IMPORTANT. PLEASE, PLEASE READ.

Robert Creamer has an excellent article on Huff Po today and I’d like to highlight a few of his comments. They are (as usual) presented in a logical, reasonable manner, largely free from name-calling and incendiary rhetoric. Ideally, I would like those of my friends and family who consider themselves Republican to respond to this blog post. First and foremost, I would like them to tell me why, in the face of the evidence and examples mentioned below, they continue to support the current Republican agenda. Please note that I say “current” agenda. My purpose in asking this question is not to demonize all Republicans, past and present. There is nothing to be gained from painting all individuals in any group with the same brush (and goodness knows we could discuss at length the attempt by members of the extreme right-wing of the Republican party to do just that to American Muslims re: the controversy surrounding the community center and mosque being built two blocks from Ground Zero – a building, by the way, that you cannot see from Ground Zero and a mosque that will join other mosques already located 4 and 12 blocks from the WTC site. But I digress).

I sincerely believe there are people in this country - reasonable, sane people - who consider themselves Republican and believe in the GOP’s stated political philosophy. My profound disappointment and anger stems from the fact that the current leadership of the GOP, those in Congress and those who do not hold office yet have enormous influence in this country (we all know who the players are), continue to display a cynicism and disregard for facts that are breathtaking in the extreme. It is my belief that the current GOP members of the House and Senate are not actually interested in working with the Democrats to boost the economy, despite lip-service to the contrary. I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Creamer that the goal is to prevent the Democrats from achieving anything in order to stoke the cynicism and fear running rampant in America these days. Reasonable people are free to disagree on policy matters but it is my belief that Republicans are concerned more with political gain than the well-being of the country. Mr. Creamer puts this better than I hence my reason for quoting him.

So… here we go. (Bold text = emphasis added).

Re: my statement that the GOP is simply operating out of cynicism and a desire to thwart the Democrats, here is the first quote from Creamer’s article:

Of course some will say that no, the Republicans just have a different view of what will create jobs than Democrats… They implemented their program of tax cuts for the rich and allowing the reckless Wall Street banks to do whatever they pleased for eight long years. The result was a $2,000 decrease in real income for most Americans, a massive increase in incomes for the top two percent of the population, zero net private sector job creation, and the collapse of our economy… They believe that their political fortunes will rise if the fortunes of the rest of us decline.

The most striking case in point is the small business jobs bill that will hit the Senate immediately after the recess. The bill provides financial incentives to small business to create new jobs. You'd think that any bill that infuses money into a key Republican constituency like small business would be met with open arms by the Republican minority. No such luck. They plan to filibuster the bill even though many of its provisions were lifted directly from measures authored by Republicans.

Creamer goes on to describe what occurs during a recession. I include it here because it describes basic economic theory in a clear, concise manner:

In a recession, the problem is not a sudden decline of the ability of the economy to produce goods and services. The problem is that the web of economic relationships is disrupted and creates an artificial decline of demand for products and services -- a demand deficit. Without adequate demand to buy their products, businesses lay off workers who have even less money to buy products, and the economy spirals into recession.

Recessions result in incredible waste. All of the products and services that idle workers, plants and equipment could have created are simply not produced -- meaning that the society as a whole is poorer with fewer goods and services to go around.

The solution to this problem is to create the economic demand to put people back to work and jump start the economy. But the only source of that demand is the government.

He then explains what occurred during the debate surrounding the stimulus that the Obama Administration championed:

The White House economic team -- and many progressive economists -- believed that a large stimulus was necessary to push the economy out of the economic ditch and get it going again. But the Republicans said no. Many opposed any stimulus at all. In the end, the price for the three Republicans who ultimately voted yes was a scaled-back stimulus that turned out to be enormously effective -- just not big enough to do the job.

And now…

Even today, Republicans are campaigning against the stimulus, claiming it didn't work, even though the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analysis finds that it created or saved 2.8 million jobs by the end of July and will probably have created or saved 3.5 million by the end of September. Without it, instead of the eight million jobs lost as a result of the Republican recession, we would have lost 11.5 million jobs.

Lately, the GOP has been screaming about deficits (a subject I mentioned in a previous blog post titled “Taxing my patience,” dated August 10th). Here’s Robert:

But what about the deficit you say? First a good portion of the newly-generated, short-term deficit would have been offset by increased tax revenues generated from new wages and the new spending they created as they flowed through the economy. And over the long run, most economists agree that this kind of expenditure would have actually improved the deficit picture by jumpstarting overall economic growth.


In fact, most of the budget surplus generated by the Clinton economic program came from just that -- the big-time economic growth of the late 1990's.

Creamer then mentions GM – whom the government rescued from bankruptcy, causing overheated alarm that Washington was now going to permanently run a private enterprise and take over the entire automobile industry. This, despite Obama’s clearly articulated guarantee that he neither intended nor advocated for the government to permanently control GM. Take it away Robert:

They opposed the government rescue of GM that has proven to be one of our biggest economic bright spots. Instead of going into bankruptcy, or liquidating and costing thousands of additional jobs, GM actually turned a $2.2 billion profit in the first half of this year and is preparing a stock offering that will allow the government to sell off its stake at a potential profit. GM is now hiring new workers once again.

Also worth mentioning (as I did on August 10), is the money granted to states in order to prevent the layoffs of teacher, firefighters and police officers:

And there was the Republican filibuster of federal money for teachers, police, firefighters and other public servants. They caused hundreds of thousands of state employees to be laid off or furloughed. It finally passed the Senate with two Republican votes, but only after it was cut in half. It will prevent 300,000 layoffs. Every time a teacher is fired, it not only damages the economy in the short run, it also permanently damages our economic prospects -- and ability to compete in the world -- over the long run, by shortchanging the education of our next generation.

Okay. Now let’s talk taxes:
All the while they have been opposing these jobs initiatives, Republicans have proposed -- with a straight face -- that we spend almost three quarters of a trillion dollars over the next 10 years on tax breaks for the top two percent of the population.

And they have opposed Democratic attempts to end tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas -- one of the most profound causes of the decline of American manufacturing.

This is how Robert Creamer sums it all up (and forgive me, my Republican friends and family members but I can’t help agreeing with him):

The fact is [the GOP] want[s] to keep the economy in that ditch so they can divert attention from the fact that they were behind the wheel when it careened off the road.


They hope that if they prevent it from getting back onto the pavement, the voters will forget about who put it in the ditch in the first place and blame the guys who are trying to get it out. They're counting on the frustration caused by the delay in getting the economy out of that ditch to be enough that the voters will turn once again to the culprits who put it there, throw them the keys and say "why don't you try it again." That, of course, will require a gigantic case of national amnesia. It would also be a political and economic disaster…In particular, the Republicans hope that the frustration and the fatigue of struggling with the economic situation is just enough to make a large number of Democratic voters give up in disgust and simply stay home on Election Day.

There you have it. There’s my take (with a huge assist from Robert Creamer), on the current GOP leadership and their strategy for the midterm elections.


Again, I am keenly interested in hearing your reactions, particularly from those on the right-hand side of the aisle. My hope is that a reasonable, calm discussion can ensue but my own temper on matters political is all too often difficult for me to control, so I realize this may be a tall order.