Economic Sabotage

From the New York Times editorial board:

The middle class was hit the hardest because high-income Americans were cushioned by the greater diversity of their assets. Lower-income Americans were somewhat shielded by the safety net and by several provisions of the Obama stimulus of 2009, which helped to prevent a huge upsurge in poverty.

While the Great Recession officially ended in 2009, the recovery, so far, has been an effort to climb out of the very deep hole it blasted in the economy. A continued struggle, or worse, backsliding, is almost inevitable, unless Congress and the Federal Reserve provide more aid. In fact, the deep recession would have been much deeper and the weak recovery much weaker but for past government support, including the Obama stimulus and the payroll tax cuts and extended jobless benefits passed in 2010 and 2011. Congressional Republicans opposed all of them.

What’s needed now is even more support, including federal spending on education and public-works projects to create jobs, targeted tax credits for hiring, programs to deliver mortgage relief that supports house prices by keeping Americans in their homes, as well as a renewed commitment to financial regulation to ensure that the system doesn’t melt down again.

The Republicans — for reasons of ideology and self-serving election-year politics — are determined to block all of these necessary programs.

And Dick Polman of the Post-Gazette: 

The Republicans' 2012 election strategy is perversely brilliant: Sabotage President Barack Obama's job-creation efforts, then blame him for the wreckage. This strategy was in action the other day, when Mitt Romney assailed Mr. Obama on the stump. Mr. Romney said that "with America in crisis, with 23 million people out of work or stopped looking for work, he hasn't put forth a plan to get us working again."

Mr. Romney conveniently omitted the fact that Mr. Obama put forth such a jobs plan last autumn. The American Jobs Act would have put as many as 2 million construction workers, cops, teachers and firefighters back to work -- so said economic forecasters -- if only congressional Republicans hadn't dynamited it.

Yes, sabotage was required. Republicans knew their prospects for beating Mr. Obama would be damaged if they signed on to a plan that got more Americans working again. They're far too invested in economic misery to let that happen. As Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell candidly remarked in 2010, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

...

Fortunately for the GOP, voters typically pay scant attention to the play-by-play in Washington. Fortunately for the GOP, we are a nation of amnesiacs. What happened last autumn, when Senate Republicans blocked debate on the jobs plan, is ancient history. That episode, yet another example of obstruction by filibuster, has vanished down the memory hole -- which allows Mr. Romney to pretend the bill never existed.

It’s a little late, but at least some in the media are finally focusing on the deliberate sabotaging of the economy. Voters should be angry as hell and the Republicans should be voted out of office for a generation. But, as Polman says in that last paragraph above, Americans don’t pay enough attention and have disastrously short memories when they do.