February 4, 2009, News Item: Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, introduced an amendment to the stimulus bill that would have, had it passed, utterly stripped all actual economic stimuli from the bill -- instead turning it into another massive tax cut for the wealthy. The amendment was defeated, but with 36 of the 41 GOP Senators voting for it. That's 87.8 percent of all Republicans in the Senate.
87.8%!!!!
February 6, 2009, News Item: The United States economy lost 598,000 jobs in January, according to the Department of Labor. That makes 3,600,000 jobs lost since the official beginning of the current recession in December of 2007.
*****
As columnist and Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman has pointed out repeatedly, there are no monetary policy solutions left for the Fed to try; interest rates are already effectively at zero. We can attempt to vigorously stimulate the economy, or we can follow the lead of Herbert Hoover, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Can you guess which alternative the still-filibuster-capable Republicans prefer? I knew you could. They just continue on as though the last eight years never happened, as though this economic crisis descended upon the world from outer space, rather than being a direct result of the disastrous policies that they continue to attempt to foist upon us to an even greater degree.
And if we descend into economic oblivion, into a Second Great Depression? I'm sure that they believe that they can use it as an effective electoral tool, blaming it all on Barack Obama and the Democrats.
As far as I'm concerned, the only question left to ask is: "Why do conservatives hate America?"
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