Throughout the debate over the debt ceiling, we heard members of Congress giving lip service to job creation. "Jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs," as Nancy Pelosi put it. The Democrats perhaps kept their eyes on the prize, in wanting to support government programs (which automatically create jobs, because that's what spending does) by raising "revenue", i.e., taxes. But raising taxes is always politically unpopular in America, a nation which imagines that good things come through hard work, prayer, and good living - but not taxes.
And so Republicans resolutely opposed any suggestion of increasing revenue. The always consistent Mitch McConnell led their unending refrain that "a recession is no time to raise taxes on anyone," and "the so-called rich are the job-creators; they create the jobs, so we don't want to take away their job-creating money." The Lying Republicons trumpet these shibboleths as though they've discovered some weighty new principles of science, these know-nothings who deride climate science warnings and fight to defund medical research programs as "excessive spending".
There oughta be a law: that people who scoff at science to determine policy ought not be allowed to use it to buttress their own crazy arguments. Or maybe they should...if they pay a tax.
Here's what should happen next: let the President wait till the Congress returns in September, and then announce a job-creation plan involving direct hiring to get people to work repairing America's infrastructure (like Roosevelt's successful Civilian Conservation Corps), to be funded by a combination of shifting money over from reckless defense spending, and closing tax loopholes on the wealthy and on corporations, ending subsidies, increasing marginal tax rates for the wealthiest. Frame it as a "Let's Fix America" plan, fairly paid for, and dare the Republicans to go ahead and block it!
They will try, no doubt, because their belief in "NO TAXES" is a religious conviction: powerful, persistent, and immune to logic or reason. But we don't have to share their lunatic faith. We can insist that government policy actually return to providing for people's needs. What an idea! How to voice that insistence effectively? Besides writing, calling, and emailing, the best tool for that is called: election day. See you then!