Write Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and Eric Cantor, and tell them to stop sabotaging our economy.
With unemployment still stubbornly high, and with the economy growing at an anemic pace, you'd think that our leaders would actually lead and do something to help. Unfortunately, Republican leaders seem hell-bent on pushing back on any such attempt. They appear to be deliberately sabotaging our economy in an attempt to defeat President Obama in 2012.
America is starting to wake up, and recognize this for what it is. Two recent polls showed that half of Americans believe that Republicans were deliberately stalling efforts to jumpstart the economy in order to defeat President Obama.
GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell telegraphed as much over a year ago, when he said that, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." The single most important thing. More important than jobs. More important than getting the economy moving again.
President Obama has laid out a plan for creating jobs. It was a plan far bigger and bolder than had been expected by most political observers:
President Obama delivered a determined address to a joint session of Congress Thursday evening, laying out a bold, nearly half-trillion-dollar plan aimed at creating jobs and giving the weak economic recovery a shot in the arm. The President's job proposal is wide-ranging, including extensions of unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts, tax incentives for hiring veterans, as well as funds to rehire teachers, renovate schools, fix roads and rehabilitate neighborhoods suffering from the blight of abandoned homes and buildings, fallout from the housing crisis. (source)
According to a top economist at Moody's, that boldness would come with real rewards for the American worker, in the form of millions of new jobs:
A top economist says President Barack Obama's job plan will likely add 1.9 million jobs and grow the economy by 2 percent. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, also said Obama’s $447-billion plan would likely cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point... (source)
The plan included elements that had been supported by Republicans before, and in fact, some that had even been proposed by them. There was no policy-based reason to oppose it. And yet, Republicans lined up unanimously against it. Why? The answer seems obvious:
"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." (source)
Half of America has already woken up to what the GOP is doing, and more and more are doing so every day. It's time to ramp up the pressure, and make the GOP work for the country, and not for their own petty political aims.
Send a message, push back hard, and tell the GOP leadership to stop sabotaging our economy.