Speaker Boehner Demands President Help Pass Phantom Job Bills Stuck In Senate

image of  Speaker Boehner crying
image of Speaker Boehner's 10-27-2011 tweet

On Thursday US House Speaker John Boehner stood before reporters and, in an attempt to deflect growing pressure on his party’s obstruction of President Obama’s jobs plan, demanded the President help pass 15 so-called Jobs bills passed in the House and stuck in the Senate. The bills that Boehner defines as “job bills” have nothing to do with actual jobs. The bills only help the 1% by gutting EPA rules and allowing more environmentally suspect oil drilling.

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Some at town hall don’t buy Rep. Jim Jordan’s tired talking points

Image of US Rep. Jim Jordan (R-4)

Ohio’s 4th Congressional District representative Jim Jordan (R-Urbana) held a town hall meeting at the University of Findlay on Monday September 19th. In the reddest of red areas of Ohio he still had to spar with some unhappy constituents. They peppered him with questions about the failed Republican economic agenda and the continued outsourcing of jobs. Jordan’s unsupported tired GOP talking points didn’t seem to help.

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GOP Jobs Plan? Same Old ideas that haven’t worked in 10 years

Image of emotional House Speaker John Boehner

The stagnant economy is like a stalled car. You sit there and keep turning the key in hopes that it will luckily turn over but you know you’ll have to call the tow truck. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) doesn’t want to call the tow truck in issuing his jobs plan called “The House Republican Plan For American’s Job Creators”. The “plan” just offers the same tax cuts, budget cuts, and regulation cuts that have failed yet to create the jobs we need.

In what seems as an effort to pre-empt the President’s jobs speech on Thursday, Speaker Boehner released his jobs plan. It has nothing new and nothing that hasn’t already been tried in the past ten years. It contains nothing for the middle class and those actually out of work.

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In GOP fantasy land, state budget woes due only to spending

It amuses me when cheap labor conservative Republicans blame spending for budget problems. They call for cutting state workers or reducing their pay or cutting programs. In their fantasy land, the Republicans fail to even acknowledge that their beloved tax cuts play a part in shortfalls.

As Media Matters pointed out about a one-sided 60 Minutes report on December 19th:

In 2,600 words about state deficits, you won’t find the phrase “tax cuts.” Instead, CBS adopts the Republican framing that deficits are all about spending — frequently with loaded phrasing like “gold-plated retirement and health care packages.” And throughout the report, CBS allows Christie, New Jersey’s Republican governor, to launch attacks on unions and make unsupported claims about budget problems, all without ever challenging his assertions and without including substantive disagreement from Christie critics.

And here’s how CBS addressed New Jersey’s pension problems:

It’s also the truth that some of the responsibility for New Jersey’s pension woes lie at the doorstep of the governor’s mansion. Christie and his predecessors have failed to contribute to the state’s share of its pension obligation in 13 of the last 17 years, one of the reasons the fund is going broke. Christie says it’s ancient history.

“We spent too much on everything. We spent too much. We spent money we didn’t have. We borrowed money just crazily. The credit cards maxed out, and it’s over. It’s over. We now have to get to the business of climbin’ out of the hole. We’ve been diggin’ it for a decade or more. We’ve gotta climb now, and a climb is harder. Gotta do it,” he said.

You’d never know from CBS’ report that a big part of the reason that “Christie and his predecessors” failed to make required contributions to the pension fund is that they decided to use the money for tax cuts instead. (Like I said, the CBS report takes the GOP-friendly stance that deficits are all about spending, not revenue.)

60 Minutes’ one-sided, GOP-friendly report on state budgets

“Pledge to America” is perfect if you were just born today

I really don’t get it. The recently released “Pledge for America” is a 45 page reheat of current Republican talking points which themselves were rehashes from the past 15 years. Do they not remember the Bush years? Does the media? If people accept the pledge and elect Republicans we can go back to those days of Bush when the banks collapsed, we were fighting two wars without end, and health care costs were a threat to national security.

What will the pledge do?

* It pledges to continue the same failed policies that brought us the worst recession since the Great Depression. (Think Progress)
* It is an oath to Big Oil. (Wonk Room)
* It is a backdoor path to bring in Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) controversial budget roadmap that privatizes Medicare and Social Security. (Wonk Room)
* It repeals the Affordable Care Act and replaces it with provisions from the Affordable Care Act. (Think Progress)
* It endorses Arizona’s deputization of immigration law. (Wonk Room)
* It embraces a radical “Tenther” view of the U.S. Constitution. (Think Progress)

What will it do to deficits and debt?

* American Progress’s Michael Ettlinger and Michael Linden examined the “Pledge” and found that implementing the plan’s proposals would increase the federal budget deficit and accelerate growth in federal debt. (CAP)

Unpacking the GOP’s “Pledge to America”

Even many conservatives don’t like the “Pledge” and when one of the supporters is a comedian who parodies the GOP mind set as his act then you know you have trouble.

I may have my issues with the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats but I sure as hell don’t want to go back to the Bush years when the GOP was in charge.