The repugicans Are Unhinged and Terrified of Good Economic Reports

Despite their Herculean efforts to bankrupt America though, another report this week revealed the economy is on the mend despite the repugican cabal's plot to obstruct the functioning of the nation …

When a nation receives good or at least encouraging news, particular good economic news, it is normal to expect politicians to rejoice, unless they are repugican politicians. One can hardly blame repugicans for not celebrating anything good about America since they have spent the past five-and-a-half years doing everything in their power to impose devastation on the country, especially the economy. Despite their Herculean efforts to bankrupt America though, another report this week revealed the economy is on the mend despite the repugican cabal's plot to obstruct the new President’s attempt to turn around the economic disaster eight years of repugicans’ drunken spending spree on the nation’s credit card.

Americans will not hear many repugicans campaigning on what they were calling a nation-ending budget deficit just a couple of years ago, because for the fifth consecutive year the deficit declined as a percentage of GDP as a result of the President’s economic policies. It is noteworthy that the deficit is now at its lowest point under President Obama’s Administration, and that it has been falling well before repugicans stole control of the House in 2010.

According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the deficit “plunged to $486 billion in fiscal year 2014;” that is $195 billion less than the record shortfall recorded during fiscal year 2013 and is the smallest recorded deficit since 2008. In fact, at just 2.8% of GDP, the deficit under President Obama is well below the average of the past 40 years; that is back to 1974 and destroys the repugicans’ absurd contention that they are fiscal conservatives. It is also noteworthy that one of the factors contributing to the deficit falling is that revenue has increased due to a tiny change in the tax rates for the richest one-percent who still take advantage of shrub-era tax cuts on their income.

What should be a great campaign message for Democrats leading up to the midterms is that the deficit has continued to fall sharply over the past few years while teabagger-repugicans were trying desperately to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. In fact, the deficit was, and had been, falling before the repugicans’ precious sequester including last year when House repugicans decided to shut down the government before they considered paying the debts they racked up during eight years of the shrub-repugicans’ economic disaster. It is likely why, nationally at least, there is a dearth of hand-wringing and fear-mongering about “this Obama spending spree driving runaway debts and deficits,” and why repugicans are focusing their fear-mongering on other threats they created by enabling the rise of ISIL in Syria and Iraq, and prevented a quick end to West Africa’s Ebola virus with their sequestration cuts.

Fright over debts and deficits has not completely ended on the campaign trail for repugicans in congressional districts with predominately stupid repugican voters, but it is not the defining theme it was during the 2010 and 2012 elections. There are some teabaggers who, lacking cogent anything, are stuck in 2010 and claim the budget deficit is still rising at alarming proportions, but it is more to defend their votes to shut down the government and, believe it or not,  “cause a credit default to prevent America from ever borrowing again.” It is a mindset that appeals to many repugican voters who want nothing more than to see government bankrupted and “drowned in a bathtub” because repugicans convince them their economic woes are due to the federal government.

The CBOs report noted that one of the reasons the deficit is falling is due to increased revenue as a result a slight increase in tax rates for the richest one percent. It puts a dagger into the heart of the repugican argument that only austerity and brutal spending cuts will rein in the debt and that any tax hike automatically decimates economic growth and kills jobs. Although the debt has been falling for the past few years, the greatest decline has been since revenue increased after the 2012 budget fight ended.

Speaking of jobs, it is true that some repugicans still claim that without deeper tax cuts for their wealthy and corporate masters jobs will continue to vanish, but their lies do not, and cannot, change the reality that there has been steady job growth under President Obama. In fact, just last week economic experts reported that weekly “tallies of how many Americans are applying for new unemployment benefits have reached the end of its usefulness to investors and consumers.” Why? Because hiring has been steadily improving, layoffs are declining rapidly, and jobless claims are at their lowest point in 14 years. A mark economic experts say cannot possibly go any lower, and they noted it is the 12th lowest since 1980 and lower than 85% of the records over the past 35 years. All with a small tax hike on the very richest Americans and without a rash of regulatory cuts repugicans claim is necessary for job creation and economic growth; something they are secretly telling their Koch and corporate donors will happen if they control both houses of Congress.

President Obama has provided Democrats with plenty of good economic news to campaign on successfully, and although wages are still declining for most Americans, that too is something repugicans own and are not talking about. In fact, with the stock market at record highs, unemployment falling, corporate profits through the roof, and America as the world’s leading oil exporter, the only Americans suffering are 98% of the population due to repugicans’ job-killing, pension-robbing, and penchant for slave wages.

Democrats also have several precious gifts from repugican-misled states that are suffering credit downgrades, poor job creation, severe revenue shortfalls, and citizens earning slave wages and lacking basic necessities that repugicans pledge to enact in Washington if the control Congress. It is really unclear what else the President can possibly do on his own to make the good news for the economy a winning issue for Democrats, and if they are waiting for repugicans to bring up the good news on the economic front they will be waiting forever.

If nothing else, repugicans are so besotted with pleasing their racist, religious, secession-minded, and monumentally ignorant supporters, it is certain they will not talk about, or take even a smidgen of credit for, the economic good news because…Obama. Democrats cannot possibly be as ridiculously stupid as repugicans or their supporters and they have absolutely no excuse for not riding the economy to victory in November by both touting the President’s success and reminding sane Americans who is fighting to help all of them share in the economic good news. Because except for the racist, most religious, self-hating, and frankly stupidest Americans, most voters know who is fighting for and against them.