So, about 2 hours ago, on Twitter, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) posted a link to this site.
He made a claim that bears some scrutiny:
You’ve heard me say time and time again that we’ve got to cut spending if we’re serious about creating an environment for job creators in America to do what they do best – and that’s to create jobs.
Why? What is it about spending cuts that create jobs?
I propose that what Boehner really means is this:
In order to allow the private sector to create jobs, we have to destroy the efficiency of the public sector.
Just an example that has received a lot of public attention recently: Planned Parenthood funding. The fact is, Planned Parenthood is accountable, efficient, and effective in the administration of government funding to provide reproductive health services for women, mostly women in low-income neighborhoods. So while it is true that the private sector cannot create jobs in this market, the reason is because the private sector (e.g., Catholic Charities, crisis pregnancy centers, etc.) cannot compete with Planned Parenthood unless Planned Parenthood is defunded.
That's the real issue here. And it was the same issue we saw with opposition to a public option for health insurance (or single payer, for that matter). The fact is, if we make Medicare available to all Americans (or provide healthcare through a public option with Medicare-based rates), private insurance companies wouldn't be able to compete. They'd go out of business. And that's because the government is able to more efficiently and effectively provide healthcare through its Medicare-based buying power and through the large-group negotiation of prices with drug companies, hospitals, etc.
Republicans love disaster capitalism. For Republicans, a crisis is an opportunity to make big money, because a crisis presents desperation, and desperation creates a situation where buyers make unwise economic decisions. Behavioral economists have been paying attention to this phenomenon for years. In fact, going back to biblical times, this fact is as old as the story of Jacob and Esau - where older brother Esau sold his birthright to his younger brother Jacob because he was starving after a long day's work.
So, Republicans recognize that hunger, fear, and desperation are opportunities to be exploited for massive profits. It's why they love emergency military spending measures. It's why they want to destroy collective bargaining agreements. It's why they are working tirelessly to exploit high unemployment rates in order to bust unions, attack women, attack minorities, attack immigrants, attack Muslims, and basically create a dogfight mentality between the Tea Party and everyone else.
The Tea Party, with its high ideals and unwillingness to accept compromise, is a group of willing stooges for the Republicans. Republicans don't really care about deficits or spending. That's evident from their unwillingness to address the biggest area of discretionary spending - our bloated defense budget. It's evident from the Republican spending spree on the Iraq War, Medicare Part D, etc. And while the intentions and fears of the Tea Party are real and perhaps legitimate, the fact is that the Tea Party is blaming the wrong people for the mess we're in, and taking the side of the very same Republicans who drove the economic bus into the ditch.
So, we can certainly agree with Speaker Boehner when he says that the "job creators" in this country need an environment which is conducive to job creation. But cutting spending won't do that. Not at a time when unemployment is at 10%, housing values are depleted, consumer spending is stretched to the limit, wages are flat, gas prices are rising, and healthcare costs are exploding. What's needed is a growing middle class with more money to spend. CEO pay, stock markets, and multinational corporations already have plenty of cash on hand. They're just waiting to spend until they get their way (and their pound of flesh).
Cutting federal spending will not solve the problem any more than tax cuts for the wealthy will solve the problem. What's needed is smart investment in the areas of our economy that are needed for us to grow our way out of the situation. We need to invest in crumbling infrastructure and provide education and workforce training. We need to put more money in the pockets of working-class American families and relieve them from the stranglehold of consumer debt and flat wages. We need to reinvest in energy independence and do the things that the Democrats and the Obama Administration have been doing for the past 2 years.
Let's face the facts: Without the Recovery Act, the unemployment rate would be much closer to 12% today than 8.8% (which is still too high). And the stimulus should have been bigger, as Paul Krugman has demonstrated using actual economic numbers instead of free-market witch-doctor mumbo-jumbo. President Obama and the Democrats successfully averted a second Great Depression, and did so despite the nonstop obstruction of the Senate Republicans from November 2008 to December 2010. When the Senate Republicans decided to hold Congress hostage with their demands for millionaire tax cuts, the Obama Administration bit the bullet and pushed for more middle class tax relief. But the tax cuts are not stimlulating job creation as much as we would see if we had unadulterated, targeted, needs-based stimulative federal government spending.
So, Boehner can go on trying to sell the American People on the same failed bill of goods that we saw during the Hoover Administration. If they want to return us to that era of austerity and prolonged jobless recovery, then that's their prerogative. But it's a flat-out lie to claim that this is about creating jobs. This is about destroying the effectiveness and efficiency of the public sector, and it's time to call a spade a spade.
Remember, in closing, that the Republicans were screaming about Medicare cuts and healthcare system reforms that reduced government spending in 2010. They claimed to object that these cuts would be "job-killing" and said they opposed the "job-killing bill". And they're right about the job-killing part. The truth is, when you cut spending by the federal government, people lose their jobs. Republicans know that. They're hoping that you won't pay attention now.