Republicans say they care about creating jobs and bringing the federal budget into balance. Simple facts demonstrate that their true agenda is focused on increasing the wealth of the richest Americans, above all else.
It was the last Republican president who saddled us with $2.5 trillion of budget-busting costs with his irresponsible tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003. Those cuts brought tax rates to their lowest levels in decades. Nearly half of the cuts have gone to the richest five percent of taxpayers. If tax cuts for the rich are the way to stimulate job growth, as forcefully advocated by Mitt Romney, why did Bush’s eight year reign produce the worst record of job growth of any president in the last 80 years?
In fact, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, he is the only president since Herbert Hoover responsible for a loss in jobs during the budget cycles for which he was responsible. In contrast, President Obama has created 3.4 million jobs since his first budget went into effect.
The explanation is simple. Jobs are created by consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity. The way to boost spending, and job growth, is to increase the purchasing power of those who need the extra cash the most and will spend it. Through tax policy, this can be accomplished with extended unemployment benefits, payroll tax cuts, earned income tax credits and continuation of income tax cuts for the middle class, precisely what President Obama has proposed, but which Republicans have stood in the way of passing.
Yet Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Congressional Republicans insist on extending tax cuts for the richest two percent of taxpayers, at a ten-year cost of $1 trillion. And showing their true colors, they oppose extending the earned income and child tax credits , which would put more cash in the hands of working Americans struggling to get by. Apparently the no-tax-increase pledge signed by Romney and virtually every Congressional Republican applies to the rich, but not the poor.
This election poses stark differences in values and desired outcomes. The Democratic vision for prosperity embodied by Jim Himes, running for re-election in the 4th Congressional District, and Chris Murphy, running for U.S. Senate, emphasizes shared sacrifice, fairness and fact-based policy to boost economic growth and security for all Americans. Republican policy, in contrast, will continue to favor the very affluent, without regard to the impact on tens of millions of middle and lower income Americans.
