The
Republican political strategy has been to obstruct efforts to help the
economy for everyone but the wealthiest few, and then campaign on
complaints that the economy isn’t helping anyone but the wealthiest few.
It’s working.
In President Obama’s July 12 weekly address
he said, “So far this year, Republicans in Congress have blocked every
serious idea to strengthen the middle class.” He could have said, “Since
2009.” Since the 2009 “stimulus,” Republicans have obstructed pretty
much every effort to help the economy. In the Senate they have
filibustered hundreds of bills, and since the “stimulus” they have
managed to keep anything from passing that might help the economy.
In the House,
Republicans have refused to allow votes on anything that seriously would
help the economy, instead passing only tax cuts for the wealthy and
corporations, spending cuts on essential things like maintaining our
infrastructure and scientific research, and cutting regulations that
protect people and the environment from being harmed by corporations
seeking profit.
Republicans have blocked every effort since the stimulus
to maintain infrastructure, hire teachers, raise the minimum wage, give
equal pay for women, stop special tax breaks for millionaires
corporations (especially oil companies), stop tax breaks for sending
jobs out of the country, provide student loan relief, help the long-term
unemployed, and more. Instead they insist on even more tax breaks for
oil companies and billionaires, on cutting environmental protections,
deregulating oil companies, and so on.
Obstruction Using Senate Filibusters
How many bills
have been filibustered by Senate Republicans since President Obama took
office? Bloomberg’s Jonathan Bernstein, in “All Filibusters, All the Time,” writes, “The correct count of how many bills have been filibustered during Obama’s presidency is: approximately all of them.”
That’s
what it means to have a 60-vote Senate, which is what Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell and the Republicans declared as soon as Obama was
elected. Almost every measure and, until Majority Leader Harry Reid and
the Democrats invoked the nuclear option last fall, almost every
nomination, had to have 60 or more votes to pass. That’s a filibuster.
Here are just a few of the hundreds of bills Senate Republicans have filibustered since President Obama took office — just a few:
Equal Pay for Women
Minimum wage increase
Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act
Bring Jobs Home Act – stop tax breaks for moving jobs and production facilities out of the country
Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act of 2011 – rehire 400,000 teachers, firefighters, paramedics and police officers.
Student loan reform – ease the crushing burden of student loan debt by at least allowing refinancing to lower interest rates
Extended unemployment benefits – for the long-term unemployed
Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) — let working people join unions – filibustered in 2007, killed by threat of filibuster 2009
Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act – let public safety officers join unions
The Buffett rule – ensure millionaires pay a comparable tax rate to middle-class Americans
Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act
What would it
have meant for the economy and jobs to launch a post-stimulus effort to
maintain and modernize our infrastructure? How about reversing the tax
structure that pays companies to move jobs out of the country? How about
equal pay for women? How about a minimum wage increase? How about
hundreds of thousands of teachers and first responders going back to
work? How about being able to organize into unions to fight for wages,
benefits and safer working conditions? How about relief from crushing
student loan debt?
All of those things blocked, and people wonder what the economy is just slogging along…
Obstruction And Economic Sabotage In The House
In the House
Republican leadership has been following what is called the “Hastert
Rule” to obstruct bills that would win with a majority vote. This is not
a real “rule”; it is a partisan method of limiting what Democrats and
moderate Republicans can accomplish. Republican leadership will not
bring a bill up for a vote unless a majority of Republicans are for it.
In other words, even if a bill would pass with most Democrats and some
Republicans voting in favor, it can’t even get a vote unless it fits
with Republican doctrine. (Actually that would be Republican funder doctrine, which is basically oil companies, Wall Street and a few ultra-billionaires.)
So instead of
looking at what has been blocked in the House, which would be literally
everything Democrats and up to 49 percent of Republicans think would
help the economy, we should look at what has passed. What has passed is a
record of economic sabotage. Republicans claim there are more 300 bills
passed by the House that are held up in the Senate. (Note that The Washington Post took a look
at this and found that “In 11 of the past 19 Congresses – more than
half – more than 300 bills were waiting for Senate action by the time
the Congress completed its work.”)
Of particular
note among the passed bills is the Republican “Path to Prosperity
Budget” (a.k.a. the “Ryan budget”). It is described as “Cuts spending
& implements pro-growth reforms that boost job creation.” It
dramatically cuts taxes on the rich. It privatizes Medicare. It cuts
spending on infrastructure, health care for the poor, education,
research, public-safety, and low-income programs. It turns Medicaid,
food stamps, and other poverty programs into state block grants.
Tax cuts aren’t
going to fund schools or repair roads and bridges. And lo and behold,
this Republican budget that passed the House cuts taxes and cuts funding
for even maintaining – never mind modernizing – our vital
infrastructure needs. This is a budget of economic sabotage.
Other Republican House “jobs” bills, listed at Speaker Boehner’s “jobs” page include:
- Repeal ObamaCare
- Working Families Flexibility Act – Eliminates overtime pay
- Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare Programs Act
- Approve Keystone pipeline, to build a pipeline across the country so
Canadian oil can be soil to China, easing an oil glut here and bringing
prices back up.
- More offshore oil drilling
- Student Success Act – Promotes charter schools, cuts federal programs and support for schools
- Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act – blocks regulations on coal ash
- Energy Consumers Relief Act – block government regulation of oil companies and carbon pollution
- Stop Government Abuse Act – “Provides small business owners with tools to protect against government harassment.”
- Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act – “Stops the IRS from implementing the president’s health care law”
- Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act –
“Requires congressional approval of any new regulation with an economic
cost of at least $100 million”
- National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act –
Facilitates the development of strategic and critical minerals used to
support manufacturing jobs. (Note Senate Republicans filibustered this.)
- Protecting States’ Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act – Prevents regulations on fracking
- Responsible And Professionally Invigorating Development Act – Expedites the approval for new energy projects
- Electricity Security & Affordability Act – Protects coal-fired plants from regulation
Preventing Government Waste & Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America Act – prevents coal regulations
- Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act
- North American Energy Infrastructure Act – promotes cross-border pipelines.
- The Domestic Prosperity and Global Freedom Act – Expedites the approval of liquefied natural gas export applications
- Lowering Gas Prices to Fuel an America That Works Act – expanding production of oil and gas
- Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act – Permanently extends a ban on Internet access taxes
OK, got that?
Their “jobs” bills include things like cutting government support for
schools, stopping regulations on coal ash, requiring people receiving
federal assistance to work, and drill-baby-drill. Oh, the list even
includes bills that Republicans filibustered in the Senate.
It is not clear
how getting rid of public schools and replacing them with charter,
private and home schools is about “jobs.” It also is not clear how
banning taxes on Comcast internet access “creates jobs.”
Many of these
so-called “jobs” programs are really about subsidizing and assisting the
oil and coal companies that provide so much of the funding for the
Republican Party and conservative propaganda apparatus. (Note that Koch
Industries is at heart an oil company.) They’re just called “jobs”
programs because people need jobs – because Republicans have been
blocking actual jobs programs.
And what about
direct sabotage? Who can forget the Republican hostage-taking of the
debt ceiling, when they threatened to take down the entire world economy
unless we cut back on things like maintaining our infrastructure,
scientific research, public health, hiring teachers and other things we
do to make our lives better? There was a direct cost of $18.9 billion,
but then there was the resulting credit rating downgrade, the pullback
by businesses worried that they might actually do this, and so on.
Who can forget the terrible cost to the economy of the government shutdown? There was a direct cost of $24 billion,
but also the reduced fourth-quarter GDP growth from 3 percent to 2.4
percent. And the continuing harm from loss of confidence in our
government’s ability to, well, govern.
The Voting Public Doesn’t Know
The Senate
filibusters of real job and economic recovery efforts, the House’s
so-called “jobs and growth” bills, the debt ceiling fights, the cuts in
economically necessary spending like infrastructure maintenance and
finally the government shutdown combine to show an incredible record of
economic sabotage. This was the Republican plan, we saw it unfold, and
now we see Republican campaigns running against the “Obama economy.”
However, the
voting public is largely unaware of this record of obstruction and
sabotage and the effect on the recovery. Seriously, go out and ask
around. If you are reading this you are likely a highly-informed person.
So you might be aware that there have been filibusters, but maybe not
that there have been up to 500 or more Republicans filibusters.
The corporate
media obscures the obstruction and sabotage. The corporate/conservative
propaganda apparatus blasts out diversion and distraction. And, of
course, the Democrats are not presenting a unified explanation of how
Republicans are hurting the economy and how they would make things
better. (Until recently President Obama blamed “Congress” in general,
and the media still does.)
If Republicans
take the Senate this fall, will they continue the obstruction and
sabotage? What if they later also take the presidency? Here’s the thing,
they know their tax cut, deregulate, smaller government
nonsense does not work to boost the economy. Any economist will tell
you, history will tell you, and common sense will tell you that taking
money out of the economy won’t help the economy. It’s bad enough now,
what happens to the country if they win? It’s well past time to be fed
up with this. Vote, make sure your friends and family vote. Volunteer to
talk to people about the urgency of voting. It’s all we have left.
By the way, the chart above shows what that 2009 stimulus spending accomplished — we went from losing
more than 800,000 private sector jobs a month to gaining 100-250,000 a
month:
