Boehner Demagogues the Failing Economy

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The GOP's most influential mouthpiece --John Boehner --has said that now is the time that the US government 'tighten' its belt' to show the people that the government 'gets it'. Boehner doesn't get it! And neither does his stupid party! The US economy is contracting and may slide off into another 'Great Depression'. Nevertheless, Boehner would push us off the cliff rather than allow a Democratic President a chance to undo eight years of GOP incompetence and criminality.

What’s insane about Boehner’s remark? He’s talking about the current economic crisis as if it were a harvest failure — as if we faced a shortage of goods, so that the more you consume the less is left for me. In reality — even most conservatives understand this, when they think about it — we’re in a world desperately short of demand. If you consume more, that’s GOOD for me, because it helps create jobs and raise incomes. It’s in my personal disinterest to have you tighten your belt — and that’s just as true if you’re “the government” as if you’re my neighbor.

Plus, who is “the government”? It’s basically us, you know — the government spends money providing services to the public. Demanding that the government tighten its belt means demanding that we, the taxpayers, get less of those services. Why is this a good thing, even aside from the state of the economy?

Again, this is what the leaders of a powerful, if minority, party think. Can this country be saved?

--Paul Krugman, Can America be Saved?

There is substance to the charge that Boehner is not as ignorant or as stupid as his statements seem to prove. The truth is --Boehner has no interest in 'fixing the economy' on Obama's watch. Boehner is not really against a bailout. He's against a bailout that might not enrich his base. He's against a 'Democratic' bailout that might succeed. He's against a bailout if his 'base' of robber barons is not enriched by it.

You can bet your ass that Boehner would jump through hoops to take credit for a bailout if it should enrich his already rich base. You can bet your ass that whatever bailout Boehner supports would transfer several billions out of the economy and into numbered accounts offshore, out of the hands of Democrats who might have put that money to much, much better use as Democrats, in fact, did on Clinton's watch.

It doesn't matter to Boehner that Obama inherited the crash that was well-underway on Bush's watch. It doesn't matter to Boehner that Bush's bailouts were a last desperate payoff to those who 'brung 'im'. It doesn't matter to Boehner that GOP policies have both caused and exacerbated a crash that is well underway --that of Bush and the GOP!

It only matters to Boehner that the GOP figure out a way to pin the rap on Obama, just as Bushie Reaganheads tried to blame Clinton for twelve long years in which Reagan and Bush looted the nation and shipped the booty up to the 'base', offshore to havens, overseas to potential enemies and to the MIC which has apparently guaranteed that the US will have no shortage of enemies and real 'terrorists' many of which are inexplicably financed with US monies. One wonders --how do they get it? By way of the CIA, perhaps! How about we finance this bailout by taking it out of the CIA's ass? But --I digress.

Boehner, who has 'Presidential' ambitions, would love to pin the blame for a major crash on the current Democratic administration. Boehner is positioning himself for a run at the White House. There is a name for this: demagoguery!

Expect more lies from a party that has never 'gotten it', a party of the evil and the stupid. The stupid may really believe that tax cuts which benefit only the very, very rich will trickle down and stimulate the economy. The evil among them know better but exploit the fairy tale in order to enrich themselves and their base as they impoverish everyone else. Of what use are stupid, evil games of blame and brinkmanship when the US economy is owned by the Chinese? We should unite in order to get back our economy.

It doesn't matter what party occupies the White House if the policies which destroy the US are those of the GOP, the stupid and/or evil Boehner or the mavens of tax cuts which got us here? Typically, the GOP is trying to 'frame' the debate as a dichotomy between 'bailout Democrats' and a 'fiscally responsible GOP'. This position is disingenuous, a deliberate focus-group approved 'frame'. The first 'bailouts' were GOP. Not surprisingly --they failed! 'Frame' that!

The real issue is the fact that it was the criminality of the GOP that is responsible for the transfer of wealth upward to the nation's elite --a mere one percent of the total population. The mechanism by which the GOP effected this transfer of wealth upward is known to anyone with two working brain cells. Tax cuts! It was Reagan's tax cut of 1982 that began the trend which 1) made the very rich, much, much richer; and 2) resulted in a transfer of billions to offshore tax havens where they are not taxed and not invested in new jobs or industries or, in fact, in any way that benefits the US economy. This is not a matter for debate. The stats are beyond spin and 'interpretation'. They are a dispassionate data-base, a record of wealth transfers to the wealthiest one percent. 'Tax cuts' are how the GOP 'money launders' its payoff to 'the base'.

Republicans expect you to believe that bailouts are immoral or un-American. But that's only because it is not 'their' man proposing it. Even if the tax cut should benefit only the incompetent 'Wall Street' crowd responsible, the GOP could not be expected to cheer the man Rush Limbaugh has said he would like to see fail!

On another front, the GOP media has tried to blame homeowners for taking out loans they could not afford. But what about those who took out loans that they could afford? When they had jobs. Jobs that had not yet fallen victim to Bush/GOP/Reaganomics. Most homes are lost because of lost jobs and depressed property values. In other words: gop-o-nomics! Like the 'good' gopper he is, Boenher blames the victim. Can you say 'Heil Boenher'?

Bad loans are the fault of the incompetent and/or greedy bankers who made them. An expanding economy covers many sins. But as the economy begins to fail, the GOP can be expected to find a scapegoat. It's the Nazi way.

Boehner, therefore, is only doing his job on the behalf of a crooked party. He will blame Obama, the Democrats, and the millions who will lose their jobs and homes. The GOP --we are expected to believe --is without sin. If that is so, then let's nail them to a tree. Make them live up to the charade. We shall soon see how they enjoy playing the 'savior' they have never been and never will be.

That applies as well to the Military/Industrial complex whose accounting experts you can be sure calculated a dollar value for each Iraqi death.

Evil is screwing workers of their jobs and growing families of their homes. Evil is correlating your profits with Iraqi deaths. Evil is blaming the opposition for all of the above.

A great blessing would befall humankind if the GOP --as a class --choked on its stock mantra: 'big government'. It was Ronald Reagan who tripled the deficit and doubled the Federal Bureaucracy. It is the GOP that bankrupted the nation with reckless spending programs most of which wound up offshore or in a Chinaman's pocket. The soundtrack for all this has been Fox and Limbaugh --the two best arguments for the restoration of the Fairness Doctrine, limitations on corporate ownership of media, a bust up of Clear Channel et al!

Where was Boehner's big mouth when Bush, the War Criminal, was playing the bailout game to ENRICH his cronies, a last desperate grab, a 'kiss before dying'!??

The GOP has been 'short selling' the entire economy but just enough to enrich their cronies short of total collapse. Now that total collapse is here, they have resorted to the oldest, the most worn out tactic of them all. Blame the Democrats! Blame the liberals! Blame the media! Blame the fates! Blame everyone but your own crooked party!

This is a very dangerous game of 'chicken' and if the GOP should continue to play it, everyone falls off the cliff. If you should find yourself falling off that cliff, do the patriotic thing: grab as many lying, goddamned goppers as you can find! Take them with you. I will try to do the same.

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