{"id":5188,"date":"2011-06-23T01:39:07","date_gmt":"2011-06-23T08:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5188"},"modified":"2011-06-23T01:39:07","modified_gmt":"2011-06-23T08:39:07","slug":"the-liberal-bloggers-were-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/23\/the-liberal-bloggers-were-right\/","title":{"rendered":"The Liberal Bloggers Were Right!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many lefty bloggers have explicitly accused the Republican Party of intentionally sabotaging the US economy for political gain.  I am proud to be counted as one of them, and even predicted in 2007 that Republicans, knowing they were on the way out, would do just that so they could blame Democrats for mess and present themselves as saviors.  I\u2019m surprised and saddened that one virtually never hears such claims from our elected officials, until now, as Greg Sargent reports.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"23republicanToday Senate Dems went there: They accused Republicans of deliberately sabotaging the economy in order to further their own political interests<\/strong>. And a senior Dem Senate aide tells me that Dems will not shy away from making that case in the weeks to come, if the Republicans keep blocking their efforts to spur job creation.<\/font><\/p>\n

Senators Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin made the charge in remarks to reporters<\/a><\/font> today. Durbin said: \u201cUnfortunately our Republican colleagues in the House and Senate are driven by putting one man out of work \u2014 President Obama.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

Schumer seconded: <\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cDo Republicans really oppose a tax cut for businesses that created jobs? This is sort of beyond the pale. If they oppose even something so suited to their tastes ideologically, it shows that they\u2019re just opposing anything that helps create jobs. It almost makes you wonder if they aren\u2019t trying to slow down the economic recovery for political gain<\/strong>.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

Schumer is referring to GOP opposition to a White House proposal for a new temporary payroll tax cut as a means for job creation. Dems want the idea included in the forthcoming deficit deal; Republicans have opposed it, arguing that what we need are permanent tax cuts. This, plus GOP opposition<\/a><\/font> to reauthorization of the Economic Development Agency \u2014 which provides grants to local projects and once was supported by Republicans as good for job creation \u2014 finally prompted Dems to accuse Republicans today of deliberately trying to harm the economy for political reasons.<\/font><\/p>\n

As Steve Benen points out<\/a><\/font>, this represents the mainstreaming of an argument that had previously been made mostly by liberal bloggers<\/strong> and a few pundits: That Republicans are trying to hurt the economy on purpose. \u201cAt a minimum, it hardly seems unreasonable to call for some national discussion on this,\u201d Benen notes\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em><\/span>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Washington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t this way past due? <\/font>On Monday Night, Ed Schultz joins with Bernie Sanders to put Republican economic policy in the trash where it belongs, and explain how Republicans are butchering the economy.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Democrats need to grow a pair and take off the gloves.  Republicans will be in full attack mode with every lie they can imagine.  This is too important a truth to ignore.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many lefty bloggers have explicitly accused the Republican Party of intentionally sabotaging the US economy for political gain.  I am proud to be counted as one of them, and even predicted in 2007 that Republicans, knowing they were on the way out, would do just that so they could blame Democrats for mess and present […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}