Take Credit And Lay Blame

On April 1st of this year, Cathy McMorris Rodgers released a statement attributing credit for the drop in the unemployment rate from 8.9 to 8.8 per cent as follows:

...the latest jobs report is reason for optimism that House Republican policies are boosting confidence in the private sector and creating a more favorable climate for economic growth,” said Rep. McMorris Rodgers. “After two years of failed ‘spend, borrow, and bailout’ policies, House Republican efforts to prevent a record tax increase, adopt the largest spending cuts in U.S. history, and eliminate costly regulations (such as the 1099 requirement in last year’s health care law) are moving us in the right direction.

Last Friday, her statement in response to the report that unemployment rose from 9.0 to 9.1 percent:

“Today’s report is more evidence that President Obama’s ‘spend, borrow and bailout’ policies have clearly failed. To grow jobs in the private sector, we need to shrink the size of the public sector. That means lower taxes, less government spending, reducing the record budget deficit, and stopping burdensome regulations. House Republicans have a plan to get our economy moving again. Now we just need the President to work with us to implement it.”

So she takes credit for the good news and blames the bad news on the current president forgetting that the former Republican president and Republican Congress brought all this on in the first place.

How are things after ten years of the Bush tax cuts? Well, it sucks to be not rich. Here's more from a Mother Jones article:

Big debt: Between 2001 and 2010, the Bush tax cuts added $2.6 trillion to the public debt, 50 percent of the total debt accrued during that time. Over the past 10 years, the country has spent more than $400 billion just servicing the debt created by the cuts.

Supply-side failure: Far from paying for themselves with increased economic activity as promised, the tax cuts have depleted the public treasury. Tax collections have plunged to their lowest share of the economy in 60 years.

No jobs: Between 2002 and 2007, employment increased by less than 1 percent when the economy was supposed to be expanding. Employment growth barely kept pace with population growth. Between the end of 2001, when the country was in a recession, and the peak of the real estate bubble, er, economic expansion in 2007, the US economy performed worse than at any time since the end of World War II.

Her vote for the Ryun Path To Prosperity plan signifies that our congresswoman wants more of that and that is what she should be taking the credit blame for.