The Republican obstruction of job-boosting
policies helps the GOP run against a bad economy.
Mitt Romney says President Barack Obama should be fired because
he failed to fix the economy. This reminds me of the classic practitioner of
"chutzpah" — the man convicted of murdering his mother and father who
throws himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan.
Since the beginning of Obama's presidency, Republicans have
focused on one thing — making him a one-term president. Their strategy for
achieving that goal: sabotage economic recovery, keep unemployment high, and
blame Obama for it all.
When George W. Bush's presidency
ended nearly four years ago, the financial crisis was deepening and the economy
was going into freefall. Obama and Congress halted the collapse by enacting a
stimulus program to kick-start the economy. The alternative: Watch America
slide into a second Great Depression, as the economy shed 700,000 to 800,000
private sector jobs per month.
Yet Republican lawmakers just said no. Every Republican House
member voted against the stimulus, as did 38 of 41 Republican senators. What
did they propose to do about the crisis? Nothing, except — you guessed it — cut
taxes.
That is still the GOP's only prescription for America's ills.
But U.S. businesses don't need more tax cuts to create jobs — American
nonfinancial companies are sitting on a record $4.8 trillion in cash right now, according to
columnist David Cay Johnston.
The 2009 Recovery Act directly funded the creation of jobs all
across America, and supported education, public safety, rebuilding
infrastructure, and investing in renewable energy. The non-partisan
Congressional Budget Office estimated that this measure boosted employment at
the end of 2010 by up to 3.5 million jobs.
But when the stimulus money started to run out in 2011,
Republicans used their control of the House and their veto power in the Senate
to prevent further job creation. Instead, they made austerity and budget
deficits their priority.
"Austerity" meant cutting spending on the things
America needs, like public schools, environmental protection, veterans' health
benefits, food and drug safety inspections, and highways. When you cut
government spending on such programs, it means that people aren't hired to do
these things or they are fired. Their families spend less because they are out
of work, so demand for other goods and services weakens, and jobs are lost in
other parts of the economy, too.
You can argue that the deficit must be cut. You can't argue that
austerity increases employment. When you save government money by causing
hundreds of thousands of workers to be laid off, we call that unemployment.
Cutting back on government spending during hard times has been
tried before. In the depth of the Great Depression in 1933, unemployment was
almost 25 percent. After four years of the New Deal, by 1937, the jobless rate
dropped to 14 percent. But then the budget hawks of that era reduced government
spending and tightened credit. The result: Unemployment leaped 5 percent and
the Depression dragged on another four years.
When our economy has fully recovered, it will be time to tackle
the deficit. But not now.
Republicans know this. They have decided to keep unemployment
high for their political ends. Austerity equals higher unemployment. And high
unemployment hurts Obama's reelection bid.
Naturally, Republicans don't admit they sought high
unemployment. But, as the legal maxim goes, men are presumed to intend the
natural consequences of their acts. The natural consequence of austerity is
more unemployment.
Republicans have come close to admitting it. Last year, Texas
Gov. Rick Perry actually threatened the head of the Federal Reserve Bank,
saying it was "treasonous" for the Fed to try to stimulate the
economy before the election. This would be "playing politics." Last
month, Republicans resumed their
efforts to bully the Fed
into inaction, again attacking it for focusing on unemployment.
Who is the real traitor to the people of America? Someone in
government who tries to reduce unemployment, or those politicians willing to
prolong the misery of millions of unemployed Americans because they hope it
will help win an election?
Mitchell Zimmerman is
an attorney who lives in Northern California. He supplements his work as a
Silicon Valley intellectual property lawyer with pro bono work on behalf of the
underrepresented. Distributed via OtherWords (OtherWords.org)
