How Many Jobs Can The Republicans Kill This Week

Ed Schultz on his television show urged Harry Reid to keep the Senate in session until the situation with the 99ers was taken care of. Agree. But Schultz wrongfully told 99ers to vote against Democrats if the situation isn't rectified. That's ass backwards in my opinion. The 99ers and other unemployed Americans' situation will worsen if Republicans even get close to power until they have purged themselves of their thinking.

This morning the Senate Democrats sent out an e-mail on four job-killing efforts of the Republicans just this week. The White House and the Senate have been trying to pass state aid that would save thousands of police officers and firefighters from getting laid off. Already Drudge is touting criminals going wild in St Louis because of police layoffs. Another part of the bill is a teachers jobs measure which would help states retain 130,000 K-12 teachers. Another bill is the scaled down energy bill, which would still create 700,000 jobs. And, most astonishingly, a small business bill, which would help small businesses create 500,000 jobs.

The memo points out that Sen. George LeMieux from Florida, a co-sponsor of the small business bill and whom I quoted in an earlier post as saying he couldn't understand why Republicans would oppose it, now claims " the bill should have 70,80 or more votes in the chamber". Democrats rightfully point out that they have accomodated Republicans by making many changes in the bill to accomodate them. You might remember Senator Grassley on Healthcare saying he wanted 85 votes in the Senate. It should be noted that this bill allows for $30 billion to be loaned (not given) to small banks to assist small businesses. As one Republican noted, 93% of all new jobs created since the 1990s came from small businesses. This particular bill has been passed by huge bipartisan majorities throughout the last two decades.

I don't think it's the Republicans pathological hatred of President Obama which is at work here. Nor do I believe they will win back power and then pass all these bills to become the "saviors of the economy." Ideologically, they are now wedded to a second economy, which bypasses the American people altogether. This afternoon, it was announced that the Chamber of Commerce has now upped their campaign contributions this year to $75 million and another set of conservative non-profits funded by corporations will pony up $300 million for the election. And still later, the new Karl Rove talking points have been handed down saying that the tax breaks for the rich generated government revenues (we've already seen that is a lie) and created jobs (and we have seen that is a lie).

It would be interesting for some journalist to penetrate the veil and get the Republicans to actually reveal their ultimate agenda. I can guarantee you it's not something that American can afford.