It’s Unanimous! GOP Says No To Unemployment Benefits, Yes To Tax Cuts For The Rich
Wow. It’s incredible. Even in a terrible economy, even when suffering a historic and humiliating defeat, even though locked out of control of every branch— the GOP has decided that Screw the Poor is an official party plank FoReVaH!
For two days, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl has raised eyebrows by insisting that emergency aid to unemployed people — what he called a “necessary evil” — be paid for through either tax hikes or spending cuts, while the tax cuts (which mostly benefit wealthy people) not be offset in any way. Yesterday claimed that this view is shared by “most of the people in my party.”
He was correct.
“That’s been the majority Republican view for some time,” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told TPMDC this afternoon after the weekly GOP press conference. “That there’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject.”
More at link. Including this, once again, for the reality-challenged:
The expert view is that giving unemployed people money to spend stimulates the economy much more than does preserving tax cuts for the rich. But this view is not shared by the chairman of the Republican Senate re-election committee.
And yet there will be people like Not-Joe the Not-Plumber* eager to wave the big foam finger for this and lustily cheer it on. You betcha.
Dear Joes of the world: you need to be waving a foam finger all right. The middle one. That’s the one the GOP’s giving you.