Category Archives: Labor

Delusional Democrats.

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The midterm electoral ass-kicking should be a wake-up call for Democrats. Yet, in the hours following the debacle, all I’ve seen and heard are the same old lame excuses. “Democrats only turn out for presidential elections.” “Our candidates were swamped by a tsunami of dark money.” “It’s the result of Obama’s unfavorable numbers.” “With the growing number of minorities, it’s inevitable that Democrats will win in the future.” And, my favorite, “We don’t belong to an organized political party. We’re Democrats.”

Although I hate it, that last excuse is more true than I’d like to admit. The Party is disorganized. It has no real leadership. It fails to communicate what it stands for, other than getting elected. Its messaging is pathetic. And its consultants are a joke!

More important, the Party and many of its candidates are gutless. Even though they had real accomplishments to promote – accomplishments that are popular with voters – they seemed afraid to stand up for them lest they be criticized by Teapublicans and their comments featured in a Teapublican attack ad. For example, during this election cycle, few Democratic candidates were willing to take credit for the Affordable Care Act that gave millions access to health insurance for the first time. Few would stand up for environmental issues. Few stood against climate change. Few would stand up for labor unions. Few would stand up for universal background checks for gun purchases. Few took credit for voting for the 2009 economic stimulus that kept the nation from sliding into the Great Depression II. Few stood behind Democratic economic policies that have the stock markets at historic highs and unemployment numbers at their lowest level in more than a decade. Few would take credit for getting our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Few would stand behind their Democratic president. And one even refused to acknowledge whether or not she voted for a Democrat for president!

To make matters worse, Democratic consultants begged the president not to take a stand on immigration reform in order to help red state Democrats who were almost certainly doomed to lose anyway. But that advice did have an effect. It cost several blue state Democrats their seats and it may have cost the Party the support of Latinos in the future. Yet their worst advice was to tell candidates to run away from the president and the Party’s accomplishments. Their only real strategy seemed to be, “a Republican said something stupid, send us money.” (I, for one, will not send the Democratic Party another dime until it gets its house in order and miraculously grows a spine.)

In truth, the Democratic candidates who took the advice of their Party got what they deserved.

But why would political consultants care if their advice is awful, anyway? Most will still be around for the next election, even if their candidates aren’t. And they will still be able to cash their rather substantial checks.

In my (hopefully temporary) home state of Arizona, the consultants advised Democratic candidates to base their campaigns on support for public education, including increased funding. But most Arizona voters don’t seem to care about public education. Many are too old to care and others simply don’t vote. As a result, every Democrat running for statewide office lost. Indeed, the voters showed how they really feel about education by rejecting numerous school bonds and apparently electing a Teapublican with absolutely no background or understanding of education to the position of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Her platform consisted of a single plank…stopping Common Core, the program created by Republican and Democratic governors that sets standards for schools across the nation. (It’s just as well, Arizona schools are so under-funded, few of the state schools could meet those standards anyway.)

And, rather than turning the state purple as the Party hoped, the far-right-wing Arizona voters passed yet another “sovereignty” bill designed to raise a collective middle finger to the federal government. The bill will encourage our very right-wing state government to challenge the federal government on any federal law with which our nincompoop-driven legislature disagrees. The result will be millions of Arizona taxpayer funds spent on lawsuits against the federal government that sends $1.50 to Arizona in federal spending for every $1.00 the state contributes in federal taxes.

Clearly, in this election, few Democrats went to the polls. Why would they? The Party gave them few reasons to vote. In hopes of attracting more women and more Latino voters, the Party essentially abandoned its core voters…its base. After all, if the Democratic Party won’t stand up for its own president and its own accomplishments, how can we trust that its candidates will stand up for us?

Democrats Should Listen To Nader.

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For some time, I’ve written about the Democratic Party’s appalling ineptitude with regard to branding and messaging. The party seems utterly incapable of communicating a clear, concise and cogent message.

Most voters can recite the Republican brand – “Less government. Lower taxes.” But what does the Democratic Party stand for? What is its brand? Ask a hundred Democrats and you’ll get a hundred different answers. Ask a hundred independent voters and you’ll likely hear them parrot back some version of the Teapublican talking points – “Democrats are tax and spend liberals who are weak on foreign policy.”

In other words, Teapublicans have been more successful in branding Democrats than the Democrats themselves.

What accounts for such failure? In an article for the Huffington Post, Ralph Nader hit the nail on the head by suggesting that the party’s corporate consultants are part of the problem. Nader writes about a recent mass mailing from Nancy Pelosi, “The Pelosi mailing, uninspiring and defensive, is another product of the party’s political consultants who have failed them again and again in winnable House and Senate races against the worst Republican Party record in history.” Nader continued, “These consultants, as former Clinton special assistant Bill Curry notes, make more money from their corporate clients than from political retainers. Slick, arrogant and ever-reassuring, these firms are riddled with conflicts of interests and could just as well be Trojan horses.”

While Teapublican candidates want to destroy the government and any form of corporate regulation, Democratic candidates represent the working public…the vast majority of Americans. Yet, with few exceptions, the party has failed to tap into the smoldering, populist anger in the country. They’ve allowed the Tea Party to do that. Even though we have a Democratic president and a Democrat-controlled Senate, much of the debate in Washington has been controlled by a group of anti-government, anti-education, anti-science nitwits like Michele Bachmann, Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, Steve King, and Rand Paul.

These are people who want to take America back to the days of the Robber Barons and indentured servants. They are little more than an American version of the Taliban. But they’ve tapped into the anger generated by the collapse of our economy caused by large financial institutions. And because Democrats failed to articulate their political views and the actual causes of the crash, Teapublicans were able to redirect the blame to the victims of the crash…the people who lost their homes due to unregulated lending; the people who lost their jobs and needed to rely on unemployment insurance; the people who could no longer feed their children and needed to rely on food stamps; the so-called “moocher” class.

They blamed the victims. And the Democratic Party was so inept they let Teapublicans get away with it.

Even though Ralph Nader has been instrumental in passing legislation Democrats now claim as their own – the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Consumer Credit Disclosure Law, the Consumer Product Safety Act, the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Mine Health and Safety Act, the National Automobile and Highway Traffic Safety Act and much, much more – Democrats now vilify Nader on the mistaken belief that he cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000. He didn’t. (The result actually had more to do with fraudulent absentee ballots, voter suppression in Florida counties and a partisan Supreme Court.)

No one has fought harder for American consumers and workers than Ralph Nader. Democrats would be wise to listen to him now instead of their overpaid, underperforming corporate consultants.

Where Is Our Conscience?

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If the events of this past week disclosed anything, it’s that the people of the United States have no conscience. We not only support a government waging war on civilians, including women and children, resulting in 860 dead and more than 5,000 wounded. We have accelerated deportations of desperate mothers and kids escaping the violence and poverty of Central America.

One must ask why? What happened to us? Where is our concern for our fellow men, or more accurately, our fellow women and children? Where is our sense of charity? Where is our morality?

For many years, we have unconditionally supported Israel. That made sense when the Arab nations around it refused to accept its right to exist. But that is no longer the case. Now Israel is the baddest bully on the block, with state-of-the-art weaponry purchased with our money. The Israeli government has made Gaza a prison and every so often, in the words of Israeli military leaders, it invades Gaza to do “a little lawn-mowing.” Israel refuses to negotiate a permanent two-state solution with the PLA because, in its view, the PLA has nothing of value to offer. It has no weaponry other than rocks. Israel also refuses to negotiate with those Palestinians who are armed…Hamas…probably because Hamas provides Israel a reason to justify its repression of Palestinians and its development of Palestinian territory in the West Bank.

So what is the US attitude to the violence in Gaza? Secretary of State John Kerry is working hard to negotiate a cease fire, saying that any agreement must first assure Israel of its security and Palestinians of an economic future. Not to villify Kerry, but why just talk about Israel’s security? It is the Palestinians who are being killed!

As for the refugees from Central America, why are their lives of so little value? Why are we deporting them when we have accepted refugees from around the globe who were facing similar conditions? Are Guatemalan lives worth less than Somalis? Are Honduran lives worth less than Romanians?

Conservatives preach that our entitlements will soon be bankrupt because, as baby boomers retire, there will be fewer people to contribute portions of their salaries to add to the trust funds. They say that we will soon have more people “on the dole” than people working. If that is true, why not accept refugees who have come here looking for jobs? Don’t the taxes and contributions of Latinos count as much as those from Sudanese, Ukranians, Russians, Vietnamese, Cambodians and all of the other refugees we have welcomed?

If we can so easily watch Palestinians die with our complicity; if we can so angrily turn our backs on desperate people seeking our help, we may as well remove the inscription from the Statue of Liberty. We must admit that we are no longer the beacon of freedom for the world. We must admit that we no longer hold the moral high ground.

We must admit that we have no conscience.

The Teapublican Zombie Apocalypse.

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Following eight years of the George W. Bush administration, which included two wars (including one pre-emptive war of choice), the failures of FEMA to give aid for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the crash of the housing market, the nation’s second-largest stock market crash, the bailout of the nation’s largest banks, soaring debt, thousands of home foreclosures and skyrocketing unemployment, the general public was understandably outraged. The Democratic Party stood a good chance of tapping into that outrage thereby ensuring its dominance for generations.

Not only did it fail to do so, it allowed the Tea Party to capture the voters’ anger and help the GOP seize the House of Representatives in 2010.

Was that outcome the result of astute planning and insightful strategies by Republicans? No, it was the result of the stupidity, timidity and outright cowardice of Democrats! Instead of charging Bush officials for the war crimes they committed, Democrats allowed them to profit from the speaker’s circuit and to rewrite history with their inevitable memoirs. Instead of pursuing criminal charges against the banksters who defrauded ordinary Americans, the Department of Treasury and the Justice Department allowed them to give each other six and seven-figure bonuses for their misdeeds. Instead of rewriting the tax code to prevent corporations and individuals from avoiding taxes by stashing profits in off-shore accounts, they bowed to Teapublicans making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

By 2010, the populist outrage created by Teapublican policies was re-directed toward Democrats – not so much for what they had done, but for what they had NOT done. They have not established a brand, making their core values clearly understood. They have not embraced those who joined the Occupy movement and the 99 percent. Too few have stood up against big money and big business. They have not fought hard enough for what they claim to believe in. And, instead of staying focused on solutions to our nation’s problems, they have too often and too easily buckled to criticism.

Now we are heading toward yet another seminal moment in politics and the analysts are suggesting that the Teapublicans will not only hold onto the House. They are likely to take over the Senate! In other words, voters are likely to reward the party that blocked the regulation of financial institutions; the party that panders to large corporations and billionaires while demeaning and dismissing nearly half our population; the party whose policies have hollowed out the middle class and transferred trillions of dollars of wealth upward to those who least need it; the party that took us to war based on a series of lies; the party that has repeatedly tried to cut Social Security and Medicare; the party that refused to allow the duly-elected majority to legislate through a record number of filibusters; the party that prioritized the profits of large corporations over jobs; the party that ignores the needs of small businesses; the party that has destroyed labor unions; the party that underfunds Veterans Affairs then howls when it can’t meet demand; the party that believes that climate change and environmental conservation are based on flawed science.

If you’re a small business owner, a white collar worker, a blue collar laborer, a woman, a retiree, or anyone who wants to breathe clean air and drink clean water, the GOP has made it abundantly clear that they don’t care about you. By the same token, many in the Democratic Party have shown an unwillingness to fight for you. And their election strategy seems to consist of, “A Republican said (or did) something stupid, send us money.” Maybe that explains why so few Democratic voters show up at the polls during midterm elections.

Indeed, the two parties can best be summed up by two quotes. In the HBO series The Newsroom, Jeff Daniels’ character stated, “You know why people don’t like liberals?…cause they lose. If liberals are so f***ing smart, why do they lose so goddam always?” And conservative author P. J. O’Rourke famously wrote, “Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and then they get elected and prove it.”

Unfortunately, I believe they are both right.

Unreasonable Trade-Offs.

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After seeing a headline by David Suzuki “Trading Water for Fuel is Fracking Crazy,” I started thinking about all of the trade-offs we’re being asked to make.  Yes, as Suzuki points out, we are being asked to trade the purity of fresh water in our aquifers that took hundreds and thousands of years to accumulate for the profits of gas and oil companies through the use of toxic chemicals for fracking.

And that’s only one of the trade-offs we’re being asked to make in order to benefit big business.

We’re being asked to trade the beauty of the Appalachians and the area’s pristine waters for the profits of the coal industry through the use of mountaintop removal mining. We’re asked to trade the natural taste and nutrition of fresh fruits and vegetables for the profits of Monsanto, Walmart and large agribusiness companies by allowing the increased use of herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers and GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) seeds. We’re asked to trade the effectiveness of life-saving antibiotics by allowing large cattle feeders, hog growers and poultry growers to increase profits by adding antibiotics to animal feeds.

In order to increase profits for manufacturers, we’re asked to purchase products made overseas that could be made by workers in the US. So that large corporations can pay employees less than a liveable wage, we are asked to help their employees with food stamps, child care and other safety net programs. In order to increase the profits of corporations, we are asked to lower their income taxes and increase ours.  In order to help billionaires avoid paying income taxes, we are asked to give them a large array of tax breaks, including greatly reduced capital gains taxes.

And, in what is probably the most questionable trade-off of all, we are asked to ignore the very real long-term consequences of climate change for the short-term profits of the fossil fuel industry.

All of these trade-offs and their consequences are avoidable. We simply need the will to change the way we allow corporations to operate. We should demand that they pay for all of the costs of their actions. And that the cost of government subsidies, including the costs to our environment and our health, be included in corporate expenses.

In other words, if corporations truly are people as the US Supreme Court has ruled, we should hold them accountable for their actions.

Has Our Education System Failed Teapublicans?

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Over the last several years, it has become obvious that Republicans and their Tea Party Parasites lack basic comprehension skills. For example, when the President made a speech talking about the role of government, he said, “…look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.”

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

It was obvious that President Obama was referring to the fact that businesses benefit from government-provided infrastructure. But Teapublicans couldn’t grasp that. All they heard was “you didn’t build that.”

Likewise, during a lengthy Senate hearing on Benghazi, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had tired of answering the same loaded questions over what led to the attack on the consulate, she finally said, “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest? Or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they would go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator. Now, honestly I will do my best to answer your questions about this, but the fact is that people were trying in real time to get to the best information.”

Teapublicans failed to comprehend the content of her testimony. All they heard was “what difference does it make?”

More recently, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report that, among other things, noted the impact of the Affordable Care Act (for you Teapublicans, that’s “Obamacare”) on the labor market. The CBO report stated that the ACA would result in as many as 2.5 million people voluntarily leaving their full-time jobs because they would no longer be bound to those jobs for employer-based health insurance. The impact, according to the CBO, is that up to 2.5 million jobs openings would be created by 2024.

Teapublicans, of course, failed to comprehend the report. They believed that 2.5 million jobs would be lost…not created…and immediately labeled the ACA a “job killer.”

No wonder theTeapublicans are so angry all the time. They seem to lack the basic hearing and reading skills to comprehend the spoken word and written reports. Obviously, our education system has failed them.

The Politics Of Division And Deception.

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For many years, the GOP has used so-called “social” issues, such as proposed anti-abortion legislation and “sanctity of marriage” laws to divide the voting populace and fire up their base. The Democratic Party has focused on issues like social safety nets, minimum wages and availability of health care. And the debate has left our government largely paralyzed.

In some ways, arguing about the issues that divide the rank and file of the two political parties is akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It’s not that the issues aren’t important. But compared to other issues, they are mere distractions…the political equivalent of a con artist bumping your shoulder while picking your pocket.

The con artists are working for large, multinational corporations and the very wealthy. In order to grow and thrive, these companies need two things: A plentiful supply of natural resources and cheap labor. Over the course of history, those needs have led the wealthy to finance exploration, nations to build wide-ranging empires, and corporations to destroy collective bargaining movements.

Following World War II, the desire for access to oil, rubber, timber, tin and other resources led the British, the US and the Soviet Union to attempt to divide much of the world culminating in the Cold War. The desire to acquire resources led us into conflicts in the Caribbean, Central America, South America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. It was the cause of the Spanish-American War, the war with Japan, the war in Vietnam, and the war in Iraq. It led our CIA to orchestrate the overthrow of elected leaders in Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Nicaragua and elsewhere.

Similarly, the need for cheap labor led mining companies to create company stores and to build entire towns designed to trap workers into becoming hopelessly obligated to the owners. It caused companies to hire thugs to brutally beat striking workers. It led to shooting wars between corporate interests and labor unions. More recently, it led corporations to move factories to Southern “right-to-work” states then on to Mexico to China to India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The executives behind these actions aren’t evil. They’re just doing business. They claim that it’s not their responsibility to worry about social or environmental problems. They believe that their only responsibility is to increase the return on investment for shareholders by decreasing costs and increasing productivity. To them, picturesque mountains merely cover the precious minerals they covet. Pristine forests are merely the lumber needed for construction. Impoverished people in distant lands are simply motivated laborers.

And so it goes.

While we argue over the debt ceiling, corporations and billionaires quietly park their profits in off-shore tax havens then lobby for a tax “holiday” that will allow them to bring the money home at greatly reduced tax rates. While we argue over extending unemployment benefits, corporations lobby for more subsidies and government giveaways. While we argue over food stamps, corporate agribusinesses pocket billions in taxpayer funds. While we argue over Social Security retirement benefits, too-big-to-fail financial institutions steal trillions from 401ks, IRAs, pension funds and foreclosed homes. At the same time, all of these corporations continue to lobby for reduced government regulation and oversight.

It is because of our inattention that a mere 85 individuals now own as much wealth as half of the world’s population…the equivalent of the populations of China, India, the United States, Indonesia and Brazil combined. It’s why unemployment has grown and why most salaries have not. It’s why a few corporations now control most of our food supply. It’s why those same corporations are able to poison the food supply in search of ever larger profits. It’s why the incidence of chronic disease has skyrocketed despite government-funded technology and research that give us the ability to end it. It’s why our climate is rapidly changing while we continue to subsidize the companies responsible for changing it.

As long as we focus on the distractions instead of the actions, things will only get worse.

Congress Versus The American People.

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Politicians, especially Republicans, are fond of saying that they have faith that the American people will always do the right thing. Hmmm…that raises a number of questions.

If politicians believe the American people are so smart, why don’t they do what the people want them to? Why have they refused to vote for universal background checks on all gun purchases when more than 90 percent of Americans demand them? Why has the House refused to support bills that would create the jobs Americans want? Why has the House delayed action on immigration reform supported by more than 70 percent of Americans? Why has the House refused to vote for equal pay for women? Why has it refused to raise the minimum wage? Why do Republicans refuse to vote for gay marriage? Why do they refuse to decriminalize marijuana? Why have they failed to vote for tax reform and equal enforcement?

Why do more than 80 percent of Americans despise Congress?

At least we have an answer for one of those questions.

Why Teapublicans Are Wrong About Government.

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After all of the GOP talk of “freeing businesses from government regulation” and “shrinking government down to a size small enough to fit in a bathtub,” it’s time to force a dose of reality down their loudmouth throats. No matter how much they rant about the “evils” of government, we need government to do a variety of things the private sector can’t or won’t.

We need government funding and oversight to build and maintain infrastructure – roads, highways, airports, seaports, and more. We need government to protect our borders; to control our monetary system; to negotiate treaties. And, although we live in a nation built on capitalism, government has always been needed to prevent private businesses from taking advantage of our citizens. Whenever new industries are created by business, government eventually has to regulate them in order to keep them from running amok.

For example, before Ralph Nader and his book, Unsafe At Any Speed, American automakers paid little attention to safety. There were no seat belts, no air bags, no crumple zones, no crash tests…no safety standards at all.

Before the Food & Drug Administration, there was no labeling of ingredients for packaged foods ; no bans or warnings for ingredients known to cause harm. Before the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), large corporations felt free to dump toxic chemicals in our streams and in our drinking water. Before the EPA, large corporations spewed tons of toxins into the air we breathe. Before the Securities Exchange Commission, financial institutions could engage in insider trading and sell any junk securities people could be bamboozled into buying. Before the Mine Safety Act, most miners died from tunnel collapses and black lung disease. Before the US Department of Agriculture and the US Forest Service, lumber companies felt free to clear cut our forests destroying critical habitat for many species and mortgaging our future. Before the Department of Labor, businesses thrived on child and slave labor.

Do you really want to go back to the days of allowing corporations to regulate themselves?

Would you buy meat for your family that had not been inspected? Would you drink water that hadn’t been tested for bacteria and other contaminents? Would you give your child pharamceuticals that were untested? Would you strap your child into a car that had not passed basic safety tests? Would you place your life savings in a bank that did not insure your deposits?

We already know what happens when you replace government functions with private companies. We have abundant evidence that contracting with corporations to operate prisons costs more than publicly-operated prisons. Private prisons have also proven to be less secure. We also know that, on the whole, students in private schools perform no better, and often worse, than those in public schools.

Contrary to President Reagan, government isn’t the problem. Often it’s the solution. Instead of trying to reduce government to some arbitrary size, we should be trying to improve it. Apparently, Teapublicans have never considered that.

Stop Blaming Bush?

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On today’s edition of The Diane Rehm Show on NPR, a conservative asked the question, “Can we all admit that this is no longer George W. Bush’s economy?” It’s a fair question. We are, after all, about to begin the sixth year of the Obama administration. So I, for one, am more than willing to concede the point. Even though Bush’s policies crashed the economy, slashing federal revenue through tax cuts for the wealthy and leaving us mired in two unfunded wars with annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion along with massive unemployment, this is no longer Bush’s economy.

It is now quite clearly President Obama’s.

So let’s review what has happened over the past five years. To begin, President Obama signed a stimulus plan that helped stem the bleeding. He gave loans to GM and Chrysler to save the US auto industry and tens of thousands of jobs. He withdrew troops from Iraq and has promised to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan this year. He lifted American spirits by giving the order to kill or capture Osama bin Laden. He expanded health care access to millions more Americans and stemmed out-of-control inflation of health care costs.

Under President Obama, we have seen a consistent rise in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and the stock markets. At the same time, we have seen a substantial drop in umemployment despite substantial cuts to the number of employees at all levels of government. Finally, under President Obama, we have seen the most rapid drop in the federal deficit in modern history!

And most of this has been accomplished despite a recalcitrant GOP-led House that would have us believe that the way to deal with a struggling economy is to cut federal spending and revenues. Counter to the advice of most every economist, the Teapublicans in Congress have voted against bills that would create jobs, bills that would rebuild infrastructure while interest rates are at historic lows, and programs that stimulate the economy while helping those who most need it.

So, yes indeed. This is President Obama’s economy. And it would be even better if the GOP would get out of the way!