An Accurate Assessment Of The GOP By Former President Clinton

In Former President Bill Clinton's interview with CNN, he cut right to the chase in explaining the current situation:

I find it amazing that the Republicans who doubled the debt of the country in eight years and produced no new jobs doing it, gave us an economic record that was totally bereft of any productive result are now criticizing him [President Obama] for spending money.

The only people who actually prospered the past eight years were the fat cats. At the same time, the working American actually lost wealth due to wage stagnation combined with inflation. But as Clinton points out, President Bush and the Repbulicans in Congress spent money like crazy.

Now - with an economic disaster second only (for now, at least) to the Great Depression - Republicans are wanting to be budget hawks.

But again Clinton nails it:

For example, there's 100 economic studies which show that you get a better return in terms of economic growth on extending unemployment benefits or investing money in energy conservation jobs to improve buildings than you do giving people in my income group a tax cut. But it doesn't stop them. Those guys are on automatic. You punch a button and they give the answer they give you.

Yes, pre-programmed brains in a rut: GOP leadership.

GOP Fighting Hard To Lose 20.000 Jobs

One vote. Just one more vote in California's state Senate needed to approve a $42 billion budget-balancing plan. Without it layoffs of workers in "corrections, health and human services and other agencies that receive money from the general fund" will begin. In all some 20,000 workers are on the chopping block.

The holdout is over political philosophy:

The plan continues to fall short of votes because rank & file Republicans have refused to agree to $14.4 billion in higher taxes.

That is a lot of people to be putting out of work in these hard times. California is in real bad shape these days, and - as with the country in general - the lion's share of the blame goes to the Republicans and their failed policies.

Spare Us Your Outrage

My God! We listened for the better part of eight long years to how Democrats were anti-American and anti-patriotic, givers of aid and comfort to terrorists. Immediately upon Barack Obama's announcement of his intention to run for president we were treated to endless innuendo about his alleged connections to radical Islam and his general disdain for America.

Now the shoe is on the other foot and just listen to the squealing. Check out this from NewsBusters:

On his February 10 show, left-wing radio host Mike Malloy ranted about Republicans who voted against the Obama stimulus package, going so far as to label them as "domestic terrorists" who "want the country to fail." Malloy also attacked Rush Limbaugh in his comments and charged that Limbaugh "is a bigger threat to this country than Osama bin Laden," practically calling for his arrest.

So what's the problem? Limbaugh is on record that he wants Obama to fail. How patriotic is that? And as I commented in yesterday's post, how disgusting is it that many of our elected officials would love to undo the last presidential election?

So tells us, conservative friends: what exactly is the problem here?

That Is What Conservatives Do

This Way To The Past

I had to laugh at this item:

Several Tennessee lawmakers have signed on to a legal action intended to force President Barack Obama to turn over his birth certificate and other documents to prove his citizenship, an effort rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in an earlier case.

Just can't leave the past behind and move forward, eh, guys? This is kicking a dead horse. But that is what conservatives do. Example: the recent GOP brouhaha over economic stimulus legislation; they, of course, were in favor of using the tried and discredited policies of the past.

Is it not rich when four southern Republicans (Tennessee Reps. Eric Swafford, Stacey Campfield, Glen Casada and Frank Niceley) get on board an effort by a Russian immigrant from California to undo our last presidential election?

The story I linked above fairly pointed out the ridiculousness of this:

The news of the lawsuit later provoked ribbing around the Capitol, with one legislative staffer approaching a lawmaker and demanding to see his birth certificate.

Yes, exactly. Now can we please move on?

Conservatives Have Trouble Telling The Truth About FDR And New Deal

Ohio congressman Steve Austria embarrassed himself by going overboard in parroting the usual conservative claim that FDR actually made things worse rather than better with his New Deal. While opposing the stimulus legislation he took an idiotic extra step of claiming

The last time this was done, was under Franklin Roosevelt, and when Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a great depression, to be honest with you.

Mark that word "honest" for future reference.

This story which I link to above goes on to state

Rep. Austria was given a chance to make clear whether he was really blaming FDR. He repeated his point, saying, "That's just history."

The story goes on to succinctly explain that

Actually, it's just nonsense. President Roosevelt inherited an unemployment rate of 25 percent in 1933. By 1937, it had dropped to 14.3 percent, an extraordinarily fast drop in percentage terms. Then there was what some economists call a "mini-depression," and the rate went back as high as 19 percent. But overall, from 1933 to 1940, it dropped from 25.2 percent to 14.6 percent.

Now that is history. And I might add that the "mini-depression" was caused by Roosevelt caving in to pressure to attempt to balance the budget. Further proof that things are exactly opposite to what our conservative friends attempt to portray.

However, moving on, we find that Austria finally was later forced to recant, writing

I did not mean to imply in any way that President Roosevelt was responsible for putting us into the Depression, but rather was trying to make the point that Roosevelt’s attempt to use significant spending to get us out of the Depression did not have the desired effect. Roosevelt did not put us into the Depression, but rather his policies could not pull the nation out of the recession.

As for honesty, it is hard for me to understand how he could have spoken so boldly earlier, even saying "that's just history," and then later claim he didn't mean to imply what he so clearly said.

The truth is just the truth, no matter how hard one may want to spin it otherwise: The New Deal did start turning things around.

Does government create jobs?

Yeah, among the new conservative mantras is this one, trumpeted of late by RNC Chaiman Michael Steele:

Let's get this notion out of our heads that the government creates jobs. Not in the history of mankind has the government ever created a job.

Wow! Simply incredible.

The state of California, which is facing a very harsh budget crunch, is now looking at this situation:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will send layoff warnings to 20,000 state workers at the end of the week if the Legislature has not approved a deal to close California's $42 billion budget deficit, the governor's spokesman said Tuesday.

State governors, even Republican state governors, realize all too well the falsity of the "government doesn't create jobs" rhetoric.

It would probably be comforting to think of lost government jobs as mainly from a pencil-pushing, paper-shuffling, bloated bureaucracy; but the truth is that many cuts will be made from education, law enforcement, and other much needed health and public safety government employees.

(As an aside, I wonder if Steele doesn't think of the members of our military as government employees?)

The truth is, state governors (for the most part) facing the real world are unable to indulge themselves in the political game playing now going on in Congress. A further truth is that those in Congress who are playing politics with this crisis are a disgrace to their office.