President Obama cannot and should not agree to the false choices being disingenuously laid out by Congressional Republican pretenders.
We must pay our bills on time, and we must retire the Bush deficit over time. And we must do this with a balanced approach that allows us to create and save jobs at the same time -- just as former President Clinton did after inheriting the Reagan-Bush deficit. We cannot allow fiscally irresponsible tea-partying Republicans to kill job creation and increase unemployment under the false pretext of controlling spending and limiting debt. Whether by massive Medicaid cuts that fall on state governments or by needlessly driving the United States into a default position, the damage to the jobs recovery is the same.
These Congressional Republican pretenders would like us all to believe that notwithstanding their complicity in creating the Bush deficit with huge tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, notwithstanding their approval of a series of desert wars financed by debt, notwithstanding routine increases in the debt ceiling during then Bush and Reagan presidencies, that now every national priority -- including creating and saving jobs -- must wait until the Bush deficit is immediately retired.
These Republican phonies and their new era tea-party collaborators don't care about job creation or fiscal responsibility. Their priority isn't jobs, it isn't fiscal responsibility, it's politics. They have one goal and one goal only -- to defeat President Obama in the upcoming election by killing the jobs recovery now. And they do this in one of two ways: by radical, abrupt, and massive budget cuts on the one hand, or by driving our country needlessly into default on the other hand.
There is not a modern nation on the planet that can retire its debt with 10 percent unemployment.
These political calculators think they are slick, and they think Americans are all gullible and stupid. They think they have slyly figured out that they can win the election only if America loses jobs. These scammers and schemers believe they can win the election only if they can stall or stop the jobs recovery. They think no one is going to call them on it. And they might be right.
In the meantime, they are willing to inflict as much damage on state governments or the nation's credit rating as it takes to realize their goal.
President Obama cannot and should not agree to the damaging choices being falsely laid out by Congressional Republican pretenders.
Creating and saving jobs must be our nation's top priority.
This is what we promised; this is what we must deliver.