It's the economic equivalent of the "Obama is a socialist" charge (that Newt Gingrich made again last night during the GOP presidential debate. A charge so absurd that the President refuses to even deign its existence, while the GOP restates it incessantly, and the public slowly starts to believe simply through attrition.
The latest Republican attack on President Obama's economic policies was debuted last night on the O'Reilly Factor, and then just "coincidentally" came out of Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell's mouth this morning. Namely, that because unemployment increased after the stimulus was passed, it means the stimulus actually increased unemployment.
It's a bizarre theory. Akin to "my dog barked and then I heard the news that GDP was flat last quarter. My dog killed GDP growth." But the Republicans' political calculus, and Fox's viewer projections, are based on the assumption that their followers are a bit thick. But they're also based on the assumption that the President won't lift a finger to defend himself or his policies.
Here's what O'Reilly said:
Massive government spending has only increased unemployment - from 7.8% when Mr. Obama took office to 9.1% now.Just O'Reilly being O'Reilly? Hardly. Mitch McConnell said basically the same thing this morning:
“Now, in a two-party system like ours, it shouldn’t be surprising that there would be two very different points of view about how to solve this particular crisis. What is surprising is the President’s apparent determination to apply the same government-driven policies that have already been tried and failed. The definition of insanity, as Albert Einstein once famously put it, is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Frankly, I can’t think of a better description of anyone who thinks the solution to this problem is another Stimulus. The first Stimulus didn’t do it. Why would another one?
“This is one question that the White House and a number of Democrats clearly don’t want to answer. That’s why some of them are out there coaching people not to use the word Stimulus when describing the President’s plan. Others are accusing anybody who criticizes it of being unpatriotic or playing politics. Well, as I’ve said, there’s a much simpler reason to oppose the President’s economic policies that has nothing whatsoever to do with politics: they don’t work. Yet, by all accounts, the President’s so-called jobs plan is to try those very same policies again, and then accuse anyone who doesn’t support them this time around of being political or overly partisan, of not doing what’s needed in this moment of crisis.
“And we also know this: the economic policies this President has tried have not alleviated the problem.The President refused to defend the stimulus the first time around (and by "defend" I don't mean issuing the occasional press release; I mean a full-throated, ongoing PR campaign, the likes of which this White House oddly avoids like the plague). And thus the public ended up believing the lie that the stimulus didn't create a single job. And now, flush with victory, the Republicans are upping the ante and saying that the stimulus actually CAUSED more unemployment.
“In many ways, in fact, they’ve made things worse. Gas prices are up. The national debt is up. Health insurance premiums are up. Homes values in most places continue to fall. And two and a half years after the President’s signature jobs bill was signed into law, 1.7 million fewer Americans have jobs.
“So, I’d say that Americans have 1.7 million reasons to oppose another Stimulus. And that’s why many of us have been calling on the President to propose something different tonight. Not because of politics. But because the kind of policies he’s proposed have failed. The problem here isn’t politics. The problem is policy.
And why not? The Republicans know the President won't defend himself. So why not up the lie?
Joe and I have written a lot about why we get so upset with every "little" mistake the President makes. It's because the President's mistakes don't occur in a vacuum. They have serious repercussions on other, and future, policy disputes. The President's unwillingness to defend himself not only got us too small a stimulus, but it also poisoned the public's opinion of the stimulus (first, by being too small and thus not effective enough, and second, by refusing to refute the GOP's lies about the stimulus not creating a single job), which effectively killed any future possibility of additional stimulus. Thus guaranteeing the US economy will remain anemic heading into the 2012 elections, which will certainly help the GOP unseat the President. (And, putting all politics aside, a lot of people are suffering in their pocketbooks because of the President's actions.)
It's all quite predictable. And as I noted above, it's getting worse.
