by In the months leading up to the elections last November, many Republicans ran on Tea Party based platforms, their campaigns centering on the theme that they, unlike their Democrat opponents, were seeking to create jobs — something that would surely be good for the people electing them. The nation went pretty wild for this campaigning as many Republicans were swept into office. One would have to assume that since they campaigned on the promise of creating jobs, their first plans upon entry into office would have something to do with creating jobs.
Well they sure hit that job creation task hard, assuming that we live in a parallel universe where “make abortion illegal” is the same as “create jobs” — we don’t live in that universe yet and so we have to wonder in what way this focus is tantamount to creating jobs. Somehow, redefining the meaning of the word rape is a top priority to the GOP — still no jobs being created here.
Even worse, the GOP is proposing eliminating Americorps and all funding for public broadcasting. If Americorps is eliminated, this in effect destroys jobs — we’re not talking about jobs that pay as well as the CEO of Hewlett Packard but rather jobs that pay well enough for people to be able to have a place to live and feed themselves. What does AmeriCorps even do? From their web site : “Whether you are tutoring kids, building homes, clearing trails or helping to start a local health clinic you will see the direct results of your work.” Therefore the elimination of AmeriCorps does not just eliminate actual jobs but the possibility of people getting jobs in the future — whether those jobs would be at said health clinic or having a better education that would enable them to find work.
Other areas in which jobs are being destroyed — cutting the Head Start program’s budget would remove children from the program, hurting their growth and development and ultimately creating more of a problem in the future than saving a few dollars now would help fix. Cutting spending on public transit would eliminate jobs there and create more traffic, ultimately creating more pollution and putting more of a strain on the roads that would not be as well maintained thanks to cutting a billion dollars on highway spending.
In the short time that the new Congress and Senate has been on the job, they have done much but laying out any actual plans to create jobs is not one of those things. Rather, they have been focusing on destroying existing jobs and cutting spending on budget items that are far from inessential.
Great article, Gordon!
I think the plan is clear. The Republicans want to gut the economy, get rid of Middle Class jobs, create economic havoc — all so they can destroy Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012. It’s cynical and it’s offensive and the one man who can stop them — Obama and call out their ongoing, daily, b.s. — is falling right in line with their plans to destroy the economy. It’s mind-numbing.
Sad but true. Seems some people would rather blow up the boat if the “wrong” captain is at the helm, even if it sinks them as well.
Right. That shows they are un-American and want only what’s worst for the mainstream country because that sort of chaos benefits their rich benefactors.
Ironically they are the very people that point to others and call them un-American!