G_P Crossword Puzzle

Here's the latest wall photo added to www.snarkysigns.com

Since the GOP won control of the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections, their agenda has been anything but the one issue they all campaigned on with such energy. How many times did we hear John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Michele Bachmann, and so many more Republicans ask "Mr. President, where are the jobs" as the mid-term campaign theme. They hit it over and over and over again...... at least until they won a majority in the House.

Then they did nothing on the issue of job creation. The focus was on trying to end funding for National Public Radio, and Planned Parenthood, and clean energy. They tried to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). They called it "Obamacare" and they said they were going to "repeal and replace". They did pass a repeal of PPACA in the House only to offer no replace of any kind. (Of course it was only a symbolic passage in the House as there was no way it would pass the Senate and certainly no way President Obama would sign it even if it had.) They tried to dismantle the EPA. Nothing about job creation.

This doesn't mean they didn't try hard to sell America on the spin that these bills were really about fighting for job creation. They added the term "job-killing" to any regulatory function of government. Jobs would suddenly appear they argued if they could succeed in passing their bills to weaken the "job-killing EPA." Businesses being prevented by the EPA from polluting air and water in their manufacturing is the cause of high unemployment they argued. If we simply let businesses put higher levels of arsenic and mercury in our water for example, they would be more free to hire more workers.

It's nonsense. They KNOW it's nonsense. But the lobbyists who fund their campaigns sufficiently enough to get them elected represent the very businesses seeking to maximize profits by not being required to keep pollution to a regulated level. The oil companies that make billions in PROFIT who still get billions in tax dollar subsidies heavily fund members of Congress. The Republican House uniformly votes down ending any of them. Subsidies that were designed to help establish an oil industry generations ago when it needed help to compete in the marketplace. They are way past that need for such help. Clean energy needs that help now. It has for some time, but the clean energy industry has not amassed enough money to match the power of the oil industry lobbyists or the campaign contributions they can make. Such financial power over members of Congress virtually assures their billions in tax dollar subsidies keep flowing to them no matter how little their need.

Arguments have been made by Republican Congressional members that our minimum wage is stifling to job growth. This May on ABC, Ron Paul even said "I think the question you have to ask is whether or not when you set the minimum wage it may cause unemployment.... The least skilled people in our society have more trouble getting work the higher you make the minimum wage..." 


That might make sense if the minimum wage was more than twice what it is now. At $7.25/hour, if you miss 9 days of work in a year, you fall below the poverty guideline for a family of 2. Full time jobs typically require a 40 hour per week year round commitment. If making minimum wage requires foregoing 2 weeks vacation per year to just barely inch above the poverty guideline for a family of 2, then requiring such a low minimum wage is certainly not stifling employment opportunity to the least skilled workforce. No matter how unskilled the labor for a job is, when a worker commits 40 hours a week year round to performing that job for a business, that business better damn well pay that worker at least enough to stay above the poverty guideline. 

Miss 9 days of work per year while working for minimum wage, 

and you fall below the poverty guideline for a family of 2.

Minimum wage, job creation, clean energy, education, gay rights, women's health access, fixing crumbling bridges and roads, the arts. The GOP in Congress uniformly says no to all of these. However they INSIST that the wealthiest amongst us should not have their taxes increased by any measure, even if just to match the rate of taxes that the average citizen pays. They say no to ending billions in outdated oil subsidies. 


The mantra of job creation was just a campaign slogan. They have not worked to this end. House Republicans have bills they claim are for helping job creation. They call them the "Forgotten 15". What they forgot is that those bills don't help job creation, they simply weaken regulations. Meanwhile, they unanimously vote no on every bill before them that would address any of these issues. Except one. The separated piece of Obama's Jobs Bill that offers incentives to employers who hire veterans. This is one that no matter how far out they have gotten, they know there is no way they can spin an opposition to supporting our returning vets. This one exception aside, it's no great puzzle to realize that the GOP is the party of NO.