America For Purchase

The US continues to suffer from a savage recession as Republicans continue to turn their backs on American families which in simple terms means conservatives pose the biggest threat to America’s democracy as they continue their march to obliterate jobs, health care and fair wages.

Republicans have continued to wage a no-holds-barred class warfare which was fueled by their reckless lowering of taxes for U.S. Corporations and the wealthiest Americans that increased the gulf between the richest and poorest Americans; ripping apart the social and economic safety net of Americans in the Republican’s bid to destroy the working class. For 8 years Republicans pillaged from the taxpayers’ treasury with record setting liberal spending, increasing America’s deficit to the highest in U.S. history.Not only have Republicans just said ‘NO’ to helping American families, they have a strong media presence to push their conservative agenda.  Using FOX News and Republican pundits as the conduit to spread their lies that ‘government is the problem’ along with ‘death panels’ and ‘government control of health care that will kill the elderly’, ‘the stimulus did not create a single job’, etc is their plan of attack on Americans.

Although it is true there are ideological differences between Republicans and Democrats, Republicans choose to spread disinformation to deflect the blame for their ridiculous ideas and falsely claim the government caused the financial crisis, going as far as blaming President Obama for the Bush and Republican initiated Wall Street bail out rather than acknowledging it was Republican profiteers who actually brought down the economy.

The Recovery Act was responsible for adding or saving jobs of about 2 million Americans who would otherwise be unemployed. Many economics estimate this bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. Even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the stimulus saved or created between 800,000 and 2.4 million jobs.

Republicans continue to use the Recovery Act as an opportunity to continue making false claims and clouding public perception regarding its effectiveness such as Republican Mike Pence who said “the stimulus bill has failed,” and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) added, “This was not the plan Americans asked for or the results they were promised.” However, Republicans are not so down on the stimulus when it comes to trumpeting money in their home states and districts. A report by The Progress Report documents 110 Republicans, more than half of the GOP caucus are “guilty of stimulus hypocrisy,” as they voted against the act but have since claimed credit for its benefits or asked for more funding.

Unfortunately through the Republican misinformation media machine only 6 percent of the public believes the stimulus created any jobs and additional jobs.  How can this be?

When the G.O.P. House leadership last year announced its plan to cut federal spending by $75 billion annually, it enumerated specific new cuts of only $5 billion per year. A tax-cut-laden “stimulus plan” endorsed by Jim DeMint, the South Carolina senator and Tea Party hero, “would cost more than $3 trillion, more than triple the cost of Obama’s stimulus over the next decade,” in the estimate of Jonathan Chait of The New Republic.  The Republican plan was more debt for Americans, no jobs and rewards only for Wall Street and the wealthy.

When House Democrats passed a $154 billion jobs package, Republicans began their obstruction to prevent putting Americans back to work and Harry Reid (D-NV) said he doesn’t have the votes to even begin debate on a very scaled down $15 billion bill. Republicans argued a jobs bill has to include various non-jobs related tax extenders and a promise to consider cutting the estate tax, providing a huge tax break to the heirs of multi-millionaires.  Their plan was to help the rich, not to help hardworking American families.

Then there is Rep. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman who laid out a lengthy “G.O.P. Road Map for America’s Future” on The Wall Street Journal op-ed page that proposed cutting taxes (disproportionately for the wealthy) and privatizing Medicare and Social Security but devoted no bullet point to creating jobs for Americans in urgent need; just more Republican snake-oil that conservatives and teabaggers buy into.

As recent as yesterday Sen. Jim Bunning was leading the charge for his fellow Republicans as he blocked unemployment benefits, Medicare payments to doctors, satellite TV to rural Americans and paychecks to highway workers and forcing about 2,000 federal employees into furloughs.

The hostility of Republicans against the American worker is obvious.  Their obstruction in moving families forward and helping those who have been hit the hardest by the Republican generated great recession is the banner of their Party.  Of course Bunning was one of many Republicans who spent and spent Americans’ money with no means to pay for their irresponsible fiscal behavior.

Not surprising Republican Senator Jon Kyl defended Bunning’s filibuster against Americans by attacking the entire premise for unemployment insurance during a protracted period of job losses.  Sen. Kyl argued that unemployment insurance would not lead an increase in jobs, would increase the deficit and said:

“It could be argued it [unemployment insurance] is a disincentive for work because people are being paid even though they are not working.”

It’s hard for unemployment insurance to be a disincentive to finding jobs when America has lost 8.4 million jobs and you cannot find jobs that don’t exist.  Republicans do not care if Americans ever get back to work as evidenced by blocking a jobs bill and denying benefits to American families.

Republicans never worried about deficits when it was Halliburton’s no-bid contracts in Iraq for which money was borrowed to fund them, or when it was big tax cuts for CEOs, for big bankers, for derivatives traders, for hedge fund managers, and when the Bush administration inherited from the last Democratic president a balanced budget predicted to yield a zero national debt during the course of the Bush administration, and instead the republicans left us with $12 trillion in national debt and when and when it’s the pharmaceutical industry.

As Natasha Chart writing for OurFuture.Org said “It’s not hypocrisy that needs to stop, it’s the not giving a damn that needs to stop. Right now, Congress collectively acts like it doesn’t give a damn, and it’s acted like that for a long time. It’s the enforcement arm of the ‘screw you, I’ve got mine’ class.”

Americans should be smart enough to realize Republicans are NOT for helping small businesses with access credit from banks, Republicans are NOT for slashing excessive tax breaks to companies who ship American jobs overseas; Republicans are NOT interested in creating jobs or a jobs bill to put Americans back to work and Republicans are NOT willing to hold Wall Street accountable to the American people as they are against regulating those companies who created the largest economic recession in U.S. history, they are not even supportive of forcing Wall Street to pay back the bail out money they took from taxpayers.

It’s time for Democrats and progressives to wake up to the grave internal threat represented by the Republican jihad launched against American workers and families. It’s time to defend democracy by passing meaningful campaign finance reform, jobs bills, health care reform and denying the notion that corporations are persons and placing severe restrictions on corporations, especially those who ship American jobs overseas. It’s time to clamp down on the outrageous practices of Fox News other conservative voices.

It’s time for Democrats and progressive families to get their act together, seize control of the message, and take the battle to conservatives. It’s time for change we can believe in.

Share on Facebook Tags American Workers Conservatives Democracy Democrats Eric Cantor Fox News Harry Reid health care reform Jim Bunning Jobs bill John Boehner John Cornyn John Kyl Kevin Brady Mitch McConnell news politics Party of No progressives republican hypocrisy Republican obstruction Republicans stimulus package tax cuts tea party wall street bail out

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