After months of a laser like focus on capture and control of every uterus in America, the Republican Party decided to pretend to talk about jobs with a word salad garnished with pretty pictures. Nothing in it was new. In fact it was just a re-tossing of the same “tax-cuts solve everything” talking points that have become the Golden Calf of wingutopia.
Look at it and marvel at how silly it is:
It is being widely mocked. Last night Rachel Maddow had some fun with it. Steve Benen, Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein and many, many others are pointing out that it is a bad joke–devoid of any new ideas. It is a plan that will explode the debt while killing jobs. It is a plan that has been tried over and over again and one that has failed every time. The last time it was tried was in the Bush years and the economy has yet to recover.
And yet, this is all they have to offer. The shock is that anybody treats this as a “serious” document. I know that IOKIYAR is the rule for media coverage, but the way some folks treat these stale word salads as “ideas” is really getting silly.
This should be mocked and anybody who defends it should be celebrated as a fool.
Cheers
NamelessGenXer
Ryan Path to Poverty v2. Did anyone check to see if this was a direct copy & paste job?
eric
Depression For Dummies
Downpuppy
How can you call passing trade treaties with South Korea, Panama & Colombia unserious?
That’s eleventyzillion jobs right there!
Comrade Javamanphil
I used to be nervous in social situations but tax cuts solved that. What have tax cuts fixed for you?
Culture of Truth
Did we mention “Job Creators” ?
Jay in Oregon
As someone in another thread said, “The House Republican Plan for America’s Job Creators”? So if you are a job seeker, you’re still fucked.
Sly
When the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems end up looking like nails.
Jay in Oregon
@NamelessGenXer:
It’s more like a palimpsest; they just scrape the old names and numbers off of the plan and replace them with new names and prettier charts.
Same old same old.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
There must be something to it, since President Obama has been willing to more than meet them halfway. There is no higher recommendation, is there?
.
.
Comrade Javamanphil
I am also now aware of all internet traditions thanks to tax cuts.
Luthe
I love how they ignore the fact that the current H1-B visa system is driving down tech-industry wages. More visas for Asian tech workers! Less money for Americans!
Also, too: “drill, baby, drill” in another dress.
Urza
So, when Rachel held that up I was thinking the pictures were 1/3 page pics instead of the half page like she was saying.
And really, was there anything in that entire document that wasn’t a keyword dogwhistle for all their crappy propaganda?
R-Jud
@Comrade Javamanphil: I have visibly smaller pores and a blemish-free complexion thanks to tax cuts!
Downpuppy
Looking closer at the South Korea Treaty, no, it hasn’t sat idle for 3 years. The Bush 2007 treaty got rejected, so Obama got a better version signed last December, which will probably pass this year.
Clowns.
arguingwithsignposts
What is with the republicans and their failparade coloring books? Remember boehner’s “budget” proposal?
Bill H.
Yep, you’re right. It’s a joke. Absolute nonsense. No question, it deserves nothing other than mockery.
And what are Democrats offering to create jobs? Don’t start crowing about the auto industry, that was over a year ago. I’m asking what are Democrats, and Obama, doing now about 400,000+ new unemployment claims for six weeks running?
And don’t give me “free trade agreements” either. NAFTA and CAFTA anyone, and that “giant sucking sound” come to mind?
Culture of Truth
These people are led by John Boehner, for god’s sake. I’m surprised the pages numbers appear in order.
prufrock
I hate, Hate, HATE the term “job creators”. It’s pure propaganda. There is nothing inherently special about the people in the executive class. Oh, they may be a little smarter than average (or not, see Carly Fiorina), but they are not Gaultian supermen, and they do not dispense wealth on the commoners like manna from heaven.
General Stuck
Whenever I think of today’s wingnut, and the repetitive nonsense we get from them, NO MATTER THE FUCK WHAT – I think “Messy – Messy” republicans never change, only their policies gather more fail as time goes on.
Citizen_X
Well, you know why those trade agreements haven’t gone through? Because Obama is insisting upon funding Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) along with the trade agreements–you know, training for adversely-affected workers.
Orrin Hatch’s response? “It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Focused like a laser on them jobs, they are.
Comrade Dread
The Invisible Hand is angry. Verily, it tells me that the reason those things failed before was your lack of faith.
Thou must make a further sacrifice of thine retirement and health care benefits to appease the great Invisible Hand with more tax cuts. Yea, it’s prophets have spoken. They need a new yacht.
David Brooks (not that one) is a dickhead.
Tax cuts are the best thing to happen to the world since the birth of Jesus!
bjacques
I’m gonna use my tax cut refund to buy that awesome factory-looking building on the fifth page!
This plan is nothing but WIN!*
*a Whip Inflation Now! button, that is.
Culture of Truth
I hate the term JC as well (hmmm… JC… coincidence?) but the concept of special job-creating people who need special incentives to bestow their magic is essential to their agenda.
It’s a modern form of alchemy or spirit worship – if we sacrifice the right animal or person we mollify the gods into creating some jobs for us.
handy
I’m pretty sure I’ll be seeing this on my FB feed sooner or later.
Citizen_X
@Culture of Truth:
Ahem. Try 20,000 persons. (Someone here linked to that yesterday.)
Linnaeus
@prufrock:
I like to say that if the capitalist class consists of “job creators”, then their workforces consist of “profit producers”.
Dave
You know what the thing is, though? It’s not funny.
It’s not funny that one of the two major political parties in the United States has intellectually stagnated, if not regressed, for over three decades. And that because of our system of government, that party can obstruct, delay and outright halt any action to fix the myriad problems facing us today. And does so on the basis of failed ideas.
jrg
Job Creators, my ass. Every single company I’ve ever worked for was a public company. If the shareholders were all retired ditch diggers (as opposed to captains of industry), it would not make a bit of difference to me. I’d still have the same fucking job.
It should be clear to everyone with half a brain that “Job Creators” means no more and no less than “rich people”. The idiot son of a Wall st trader who inherited $30 Million is a “Job Creator” to these liars, even if he’s never created a single job.
Shrillhouse
Hmmmm. It’s seems a little sketchy on the details.
Also, to , I was unaware America’s domestic energy production had been “halted” since Obama came into office. Really? All of it? Just stopped cold? No wonder gas prices are so high!
After all, as everyone knows, America’s offshore oil reserves are so vast, so easy to get at, and so safe to develop, that we could probably cut the price of gas in half, and never have to write another cheque to the Saudis again, if only we had the courage to drill our way to prosperity..
cleek
I’m more confident and my wife is more satisfied, thanks to tax cuts.
Major Mel Funkshun
I no longer have that ‘not so fresh feeling’. Thanks tax cuts!
prufrock
@Linnaeus:
This exactly.
Jeebus, looking at my comment I suddenly realize that I go on a comma storm when I’m indignant.
Chris
@Comrade Dread:
I for one find this lack of faith disturbing.
Winston Smith
They are focused on jobs.
B-jobs.
No one ever needed and abortion because they performed a BJ, so the Republicans are just trying to encourage BJ creators to create more BJs. It’s very sensible folks.
Now, getting a BJ may lead to impeachment, but that’s a different issue.
The Republic of Stupidity
Geez, guys…
That IS a serious plan…
Look at the size of the scissors they have on pg 3… and what are the scissors doing?
Cutting. RED. Tape. Obama’s SOCIALIST. RED. tape…
How can any plan that includes scissors of that size NOT be taken seriously?
And what about the guy on pg 4?
Apparently your average WHITE, middle-aged, glasses-wearing, God-fearing, pudgy, balding, oddly sexless American male… apparently w/ some sort of… antlers… growing out of his head…
Doesn’t THAT just SCREAM Serious! Serious! Serious!
You guys are impossible to please…
barkleyg
Don’t you guys get it. Republicans have a 2500 word maximum
that they can completely comprehend. Anything over 2500 words is just Liberal Elite rhetoric, and ANYTHING can be presented in 2500 words or less, Except the BIBLE, of course!
NamelessGenXer
@Bill H.:
How about investment in Green Energy and beating China to the world market? Ever think of that, moran? Or is your head too far up Big Oil’s ass?
And FYI: Back before the House was overrun with Kochroaches, when Congress was solving problems instead of inflicting BIG GUBMINT and JEEBUS CHRIST into my uterus, The Prez signed the Small Business Jobs Act.
Now I have no idea what you do, Bill, although it seems the answer would be “cheer-lead for the Fascists from your mother’s basement”, but I am a small business owner, and guess what? I used the tax cuts included in this bill to buy me some shiny new computer HW and major SW upgrades. Now I know the HW was manufactured elsewhere, thanks to the neocons (and that includes Clinton) but the manager at my local MicroCenter couldn’t thank me profusely enough for the big sale.
And some homework for you: Please reply with the exact number of jobs created as a direct result of BushCo’s tax cuts. Too lazy for that? Here’s your answer.
geisha gurl
Bobo, in the last paragraph of his column today, was creaming in his pants about the “manufacturing renaissance” that some consulting firm has predicted for states like Mississippi when Chinese wages start to rise and Americans can start to compete again.
The fuck you say?
That’s great when Chinese workers start making $5 an hour, maybe some schlubs down south can start earning $6. That’s the renaissance? The conservative path to prosperity?
More like the low-road to common buggery.
gelfling545
This reminds me of the excesses committed by some of my students when they first awoke to the capabilities of Microsoft Word. Of course, my students were 13 years old but they still didn’t get credit if half the page was filled with pictures or for the tedious repetition of redundancies over and over again.
WereBear
We’ve been going about this all wrong, I see now.
Between these plans and the astro-turfed websites, blocking Republican access to clip art is where our real victories lie!
El Cid
Anyone mention yet that Krugman just quoted from and linked to our posts here with Palin movie titles? (Leads with Mooseferatu and then 3 others, then urges go read.)
Wonder if we’ll also get the hate trolls?
And if so, will it be fun?
Yutsano
@El Cid: It could explain why the gerbils are grumbling around here. At least I’m getting some real slow load times. But yeah, bring on some fresh meat, this could get fun.
trollhattan
Nothing quite like literalist graphic design: a third of a page
wasted oninvested in a photo of scissors cutting tape that is red. Get it? We’re Republicans and we don’t like tape that is red. We cut. With scissors. Or gunz.Turned in by a high school junior this thing would harvest a solid “C.”
A Conservative Teacher
Brillant points! The Democrat’s Senate Budget blows it out of the water! I spent hours reading the Democrats proposals on how to balance the budget, and it is heads and shoulders above the Republicans plans. And to think, for two years the Democrats have been putting together brillant and balanced and long-term budgets, and yet we’re all talking about the Republicans silly budget- how absurd.
FYI: The Democrats in the Senate haven’t even bothered to submit a budget in over two years and your Dear Leader’s budget proposal was laughed at by both sides in a show of bipartisanship.
El Cid
@geisha gurl: Rising fuel costs do make it much more costly to ship from China (even when the costs are variable in the short term but look more stably pricey in the future).
On the other hand, expect the inflation terror mongers to start screaming as there are now reports of expected wage increases — though based currently on temp worker providers who are now having to send more skilled & stabled temp workers. (Yay! Better temps! We’re doing great!)
Therefore our awful workers may soon be threatening our manufacturing “renaissance”.
Manufacturing in the US, however, has over the long term actually grown.
It’s manufacturing employment which has changed and/or dropped in wages, because — as Krugman finally pointed out in his unpublished study a few years ago — in addition to automation and the traditionally cited reasons for manuf emp. changes, FREE TRADE has a large effect.
It’s not that “manufacturing” itself is transferred to lower wage 3rd world countries in all categories of products.
It’s that processes and parts of the manufacturing process get divided up. Stuff which makes more sense to do here, very high tech + very high skill + shorter hours, do here (a lot, not always). Other stuff send abroad.
Therefore the effects of FREE TRADE have been to shift the latter stuff offshore, so ‘wages’ of remaining manuf. workers don’t go down, we just need a lot fewer.
I guess we should hope to do more of the former while costs of the latter increase.
eemom
@Yutsano:
@El Cid:
and even as ye spaketh, so hath it come to pass.
Triassic Sands
Buried deep in the GOP’s library of mandatory ideology is a law that states that if something is ideologically attractive it is guaranteed to work if only it is tried an infinite number of times. Since Republicans don’t understand “infinity,” they think it means the “next time,” not beyond the end of time.
They’re like parents who are still claiming their son is really a good kid…and he wouldn’t be on death row if all those people hadn’t gotten in the way of all those bullets.
arguingwithsignposts
@eemom: Apparently, someone didn’t check their shoes after taking the dogs outside to do their business. Cough – @A Conservative Teacher – cough
Hedges Ahead
Start with a bang-
“For the past four years, Democrats…have enacted policies…As a result, most Americans know someone who has recently lost a job”
Nancy Pelosi wrecked the world economy, you see.
Then some glibness-
“More taxation, regulation, and litigation will not create more jobs…” except as tax collectors, regulators and litigants.
And my personal favorite talking point-
“We need common sense, pro-growth policies to give small businesses and entrepreneurs renewed confidence in our economy.” These are the risk-taking innovators and free-enterprisers who ‘drive’ our economy we’re talking about. They’re not pandas. They don’t need soft music and mood lighting to procreate little baby panda jobs.
Next time someone asks ‘when was the last time a poor person gave you a job?’, just ask them how much they took as a salary last time they started a business, and how much they put right back into said business. Ask if they slept under the counter. Personally, I tend to worry about meeting my government regulator at a point after I’m done worrying about meeting my customers, assuming they exist. Anyway, tax-collectors, regulators and litigants’ money is as good as anyone’s.
But yeah, the slow patent process is really what’s holding me back.
gypsy howell
That damn FDA is fucking things up too. Imagine how many jobs could be created if pharmaceutical companies didn’t have to go through all those drug trials to see if their new snake oils will kill you! The Invisible Hand will guide you to the ones that don’t.
Mnemosyne
@A Conservative Teacher:
Oh, great, so you read the Democratic Progressive Caucus’ 2012 budget. Finally, someone I can have a conversation with about it. Which did you think was the most interesting proposal, the one to raise the cap on the Social Security tax or the Infrastructure Bank?
Because I’m sure that you wouldn’t come over here without knowing about the Democratic budget plan. That would make you look really stupid, as though you hadn’t actually researched anything at all and just lived in your little fantasy world where cutting taxes is the solution to every problem, including the heartbreak of psoriasis.
And we know that you couldn’t possibly be that stupid, right? I mean, you’d have to have an IQ of 75 or less to be talking about budget plans without comparing the Republican and the Progressive Caucus plans.
PurpleGirl
@Downpuppy: Yeah, for Panama, Columbia and South Korea.
HyperIon
@Luthe wrote:
Feature, not bug.
After all it IS about the Job Creators, not the Job Seekers.
HyperIon
@arguingwithsignposts:
Yes, I do and it was much more pathetic than this one.
Are the slick production values put in to pad this out the Rebubs sincere attempt to do better?
Maybe but as you said, FAIL!
opie jeanne
@cleek: Bob?
Evolved Deep Southerner
@A Conservative Teacher: You’re joking, correct?