IF BOEHNER WANTS TO TALK ABOUT JOBS, WE CAN TALK ABOUT JOBS…. During his appearance yesterday on “Meet the Press,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) didn’t talk too much about job creation, but he did raise a point about unemployment that stood out.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) vowed Sunday that House Republicans will fight for deeper spending cuts in the coming months, calling President Obama’s yet to be released budget plan one that will further hamper the nation’s economic recovery.
“He’s going to present a budget tomorrow that’s going to continue to destroy jobs by spending too much, borrowing too much, taxing too much,” Boehner said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Now, the notion that the president’s agenda is going to “continue to destroy jobs” is pretty silly. The employment picture has improved considerably since the Obama White House inherited an economy in freefall from Boehner’s Bush/Cheney buddies. Just last year, the private sector created nearly 1.3 million jobs — that’s more that the net total for the entire eight years Bush was president.
But putting that aside, this is an especially odd argument for Boehner to make right now, given that he and his House Republican caucus are pushing a budget plan that would, on purpose, lay off thousands of American workers.
Consider the cuts the House GOP wants to make this fiscal year. We’re talking about deep reductions in education, transportation, law enforcement, food safety, environmental protections, and community health centers, among many other areas. The result — indeed, the intended result — is to lay off thousands of teachers, police officers, medical professionals, food inspectors, etc.
It is, to borrow a phrase, the epitome of a “job-killing” plan. Given the GOP agenda, this is a feature, not a bug — the whole point is to reduce the public-sector workforce, and push these thousands of workers into unemployment.
With this in mind, it’s almost amusing to see the House Speaker tell a national television audience that we need to avoid an agenda that would “destroy jobs.” Is he not aware of what he’s proposed?
In effect, Boehner is arguing, “Obama’s agenda might put more Americans out of work. It’s better to go with my agenda, which will definitely put more Americans out of work.”
