In response to today's terrible jobs report Republicans are demanding that even more government employees, contractors and others lose their jobs. They also demand that even more construction workers and others receiving government contracts lose their jobs, too. They want to do more of what they did in the Bush years, which led to this mess. If we do what they want to do it will send us into a depression.
Speaker Boehner's statement:
“Our economy is not creating enough jobs, and Democrats’ binge of taxing, spending, borrowing and over-regulating is a big part of the reason why. This week House Republicans met with President Obama and urged him to change course and work with us to enact the plan for jobs and economic growth we have put forth. We hope the president will take us up on that invitation. We cannot solve our debt crisis without economic growth -- and we will not have economic growth if we raise taxes on job creators and refuse to stop spending money we don't have.”
He wants to stop spending money in order to create economic growth? Stop educating? Stop maintaining our infrastructure? Stop paying for courts and job training and ... tornado monitoring? Lay off even more people?
And the rich are "job creators?" Really? Actually, "The Rich" Don't "Create Jobs," We Do.
Oh, and Obama cut taxes. Does Speaker Boehner really not know that? And if he does know it, what does that say about him, to claim otherwise?
Next up, Rep. Eric Cantor's statement:
“Today’s disappointing jobs report shows that our economy needs an injection of growth oriented policies to ensure that businesses can innovate, expand and begin hiring again. ...
“... we must get Washington’s fiscal house in order by cutting spending and growing our economy so we can begin paying down our debt.
“Our country faces a choice of more government spending and higher taxes, or more growth and more jobs and more economic certainty. It’s time to move away from the government stimulus spending spree and transition into growth-mode, creating an environment for America’s businessmen and women to succeed and creating jobs for people who need them.”
Cantor claims that stimulus slowed the economy and cut jobs. So let's look at the record:
Here is the timeline you see on this chart:
- First, there is the Bush freefall, from the policies Republicans want to return to
- then the effect of the stimulus spending reverses the decline, bringing back job growth
- then the stimulus winds down, and job growth levels out
- and combined with state & local budget cutbacks -- spending cuts, which Republicans want more of -- job growth stalls.
Republicans say that cutting spending on infrastructure, education, etc. will create jobs. Cutting Government Creates Jobs Like Cutting Taxes Increases Revenue.
Sometimes you can cut through ideology by looking at what actually happens in the real world. Reagan cut taxes: huge deficits resulted. Clinton raised taxes, the deficits went away. Bush cut taxes, we went back to huge deficits. And you can see the same thing when you look at government spending and jobs. England and Greece are trying austerity, and their economies are sinking as a result. In 1937 the United States learned this lesson, succumbing to deficit cutting which choked off the recovery from the depression. On the other hand, the "stimulus" boosted the economy, held off a depression and created millions of jobs -- but not enough jobs to overcome the Bush years.
They said tax cuts will increase revenue, and what we got was huge debt instead. Causes of the borrowing:
Never in history have the things that Republicans are advocating for worked, always in history these things have created loss. Lost revenue, lost economic growth, lost jobs. The worst thing we could do now is listen to the people who caused this mess in the first place.
