The repugicans Are Set to Kill 1 Million More Jobs in 2014
The rpugicans will be killing 1 million more jobs in 2014, and a
new report found that their austerity madness is doing immense long
term damage to the US…
During eight years of the shrub junta, repugicans managed to
squander a substantial budget surplus, wage two unnecessary and
unfunded wars at a cost of $6 trillion over the next generation, and
drove the country into a Great Recession. Along the way they destroyed
Americans retirement savings, the housing industry, and successfully
killed tens of millions of Americans’ jobs. For two short years after
the repugican economic catastrophe ended, President Obama saved the
economy, staunched job losses with a meager stimulus, and created
millions of jobs and yet, by 2011 repugicans went against conventional
economic wisdom and embarked on a job-killing austerity spree under the
guise of reducing long term deficit they blew up during the shrub years.
For the past three years, besides attacking women’s rights, repugicans
have made killing jobs their raison d’être and according to a new
report, their economic insanity will cost the nation immense long term
economic damage.
On Friday the government reported that the country added around
204,000 jobs in October, but despite the increase, the unemployment rate
rose to 7.3% over the same period. The October report took into
account that 800,000 government workers were furloughed for all or part
of the repugican shutdown, and although many were counted as unemployed
and on temporary layoff for purposes of the unemployment rate, they
were also counted as employed by the government in employment figures
because they were eventually paid. Still, federal government jobs were
reduced by 12,000 for the October report that certainly excited repugicans.
Likely, the unemployment rate increase is a result of the repugicans’ precious sequestration cuts that were predicted to kill
about a million jobs over the next fiscal year, and Americans should
brace themselves for more job losses due to, at the very least, the food
stamp cuts that began on November first. There will certainly be more
jobs lost due to House repugicans’ intention to cut food stamp spending
by ten-fold, or more, according to Paul Ryan and repugican budget
negotiations founded on austerity madness.
When repugicans swept into the House in 2011, they promised their highest priority was job creation, but they started the 112
th
session with budget cuts that killed over a million jobs causing
Speaker John Boehner to say “so be it.” Boehner’s cavalier attitude
about killing jobs was a portent of the next three years of repugican
austerity insanity, and according to an International Monetary Fund
(IMF)
report, “
the
evidence is overwhelming that by failing to respond effectively to mass
unemployment, by not even making unemployment a major policy priority,
austerity has done immense long-term damage to America’s economy” that repugicans claim
is doomed unless they enact more job killing austerity over the next decade.
The consensus at the International Monetary Fund research conference
was that by not focusing on unemployment, the repugicans’ austerity has
already reduced America’s economic potential by around 7% which means
America is poorer by more than $1 trillion a year. Unfortunately for the
American people and the nation’s economy, the damage is not just for
one year, it is long-term damage of $1 trillion a year for multiple
years. The repugicans have screamed that the long-term deficit poses an
existential threat to America as a reason to slash domestic spending,
and it is the primary reason absolutely nothing has been done about the
unemployment epidemic killing the economy and Americans’ financial
security.
The repugicans have been successful garnering support from their jobless
and dirt-poor electorate because they preach and wrap themselves under a
veil of long-run economic responsibility made up entirely of holding
down government debt. However, one of the main things keeping the
economy weak and jobs slow in coming is the depressing effect of
cutbacks in public spending. As Nobel prize-winning economist Paul
Krugman says, “
It is the devastating cuts in public investment, all
justified in the name of protecting the future from the wildly
exaggerated threat of excessive debt” that is killing jobs at the
same rate as a recession. Krugman also says that the lack of investment
in the private sector is lagging because of the weak economy and lack of
jobs that creates more long-term damage in multiple channels. He notes
that “
the long-term unemployed eventually come to be seen as
unemployable; business investment lags thanks to weak sales; new
businesses don’t get started; and existing businesses skimp on research
and development.”
It is likely that most Americans, especially those supporting
Draconian domestic cuts, fail to comprehend that every dollar taken out
of the economy ultimately kills jobs. The repugicans certainly
understand, and next to sheer cruelty to punish Americans living in
poverty, they are well aware their spending cuts kill jobs that, next to
attacking women’s rights, has been their stock and trade since sweeping
into power after the 2010 midterm elections.
Take, for example, the recent $5 billion cuts in food stamps that went into effect on November 1
st.
Not only do repugicans get to create hardship for low-wage, elderly,
and unemployed hungry Americans, they are weakening the economy and
killing more jobs. According to the Congressional Budget Office, every
one dollar in food stamp spending returns $1.73 to the economy and that
$5 billion turns into $8.65 billion taken out of the economy just in one
year. Since food stamp recipients spend the money immediately to
survive, farmers, grocery businesses, and food processors all benefit
and keep other Americans employed. Eliminating $8.65 billion is
tantamount to killing hundreds-of-thousands of jobs that is just a drop
in the bucket compared to the tens-of-billions of dollars being taken
out of the economy with the sequester that is slated to destroy a
million jobs in the next year.
The repugicans have opposed every single one of President Obama’s job
creation proposals as too costly for the nation, and yet they lavish
hundreds of billions in subsidies on corporate agriculture, the oil
industry, corporations, and the religious industry. With every job lost,
the economy grows weaker and like the IMF researchers concluded, their
job-killing austerity agenda is killing America’s economy now and in the
long term. The Federal Reserve researchers are very pessimistic the repugican economic damage can be reversed, and it is highly probable
that the country will spend the next decade, at least, paying for the repugican austerity and job-killing of the past three years. It is
economic terrorism, and literally self-inflicted economic damage.
The tragedy is that President Obama’s attempt to right the economy
and provoke a vibrant recovery would have solved the nation’s financial
woes, but even he fell victim to the phony “deficit reduction” scam
under the guise of fiscal responsibility. With an entire year before
Americans can elect Democrats to support the President’s job creation
and economically sustainable agenda, it appears that there will continue
to be anemic job growth and dire warnings from economic experts that
America has ignored the unemployment epidemic for too long because repugicans are Hell-bent to hamper economic recovery by
doing what they do best; kill Americans’ jobs.
