Subject: [big campaign] New Huff Post from Creamer-Rep Strategy for Victory:Stall Economic Recovery
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:37:49 EDT
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Republican Strategy for Victory: Stall Economic  Recovery 

I suppose it should come as no surprise.  The Republicans are rooting 
against the  American economy and American workers.  They believe that they will 
do  better politically in the 2010 Mid-term elections – and the 2012 
Presidential –  if the economy does worse.  And for  the last twenty months they 
have done everything they can to assure that  outcome.  
Of course some  will say that no, the Republicans just have a different 
view of what will create  jobs than Democrats.  And that is  partly true.  
Generally their view  is that whatever is in the short-term interest of the big 
Wall Street banks,  insurance companies, big oil and their wealthy donors is 
what is “good for the  economy.”  They implemented their  program of tax 
cuts for the rich and allowing the reckless Wall Street banks to  do whatever 
they pleased for eight long years. The result was a $2,000 decrease  in 
real income for most Americans, a massive increase in incomes for the top two  
percent of the population, zero net private sector job creation, and the  
collapse of our economy. 
But it’s not  just their commitment to “trickle down” economics that has 
caused them to do  everything in their power to block economic recovery.  
They believe that their political  fortunes will rise if the fortunes of the 
rest of us decline.  We can’t let them be right.  
The most striking case in point is the small business jobs bill that will  
hit the Senate immediately after the recess.  The bill provides financial 
incentives  to small business to create new jobs.  You’d think that any bill 
that infuses money into a key Republican  constituency like small business 
would be met with open arms by the Republican  minority.  No such luck.  They 
plan to filibuster the bill even  though many of its provisions were lifted 
directly from measures authored by  Republicans.  
The Republican anti-recovery crusade began with the stimulus.  When 
President Obama took office the  economy and job market were in free fall.  The 
month he took the oath of office, the economy lost 650,000 jobs.  Virtually 
every mainstream economist agreed that an emergency stimulus package  was 
necessary to avoid spiraling into another Great Depression.   
In a recession the problem is not a sudden decline of the ability of the  
economy to produce goods and services.  The problem is that the web of 
economic relationships is disrupted and  creates an artificial decline of demand 
for products and services – a demand  deficit.  Without adequate demand to  
buy their products, businesses lay off workers who have even less money to 
buy  products, and the economy spirals into recession.   
Recessions  result in incredible waste.  All of  the products and services 
that idle workers, plants and equipment could have  created are simply not 
produced – meaning that the society as a whole is poorer  with fewer goods 
and services to go around.  
The solution to this problem is to create the economic demand to put  
people back to work and jump start the economy.  But the only source of that 
demand is  the government.  
The White House economic team – and many progressive economists --  
believed that a large stimulus was  necessary to push the economy out of the 
economic ditch and get it going  again.   But the Republicans  said no.  Many 
opposed any stimulus  at all. In the end, the price for the three Republicans 
who ultimately voted yes  was a scaled-back stimulus that turned out to be 
enormously effective – just not  big enough to do the job.  
Even today, Republicans are campaigning against the stimulus claiming it  
didn’t work, even though the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office 
analysis  finds that it created or saved 2.8 million jobs by the end of July and 
will  probably have created or saved 3.5 million by the end of September.  
Without it, instead of the eight million  jobs lost as a result of the 
Republican recession, we would have lost 11.5  million jobs. 
But of course politically, that would have been just fine with the  
Republicans.  
The effective size of the stimulus bill was about $717 billion, not  
counting the so-called Alternative Minimum Tax fix that Republicans forced into  
the bill that had no stimulative effect.  Had the stimulus been $1.4 
trillion, the odds are good it would have  created another 3.5 million jobs. 
Think just how  different both the economic and political situation would 
be today if the  economy had generated another 3.5 million jobs in the last 
20 months.   
But what about the deficit you say?  First a good portion of the 
newly-generated short-term deficit would have  been offset by increased tax revenues 
generated from new wages and the new  spending they created as they flowed 
through the economy.  And over the long run most economists  agree that this 
kind of expenditure would have actually improved the deficit  picture by 
jumpstarting overall economic growth.  
In fact, most of the budget surplus generated by the Clinton economic 
program  came from just that – the big-time economic growth of the late 1990’s.  
But opposing and limiting the size of the stimulus was just the beginning  
of Republican attempts to throw sand in the gears of the  recovery. 
They opposed the Government rescue of GM that has proven to be one of our  
biggest economic bright spots.  Instead of going into bankruptcy, or 
liquidating and costing thousands of  additional jobs, GM actually turned a $2.2 
billion profit in the first half of  this year and is preparing a stock 
offering that will allow the Government to  sell off its stake at a potential 
profit. GM is now hiring new workers once  again. 
Then there was the marathon Republican attempt to stop the extension of  
unemployment benefits that was finally defeated by Democrats earlier this  
summer.  That delayed payment of  benefits to millions of workers and cost the 
economy dearly.  
And there was the Republican filibuster of federal money for teachers,  
police, firefighters and other public servants.  They caused hundreds of 
thousands of  state employees to be laid off or furloughed.  It finally passed the 
Senate with two  Republican votes, but only after it was cut in half.  It 
will prevent 300,000 layoffs.  Every time a teacher is fired it not  only 
damages the economy in the short run, it also permanently damages our  economic 
prospects – and ability to compete in the world – over the long run by  
shortchanging the education of our next generation. 
All the while they have been opposing these jobs initiatives, Republicans  
have proposed – with a straight face – that we spend almost three quarters 
of a  trillion dollars over the next 10 years on tax breaks for the top two 
percent of  the population.  
And they have opposed Democratic attempts to end tax breaks to companies  
that ship jobs overseas – one of the most profound causes of the decline of  
American manufacturing. 
Finally, there  was virtually unanimous Republican opposition to the 
measure that began to rein  in the recklessness of the big Wall Street banks that 
caused the collapse of the  economy in the first place.  
For the last twenty months Democrats have been pushing hard to get the  
economy out of the ditch.  Not only  have the Republicans refused to lend a 
hand.  They have been actively throwing rocks  under the wheels. 
The fact is they want to keep the economy in that ditch so they can  divert 
attention from the fact that they were behind the wheel when it careened  
off the road.   
They hope that if they prevent it from getting back onto the pavement,  the 
voters will forget about who put it in the ditch in the first place and  
blame the guys who are trying to get it out. They’re counting on the 
frustration  caused by the delay in getting the economy out of that ditch to be 
enough that  the voters will turn once again to the culprits who put it there, 
throw them the  keys and say “why don’t you try it again.”  That, of course, 
will require a gigantic case of national amnesia.  It would also be a 
political and  economic disaster. 
We can’t let them be successful.  
In particular, the Republicans hope that the frustration and the fatigue  
of struggling with the economic situation is just enough to make a large 
number  of Democratic voters give up in disgust and simply stay home on Election 
 Day.  That’s how the “1994  Republican Revolution” that gave us Newt 
Gingrich, and culminated in the  election of George Bush, the Iraq War and the 
collapse of the economy began.  In 1994 Democrats simply stayed  home. 
We’ve seen that movie and it ends badly. 
So unless you’re up for more tales of economic collapse – more stories of  
chaos and destruction, wasted lives and frustrated dreams – don’t let the  
Republicans succeed.   
We have to show them that those who sacrifice the economic well-being of  
their fellow Americans for partisan political gain will not ultimately be  
rewarded with political success. 
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and  strategist, and 
author of the recent book: “Stand Up Straight: How Progressives  Can Win,” 
available on _amazon.com_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206567141&sr=8-1
) . 

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