If House Republicans succeed in cutting tens of billions of dollars in discretionary spending over the next six months, some of the most immediate victims will be federal employees, many of whose jobs will be slashed as their agencies pare back.
At a press conference in the lobby of RNC headquarters Tuesday morning, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) shrugged this off as collateral damage.
"In the last two years, under President Obama, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs," Boehner said. "If some of those jobs are lost so be it. We're broke."
TPM reported Speaker Boehner's message to America today and leaving aside how his statement was deemed false by Politifact I'm just struck by the simple fact that jobs aren't on the agenda of the House GOP, at all.
We have massive unemployment and a weak housing market. Fortunately, we've seen the economy stabilize and there are hopes for growth. We should also keep in mind it took a decade to exit the Great Depression; given the stimulus we should be lucky IMO to exit this Great Recession in half the time. The focus of the government should be on promoting efforts to grow the economy, support the state governments, and jobs, jobs, jobs. Growth would be the best way out of our deficit worries; everyone knows this.
But the MSM has latched onto this deficit scarecrow despite the clear and persistent polling that shows Americans do not care about the deficit. They care about jobs.
IMO, every Democrats should be standing up and saying this is what we would do for a better job plan and then turn to the Republicans and say what have you got.
Because frankly, the jobs issue is what is determining 2012 in the end and how hard it will be for President Obama to be re-elected. House and Senate Democrats should unite around him and this simple fact; the Republicans control the house and therefore the fiscal keys to this country. Why are they determined to drive it back into the ditch?
No amount of corporate money can put lipstick on that pig, IMO.