Boehner Pessimistic That He'll Be Able To Do Much To Solve Unemployment

Over at Slate, Dave Weigel flags this tweet from incoming House Speaker John Boehner, in which he seems to be awfully pessimistic about the prospects that the House GOP, under his leadership, will be able to do much to help the unemployed.

RT @JimPethokoukis Financial Times: Federal Reserve now expects unemployment will be 8% or higher through the end of 2012 #wherearethejobsless than a minute ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®House GOP Leader
GOPLeader

I'm going to be generous in my assumptions and suggest that John Boehner is just as worried about the massive unemployment crisis as I am. The good news, for John Boehner, however, is that he commands a large caucus of legislators and is thus perfectly capable of crafting policy and passing legislation that can ameliorate the joblessness problem. Of course, whatever he and his caucus comes up with will have to be something that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and twelve other Senate Democrats can agree with, and that President Obama will willingly sign into law.

That sounds like a tough haul, but that's the job the Boehner's signed up to do for the next two years. Fortunately for John Boehner, I am reliably informed that this is a center-right nation, so doing something about unemployment might not be that difficult. At any rate, my advice to Boehner is to get cracking on that, and prove all of Joe Scarborough's pals wrong!

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Comments

[prdnative]

02:23 PM on 12/04/2010

Come on Mr Boehner. Your party received more seats at the table by promising that you could help creat more jobs. Where are they and what are your ideas for creating them? Put your money where your mouth is or resign. While I don't for one second believe the government can fix this issue you and your contemporaries are in a position to stop our jobs from being moved overseas by eliminating the incentives to corporations allowing them to take advantage of cheap labor. I have noticed one other thing this election season. Just an observation no condemnation. Why is it that a large number of the people that scream how patriotic they are drive foreign cars? Perhaps all of us can buy american and put your friends and neighbors back to work by eliminating the demand for foreign products? I am a liberal democrat but I do have common sense and I think that our legislators have been bought and paid for by the haves while the have nots keep getting screwed. I am not a millionaire but am an accountant. Let the tax cut for the wealthy expire it can only help.

[charperz]

06:12 PM on 12/03/2010

he is full of Sh..T

[RedDog79]

01:20 PM on 11/30/2010

why should he care - he has the job he's wanted for years. And now that he and his cronies have a little more power - the corporations can rest easy. So can Bush and Cheney - nobody will come after them now.

[mssisyphus]

12:35 PM on 11/30/2010

You have to give a care about working class people to be concerned about unemployment benefits. which by the way, Republicans seem to believe are a form of welfare, rather than something every "legal" working person pays into an insurance policy towards, whether they want to or not!

Thats like saying you pay car or house insurance and when you have a wreck, or your house burns down, and you expect your insurance company to compensate you, you are asking for welfare!!

But, by God, lets make sure those poor Million and Billionaires can take a few more vacations each year (not in the US, of course), but, too bad if hard working Americans can't buy food or pay their mortgage!!

[Dissident Dexter]

12:17 PM on 11/30/2010

would it help if we promise him free bronzer?

[Stephen Trusas]

08:17 AM on 11/30/2010

Walmart

Stop giving tax incentives to corporate giants such as Walmart, who employ youth in the prime of their lives for squat in wages and benefits, who refuse to allow their workers to organize unions to protect their rights. Who go even further by preying on the elderly to use as greeters working long hours for nearly nothing. And to make it so much worse, they put small businesses our of business in every small town that they overtake. They import most of their products, and right now have sealed a dal to own 51% of Massmart in South Africa where they are intending to break their union as new owners with the intent of procuring another place to provide cheap imported goods for their stores here in the U.S. Please people, open your eyes. Every dollar you think your saving is helping to propel you or your family and friends into the poorhouse!

[RedDog79]

01:22 PM on 11/30/2010

you know - people don't have to work at wal-mart. Maybe a stronger public educational system would encourage the young to become entrepreneurs - or to work in R&D to help make our country strong again in the world. But, sadly, with the GOP taking control of the House - that's just another dream of this liberal that's clouding over.

[charperz]

03:35 AM on 11/30/2010

what bull is he taling

[ThePhotogsBlog]

01:29 AM on 11/30/2010

Dear Mr Boehner,

The entire reason that the Republicans did so well in the congressional election is that Americans are deeply unhappy about joblessness and they are giving your party a chance to do something about it. Now you are saying that you can't do anything about it. So here's what I suggest; return all the seat seats you won back to the Democrats and go home until you have a plan.

[sonoffestus]

12:56 AM on 11/30/2010

But wait, where are those jobs?

[akarampa]

12:05 AM on 11/30/2010

Let's be very clear. Boehner and the republicans have absolutely no interest in seeing the jobless rate decrease. NONE. If they could have it their way the unemployment rate would be 15% next election. For the last two years, the republicans have done everything they could to stall the recovery. They even opposed things that they cosponsored or supported. They were even against small business tax cuts, capital depreciation tax cuts, and R&D tax cuts. Clearly, they just don't want to help the economy because that would hurt them politically. Let's just cut the crap and be real about it. Politics has got to the point where policy matters very little.

[wowisdabomb]

03:26 PM on 11/29/2010

Does this mean that Bonner lost his faith in TAX CUTS?

[tpk]

03:53 PM on 11/29/2010

he only has faith in what benefits him personally

[wowisdabomb]

03:21 PM on 11/29/2010

He means he can not do anything to create jobs.. but he sure can cut unemployment benefits though!

[tpk]

03:05 PM on 11/29/2010

I wonder if he is crying...

[wowisdabomb]

03:22 PM on 11/29/2010

do crocodiles cry?

[tpk]

03:26 PM on 11/29/2010

he cried when republicans won the House and he became a majority speaker

[Mark Barto]

11:43 PM on 12/02/2010

He's crying orange tears.

[CanuckistanCommie]

02:55 PM on 11/29/2010

And we are all surprised???
Man, Americans are so predictable. Vote with what you hear and not with what you know!!
Just like those little penguins on the Google home page... Point the cursor and they follow you where ever you go!!

[tpk]

03:08 PM on 11/29/2010

I am only surprised that he told the truth

[cosmiCataclysm]

02:51 PM on 11/29/2010

This is convenient: start out by suggesting that it will be impossible to do anything positive. Then, when nothing positive happens, you can point back to the fact that it was impossible (as you had previously stated).