Elected By Promising Jobs, Cutting Jobs Once In Office

[Rick Rowlands]

Government was created to preserve liberty not create employment.  When did everything become so warped?

[irishbobcat]

 But the reality is we are millions and millions of jobs behind where we should be and the effect on Americans is just devastating. People are suffering, small businesses are going under, there are more foreclosures than ever, more people in poverty, more people on food stamps, more people losing unemployment benefits... It is just terrible out there. We might be getting used to it, but it is just terrible out there for people.

And the Republicans continue to cut at the middle class and union workers......how is this improving the economy?

Keep believing the Neo-Con hype and keep drinking the kool-aid Dan, you are a loyal sheep....

[Dan Moadus]

When Republicans promised to create jobs, did you think they meant "public sector" jobs? How foolish of you.

Private sector job creation, is what we must rely on, and it only creates jobs if the business climate is right. Now that we have a little "business climate change" with the new Republican majorities we are starting to see a resurgence in job growth.

Ironically, Scott Walker and John Kasich, while not creating any new public sector jobs, are saving many. Anyone who takes an honest look at it can see that schools and cities have cut back as many employees as they can in order to balance their budgets. This is due in part to the recession, and the continuing demand for better benefits and more money through collective bargaining. The fact that the public employees are now willing to make concessions is too little too late, and as we all know is temporary. Most unions, once they arrive at strong bargaining position, self destruct, as we have seen in industry after industry. Public sector unions have been able to forestall the day of reckoning because of the nature of public employment, but economics will not be denied, they will ultimately break the backs of their employers, and they too will either become extinct or changed so dramatically that they will be unrecognizable.

Kascich and Walker are only jamming down the throats of these people, a little of the medicine that may save some of them. You'll see.

[irishbobcat]

Elected By Promising Jobs, Cutting Jobs Once In Office
By Dave Johnson

March 4, 2011 - 1:14pm ET


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See if this sounds familiar. Get elected by promising jobs. But once in office push through tax cuts for the wealthy and their corporate masks, and cut jobs. Then use the resulting budget deficits and jobs crisis to whip up pubic panic. Finally, use that panic to push through "solutions" that have little to do with jobs or budgets and everything to do with consolidating wealth and power. How often to you see that formula played out?

Promise Jobs

In 2010, Republicans around the country were elected after running hundreds of millions of dollars in ads (paid for largely by billionaires and big corporations) promising jobs (and promising to protect entitlements.) They promised this because poll after poll after poll shows that the public wants the government to focus on jobs and protect the things government does for We, the People.

But Once IN Office

But now in office they are cutting jobs, gutting the things government does for We, the People and saying "So Be It" when confronted on the gap between campaign promises and action in office. They said what they needed to say to get power, and they are using that power to consolidate power, gut government and pass ever more money and power to the top.

Wisconsin Laying Off

Wisconsin is showing us how it works. In Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker pushed through $117 million in business tax cuts. Then he pushed through a law requiring a two-thirds majority to raise taxes, removing that as a way to fix the resulting deficits. And finally, the run for the goalposts: get rid of unions, gut government, destroy public schools, and push through the rest of the corporate-right agenda.

The Governor is killing jobs and public schools, laying off thousands of teachers and state workers and dramatically cutting the school budget. The unions have conceded to every wage and pension cut, but this is not remotely what the Governor wants. It is not about budgets, budgets are the mask. He wants the unions and public schools destroyed, and the price of defiance is thousands and thousands of jobs.

Not About Budget Or Jobs

LA Times, Limiting unions just part of Wisconsin governor's agenda,

"What you've got is a governor who's come in with a great appetite for achieving his ends," said Norman J. Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "This is far more about power than it is about money."

... he also signed a law protecting businesses from liability in lawsuits. The only business group he battled with was the Democratic-leaning green energy industry, when he proposed increasing regulations on the placement of wind farms.
Other States And Nationally

This isn't just happening in Wisconsin, it is part of an orchestrated campaign in several states as well as at the federal level to panic voters about budget shortfalls with the goal of implementing corporate/conservative "solutions." This week in the story For right, Wisconsin battle was years in making, Politico examined how the billionaire Koch brothers and others have waged a campaign to convince voters that public employees, their pensions and their unions are responsible for state budget deficit, leading up to efforts like the ones in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and other states to get rid of public employee unions. From the Politico story,

The conservative assault on public sector unions that seemed to explode out of nowhere in Wisconsin and spread across the Midwest was in fact months – if not years – in the making, the result of methodical polling, lobbying, messaging, grassroots organizing and policy crafting by a coterie of well-funded conservative groups.
The corporate/billionaire PR machine may have whipped up media stories about pensions, but the public isn't buying it.

Poll After Poll

Poll after poll after poll show the public wants the government to focus on jobs, not on cuts. It is very, very clear. And economist after economist agrees. And then even more polls and more economists.

NBC/WSJ poll: 37% want job creation, 22% want cuts. But among those "they are adamantly opposed to cuts in Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and K-12 education."

Most popular deficit solution? "...placing a surtax on federal income taxes for those who make more than $1 million per year (81 percent said that was acceptable)."

NYTimes/CBS Poll: "Those surveyed said they opposed, 56 percent to 37 percent, cutting the pay or benefits of public employees to reduce deficits."

Most popular deficit solution? "Asked how they would choose to reduce their state's deficits, those polled preferred tax increases over benefit cuts for state workers by nearly two to one."