President Obama is now the greatest job creator president in U.S. history. As of September, he had a record 78 straight months of job growth, some 15 million jobs going back to 2010. The unemployment rate went from almost 10 percent in 2010 to just under 5 percent by August 2016.
Obama has not only restored the United States’ good reputation, lost under George W. Bush, but the nation’s credit rating as well; he has brought the economy back to pre-2008 levels and demolished every Republican myth told about “tax and spend” liberals.
According to Republicans, none of that has ever happened. Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), in this week’s Republican Address, says that using the same tired old policies that failed to create all these jobs, House Republicans are going to create 2.3 million jobs “over the next two decades.”
Today @RepKevinCramer delivers the weekly address on our #BetterWay solutions for job and economic growth. pic.twitter.com/iKNAlJbFcP
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— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) October 15, 2016
Cramer says,
“As I travel around North Dakota, my constituents tell me their greatest frustration is the overreach of the federal government,†said Rep. Cramer. “People feel the federal government is working against them, no matter how hard they work or how much they plan. That’s why the Better Way is a solution-based agenda that can help get big government out of the way and put our nation on a better path.
“America’s energy boom has the potential to support an additional 2.3 million jobs over the next two decades—and our agenda will ensure government doesn’t get in the way,†said Speaker Ryan. “Kevin has seen firsthand what smart regulation does for economic growth. Now, it’s time to take these lessons learned and apply them on a national scale—that’s a Better Way.â€
By getting “big government” out of the way, what Cramer means is cutting taxes on corporations and the 1 percent so the rest of us can pay their way while they send jobs overseas and squirrel the extra profits away in off-shore accounts.
Yes, trickle-down economics is a proven myth, but they’re never tired of pushing it.
It also means getting rid of regulations. When Cramer says “no more Keystones,” he’s not talking about the inevitable and expensive leaks that result, but the delay in getting straight to the inevitable leaks: “no more of these endless delays that hold up jobs and projects indefinitely,” he says.
Of course, it’s going to take more than two decades to create those 2.3 million jobs if we’re to judge by Keystone XL’s 35 permanent jobs as an example of Republican job creation.
In fact, if you look at average yearly job growth, Democratic presidents easily outperform Republican presidents in recent history. Going back to President Carter, he, President Clinton, and President Obama, all out-performed Reagan, Bush I and Bush II.
Back in January, Paul Waldman over at The Washington Post‘s The Plum Line, pointed out that,
This isn’t just a matter for historians to mull over, because right now we’re in the midst of a presidential campaign, one in which — and I can’t stress this too emphatically — every Republican candidate is essentially promising to bring back George W. Bush’s economic policies. There is some variation in their particular plans, but all the candidates say basically the same thing: if we cut taxes (particularly for the wealthy) and scale back regulations, the economy will positively explode in a supernova of job creation and prosperity.
But we tried that not too long ago, and it failed. Spectacularly. That’s not to mention that when Bill Clinton raised taxes in 1993, every Republican predicted a “job-killing recession,†and they said something similar when Barack Obama allowed some of the upper-end Bush tax cuts to expire.
As Waldman demonstrated, the job-killing recession has not materialized. Again, each time Republicans have tried these policies, they have failed. Even while Obama was creating jobs, Republicans were trying to kill them with the sequester.
Now, having accomplished nothing at all but obstruct Obama’s forward progress since 2009, they are telling us once again, if they try these policies, they will create jobs they have never been able to create. Red state after red state is being destroyed by the same economic policies Republicans want to inflict on us nation-wide.
They call this #BetterWay. but clearly, it is a worse way. History is proof that Republican economic policies will fail, each and every time. No lessons have been learned. That would be contrary to Republican ideology, which is to keep doing the same old thing again and again no matter how terribly it fails.
When Paul Ryan says “it’s time to take these lessons learned and apply them on a national scale—that’s a Better Way,” he means the same old way, and we all know what that means.
Job growth chart: The Washington Post
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
