Reply #13: Why Republicans Persist in Demanding the Elimination of 700,000 Jobs

[Demeter]

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12569

Why do Republicans persist in demanding that we eliminate 700,000 jobs? It has to do with the influence of four major groups:

1). The CEO/Wall Street Class. Much of America's economic royalty - which is the major base of the Republican Party - is focused exclusively on what you could call short-term greed. They want their taxes to fall as far as possible. They want Government to stop trying to regulate their reckless behavior - producing unsafe products, fouling our air and water, out of control speculation...Many of this gang believe that if they can make enough money - for them anyway -- the future will simply take care of itself. Whether or not jobs of ordinary Americans will disappear is of relatively little interest to them. They want government to be as small a factor in our lives as possible - except of course to the extent that government contracts or privatization of government services can feed their bottom lines...


2). The second influential group pushing for policies that would eliminate 700,000 jobs are the intellectuals and academics who work for the first group. And I do mean "work for." Guys like the billion-dollar right wing Koch brothers literally pay "think tanks" and "foundations" all over America to churn out reports and studies that basically argue that up is down and black is white. They create the intellectual structure to dress up the economic self-interest of the wealthiest Americans in respectable academic clothing. They tell us there is no "scientific consensus" about climate change. They create economic theories to support their contention that Keynesian economic policies don't work and that we need to turn instead to austerity policies and low taxes to give business the "incentive" to produce and invest....

3). Many in the third group actually understand the budget-slashing proposals being made by Republicans in the house would cut massive numbers of jobs. This group is the Republican political class - and they would be happy as pigs in slop to eliminate those jobs. The last thing they want is for the economy to improve. If the economy fell into a second recession, they think that would be the best thing that could happen since bottled beer. As Rush Limbaugh put it, they want Obama to fail.

4). Of course the final - and most visible -- group clamoring for draconian cuts that would cost 700,000 American their jobs is the Tea Party, and the many far-right members of the Republican caucus that they helped elect last year. Many of these extremist Members of Congress actually believe that the voters sent them to Washington to "shrink government." Of course the Tea Party - and its corporate sponsors -- did exactly that. But the vast majority of swing voters that helped elect them were simply furious that their own personal economic situations seemed to be getting worse and worse. The real reason for this problem is that all of the economic growth of the last two decades has gone to the top 2% of the population. Middle class incomes have not kept up with the increased productivity of the economy, and everyday people are falling further and further behind as a result...