ERIC CANTOR, POST TURTLE…. House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) visited the conservative Heritage Foundation last week to unveil what he called “a no-cost jobs plan.” Andrew Leonard summarized the pitch: “Cut regulations. Freeze spending. Cut taxes. No new taxes. That’s the plan.”
It was, of course, the Bush/Cheney agenda — which helped get us in this mess in the first place — warmed over.
A week later, Cantor appeared at the Economist’s World in 2010 conference. The frequently-confused GOP leader said his party has plenty of important “big ideas” and policy proposals. The Economist‘s Daniel Franklin asked Cantor to identify the Republicans’ big idea on jobs. Pat Garofalo reports that Cantor couldn’t think of anything specific.
FRANKLIN: What is the big idea? “Jobs” is not an idea.
CANTOR: The big idea is to get, to get, to produce an environment where we can have job creation again.
I almost feel bad for the guy. Cantor was elected to Congress before he was able to learn anything about public policy, and was put in the GOP leadership before he could speak intelligently about any issue.
Eric Cantor as a congressional leader is a classic example of a post turtle — you know he didn’t get up there by himself; he obviously doesn’t belong up there; he can’t get anything done while he’s there; and you just want to help the poor, dumb thing down.
His “big idea” is an economic environment in which the employment marketplace improves from the recession’s lows? That sounds an awful lot like the stimulus package — which Cantor rejected and continues to trash — which has created as many as 1.6 million jobs in less than a year.
There are conservative policy proposals related to job creation. Eric Cantor can’t think of any. Better opposition, please.
