Political Animal
Blog
White House officials are still in the process of completing their new economic agenda, to be unveiled next week, but House Republicans are apparently done with their new plan. Nearly eight months into the new Congress, the GOP hasn’t even brought any jobs bills to the floor, but now they seem to have settled on a new vision on how to create jobs.
Well, perhaps “new” is overstating matters.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on Monday laid out an ambitious anti-tax and anti-regulations agenda for the fall.
In a memo to rank-and-file Republicans, Cantor said the House will target 10 major regulations for elimination, and will also seek to enact one major tax cut for businesses.
Cantor sees an economy lacking demand, a public sector shedding jobs, workers with stagnant wages, and anemic growth, and has apparently concluded, “What we really need right now is deregulation.”
And what kind of regulations are being targeted? High on Cantor’s list are measures that limit the amount of mercury and other toxins that boiler and incinerator operators can burn into the atmosphere.
In case this isn’t obvious, Cantor’s plan is a poor jobs agenda. Indeed, it’s not really an agenda in any meaningful sense at all. Republicans have been pushing for deregulation efforts like these for decades — Cantor isn’t responding to a changing economic landscape and new demand-driven challenges with a tailored package of policy solutions; Cantor is just listing a bunch of safeguards Republicans want to scrap anyway.
There’s just no depth of thought here. The GOP leadership believes businesses might hire more if, for example, they were allowed to pollute more, while Democrats believe business might hire more if they had more customers.
Not that it much matters. As Cantor surely realizes, the Senate and the White House won’t try to create jobs by weakening clean air safeguards.
But I think it’s at least mildly helpful anyway in letting the public know where the two parties stand. Next week, President Obama will present one vision, likely built around investing in infrastructure and school construction, which can then be compared against the House Republican vision, built around looser pollution controls. I have a hunch the American mainstream will prefer the former over the latter, if the debate actually reaches any of the public.
Facebook
Twitter
c u n d gulag on August 30, 2011 9:29 AM:
Cantor seems like the kind of idiot who thinks his Mother's diabetes calls for more and more sugar.
Killjoy on August 30, 2011 9:31 AM:
I dunno Steve, think of all the oncology jobs created if we follow Cantor's example.
Josef K on August 30, 2011 9:32 AM:
But I think it’s at least mildly helpful anyway in letting the public know where the two parties stand.
I'd say the last eight months made that abundantly clear. The most one can hope is this reduces the GOP's stance to a bumper-sticker size slogan: "no taxes on the rich, no jobs for anyone."
Gods, but I'm getting sick of these guys.
kevo on August 30, 2011 9:33 AM:
A very plausible sequel to Carroll's classic may indeed be titled "Alice in Cantorland!"
When the toxins are in the air, and big business (Cantor ain't playing for peanuts from small business) gets its money to take to the bank, no more jobs will be around than were before, and it will be at this moment the Cantorites among us will tell us all we need is one more thing to create jobs - repeal the minimum wage and return idle youth to the mines!
I'm not allowing my Alice to descend into Cantor's hole only to be abused by Cantorland's perversions! -Kevo
SteveT on August 30, 2011 9:38 AM:
Next week, President Obama will present one vision, likely built around investing in infrastructure and school construction, which can then be compared against the House Republican vision, built around looser pollution controls. I have a hunch the American mainstream will prefer the former over the latter, if the debate actually reaches any of the public.
And it's up to the guy with the biggest microphone to decide to effing fight for once and make sure the debate reaches the American mainstream.
jlt on August 30, 2011 9:50 AM:
The repub baggers have become the malignant pollution of the political community~
They have fouled the air, waters, and discourse of the Nation..filthy lies and corporate pandering!
DisgustedWithItAll on August 30, 2011 10:05 AM:
With the Repugnantcan's jobs program, it looks like want to use deregulation to do for the country's environment in the 10's what they did for the country's economy in the 00's.
Whatever their intentions they might be accidental environmentalists. During the worst of the world recession, carbon emissions went down. With Republican insistence about doing nothing for the economy thereby letting it slip back in a slump, they could aid in yet another emissions backslide. Who said Republicans were good for nothing.
Gandalf on August 30, 2011 10:07 AM:
I often deal with people who were died in the wool republicans but they're smart enough to be embarassed by the buffoons at the front of the republican pack. They instead of saying democrats are right that they're all teh same. They all do that. Well if this doesn't open your eyes to what these evil small minded greedy little superstitious men are all about you'll never see
DAY on August 30, 2011 10:08 AM:
"toxins that boiler and incinerator operators can burn into the atmosphere."
well, health care IS one of the fastest growing industries. . .
Mark-NC on August 30, 2011 10:14 AM:
"There’s just no depth of thought here."
Really - you expect a "thought process" from these people?
There is none and never will be. They want what they want and don't care how they get it or what the consequences are.
They are just big children throwing a tantrum.
chopin on August 30, 2011 10:28 AM:
Maybe just once Obama can make sure the corporate news network gets his message across by introducing his job-creating plan using blunt and colorful language. He could mention, as Steve does, that the Rethugs have ALWAYS wanted to undermine air and water quality and safety safeguards and lower taxes for their rich corporate buddies and this has nothing whatsoever to do with creating jobs, stimulating the economy, fighting terrorism, preventing cavities or advancing the second coming.
Davis X. Machina on August 30, 2011 10:32 AM:
It will piss liberals off.
Does anything else really mtter
LRM on August 30, 2011 10:38 AM:
What's really disgusting is that Cantor and his ilk will be spewing the "this creates jobs!" bs, and the media will give them a national platform where it will be unchallenged. After the public hears enough of it, they will be clamoring to trash the EPA in the name of jobs.
chi res on August 30, 2011 11:30 AM:
America's recognized freedom to pollute where and when we wanted in the 20th century helped to create the most powerful economic engine the world has ever known.
A couple of downsides... but, you know, sacrifices are sometimes necessary.
gifgrrl on August 30, 2011 11:51 AM:
I would say that the plan *does* create jobs, it's just that the jobs happen to be in healthcare, caring for everyone who gets sick from the pollution and the mercury poisoning. But, since the Republicans are h_ell bent on making it so that no-one can afford health care, there won't be any gains there. But maybe, funeral homes will be hiring?
Just think, it's the Republican version of "death panels!"
Gretchen on August 30, 2011 12:51 PM:
My congressman posted on Facebook yesterday about the great article in the Washington Post about the Republican's fall agenda: repeal, reduce, and rein-iin, which he described as focuing on job creation. I asked how increasing pollution creates jobs. Surprise, no answer.
TCinLA on August 30, 2011 2:03 PM:
Isn't Eric Cantor actually unqualified for membership in "the tribe" on the grounds of failing to have an IQ? I mean, in all the years of all my friendships, I have never ever met a member of the "tribe" who was this stupid - most of them have been far smarter than me! What is this?
Redshift on August 30, 2011 2:18 PM:
No, they believe that people are concerned about jobs, and the GOP leadership wants tax cuts and deregulation like they always do, so if they tell people that tax cuts and deregulation will create jobs, they get some of what they want while convincing gullible people they're working on their concerns.
This really isn't difficult. When their response to an economic downturn is to cut taxes to improve the economy and their response to a booming economy is to cut taxes to "give the people their money back," it's not hard to figure out that tax cuts are their goal, not a means to another end, no matter what they claim.
marydem on August 30, 2011 8:28 PM:
the republican plan will actually lose jobs. regulations actually create jobs. (ex. the engineer that designs the scrubber, the air quality control tech that monitors the air coming out of the scrubber, the tech(s) that run the scrubber, etc.) under the republican plan, they'll fire these people.
bouganvilla on August 30, 2011 8:46 PM:
In a America, there has to be a political party for those who are mean spirited and who happen to be bipolar ( the GOP ). And if you haven't noticed, the people who are against Americans recieving SSI benefits, are the ones who will never need them. Our politicians recieve taxpayer funded perks, while the taxpayers get shafted by the politicans.
Anonymous on August 30, 2011 9:01 PM:
William Dodd, US Ambassador to Germany, in a 1936 letter to FDR:
"...When industrialists ignore laws designed for social and economic progress they will seek recourse to a fascist state when the institutions of our government compel them to comply with the provisions."
Omar Olivera on August 31, 2011 2:23 PM:
My concern is that this is another example of Republicans bargaining from the extreme right end of the spectrum, so that when Obama puts forth his job plans he'll have to give the Republicans something in the name of compromise, telling us that it's the only way to get things done. Republicans further their agenda, the rest of the country gets consolation, and the President puts a rubber stamp on the whole thing.