US Economy: The GOP’s Mythical Jobs Agenda - by

This is the House Republican’s idea of a “jobs agenda”? They must be joking. In fact, the policy platform outlined by House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) offers a laundry list of half-baked policies that are resounding jobs killers. That’s because, across the board, the Republican “jobs agenda” reduces demand, undermines middle class families, blocks development of renewable energy industries, and recreates the possibility of future financial crises.

The Republican budget plan, for instance, is the most complete articulation of the GOP’s flawed strategy for job creation and economic growth. Passed by the House on a party-line vote in April, it was rejected by the Senate. But the plan still illustrates core party principles that voters should know are at stake in the 2012 elections. The Republican budget:

• Ends Medicare as we know it, kicking low income and middle class retirees into the Kafkaesque and inefficient private insurance market.

• Tears gaping holes in public investments in education and lifelong learning, efficiency enhancing infrastructure and energy modernization, and science research and technological R&D that create jobs today, “crowd-in” private investment, and provide a foundation for long-run sustained economic growth.

• Offers tax cuts to U.S. billionaires paid for by raising taxes on the middle class and shredding social protections for those hit hardest by the economic downturn, the most efficient policies to boost jobs and economic growth in the short-term.

All told, the Republican budget would kill an estimated 1 million jobs.

For more: The GOP’s Mythical Jobs Agenda | ThinkProgress