Game On
by digby
Greg Sargent correctly identifies the method to the GOPs unemployment madness:
The GOP game plan: Amid the debate over benefits, point to “chronic” joblessness — that’s a word you’ll be hearing more often — in order to illustrate that Dem economic policies are failing. Republicans hope that even if the unemployment standoff gives Dems a short term advantage, any discussion about joblessness will continue to sow doubts over time about the efficacy of the Dems’ big-spending approach.
Two Republicans made this case explicitly today. Here’s Mitch McConnell, on the floor of the Senate today, slamming Obama’s presser yesterday with three unemployed Americans:
“If ever there was an indictment of this administration’s economic agenda it was yesterday’s press conference. The administration asked taxpayers to foot the bill on a trillion dollar stimulus that he claimed would create 4 million jobs. A year and a half later the President is standing with three chronically unemployed Americans, some of the victims of a 9.5 percent unemployment rate, asking taxpayers for $34 billion more in deficit spending to continue paying their unemployed benefits.”
You can read Eric Cantor’s at the link.
And the head of the Republican Party chimed in as well.:
It’s a bold plan and it plays into the sour mood quite well. But the Dems can return volley quite effectively if they try — they have to ruthlessly accuse the Republicans of wanting to place the burden of their own economic crisis on the backs of the unemployed rather than their rich friends. I don’t know if they have it in them to make that argument since they share so many of the same friends, but it’s the best way to beat this back.
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