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Opinion: Republicans promise to create jobs -- someday

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I guess that wasn’t so hard after all.

Republicans on Thursday proved that this job-creation thing is a snap. They promised to create 5 million jobs -- someday.

Tired of hearing President Obama say they didn’t have an alternative to his $447-billion jobs bill, GOP leaders in Congress brought out the big guns.

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‘We just thought it was time to put this all into a package. I will freely admit to you that part of it is in response to the president saying we don’t have a proposal,’ said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who led the effort to write the legislation along with Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.). ‘From the Republican point of view, this is a breakthrough,’ said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another supporter of the bill. ‘We have to be for something.’

Maybe that BlackBerry outage was worse than we thought. Did an email accidentally go out telling the Party of No to become the Party of Yes?

And just what’s in this miracle pill, er, bill?

The bill is something of a greatest hits of Republican economic proposals. It calls for repeal of the new healthcare law, a balanced-budget amendment, expansion of offshore oil drilling and a tax overhaul that would lower rates and eliminate corporate loopholes. Paul said the bill would create 5 million jobs -- although he did not offer a time frame.

Presumably, Paul also thinks the bill will allow pigs to fly, although he didn’t come out and say that.

In addition, the Republican leaders didn’t give out the phone numbers of any employers who will be hiring come Monday because of this legislation. Though that might be because of the BlackBerry outage too.

But you’ve got to admit, the GOP effort puts Obama’s to shame. Here’s all that the president’s puny plan entails:

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Obama’s $447-billion jobs plan, with its mix of tax breaks for workers and new spending to hire teachers or build roads and bridges, would add 1.9 million jobs and boost gross domestic product by 2 percentage points, according to independent economists.

As anyone who’s out looking for work right now knows, that’s the totally wrong approach. Which the Republicans were quick to point out:

On Thursday, the Republican senators sought to distinguish their approach from the president’s, saying it would create jobs by addressing structural problems in the economy rather than aiming for immediate job growth through government spending. ‘This is a pro-growth proposal to create the environment for jobs, and that’s as opposed to the short-term sweetener approach of the Obama administration that simply hasn’t worked,’ Portman said.

I really hate to quibble, but there is this: Remember when the Bush tax cuts for rich folks were about to expire? And remember how Republicans insisted on quick action to keep those, warning of economic Armageddon?

So why is it that now, with millions of people out of work, the GOP wants to take the long view?

We need to fix ‘structural problems in the economy’?

No. How about we fix the structural problems in our schools, and with our roads and bridges? Why don’t we stimulate the economy and provide jobs, right now?

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Let the people who got to keep their Bush tax cuts worry about the economy’s structural problems. They can afford to take the long view.

The people in the unemployment line just want a job and a paycheck -– today.

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--Paul Whitefield

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