GOP Favors Big Oil Over U.S. Workers

Once again the Republican teabaggers in the House of Representatives are showing that they really don't care much about American workers, the unemployed, the elderly, or the economy of this country. The Senate passed an extension of the payroll tax cut for another two months, giving themselves time to negotiate the cut for the rest of the year when they come back after the holidays. This same bill would also cancel a cut in Medicare payments to doctors and extend unemployment benefits (both of which would end at the same time the payroll tax cuts do).

But the Republicans in the House of Representatives are refusing to go along with the two-month extensions. They still claim they want to do a bill that would last for the entire year instead of two months. But that is just GOP rhetoric. The real reason they oppose the two-month extension is because it didn't include a provision forcing the president to approve building the Keystone XL oil pipeline within the next six months (the president has ordered further studies on the pipeline and said he would make that decision in early 2013).


The Republicans have been claiming that the pipeline is a "job creator", and that's why they want it approved. As the chart above shows, that is simply ridiculous. The pipeline would only create somewhere between 400 and 1500 temporary jobs -- a less than insignificant number that would do nothing to solve the current unemployment problem in this country. The real reason they want the pipeline to be quickly approved is to help out their buddies at the Big Oil companies -- for them the pipeline would mean millions (if not billions) in new profits. The graphic below will give a hint about why these House members are insisting on including the pipeline provision in the bill.

Knowing this, the Republican obstructionism makes a lot more sense. They never cared for the payroll tax cut anyway (their constituency is rich people, not workers), so they will only vote for it if it includes a huge giveaway to the oil and energy companies. They are just paying these companies back for the campaign donations.

The bad part is that this Republican ploy to get their oil and energy buddies a big new payday could not only cost millions of workers their payroll tax cut (not to mention kill unemployment payments and lower already low payments to doctors for treating Medicare patients) -- it could also seriously damage the economy and make the recession even worse than it currently is. Here is what allowing the payroll tac cut to lapse would do:

– According to Macroeconomic Advisers, allowing the payroll tax cut to lapse “would reduce GDP growth by 0.5 percent and cost the economy 400,000 jobs.”

– Barclay’s estimated that letting the cut expire would knock 1.5 percent off of first quarter growth next year.

And here is what passing it could accomplish:

– Ameriprise Financial Services estimated that extending the cut “islikely to add between 750,000 to 1 million jobs.”

– Susan Wachter, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, calculated that the payroll tax cut “would add 1 percentage point to economic growth and create 1 million jobs next year.”

– Regional Economic Models Inc. estimated that the cut would pump “$120 billion into U.S. households in 2012.”

That is what the House Republicans are doing by their efforts to get big profits for Big Oil. It is inexcusable -- and just one more reason why they must be defeated in the next election.