Political Irony

After promising to concentrate on creating jobs after the 2010 election, Republicans are finally tearing their attention away from abortion, gays, and other social issues and are pushing a bill that they claim will create jobs.

There’s just one problem. In fact, economists say that the bill won’t create any jobs in the next three years, and if any jobs are created after that it is more of an afterthought. One economist even said the bill was more likely to cause people to get sick or die than to give them new jobs.

The bill is actually about eliminating regulations and gutting environmental laws — more government handouts to large multinational corporations — and pleasing special interests. Didn’t we try this under Dubya? It failed miserably then, and there is no evidence that it would work any better now.

Although I do have to admit that there is one kind of job that Republican politicians are trying to save with this bill — their own jobs.

But it gets worse. Not only are the Republicans claiming that they are trying to create jobs, but they also claim that Senate Democrats are holding up their “job creation” bills. The spokesperson for Speaker John Boehner even said “The House has passed more than 30 jobs bills that are awaiting action in the Democrat-controlled United States Senate.”

But that is a lie. The Senate has actually passed a dozen of the GOP job creation bills he claims have been held up.