Republicans Promise To Kill Jobs Bill

I have been saying for several days now that the Republicans will kill the president's jobs bill in the House of Representatives. They will kill it because they're afraid it just might work and they couldn't allow that. They have based their entire election strategy for 2012 on making sure that the economy is still in recession and millions of people are still unemployed. By keeping things as bad as they currently are in this country, the Republicans hope to convince Americans it is the president's fault and they should vote for the GOP. Of course this strategy depends on people being stupid enough to not notice that it is GOP obstructionism that is keeping things so bad.

I think the Republicans were hoping that the president's jobs bill would require a significant amount of new deficit spending. That would have made it easy for them to oppose it, because they could scream about it being a budget-buster (even though they are the party that created the massive deficit in the first place). But the president didn't fall into that trap. In fact, if the bill is passed as the president proposed it, it would not only pay for itself but there would be an extra $20 billion left over. The only budget-busting plan submitted so far is a Republican proposal that would eliminate taxes for corporations (and add another $300 billion a year to the deficit).

But the Republicans have decided to kill the jobs bill anyway. I guess they are hoping that with a little more than a year left before the next election, maybe people will forget that they were the ones to kill the jobs bill. The House Republican leadership has sent a memo to all of the House Republican caucus ordering them to kill the jobs bill -- and as we've seen in the past couple of years, the House Republicans are very good at following orders.

The Republican leadership says they are opposed to the president's plan to renovate about 35,000 schools and put thousands of teachers back to work. They are also opposed to improving America's transportation infrastructure. They say they are opposed to these programs because of the way the president plans to pay for it - by eliminating some tax deductions for people making over $200,000 ($250,000 for a married couple) and eliminating some unneeded subsidies given to the oil & gas industry.

This just shows once again that the Republicans care more about keeping the rich from paying their fair share of taxes than educating children or putting Americans back to work. They know who's filling their campaign coffers (and it's not unemployed people or kids in need of a quality education). But they did finally find a tax cut they oppose. The Republicans are now saying they will oppose the president's plans for a payroll tax cut. The Republicans oppose this because it will help the bottom 90% of Americans -- not the top 1-2%.

Once again I have to wonder -- why would anyone making less than $200,000 a year vote Republican? Those who do so are voting against their own best interests.