So here's what's going on, as best as I can determine. It's a somewhat cynical reading of our times, but try as I might (and I've been trying) I can't find any evidence that disproves my theory.
The Republicans in Congress (and in state houses across the country) are not interested in creating jobs.
Every bit of available evidence backs this up. Republicans took over the House in January. They've gone after reproductive freedom and Big Bird and the EPA, but they haven't offered a single piece of legislation that creates jobs. They ran on jobs, they talk about jobs all the time, but when it comes to governing? No jobs.
Instead, they push things like the compromise bill last night that kept the government running until the next budget deadline. The end result of that compromise is that $78.5 billion of the proposed FY 2011 budget will not be spent. Most economists who have weighed in on the matter agree that cutting that spending now will kill hundreds of thousands of jobs. When consumers aren't spending and businesses aren't spending, someone has to spend. That someone, at this stage, has to be government. Yes, the deficit is a problem (which the Republicans, for all their talk, are determined to ignore) but it's not a problem that should be addressed in the middle of a steep uphill climb out of a terrible recession. It's a problem that should be addressed after we've reached some kind of post-recessionary plateau. Right now we need more government spending, for its stimulative effects. And should you doubt that the stimulus worked, look at this graph of job loss, via Maddowblog. The stimulus bill--the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was pased in February 2009. See where the jobs start climbing again?
A side note: If the Republicans were serious about deficit reduction, they would work to implement the Affordable Care Act, not to destroy it. And they would immediately repeal the Bush tax cuts for the rich. But they won't. Because those tax cuts are part of the overall "What They're Up To."
Around the country, most notably (so far) in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana, but also in other places where Republicans control state legislatures and governors, there's been a concentrated attack on public employee labor unions. Part of the reason for that is that those unions are typically big donors and organizers for progressive causes and candidates. But another part of it is that those unions practice collective bargaining. If the campaigns against those unions are successful (and fortunately, even where they have won so far, they have outraged enough people who will vote against those Republicans that those victories might turn out to be short-lived and hollow), does anyone doubt that private employee labor unions will be next? I haven't heard anyone talking about this, but I'm convinced it's on the agenda.
Organized labor built the American middle class and gave us working conditions we mostly take for granted now. After the middle class was thriving, unions lost some ground. But American workers, in those heady days, had an option other than collective bargaining--if employers wouldn't provide the pay or working conditions a worker wanted, there were other employers who might. In place of collective bargaining we had power vested in individuals, who could decide whether or not to work for a company (and who could probably find a different job instead).
Fast forward to now. The gulf between the richest 1% of Americans--about 400 people--who take nearly 1/4 of the nation's income every year and control 40% of the nation's wealth, and the rest of us, has reached historic proportions. The rich, through their manipulations of the market, managed to nearly tank our economy, and that of much of the world. There's a calculated drive, enabled by Republicans in government (and with the complicity of Democrats; more on that later), to funnel more and more wealth to the rich.
The corporations that employ huge numbers of Americans have discovered that they can still make phenomonal profits with fewer workers. There have been more unemployed Americans these past few years than at any time since the Great Depression, but corporations have thrived. They want to keep it that way. It's in their financial interest (and the corporations and the rich are essentially interchangeable at this point--the people who run the giant corporations and their biggest stockholders are all among that 1%) to pay workers less and provide fewer benefits and get more productivity out of them. It's been working so far, so why not guarantee that it continues to?
If workers don't have the ability to collectively bargain, and they can't strke, how can they fight for better pay and conditions? Only by changing jobs, or threatening to.
And if unemployment remains at historic levels, how many workers are going to be willing to walk away from a job? When you see your neighbors living on unemployment until that runs out, then having their home foreclosed and living in cars or shelters or on sombody's couch, how apt are you to complain about your paycheck or the fact that you haven't been able to take the two weeks of vacation time to which you're are entitled?
By keeping unemployment high, corporations preserve power over their workers. The corporations have figured that out. They push the Republicans in government to strip workers of power by every means possible, including ensuring that government can't work to lower unemployment.
So we get no jobs bills out of the House, and we have Republicans obstructing every effort to create jobs, and we have Democrats agreeing to slash federal spending at a time when that spending is absolutely necessary to creat jobs.
Because, as I said above, Democrats are complicit in this, too. Every member of the Senate is in that top 1%. When they leave the Senate they'll go to other jobs working for corporations and they'll stay in that top 1%. Most members of the House are not that wealthy (though some are) and some of them might not even be aware of the long-term results of what they're pushing for. They've just drunk the Kool-Aid. They believe--like so many Americans, deluded by 40 years of right-wing think tanks and press manipulation and lies and politicians and pundits and Fox News--that helping the rich helps the country.
But they're wrong. Those Americans who vote Republicans (or super-rich Democrats) into office are not helping themselves.
The difference, and the reason that I lay most of the blame on the Republicans, is that the Republican Party has become, in virtually every way, the servants of the rich. Democrats still have working people in their base, and when Democrats remember that and act like Democrats, they can thrive. They can't hope to match the individual financial contributions of corporations and the 400 people at the top, but 150 million people can give a lot, too. And we have 150 million votes, versus 400, if we could all only figure out which of the two parties might--after being pushed hard enough by the people--will take America's best interests into account.
The Republicans have proven that they don't want to. They won't create jobs. They'll block further recovery. The additional motivation for these efforts is the fact that economic recovery and jobs creation are keys to Barack Obama's reelection. Without a thriving economy, he faces a tough challenge. With one, and with robust job growth, he's a shoo-in. So the Republicans stand in the way of job growth and demand cuts to federal spending necessary to spur recovery.
Because they don't care about jobs. They don't care about the deficit. They don't care about what's best for America. They care about helping the rich get richer.
Read this piece by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stigler, about the dangers of our widening income inequality. Read this one by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. Corporations are not our friends, and the rich aren't looking to help the rest of us. They're helping themselves to a bigger and bigger slice of the American pie.
But the worth of a nation isn't measured by how well off the rich are. They are, by definition, well off. The worth of a nation is in the opportunities it presents to those who have less, and the help it provides to those who have little. By those standards, we're failing miserably.
It's time to start looking out for ourselves again.
