Job-killing, economy-crippling Repugs

[boutons_deux]

"But as Mike Konczal and I showed not too long ago, the massive job loss we’ve been experiencing in the public sector is no random coincidence or unfortunate side effect. It is part of an ideological battle waged by ultraconservatives who were swept into power in the 2010 elections. Republicans seized control of eleven states, and of those, five were at the top of the list for public sector job loss. Only seven states lost more than 2.5 percent of their government workforce from December 2010 to December 2011, and those five newly Republican states were among them. All others fared far better: they lost an average of .5 percent of their government employees.

This means that the eleven states that went red two years ago were responsible for 40 percent of these public sector job losses in 2011. If we add in Texas, a massive red state, we can pinpoint the source of 70 percent of those losses. And those losses were the result of deliberate decisions: even in the face of tight budget constraints, many of these states cut taxes for corporations and top earners while slimming down the public payrolls. It was part and parcel of a new agenda that came in with Tea Party–esque Republican legislators.

Obama is still demanding—even if the demand is falling on deaf ears—that Congress pass his American Jobs Act, which would spend $35 billion in federal funds to keep those very government workers in their jobs. Guess who opposes that plan? Congressional Republicans and Mitt Romney."

http://www.thenation.com/blog/168313/romneys-all-wrong-public-sector-employment#

[boutons_deux]

5 Ways Republicans Have Sabotaged Job Growth

1. Filibustering the American Jobs Act. Last October, Senate Republicans killed a jobs bill proposed by President Obama that would have pumped $447 billion into the economy. Multiple economic analysts predicted the bill would add around two million jobs and hailed it as defense against a double-dip recession. The Congressional Budget Office also scored it as a net deficit reducer over ten years, and the American public supported the bill.

2. Stonewalling monetary stimulus. The Federal Reserve can do enormous good for a depressed economy through more aggressive monetary stimulus, and by tolerating a temporarily higher level of inflation. But with everything from Ron Paul’s anti-inflationary crusade to Rick Perry threatening to lynch Chairman Ben Bernanke, Republicans have browbeaten the Fed into not going down this path. Most damagingly, the GOP repeatedly held up President Obama’s nominations to the Federal Reserve Board during the critical months of the recession, leaving the board without the institutional clout it needed to help the economy.

3. Threatening a debt default. Even though the country didn’t actually hit its debt ceiling last summer, the Republican threat to default on the United States’ outstanding obligations was sufficient to spook financial markets and do real damage to the economy.

4. Cutting discretionary spending in the debt ceiling deal. The deal the GOP extracted as the price for avoiding default imposed around $900 billion in cuts over ten years. It included $30.5 billion in discretionary cuts in 2012 alone, costing the country 0.3 percent in economic growth and 323,000 jobs, according to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute. Starting in 2013, the deal will trigger another $1.2 trillion in cuts over ten years.

5. Cutting discretionary spending in the budget deal. While not as cataclysmic as the debt ceiling brinksmanship, Republicans also threatened a shutdown of the government in early 2011 if cuts were not made to that year’s budget. The deal they struck with the White House cut $38 billion from food stamps, health, education, law enforcement, and low-income programs among others, while sparing defense almost entirely.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/06/511940/5-ways-republicans-sabotaged-job-growth/

[mavs>spurs]

i'd say diehards like you who get all emotionally invested in the red/blue game are the bigger problem. what we need is a complete overhaul of the system and removal of the 2 corrupt parties tbh.

[boutons_deux]

"removal of the 2 corrupt parties"

false equivalence

what you say we need will never happen, so try again.

[CosmicCowboy]

:lmao at crying over public sector job loss. The whole point of the public sector is to provide the basic function of government as efficiently as possible, not to create public paychecks by stealing from the private sector.

[Halberto]

i'd say diehards like you who get all emotionally invested in the red/blue game are the bigger problem. what we need is a complete overhaul of the system and removal of the 2 corrupt parties tbh.

I agree that people like boutons are a problem, but the two party system is much better than the 2+ party systems you see in south America where nothing gets accomplished because of the lack on unity.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol false equivalence.

[mavs>spurs]

brb i'm going to need a box full of crowbars to get the heads out of some of your asses.

[Clipper Nation]

"removal of the 2 corrupt parties"

false equivalence

what you say we need will never happen, so try again.

False equivalence... FALSE EQUIVALENCE?

B, you need to stop being a DNC homer and take a look around at what's going on... the SAME lobbyists and banksters hold sway with both parties... why do you think Obama's been advancing Bush's crap after campaigning against it?

[Wild Cobra]

:lmao at crying over public sector job loss. The whole point of the public sector is to provide the basic function of government as efficiently as possible, not to create public paychecks by stealing from the private sector.
I didn't even read any of the first two posts by ShazBot because they seldom have merit. If this is about reducing the size of government then I say something is being done right for once.

We need less federal influence over the states. Less state influence over the counties, etc.

Don't get me started on public employee unions. There should be no such thing. We need to restore the meaning of "public servant."

[boutons_deux]

Local Governments Have Cut 130,000 Teaching Jobs In The Last Year

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/fredgraph.png

aldron on Jul 6, 2012 at 1:55 pm

The last three years have been the worst on record for public sector job losses, and the fact that more than 700,000 public employees have been laid off is holding back the nation’s economic recovery. In the last 12 months, local governments have lost more than 130,000 teaching jobs alone, according to monthly jobs data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today.

In June 2011, local governments employed more than 7.9 million teachers. A year later, that number has dropped to 7.8 million, as Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal notes. Since June 2008, when local governments employed 8.1 million teachers, they have shed more than 300,000 teaching jobs, as this Federal Reserve Economic Data chart shows:

Such cuts obviously have perilous effects for the nation’s education system and long-term economic health, but it hurts the economy in the short-term too. Teachers are disproportionately women, so the cuts affect a subset of worker that already faces significant disadvantages in the American workplace, and these losses no doubt played a role in the recession’s out-sized impact on female workers.

What is worse though, is that congressional Republicans blocked Democratic efforts to extend aid to state and local governments that would have protected teaching and public safety jobs multiple times over the last two years. Keeping teachers and other public sector employees in the workforce would boost demand to help the economy, so much so that growing the public sector at normal rates (instead of shrinking it at a record pace) would knock a full point off the unemployment rate.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/06/459744/women-labor-force-participation-drop/

[jack sommerset]

Boutons copying and posting might be right. The republican party may have slowed up the stimulus plan, killed jobs, refused to pay bills and cut spending where they did not need to do so. I think my brothers message is the republicans did all this to make the democrats look bad and to keep the country in a downwhirl spin so they can rise back up to power. It's possible but doubtful . My brothers opinion matters and that's what is important. Again, I apologize for asking you to change. God bless

[boutons_deux]

"It's possible but doubtful"

Not doubtful AT ALL:

Bitch McConnell said the Repug priority since 2009 was to defeat Obama, NOT to create jobs nor stimulate they economy, since a bad economy and high unemployment work against the incumbent.

the squawking by the Repug deficit/austerity hawks is a masquerade for "defeat Obama"