People are beginning to take notice of the fact that the Republicans are destroying the economy to stop President Obama's reelection.

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one term president."

Courtesy of The Guardian:

Why has job creation in America slowed to a crawl? Why, after several months of economic hope, are things suddenly turning sour? The culprits might seem obvious – uncertainty in Europe, an uneven economic recovery, fiscal and monetary policymakers immobilized and incapable of acting. But increasingly, Democrats are making the argument that the real culprit for the country's economic woes lies in a more discrete location: with the Republican Party. 

In recent days, Democrats have started coming out and saying publicly what many have been mumbling privately for years – Republicans are so intent on defeating President Obama for re-election that they are purposely sabotaging the country's economic recovery. These charges are now being levied by Democrats such as Senate majority leader Harry Reid and Obama's key political adviser, David Axelrod. For Democrats, perhaps the most obvious piece of evidence of GOP premeditated malice is the 2010 quote from Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell: 

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." 

Such words lead some to the conclusion that Republicans will do anything, including short-circuiting the economy, in order to hurt Obama politically. Considering that presidents – and rarely opposition parties – are held electorally responsible for economic calamity, it's not a bad political strategy. 

As Paul Krugman wrote earlier this week, in the New York Times, while a Democrat rests his head each night in the White House, the United States is currently operating with a Republican economy. After winning the House of Representatives in 2010, the GOP brokered a deal to keep the Bush tax cuts in place, which has reduced the tax burden as a percentage of GDP to its lowest point since Harry Truman sat in the White House. At the insistence of the White House, Congress also agreed to extend unemployment benefits and enact a payroll tax cut – measures that provided a small but important stimulus to the economy, but above all, maintained the key GOP position that taxes must never go up. 

But as Congress giveth, Congress also taketh. The GOP's zealotry on tax cuts is only matched by its zealotry in pursuing austerity policies. In the spring of 2011, federal spending cuts forced by Republican legislators took much-needed money out of the economy: combined with the 2012 budget, it has largely counteracted the positive benefits provided by the 2009 stimulus. 

Subsequently, the GOP's refusal to countenance legislation that would help states with their own fiscal crises (largely, the result of declining tax revenue) has led to massive public sector layoffs at the state and local level. In fact, since Obama took office, state and local governments have shed 611,000 jobs; and by some measures, if not for these jobs, cuts the unemployment rate today would be closer to 7%, not its current 8.2%. In 2010 and 2011, 457,00 public sector jobs were excised; not coincidentally, at the same time, much of the federal stimulus aid from 2009 ran out. And Republicans took over control of Congress. 

These cuts have a larger societal impact. When teachers are laid off, for example (and nearly 200,000 have lost their jobs), it means larger class sizes, other teachers being overworked and after-school classes being cancelled. So, ironically, a policy that is intended to save "our children and grandchildren" from "crushing debt" is leaving them worse-prepared for the actual economic and social challenges they will face in the future. In addition, with states operating under tighter fiscal budgets – and getting no hope relief from Washington – it means less money for essential government services, like help for the elderly, the poor and the disabled.

The truly disgusting part of this treasonous plan by the GOP is that it will work. And it will work for the same reasons that these things ALWAYS work, because the Republicans are better at getting their message out, and fundamentally Americans are too lazy to search for the truth behind the rhetoric.

And with the Citizen United ruling allowing hundreds of millions of corporate dollars to buy up all the available space on the airwaves, the Republican message, peppered with misinformation, deceptively edited soundbites, and outright lies, will be front and center in every American's home day in and day out until election day.

And all that we progressives have on our side, is the truth.

A truth that may be impossible for most voters to see under the mountain of money the Republicans will have at their disposal to bury it.

Well I don't know about you, but I HATE to lose! So let's make sure and spread this information far and wide. Post it on Facebook, talk about it in the carpool, tweet it far and wide, e-mail your family, but whatever you do make sure that people know the truth about who is working to help this country, and who is working to sabotage it!

And remember, some of these people may be Republicans, so make sure to speak s-l-o-w-l-y.