NYT editorial: No Jobs Bill, and No Ideas

[ProSense]

Editorial

No Jobs Bill, and No Ideas

It was all predicted, but the unanimous decision by Senate Republicans on Tuesday to filibuster and thus kill President Obama’s jobs bill was still a breathtaking act of economic vandalism. There are 14 million people out of work, wages are falling, poverty is rising, and a second recession may be blowing in, but not a single Republican would even allow debate on a sound plan to cut middle-class taxes and increase public-works spending.

The bill the Republicans shot down is not a panacea, but independent economists say it would have a significant and swift effect on the current stagnation. Macroeconomic Advisers, whose forecasts are often used by the Federal Reserve, said it could raise economic growth by 1.25 percentage points and create 1.3 million jobs in 2012. Moody’s Analytics estimated new growth at 2 percentage points and 1.9 million jobs. Those economists say that Republican ideas for increasing growth would have no measurable effects in the next year.

The Republicans offer no actual economic plans, only tired slogans about cutting regulations and spending, and ending health care reform. The party seems content to run out the clock on Mr. Obama’s term while doing very little. On Tuesday, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, accused Republicans of trying to “suffocate the economy” in hopes that the pain would work to their political advantage. They are doing little to refute that charge.

Their lack of serious ideas was on full display in both the Senate and the presidential debate on Tuesday night in New Hampshire. The debate was ostensibly about the economy, but when the freshest and most talked-about idea is Herman Cain’s ridiculous “9-9-9” tax plan, it is clear that the economy they were debating is not the one Americans are forced to live in. Mr. Cain — whose rise in the polls says everything you need to know about the amateur-hour decline of his party — wants to replace all federal taxes with a 9 percent levy on corporate income, personal income and sales. As Bruce Bartlett, an economist who has worked in Republican administrations, recently wrote in The Times, it is a formula designed to cut taxes for the rich and increase them for the poor, raising the deficit and doing nothing for growth.

more

[gateley]

1. Those people back there are truly, honestly, traitors. Their

actions are hurting this country and the people and they do. not. care.

Despicable.

[Pirate Smile]

2. "economic vandalism" - that's a new one. It fits.

[FrenchieCat]

3. I have never seen this kind of action against an American President, ever.....

[Pirate Smile]

4. I haven't either. To so flagrantly be trying to hurt the economy - when so many people need help -

it is truly shocking. It is treasonous. Their party should be destroyed by the voters for doing such a terrible thing. I don't know how they live with themselves. :(

[DLnyc]

5. Okay, but why don't the Democrats make them stand and

talk? If they want to filibuster, shouldn't they have to talk continuously in order to keep debate open?

It seems to me the Democrats folded once again. Instead of making them actually, physically filibuster on the floor, they just dropped the bill apparently.

?? Can somebody explain when a 'filibuster' went from bringing matresses onto the Senate floor and talking till you drop, to just politely dropping the bill ???

[jenmito]

6. K&R. n/t

[zbdent]

7. If there really was a "liberally-biased media" ...

there would be constant replaying of Boner saying "Why wait?" when it came to Obama presenting his jobs bill ... of course, that will be as prevalent as the tape of Rush Limbaugh, pre-election 2000, saying that if (W) Bush should win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote, there were legal methods that they could employ to challenge the results ...