Obama tour tries to pass roadblock of jobs numbers
President Barack Obama on his first general election bus trip tries to reconcile a tour about economic growth with numbers that point to almost the opposite.
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Here ya go Mr. President a Life Preserver ... [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
By [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] on Jul 6, 2012 at 12:45 pm
New numbers [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the economy added a mere 80,000 jobs in June. That’s down from an average of 150,000 jobs a month for the first part of the year, and far too little to keep up with population growth.
Republican intransigence on economic policy has been a key contributor to the sluggish recovery. As early as 2009, Republican fear-mongering over spending and their readiness to filibuster in the Senate [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] the White House economic team that an $800 billion stimulus was the most they could hope to get through Congress. Reporting has since revealed that the team thought the country actually needed a stimulus on the order of $1.2 to $1.8 trillion. The economy’s path over the next three years [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] them right. Here are the top five ways the Republicans have sabotaged the economic recovery since:
1. Filibustering the American Jobs Act. Last October, Senate Republicans [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] a [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] proposed by President Obama that would have pumped $447 billion into the economy. Multiple economic analysts [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] the bill would add around two million jobs and [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] it as defense against a double-dip recession. The Congressional Budget Office also [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] as a net deficit reducer over ten years, and the American public [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] the bill.
2. Stonewalling monetary stimulus. The Federal Reserve [Only registered and activated users can see links. ][Only registered and activated users can see links. ] for a depressed economy through [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] monetary stimulus, and by [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] a temporarily higher level of inflation. But with everything from Ron Paul’s [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] to Rick Perry [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] to lynch Chairman Ben Bernanke, Republicans have [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] the Fed into not going down this path. Most damagingly, the GOP repeatedly [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] President Obama’s nominations to the Federal Reserve Board during the critical months of the recession, leaving the board without the institutional clout [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] to help the economy.
3. Threatening a debt default. Even though the country didn’t actually hit its debt ceiling last summer, the Republican [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] to default on the United States’ outstanding obligations was sufficient to spook financial markets and [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] to the economy.
4. Cutting discretionary spending in the debt ceiling deal.[Only registered and activated users can see links. ] the GOP extracted as the price for avoiding default imposed around $900 billion in cuts over ten years. It [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] $30.5 billion in discretionary cuts in 2012 alone, costing the country 0.3 percent in economic growth and 323,000 jobs, according to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute. Starting in 2013, the deal [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] another $1.2 trillion in cuts over ten years.
5. Cutting discretionary spending in the budget deal. While not as cataclysmic as the debt ceiling brinksmanship, Republicans also [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] a shutdown of the government in early 2011 if cuts were not made to that year’s budget. The deal they struck with the White House [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] from food stamps, health, education, law enforcement, and low-income programs among others, while [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] defense almost entirely.
There have also been a few near-misses, in which the GOP almost prevented help from coming to the economy. The Republicans in the House [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] a transportation bill that [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] as many as 1.9 million jobs. House Committees run by the GOP [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] proposals aimed at cutting billions from food stamps, and the party has [Only registered and activated users can see links. ][Only registered and activated users can see links. ] to kill [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] of unemployment insurance and cuts to the payroll tax.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, those policies — the payroll tax cut, food stamps, unemployment insurance, and discretionary spending for low-income Americans — [Only registered and activated users can see links. ], meaning more job boosting potential per dollar.
The problem is a failure to communicate these facts to the American electorate because the attention span of the American electorate is measured in seconds. Moreover, rather than paying attention to news that directly affects his or her life, Americans spend way too much time, probably 3 to 4 hours a day, watching unreal "reality" shows like American Idol, the Voice, etc. that have no impact whatsoever upon America lives. But the advertisers love it!
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