispers of their past to build the middle class instead of destroying it. But a few more hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions and lobbying fees will probably be enough to enable them to ignore even those.”
Well said merkin. And this is the sort of watered down democrat governing that rightwingers try to paint as extreme or liberal, which is either flat out ignorant or flat out dishonest. There is incredibly little comparison between today’s democrats and the champions of the working class who were their forebears.
“From a broad based democracy to a pay to play oligarchy in thirty years. Amazing.” ~ merkin
Nailed it.
The only thing that will help the economy is to clean up the areas that have been hurting the people the most: financial, medical, and education. We do not need more subsidies to make them more tolerable, we need their regulations to be re-thought from scratch, to accomplish their goals.
This “jobs” bill is a waste of time, and should be rejected.
The jobs bill is better than a swift kick. If you wait for the perfect bill you’ll be waiting forever, especially since the R’s are in thrall to the void. It could be a beginning.