They were against using the extra money that was returned by the banks from TARP for job creation. They filibustered 101 times. They were against job creation as they pushed for tax breaks for the rich, the very policies which caused the recession that the US is only now gradually recovering from.
The December 9, 2009 article “GOP: Is it legit to use TARP for jobs?” at
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30355.html
states “One of the questions Republicans are asking about President Barack Obama’s jobs announcement Tuesday is how he can legally use Troubled Asset Relief Program dollars to fund a new stimulus bill. After all, the TARP law was fairly clear that the money had to be used to buy toxic assets. The administration was able to squeeze the carmaker bailout under that rubric, but it is not so clear that funding a jobs bill qualifies.”
The GOP has consistently been the party of no. They claim that Obama has failed in creating jobs, but they are the ones doing so.
The article continues “But an administration official says that’s not what Obama intends to do. Instead of using TARP funds to finance a new jobs bill, the administration will simply declare that it needed less under TARP than originally thought. Since TARP was effectively a line of credit, and the Treasury has not drawn down the unused funds, Congress has some room to spend money on a new bill without increasing the projected deficit.
Next year’s projections already assume that the Treasury would spend the entire $700 billion. If it spends less, that means next year’s deficit will be less than expected. But if it spends less and Congress spends more – by the same amount – the deficit stays flat.”
The GOP say that Obama’s TARP failed. That ignores the fact that it originated during Dubya’s term and that the money the Democrats wanted to use for job creation came as a result of a partial success of TARP. The article continues “The idea is not to take dollars that are in TARP and spend them on something else. Instead, TARP has used less than expected, and that frees up Congress to spend other new money.” That leaves unresolved the controversy about what to do with the TARP profits – yes, profits – since many of the banks that have returned the money they borrowed have also paid hefty interest, totaling into the billions of dollars.”
Why are they legitimately labeled obstructionists? They filibustered 101 times. The article “Menendez calls out ‘unprecedented’ filibusters as DeMint backtracks on ‘Waterloo'” at
http://rawstory.com/2010/01/demint-i-did-not-want-this-to-be-the-presidents-waterloo/
states “In July, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said if Republicans were able to stop health care reform it would “break” President Barack Obama. “If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him,” he said.”
The level of depravity that remark exhibits is typical of these GOP goons. On “This Week” he was asked by ABC’s Terry Moran Sunday, “So did you break him, and is that really how Americans want you to behave here in Washington — Break the President?”
“I did not want this to be the president’s Waterloo,” DeMint replied.
It is pretty hard to say that you didn’t say what the tape clearly shows you have said, but DeMint isn’t going for the intellectual elite types. His audience are those red staters who vote these thugs in each year. The demographics for them is appalling. They are lower educated, lower income people who will believe anything that the GOP tells them as long as FOX and Clear Channel Radio repeat it enough that they can remember it.
Moran tried to follow up on this with, as the article continues “There are a lot of people out there who see the Republican party as the party of no right now,” Moran asserted.
DeMint dodged Moran, instead claiming “broad-based tax cuts” are the best way to get the economy working, adding “the President’s stimulus has been a massive failure.”
A Democrat who was prepared for this typical GOP spiel was there and as the article continues “So Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) cut him off.
“My dear friend Jim DeMint did want to break Barack Obama,” he said. “The Republicans’ whole political strategy is for this President and for this Congress to fail.”
“All our Republican colleagues have said is no,” he went on to say. “They have used the filibuster, a procedure in the Senate to stop progress, 101 times, unprecedented in the history of the United States Senate!”
Menendez pointed out that when George W. Bush came to office he began with a $236 billion surplus, whereas Obama was handed a $1.3 trillion deficit. He credited Obama with making progress despite the economy, attacking Republicans for standing in the way.”
Menendez calmly and logically refuted the party of no as the article continues “No doesn’t create a job, no doesn’t create health care insurance for anyone,” Menendez huffed. “Or stop the abuses of the insurance companies. No doesn’t help a senior citizen with their prescription drug coverage. Its time to begin to say yes to move the country forward.”
If only Moran had played another tape for DeMint. In it DeMint proposed a stimulus that cost 3.5 times more than the Dubya/Obama one. The price of the stimulus has always been associated with our deficit, and used to attack Obama, even though the proposed GOP stimulus would have caused a greater deficit. The Feb 2nd, 2009 article “Senate GOP’s ‘stimulus plan’ costs 3.5 times as much as Obama’s. ” at
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/02/demint-stimulus/
states “This morning, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that President Obama’s recovery package, priced at roughly $819 billion, is too expensive. GOP “members” believe that they can pass a “very robust” stimulus at a cheaper price, he said:
Most of my members believe that we could pass a very robust stimulus for less than the amount currently before us. We have been throwing figures around like it was paper money. We are already looking at, before we even do this, at over a trillion dollar deficit for this year. We all agree that we need to do something, but I don’t think we should not just completely act like the amount is irrelevant.
But McConnell’s cheaper plan doesn’t exist. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is pushing the Senate GOP’s only alternative, “American Option: A Jobs Plan That Works.” A new Wonk Room analysis finds that DeMint’s plan will cost $3.1 trillion over ten years, more than 3.5 times the cost of Obama’s.”
The GOP stands for tax breaks for the top 1%. Does this plan adhere to that? Of course it does as the article continues “Not surprisingly, DeMint’s plan consists of permanent tax breaks for corporations and lowering income tax for the wealthy. For the Senate GOP, it seems that deficit spending is permissible as long as it is done via tax cuts for the rich.”
The GOP has made Obama’s job more difficult. If Dubya hadn’t tanked the economy then Obama wouldn’t have spent the earliest part of his administration saving the US from a major recession. The policies that put us in this predicament are the very policies that the GOP wanted to use as a remedy. Using the same behavior repetitively and expecting different outcomes is a definition of insanity. That would be a description of the GOP. They have no honor. Words they said can be played for them off a tape recording and they will calmly disown them–not even bothering to say they were taken out of context. Why does the GOP do this? They have no respect for their base. The GOP leaders assume these red staters are so lazy and ignorant that they will believe any lame statement from a leader if he happens to be a fellow good old boy. Dubya was in that fraternity of losers and the red staters swallowed every lie that came from his lips.
