What will Republicans like John Boehner do to bring high-wage jobs back to America and increase incomes of the middle class? What are they going to do, and how are they going to do it?
Just saying that you'll bring jobs back to America isn't enough. Does this mean that they'll oppose outsourcing of our jobs overseas, stop taking campaign donations from foreign companies via the Chamber of Commerce, and close down the tax loopholes which take our jobs away to foreign countries? It means that these Republicans will have to face the reality that we need to build up our labor, increase the minimum wage, and renew our manufacturing sector here in America to create jobs.
But will they face reality? They won't. The jobs campaign which they ran on during the midterm election were nothing but empty words, and much of the conservative electorate fell for it. It's time to put John Boehner and Republicans like him on the spot, and force them to answer questions they don't want to answer!
CALL JOHN BOEHNER AND ASK HIM WHERE OUR JOBS ARE!
Much of our economic decline can be attributed directly to Republicans in our legislative history. They've worked to decimate our unions, opposed the increase in minimum wage, and stonewalled any attempt by President Obama to create more jobs here in America by investing in green energy. And yet the Republicans falsely claimed the economic populism mantle by promising jobs that they fully know won't materialize because they plan to drag this economy down even further to make President Obama a one-term President. That's their plan and they've said as much.
Experts attribute the causes to various factors: the decline of organized labor, the erosion of the minimum wage, the shift from a manufacturing-based to a service-based economy, and the transformation to a more globalized economy. But a common thread is the choking of America's besieged middle class.
"For the average worker in this country, there is a sense of despair, there is a sense of hopelessness and growing anger because they're now seeing that corporate profits are hitting record levels again, corporations have extraordinary savings, and that CEO's always manage to pay themselves more," said Stephen Lerner, director of banking and financial reform for the 2.2-million-member Service Employees International Union. "And people are saying something's fundamentally broken here."
These Republicans will also falsely claim they want bipartisanship while they plan not to budge a single inch, and not to compromise with our President. It's what worked very well for them in the past two years, and they'll continue their plan of success for the next two years. They know our weaknesses as Democrats. They know that President Obama wants to govern, to pass policies, and to be effective in that manner. It's precisely why they'll stonewall him, and oppose him on every single thing. They turned what was a purported strength of the President's into a weakness, and they will get him to agree to passing some of the Republican legislation such as keeping the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy if President Obama thinks they'll give ground on another issue. Hint: they won't.
While extending a hand of bipartisanship to Obama, McConnell issued a stark warning that Republicans have no plans to compromise with the president. The GOP leader also wouldn’t back down from his recent assertion that his party’s No. 1 goal over the next two years will be to deny Obama a second term.
If the Republicans do get their way on the tax cuts for the wealthy, they'll claim it will create jobs. And say it loudly even when the evidence says otherwise.
We need to outflank them on this point. We have to loudly proclaim that our way will create MORE jobs, but the Republicans stopped us from doing it. We need to make the best case for direct job creation through more government spending, and look to populist measures in doing so. We can't cede the ground to the Republicans on the jobs front. We did that in passing too small a stimulus that was half-loaded with tax cuts. The Republicans knew that the stimulus wouldn't work as well, and had intentionally played the conservative Democrats into getting more tax cuts into the stimulus. And here we are now, with the Republicans in taking the House back.
Republicans can be put on the defensive in the Senate by using our majority to put forth legislation that would help directly create jobs, and force a vote on it. If that legislation manages to pass (if we have reformed the filibuster at that point), then we can point to the Republicans in the House as the main reason for blocking the legislation. We can say, this bill will help create 10 million new jobs in America, and these Republicans in the House blocked it!
We can target the seats of 48 Republicans in the House in 2012 by highlighting their obstructionism in failing to pass good legislation by the Senate. And that's assuming our majority in the Senate will see the benefits of putting the Republicans on the defensive, rather than seeking cooperation via bipartisanship, and if our President sees the benefits of that strategy.
It's time to be combative, fighting Democrats that stand behind our ideology and make the best case for it to voters. I'm with Howard Dean on this:
"If Republicans think we’re going to slow the growth of Medicare and Medicaid and give tax cuts to those making a million dollars a year, we will wrap that around their necks and beat the hell out of them in 2012."
No more bipartisanship. No more appeasement. It's time to beat the hell out of Republicans in 2012 so we can get those 48 seats back in our hands.
