Weepy Speaker John Boehner lamented that the Democrats were "snuffing out the America I grew up in." He was talking about opportunities and the standard of living.
The fact is that the Republican remedies for our economy require lower wages and a lower standard of living. Their goals are redistributing income upward--which they have done-- and getting cheap labor.
Take a look at Paul Ryan's budget for 2012. He wants to drastically cut Medicaid and Medicare by four trillion dollars over the next decade. He does this by allowing the states to trim even more Medicaid services and giving Medicare recipients subsidies to add to their own funds to purchase private insurance. He is not talking about cost containment or any minimum of coverage.
If one were to study the so-called "economics" behind the the claim that spending cuts will produce jobs, one would find no hard data. What data that was produced last year has been thoroughly repudiated. Even the International Monetary Fund managers thought it important to shoot down these silly economic theories.
Recent reports from the Joint Economic Committee still make these claims but they are hedged about with all sorts of fudge words. Even the Republican staffers know they are blowing smoke.
The warned over supply-side theories that Ryan and others use all find two golden eras in American Economic history: The Roaring Twenties and the Gilded Age. These were both periods in which the economy was unregulated and workers were held down.
Indeed, the excesses of Twenties led to the Great Depression, the impact of which conservative economists now minimize.
The Republican-generatred report predicted that the economy would be revived if people removed from public sector jobs had to accept private sector jobs at lower pay. That would bring down the average wage scale and make American businesses more competitive. Republicans in Florida slashed unemployment compensation to 20 weeks and used the same rationale.
This line of reasoning is also behind the Republican opposition to health care reform. Any payment on the part of business to help fund health care is a burden and reduces competitiveness.
Governor Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania justified his contempt for unemployment compensation by saying that the unemployed were lazy and should be forced to seek work by removing their benefits. Despite these comments, he was elected.
Pennsylvania can be described as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between. Although wages are very low in "Alabama," Corbett's comments resonated with the culture there. It is akin in some way to the so-called "New South," where people were taught to revere the mill owners who established sweat shops. That is probably why Florida legislators could openly note that low wages were good for the economy.
The same approach is being tried in Republican-dominated Michigan, but no one is directly saying low wages are good, even though the UAW has been forced to agree to the employment of new workers at very low wage rates.
This line of thought was popular in the late 19th Century and again began to become popular back in the 1970s when working class people were taught that automobile workers and steel workers were completely responsible for the decline of their industries.
By the eighties, ordinary workers --"Reagan Democrats"--cheered the attacks on the flight controllers. Then came the attacks on the pilots, who some thought were paid too much. Today, very senior pilots retain some of their good wages, but younger pilots earn even less that beginning teachers.
It is hard to imagine that ordinary folks at some level do not grasp that Republican economic remedies are not all about lower wages and a lower standard of living. Over the last 30 years, more than 80% of Americans have seen their standard of living threatened. Today, their children's futures are being seriously threatened as tuitions are being dramatically raised in state own institutions. In Pennsylvania, the Republican governor wants to slash subsidies to state-owned and state-related universities by 50%. Even a 25% cut will put tuition out of sight for many people from working class families.
At some level, many may have agreed that lower wages and standards of living are necessary. But they cannot openly agree. Hence, they need all sorts of emotional distractions as they tug their forelocks and go along with what their so-called "betters" are prescribing for them. Some think they are putting an African American president in his place. Others see themselves battling cultural elitists or fighting abortionists.
The injection of so many emotional issues into our politics has made it very difficult for people to sort out what is happening. Republican leaders in Washington often behave as though they are enraged that their opponents even exist. The press behaves as though all of this is normal.
One wonders if this is mere acting, but last week Majority Leader Eric Cantor was talking about the "Government Shutdown Prevention ACt." It would put into effect $61 billion in cuts if the Senate did not act to approve them. Why would a responsible leader even talk about the hypothetical suspension of the United States Constitution? It bespeaks an unhealthy mindset and a lack of reverence for our legislative process.
The Democrats seem to have concluded that exposing the GOP agenda is pointless.
They are still smarting from the defeat in 2008, and betting on a full recovery that is probably five years away. If it is that far distant, the ordinary person will think the GOP produced the recovery.
They had better start pointing out people's self interest now and slowly building a narrative that explains why Republican policies have assured that this recovery will be slow and why it is really threatened by the Republican efforts to cut spending and jobs.
There is no easy approach for the Democrats. They must get people to see that their self-interest is threatened by the GOP. They also need to show how the GOP benefits by subtly damaging recovery.
In Sunday's local paper, a man who manufactures dental appliances wrote in to protest the fact that Pa. Governor Corbett ended all dental and eye care for people on Medicaid. This manufacturer complained that he had always voted Republican and did not agree with this policy.
Maybe he did not know what he was voting for. It is possible that many ordinary folks who voted to punish Obama and the Democrats for not working economic miracles were, at some level, simply throwing in the towel. When was the last time they saw Republicans do anything good for ordinary people?
So many people want to believe the conventional wisdom that corporate America and the GOP has fed them. They want to believe that sacrificing wages and standard of living is not just a ploy to make the rich richer. They want to believe that those who really won and run America have their best interests in mind. Maybe if they make these sacrifices they will be just temporary and they will then move on to possess the American Dream. Dream on.