Republican Economic Sabotage Continues

Posted on June 15, 2011 at 5:40 pm by JM Ashby

Republicans just say No to more economic stimulus.

Two leading Republicans say they do not support President Obama’s plan to broaden, deepen, and extend a payroll tax cut to stimulate the economy in the short-term.

In a briefing with reporters in the Capitol Tuesday, the House and Senate GOP conference chairs said they’re through with short-term stimulus measures, even if they take the form of tax cuts.

“Well they’ve tried this once, and it hasn’t seemed to be working,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX).

His Senate counterpart, Lamar Alexander (R-TN) echoed this view.

“We don’t need short-term gestures, we need long-term strategies that build into our system simpler taxes, lower taxes, fewer mandates, lower costs, more certainty, any changes in the debt structure of tax reform ought to come out of the Vice President’s talks or part of a major tax reform,” Alexander said. “If short-term government programs work, we wouldn’t have 9% unemployment today because the government has tried it. So we’ve proved that doesn’t work, unforutnately.”

Republicans are so eager to sabotage the economic recovery effort, they won’t even support the extension tax-cuts.

And the stimulus did work, by the way. The American Recovery and Reinvestment act saved or created as many as 3 million jobs which would have otherwise been lost.

The firesale of budget-cuts and layoffs that we are witnessing across the nation at the state level are taking place now primarily because the stimulus funds which kept those states afloat have, for the most part, dried up. Some states, such as Florida, are still including stimulus funds in their budgets while their respective governors also claim that the stimulus didn’t work. If that’s truly the case, can we have the money back?

If the stimulus really didn’t work, unemployment would currently be northwards of 12% or more, not 9%. The only true failing of the stimulus program is that it wasn’t big enough.

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  • GrafZeppelin127

    Allright, I’m going to just say it. I’ve been saying it for months, and I’m going to just say it:

    “CERTAINTY” = FASCISM.

    This is America, not a banana republic. We change Congresses every two years, Presidents every four/eight. Laws, policies, taxes, regulations, costs, etc. are always changing and always subject to change. This is no more or less true now than it has ever been, or will ever be so long as we continue to be a [small-d] democracy.

    If you want “certainty,” you want a third-world dictatorship where the laws never change and whoever’s in power stays there in perpetuity (barring a coup, of course). I’m sick of this stupid, dishonest meme about “uncertainty.” It’s an excuse, nothing more. ‘

    I had an interestin­g conversati­on over at HuffPo last week with a “conservat­ive”/GOP fan who claimed to be a small-busi­ness owner (a contention I had no cause to doubt, although I did doubt his claims about his expenditures related to “Obamacare.”). Apart from his accepting and repeating the Obama-hate­s-business propaganda as fact (and citing the opinions of right-wing think tanks and bloggers at, e.g., Breitbart’­s biggovernm­ent as proof), one thing he said really bothered me.

    He said that he would rather do business in foreign countries than in the U.S. because, inter alia, one such country (which he did not name) had guaranteed precisely what his tax and regulatory burden would be over the next ten (10) years.

    Can anyone imagine an America where any current government (President, Congress, whomever) could contractua­lly guarantee to any business interest that taxes and regulation­s on it would not change for 10 years? Is that even legal or constitutional, for the U.S. government to enter into contracts like that? This individual was saying, perhaps unintentio­nally, that he wanted a government that (a.) doesn’t change and (b.) operates at the whims of (or exclusivel­y on behalf of) businesses­.

    If there has been a more nakedly fascist expression in American political discourse in my lifetime, I cannot think of it.

    • http://twitter.com/TyJuanOn Kari Hope

      I still say if ANY business wants to take it out of this country get ready to be hit with a very high tax rate. To live in this country and take advantage of the perks then that goes beyond the pale. The same goes for their healthcare.

      Look at Cindy Crawford. She sells her products at JCP yet they are made overseas. I’ll be damned if I buy one thing with her name on it. She is just ONE of many companies in the USA who practice this scheme…..and yes it is a scheme. Tax breaks for corporations shipped overseas…..outrageous!!

  • hedgesahead

    The payroll tax-holiday was a loathsome move. How do I know? Neil Boortz supports it. I see it as the very first hole poked into the Social Security Trust, as money that would have gone to it from payroll had to be diverted from the general fund. At least the tax-holiday on the employee’s side put more money in their pocket, and they probably spent it (alas, probably just on bills). Tax-holiday on the employer side is just going into the business’ pocket, period. FTE requirements aren’t in my experience directly affected by cost per FTE. Work that needs doing needs doing, and if it needs doing you’ll pay someone to do it.
    Or maybe they think payroll not contributed to SS by employers will be reflected in increased salary? Right.

    • mrbrink

      I think the thinking goes, any cuts to payroll taxes will be made up by an increase in demand– consumption– translating to hiring to meet that demand which would contribute to the overall stability of the Social Security fund.

      In other words, putting people to work would neutralize losses to the Social Security fund because there would be more people contributing payroll taxes than there are currently.

      The problem is, productivity is way up, wages have been stagnant(actually resulting in a pay cut when adjusted for inflation) for decades and since employers are getting more for less out of our workforce, I don’t see anything changing dramatically with any slight increase in demand that would justify a payroll tax cut.

      But until the Republican party is censured and rounded up for domestic terrorism, there are very little options at the moment.

  • http://twitter.com/bphoon Brian C

    And here I thought the extension of the Bush tax rates was supposed to cure this uncertainty the GOP keeps talking about…

    • agrazingmoose

      Excellent point.

  • mrbrink

    Excellent commentary, Graf’.

    But speaking for myself, when I use the word “uncertainty,” I’m referring to holding the debt ceiling hostage, filibustering not only the government’s role in providing goods and services, but the filibustering of judiciary appointments.

    What “uncertainty” means to Republicans has no meaning to me because their use of the word is insane and has been debunked by empirical evidence. Cutting taxes further and deregulating multinational industry isn’t adding “certainty,” it’s surrendering to undemocratic entities to implement their whims and wish lists for concentrated wealth and hidden environmental cost deferment.

    But we’ve never used the debt ceiling as an overt political hostage before this Third Reich Wing Republican party came along.

    Threatening default on the full faith and credit of the United States is some pretty serious uncertainty.