Republican Jobs Plan: An Economy for the 1%

Republicans jammed together a mess of old, failed and vague schemes and called it a jobs bill. Sen. John McCain conceded the reason for the rehash: “Part of it is in response to the president saying we don’t have a proposal.”

They still don’t. This despite the fact that they promised voters during their campaign to take control of the U.S. House one year ago that they’d create jobs. That they’d focus on jobs. That nothing was more important to them than jobs.

Now, what they’ve offered instead of actual jobs is a polyglot of GOP talking points. It’s certainly no vision to move the country forward. It’s a plot to set the country back – to repeal the health care law that will soon help provide coverage for the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance, to rescind the Wall Street reform law designed to prevent another financial sector-caused meltdown, and to thwart regulations, like those that stopped distribution of listeria-infected cantaloupe that killed 25.

GOP Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio called the Republican polyglot a “pro-growth proposal to create the environment for jobs.” It is, in fact, a pro-business For Republicans, it’s all about enforcing freedom for the few – allowing corporations and millionaires to do whatever they want. No matter what that means to the freedoms of the 99 percent. The GOP demand for repeal of health care reform is another example of that. Already, this law has expanded health coverage for a million young adults because it allows them to remain on their parents’ plan until age 26. It has also helped 1.2 million senior citizens afford their prescription drugs by beginning to close the “donut hole” during which they must pay.

Still, Republicans want to get rid of that law. They want to regress to those free-for-all days when health insurance corporations could make unlimited profits from illness, deny coverage to those with chronic illnesses and terminate coverage when policy holders got sick. They want those young adults dropped. They want senior citizens to pay more for their prescriptions again. For Republicans, it’s all about enforcing freedom for the few – allowing health insurance corporations to do whatever they want. No matter what that means to the freedoms of the 99 percent.

The Republican rebuke of any attempt to control the 1 percent is highlighted in their “jobs bill” by its call for a regulation moratorium. No new rules! The country is in the midst of the deadliest outbreak of foodborne illness in 25 years. Twenty-five people are dead. A total of 125 people in 26 states have been sickened by listeria-poisoned cantaloupe from Jensen Farms in Holly, Colo. One sickened woman suffered a miscarriage. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says more illnesses and deaths may occur over the next several weeks.

If the Republicans got their way, the FDA would be unable to write new regulations to prevent another such incident. It’s fine with the GOP that Jensen had hired its own inspector, a firm that certified the Jensen packing plant fine and dandy just before listeria-tainted cantaloupes killed 25 and just before the FDA found numerous, obvious violations.

That’s because the Republican precept is: an economy just for the 1 percent.

Good lord. BOTH parties cater to the 1%.

Good lord. BOTH parties cater to the 1%. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

But only one party also caters to the other 99%.

The Republican agenda has always been predictable. Look out for the wealthy and leave the scraps for everyone else.

Their knee-jerk opposition to the jobs bill that President Obama was exactly what you would expect from them.

However, then suddenly it was like they were caught with their pants down when asked about their own plan to get people back to work.

When the President pointed out that they do not even have a plan of their own, it was like they gathered around a steaming cauldron and threw in everything except the wing of a bat and proclaimed the hash to be a "jobs bill" of their own.

You would think that after the catastrophe that was Bush, they would be embarrassed to even be seeking the White House to continue down the same road, but it's like they all have amnesia and don't remember a thing!

But only one party also caters to the other 99%. Originally Posted by Doove

No Sir you are Wrong. 50% give or take a few points either way ( I think leaning our way). Say you are FOS.

I'm a private business owner and in the 1%. And nothing in the Republican plan does anything for me, other than cut my taxes at your expense. And you can cut my effective tax rate to zero and I'm not creating any additional jobs unless I sign up more good law suits. Then I'm hiring more help no matter whether my marginal tax rate is 35% or 39.6% (or higher).

The appropriate phrase would be "but only one party PANDERS to the other 99 percent"

Gawd, TTH. You love to flash your wallet around here, don't you? We know you're rich, and we don't care.

BTW, can anyone tell me what is in the President's "jobs" bill? Or how it would create jobs?

It has nothing to do with "my wallet". It has to do with the mistaken notion embodied in the initial post. The Republican "job bill" doesn't really do anything for the top 1% other than give us a tax break. It creates no jobs for us nor does it make it easier or more likely for us to hire new employees. It's just a bullshit tax giveaway and a deficit raiser.

And yes, I can tell you some things that are in the President's job bill, including some that I lobbies against (and that have already been passed and signed). Patent reform, specifically. Although the primary provisions that we lobbied against have been taken out.

And I can tell you about a few other provisions, most notably:

1) Extension of the payroll tax holiday and extending it to the employers portion;
2) Elimination of payroll taxes for new workers;
3) Another extension of unemployment benefits:
4) Tax credit for hiring veterans;
5) Countercylical aid to states to keep teachers and law enforcement people on the payroll;
6) Infrastructure bank that States and their subdivisions can finance construction projects out of;

I'm sure that there are others, but those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

1 - 3 would produce more jobs through typical Keynesian stimulus. Again, not terribly well designed, as in the case of the initial stimulus program -- especially the employer part of the payroll tax cut. But I'm sure that was included in a foolish and vain attempt to attract Republican support. The fool still hasn't learned that the Republicans are never going to cooperate with him, bless his ignorant little heart.

4 will arguably create a very marginal incentive to hire when a business is very close to the breakeven point on hiring an employee, if, and only if, a veteran can be found who possesses the job skills needed and can be hired in to the job in question at a competitive salary. Again, not terribly well designed, but designed to appeal to people's soft spot for veterans and to (foolishly) try to attract Republican support.

5 and 6 are the best of all the ideas. Five doesn't so much create jobs as avoiding layoffs, but that is just as effective. Six is the the best of the lot and would be a good idea even if we were not in a double dip recession. Our infrastructure is crumbling and now lags behind that of many of our global competitors. With interest rates a historical lows, and concrete, steel and other construction materials at a lower price now than in recent years, what better time than now to launch long term construction projects.

Again, I'm sure that there are some significant provisions that I overlooked. But that's what I recall from his speech off the top of my head.

So the only things you like about the bill are those wherein the federal government steps in to help states do things that are solely state responsibility. Where are the millions of jobs?

Btw, Keynes has been completely discredited.

Btw, Keynes has been completely discredited. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

That statement is like the thirteenth chime of clock: It not only discredits that utterance, but all that proceed it.

The current financial crisis has show what most good economist have know all along. Keynes is THE preeminent economist of the last two-hundred years. Probably the best since Adam Smith.

If you really belief what you wrote (instead of just typing something obviously false to get somebody's goat), I will offer to buy you a copy of Robert Skidelsky's book Keynes: The Return of the Master. Along with Freefall:America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by Joe Stiglitz, it is the best single economics book I've read in the past ten years or so.

Send me your address and I'll buy you a copy. It's really a very interesting read.

I'll see that and raise you "The Road to Serfdom".

The Austrians have it right. Most of the time.

I doubt if Keynes would recognize what passes for Keynesianism today.

I doubt if Keynes would recognize what passes for Keynesianism today. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

He wouldn't.

In fact, I think he'd be shocked by some of the snake oil being peddled in his name today. People forget that he did his work in an era when governments of industrial democracies generally ran balance budgets, or even surplusus, in good times. I have a hard time believing that he wouldn't simply recoil at the idea of stacking huge new deficit spending initiatives atop already very large structural budget deficits, as we're doing today.

And the author of this article points out another big factor that might horrify Keynes, were he alive today:

http://news.yahoo.com/keynes-221201285.html

Geoghegan is a labor lawyer and is rather far to the left on the political spectrum. Thus he is an unabashed fan of big-government initiatives and is generally simpatico with most of the tenets of what we genarally refer to as "Keynesianism." But he shows that he has a good understanding of the structural issues we face, and does a good job of explaining why the mindless "stimulus spending" we have done, and some propose to do more of, will not work and cannot work.

As I've said several times in this forum, we have severe structural problems that will not respond to politically-motivated "feelgood" programs and giveaways.

All we're doing is digging a deeper hole and a bridge to the next series of crises.

These clowns in Washington, D.C. are all about political victories, not sound economics. That's true of both political parties.

I'll see that and raise you "The Road to Serfdom".

The Austrians have it right. Most of the time.

I doubt if Keynes would recognize what passes for Keynesianism today. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

I read von Hayek. And Ayn Rand. In junior high school. About the same time I read Erich Van Däniken's Chariots of the Gods. My money is on Van Däniken to be the first one of the three to proved correct, although I'm not holding my breath on any of them.

And Keynes would without a doubt recognize the exact problem that we have with our economy today -- an sinking aggregate demand liquidity trap. Whether he would recognize no-Keynsianism, imperfect information, etc. my get is that he would, except in it's most mathematical forms.

CaptainMidnight, I know of few Keynesian who would argue that there are not serious structural issues in the economy, although most would put at least one or two of them above the balance of trade accounts. But that is something that should be attacked simultaneously, not before, stimulating demand. And forced to choose between the two, my guess -- and to my knowledge Keynes didn't write on the subject --my guess would be that in our current state if forced to choose between the two he would urge stimulus first because without that, there will be no economy to increase production and exports from.

Likewise, Keynes was averse to unnecessarily running up government debt in flush times. That is why Bush squandering the surplus left by Clinton, launching two unprovoked and harmful wars of choice without paying for them was doubly tragic. It damaged our balance sheet when we should have been saving for a rainy day.