McConnell’s pro-unemployment argument

[ProSense]

McConnell’s pro-unemployment argument

By Steve Benen

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last week kept his caucus united and killed a popular jobs bill during a jobs crisis. The plan — 400,000 jobs for teachers, police officers, and firefighters, paid for with a 0.5% surtax on millionaires and billionaires — was wildly popular with the public, but McConnell and his Senate Republicans killed it anyway.

Yesterday on CNN, Candy Crowley asked him why. The GOP leader replied:

“Well, Candy, I’m sure that Americans do, I certainly do approve of firefighters and police. The question is whether the federal government ought to be raising taxes on 300,000 small businesses in order to send money down to bail out states for whom firefighters and police work. They are local and state employees.

“Look, we have a debt the size of our economy. That alone makes us look a lot like Greece. The question is whether the federal government can afford to be bailing out states. I think the answer is no…. Look, we are not going to get this economy going by continuing to shower money on the public sector.”

By way of a fact-check, let’s note a couple of the glaring errors here. The first is that the financing relied on a small tax increase on millionaires and billionaires, not small businesses. The number of businesses affected is ridiculously small, making McConnell’s claim patently dishonest. The second is that anyone who compares America’s debt issues to Greece’s is a fool.

But the larger issue here is McConnell’s entire approach to government. Jobs for teachers and first responders, in his mind, are (a) a “local” problem, and (b) related to the public sector. They’re ultimately two sides of the same coin — McConnell cares first about ideology, not problem-solving.

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Notice, McConnell didn’t say the Democratic jobs bill would be ineffective. He knows — everyone knows — the measure would keep those Americans working, which would not only help the workers and their families, but also the local economies and those who benefit from their services. But for the Senate Minority Leader, whether the legislation would be effective or not is irrelevant.

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[opihimoimoi]

1. GOPer Gamble...stonewall jobs bill....blame Obama for no jobs...good luck...the People noes better

GOPers Plan sucks

[zbdent]

2. raising the taxes on "300,000 small businesses" ...

you mean, the ones that benefit from the police protection and such?

[lumpy]

3. The Repubs use the excuse that small businesses will suffer

if fair taxation is enacted. Easy to see through that lie. The corporate puppets never complain that big business will suffer; playing for public sympathy that struggling small businesses will suffer. A lie....

[GeorgeGist]

4. Rinse and repeat