Let's Kill This GOP Carnard

'Job-killing' regulation? 'Job-killing' spending? Let's kill this GOP canard.


By Steven Pearlstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 6, 2011; 10:37 PM
Republicans these days can't get through a sentence without tossing in their new favorite adjective, "job-killing."

There's "job-killing legislation," in particular the health-care reform law. And "job-killing regulations," especially anything coming out of the EPA and the IRS. Big deficits are always "job-killing," which might come as something of a surprise to all you Keynesians out there, along with the "job-killing spending binge" and even "job-killing stimulus projects."

President Obama, we are told repeatedly, runs a "job-killing administration" with a "job-killing agenda" carried out by, you guessed it, a "job-killing bureaucracy."

In the fevered Republican imagination, the entire federal government is a "job-killing machine" or - my personal favorite - a "job-killing beast."

And if you're a Republican, it is now a violation of House rules to utter the word "taxes" or "tax increase" on the chamber floor without the "job-killing" prefix. (Okay, I'm exaggerating - but only slightly.)

Type "job killing" into Google and you'll get more than 1.2 million hits. On the Factiva news database, it comes up 11,115 times during 2009 and 2010, compared with 1,373 times during the previous two years. A Republican talking point, a Fox News broadcast or a Chamber of Commerce press release is now incomplete without it.

What's so curious is that it's hard to find almost any Republican concern about employment homicide during 2008, when George W. Bush was president and the economy was shedding 4.4 million jobs. Given the lag with which economic policy works, the biggest net job loss that could credibly be assigned to Obama during his two years in office would be less than a million.



Ironically, the first order of legislative business in the new Republican House will be to repeal last year's health-care reform law. Since the immediate impact of the measure will be to allow 30 million more Americans the chance to buy drugs and medical services from doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, it's hard to imagine a more effective way to reduce employment in the one sector that is actually adding jobs.

The other GOP priority is to cut $100 billion this year from the government's domestic spending, which translates into the loss of close to a million jobs for government workers and contractors. Apparently, in the stylized way that Republicans count things, those positions don't count as real jobs.

What's particularly noteworthy about this fixation with "job killing" is that it stands in such contrast to the complete lack of concern about policies that kill people rather than jobs.

Repealing health-care reform, for instance, would inevitably lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths each year because of an inability to get medical care.

Although lack of effective regulation led directly to the deaths of 78 coal miners last year in West Virginia, Republicans continue to insist that any reform of mine safety laws is bad for miners' employment.

Republicans also continue to oppose food safety legislation that could save the lives of hundreds of Americans killed each year by contaminated food, just as they oppose any regulation that would effectively keep assault weapons out of the hands of convicted criminals and narco-terrorists who kill thousands of innocent victims on both sides of the Rio Grande.

And although a blue-ribbon panel has now concluded that a lack of effective government regulation contributed to an explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that led to the deaths of 11 oil rig workers (along with countless numbers of birds, fish and other wildlife), all Republicans can talk about is the jobs that might be lost as a result of more vigorous oversight of deep-water drilling.

I wonder how Republicans and their media posse would like it if Democrats started referring to "genocidal" deregulation or the "murderous" repeal of health-care reform. Or if Republican economic policies were likened to the infamous neutron bomb - they kill the workers but leave their jobs intact.

Unfair? No doubt. But no more so than portraying as "job-killing" every regulation, every tax and every dollar of government spending.

There is an unmistakable redbaiting quality to the "job-killing" rhetoric, a throwback to the McCarthy era. It reflects the sort of economic fundamentalism better suited to Afghan politics than American. Rather than contributing to the political dialogue, it is a substitute for serious discussion. And the fact that it continues unabated suggests that Republicans are not ready to compromise or to govern.

So the next time you hear some politician or radio blowhard or corporate hack tossing around the "job-killing" accusation, you can be pretty sure he's not somebody to be taken seriously. It's a sign that he disrespects your intelligence, disrespects the truth and disrespects the democratic process. By poisoning the political well and making it difficult for our political system to respond effectively to economic challenges, Republicans may turn out to be the biggest job killers of all.

This guy appears to disagree with you.

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/44874...small-business

Great post, Havakasha.

As has previously been noted demand has to exist for jobs to be created. Most jobs have been created out of the country and not here.

Tax cuts do not create jobs nor do tax increases necessarily reduce them.

When Americans see who these a-holes really are - if that ever happens - positive improvements for those not only in the upper 1-2 percent will happen.

One can only hope.

New analyses: Health reform actually hasn't killed jobs
by Joan McCarter
Fri Jan 07, 2011 at 10:35:32 AM PST

Watch any news cast or read any story about the new Republican House, and you'll be subjected to at least three instances of a Republican member of the House screeching about the "job-killing" health reform law. As usual, Republicans are lying. That's not just liberal opinion, it's true. At least according to new paper [pdf] from Harvard economist David Cutler (via ThinkProgress).

A successful repeal of health care reform would revert us back to the old system for financing and delivering health care and lead to substantial increases in total medical spending. The consequences of this spending increase would be far reaching. It would hurt family incomes, jobs, and economic growth.

Repealing health reform would:

Increase medical spending by $125 billion by the end of this decade and add nearly $2,000 annually to family insurance premiums
Destroy 250,000 to 400,000 jobs annually over the next decade
Reduce the share of workers who start new businesses, move to new jobs, or otherwise invest in themselves and the economy
....

Figure 3 shows the net impact of repealing health reform on total employment. The baseline estimates show that 250,000 jobs will be lost annually if health reform is repealed. Annual job losses would average 400,000 using the greater estimate of 1.5 percentage point cost increases annually resulting from repeal. [emphasis mine]



Ok, so that's a Harvard economist, one of those liberal elites, entitled to his "opinion" (just like CBO). Well, guess who else thinks small businesses, in particular, are benfitting from health reform? Forbes, or at least Forbes "Policy Page" contributor Rick Ungar.

The major health insurance companies around the country are reporting a significant increase in small businesses offering health care benefits to their employees.

Why?

Because the tax cut created in the new health care reform law providing small businesses with an incentive to give health benefits to employees is working....

The primary, most enduring complaint of the opponents of the ACA has been that the law is deathly bad for small business.

Apparently, small businesses, and their employees, do not agree.

The next argument has been that the PPACA is a job killer.

If these small businesses found the new law to be so onerous, why have so many of them voluntarily taken advantage of the benefits provided in the law to give their employees these benefits? They were not mandated to do so. And to the extent that the coming mandate obligations might figure into their thinking, would you not imagine they would wait until 2014 to make a move as the rules do not go into effect until that time?

Good point. Reinforced by WaPo business columist Steven Pearlstein, who remarks that "[w]hat's particularly noteworthy about this fixation with 'job killing' is that it stands in such contrast to the complete lack of concern about policies that kill people rather than jobs."

So the next time you hear some politician or radio blowhard or corporate hack tossing around the "job-killing" accusation, you can be pretty sure he's not somebody to be taken seriously. It's a sign that he disrespects your intelligence, disrespects the truth and disrespects the democratic process. By poisoning the political well and making it difficult for our political system to respond effectively to economic challenges, Republicans may turn out to be the biggest job killers of all.

[QUOTE=Atypical;66567]
Tax cuts do not create jobs nor do tax increases necessarily reduce them.
QUOTE]

This suggests otherwise. Yet you seem so utterly convicted and unwielding in your beliefs. It makes one wonder.

http://economics.about.com/cs/taxpol...ing_growth.htm