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The Deliciously Cynical Harry Reid

By: Dave Poff (haystack) (Diary)  |  February 14th, 2010 at 12:30 PM  | 

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[image via AP/ABC]

ABC News endeavors to help us understand why Harry Reid is stripping down the jobs bill. The article plods along like you might expect; leading us to believe it’s just as good an idea as any other right now and that it is backed by the White House. Its price tag is dramatically lower than the bipartisan proposal from Baucus and Grassley (supported by many on both sides of the political divide), so it surely must be an attempt at some modicum of fiscal responsibility. Right?

What you won’t find in this piece is the assumption on Reid’s part that none of us dolts out here in the hinterland will actually notice that an even bigger Government takeover of the private sector lies directly behind what his bill means to accomplish; paying employers to hire unemployed workers (and paying them to retain these new hires for a year) whether there is enough work to justify expanding payroll or not, serves only the Democrats in the upcoming elections. If Reid’s calculation that Republicans can’t afford to say no to this bill is accurate and it becomes law, he will have effectively increased taxes, blocked proposed tax cuts, reduced payments into the Social Security slush fund, extended the Fed’s encroachment on the private sector, and set up an inevitable future increase in taxes and/or spending to make up the difference.

I’m on record as being no fan of the larger bill, either, but it’s incredibly cynical of Mr. Reid to assume that Americans will be more captivated by the Federal government “adding jobs” than by the fact that he has no qualms about cutting 70 billion dollars from a fairly popular proposal to do so. And this at a time when we would all like to see MORE spent on jobs than on any other issue before us right now. Remember, this is the same Harry Reid that was all-in for hundreds of billions of dollars for the stimulus, health care, and cap and trade.

It’s fascinating that Mr. Reid can hand out hundreds of millions of dollars to his colleagues in the Senate in order to buy health care votes, but now finds himself a born-again tightwad on jobs creation in the name of political expediency. Quite a gamble for a man from the gambling capitol of America. Clearly he thinks he’s holding an inside straight his own constituents appear ready to bet against.

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  • DavidSage

    This meme that the public will punish Republicans for saying no to Democrats is absurd. It’s a catch-22, why would anyone vote Republican in the next election? Answer: To say no to Obama and spend-thrift Democrats. If Republicans go along with the Democrats and Obama, what’s the point of anyone voting for Republican officeholders? Why do you think Scott Brown was elected in what was arguably the most liberal state in the Union? To say no to Democrats, not to go along with the Obama agenda. His entire campaign was that he would be the 60th vote to derail the one-party rule in Washington.

    What’s far more likely is the conservative base will punish Republicans for compromising with Democrats.

    Republicans should derail every Democrat bill until the midterm elections. With the largest majorities ever in several generations, Democrats are going to have a hard time blaming Republicans on their failure to govern.

    • conservnut

      about fighting the democrats and saying no to every part of the Obama agenda, but we must also always always always offer alternatives based in conservative principle.

      We will be labeled as the “party of no” anyway, but we must be able to point to facts that dispute that definition and educate.

  • racebannon

    Again, letting the opposition control the messaging here does no one any favors. The Republicans knew that Stimulus II was coming and was going to be re-labeled a jobs bill. So – what? – they let it happen AND let it get branded/ defined as a “Jobs Bill” AND don’t have their own bill ready to counter with AND barely pushed back!?!

    Where’s the messaging? Remember, you are working to inform the MIDDLE/INDEPENDENT Voters. The base already knows this isn’t a jobs bill. The push back on this should’ve been immediate AND combined with ready-to-go counter proposal(s). Examples

    PUSH BACK:
    - “The Obama administration is calling this a ‘Jobs Bill’ but even Democratic insiders admit it won’t create many jobs (http://bit.ly/9wc3tM).”

    - “They admit it doesn’t create jobs, but yet they call it a ‘Jobs Bill.’ What’s next – a “Tax Cut Bill” that raises your taxes?”

    - “They admit it doesn’t create jobs. But yet they call it a ‘Jobs Bill.’ What’s next – a “Health Care Bill” that doesn’t provide health care? Oh wait…”

    - “They call this thing a ‘Jobs Bill’ but they can’t even tell you how many private sector jobs it will create. For $80 billion you’d think they’d have a clue.”

    - “The only jobs they’ve definitively created since the recession began have been government jobs, And gee, we just need so many more of those…”

    - “If you call something a ‘Jobs Bill’ but admit ‘won’t create many jobs,’ why not just name it a “We’re Don’t Know What We’re Doing Bill”? (At least that would be transparent.)

    Now to actually lead you need to follow with solid JOB CREATION PROPOSALS – (i.e. not just “No!”) Some samples are below. Legislators should insert their own if these don’t resonate, If they don’t have any of their own they should resign:

    - “We proposed to create PRIVATE SECTOR JOBS the same way John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan did – by enacting immediate across the board tax cuts COMBINED with immediate reductions in federal spending.”

    - “We propose to eliminate all federal deductions for TWO MONTHS for anyone getting a regular paycheck. We propose paying for this by taking the $580 Billion still unspent from the first stimulus package and combining it with the $250 Billion unspent by TARP.”

    - “We propose stimulating the economy by cutting taxes across the board like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan did when they faced recessions. We propose to offset these tax cuts by enacting immediate 10% cuts to the pensions of all federal employees EXCEPT those who put their lives on the line for this country (i.e. Military, CIA, FBI, DEA, Secret Service, etc.).