Get Ready To Hear The Words 'Job Killing' Over And Over Again, Forever

One thing you'll get to look forward to in the new year is hearing from the resurgent GOP about how everything the White House does is causing jobs to literally fall out of the sky and land on the streets of Arkansas, so much so that it will offset all of the jobs created there, scooping up blackbirds, with stimulus money. Over at the Washington Post, Steven Pearlstein cautions us all that if we wake up at 9 a.m. to turn on C-SPAN and start playing the "job-killing" drinking game, we'll all be blackout drunk by noon:

In the fevered Republican imagination, the entire federal government is a "job-killing machine" or -- my personal favorite -- a "job-killing beast."

And if you're a Republican, it is now a violation of House rules to utter the word "taxes" or "tax increase" on the chamber floor without the "job-killing" prefix. (Okay, I'm exaggerating -- but only slightly.)

Type "job killing" into Google and you'll get more than 1.2 million hits. On the Factiva news database, it comes up 11,115 times during 2009 and 2010, compared with 1,373 times during the previous two years. A Republican talking point, a Fox News broadcast or a Chamber of Commerce press release is now incomplete without it.

Pearlstein wryly notes: "What's so curious is that it's hard to find almost any Republican concern about employment homicide during 2008, when George W. Bush was president and the economy was shedding 4.4 million jobs." Ha-ha, yes: I noticed that too!

The GOP has got their game on, though. This morning, as the Repeal Health Care Kabuki played on, I marveled at the sight of freshman Representative Quico Canseco (R-Texas) hitting all his talking points in under a minute. He got in "job-killing," "rammed down the throat," "confidence, not capital, crisis" -- it was like watching an Olympic-class figure skater perform a compulsory routine. (Can't wait to see Canseco's free program!)

Nevertheless, Pearlstein's throwing some heat:

What's particularly noteworthy about this fixation with "job killing" is that it stands in such contrast to the complete lack of concern about policies that kill people rather than jobs.

Repealing health-care reform, for instance, would inevitably lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths each year because of an inability to get medical care.

Although lack of effective regulation led directly to the deaths of 78 coal miners last year in West Virginia, Republicans continue to insist that any reform of mine safety laws is bad for miners' employment.

Add to that the fact that new House Oversight Committee Chair Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) is planning to start speed dating with various industries to determine what onerous regulatory processes need to be done away with on the grounds that they are -- wait for it! -- job-killing, and you basically set up a regime in which more people will continue to die in mining disasters.

Of course, the good news there is that there will be more job openings. Creative destruction, after all.

READ THE WHOLE THING:
'Job-killing' regulation? 'Job-killing' spending? Let's kill this GOP canard. [Steven Pearlstein @ Washington Post]

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to [e-mail] -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Comments

[Tom Payned]

07:26 PM on 01/09/2011

If anyone thinks the health care vote is delayed out of some sense of common decency, they are misguided,

The rethugs have had Frank Luntz poll test their latest title of the health care bill, and they can't use it this week without being shown for the callous uncaring corrupt puppets that they are.

Trust me, the following week, you'll hear them using their new slogan again.

[hang319]

06:49 PM on 01/09/2011

Perhaps the GOP will want to rethink the "KILLING" rhetoric now.

[Tom Payned]

07:27 PM on 01/09/2011

They'll just delay the vote until they feel enough time has passed for them to use Frank Luntz's poll tested visceral title.

[Niet]

06:18 PM on 01/09/2011

People killing Tea Baggers.

[Niet]

06:18 PM on 01/09/2011

Job Killing Republicans.

[chris stl]

05:52 PM on 01/09/2011

Don't you think the 30 million Americans would rather have fake "job killing" something rather than a real "death by denial of health care" for lack of insurance.

So, which one to chose .... fake job killing sloganeering or "real death" from lack of health benefits? ummmmm...

[hang319]

06:49 PM on 01/09/2011

Fanned

[Tom Payned]

07:37 PM on 01/09/2011

Isn't it interesting that the only death panels are currently in AZ where Brewer has decided to let organ donor recipients die rather than pay for their operation?

What ever happened to the "Evangelical Christian" wing of the party that demanded the Congress reconvene to interfere in the Terry Schivo case because all life is sacred?

That's right, the Rethugs lost the Evangelicals when they figured out they were being used, and the promise of outlawing abortion if they delivered the Rethugs the House, Senate & White House wasn't delivered.

So out of the shadows come the Koch brothers to whip up the AstroTruf Tea baggers who suddenly found fiscal responsibility.

If the Ayn Rand loving Koch brothers get the baggers to blindly follow them, won't they be surprised when death penales aren't needed because there is NO Medicare/Medicaid, and Social Security?

[ena]

04:57 PM on 01/09/2011

Hey Bow Nah where's your statement on the crimes of yesterday? Your 2012 perpetrator is on the loose somewhere outside of AK?

[Jack Cox]

04:56 PM on 01/09/2011

After seeing what happened this weekend, I think they need to drop this phrase, I know what they mean when they use this phrase but seriously it has to end.

[hang319]

06:50 PM on 01/09/2011

You know what they mean, but the Loughners of the world don't.

[Michiganmitch]

04:55 PM on 01/09/2011

Leave to these hypocrites to promote another outright lie as a talking point (death panels (2009-Lie of the year, Gubbamint run (2010 Lie of the year)). Will this be the 2011 Politifact Lie of the Year?

[tvons16]

04:41 PM on 01/09/2011

When 32 million people are added to the insurance rolls, seems to me that would be a job creator. More insurance agents, more doctors, more nurses you get the idea. People will be needed to support all of the new insured.

[jfbuf]

04:12 PM on 01/09/2011

just because you keep repeating it doesn't make it true, the people will through your con games.

[Tom Payned]

07:40 PM on 01/09/2011

Unfortunately, studies show that repetition of slogans get into people's subconscious eventually becoming many people's reality.

Think back to the Bush/Co Saddam was connected to 9/11 and how many people believe that and believe WMD's were found in Iraq.

[xJomokeex]

03:36 PM on 01/09/2011

No doubt. They find Republicans find one word and say it over and over again until it sticks in your head. In the wake of the recent tragedy I believe they will have some push back and people will start questioning their motives. People are about to look at Republicans in a whole new light.

[Michiganmitch]

04:57 PM on 01/09/2011

We can only hope. They do not now nor have ever had anything positive to offer the overwhelming number of working class Americans.

[SeaShell226]

03:12 PM on 01/09/2011

they continue to mis-inform, mis-lead and mis-guide...

[tnnishi5]

03:09 PM on 01/09/2011

I hope we hear none of that rhetoric after the Arizona violence.

[Bluesue]

04:27 PM on 01/09/2011

Guess what the name of the health care repeal bill is - the author is Eric Cantor

H.R. 2 is formally entitled "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act."

I thought it had to be satire but I was wrong. Here's the actual bill:

http://rules-republicans.house.gov/Media/PDF/HR__-Repeal.pdf

It sounds so juvenile not like a political leader. I don't think they've ever before used "job killing" in the formal title of a bill.

In light of events, I wonder if he'll change it.

Pearlstein certainly was right about Republicans, including this part:

"What's particularly noteworthy about this fixation with "job killing" is that it stands in such contrast to the complete lack of concern about policies that kill people rather than jobs."

[understandthis]

02:24 PM on 01/09/2011

I posted somewhere else.They can claimed that B/S all they long,but
What has weakened this country is far worse, Internatio­nal bankers working with American Bankers to bring this country to its knees. Sucking every dollar for WE the People until we are on the level of a third world country. Hell were almost there!!!

Yes China now Africa next. They are now telling investors CHEAP labor in Africa.The­n the job will be complete with theses vampires.

again sorry to all vampires.

“I wrote before....­­.......30­y­rs of shipping jobs all over the world. They do not need Americans to buy, they are building new middle classes in other parts of the world. That is where the profits are now. In 30yrs we will read how those counties middle class be brought down just as ours where by Bankers. China is next. This is what they do.”

They consider America as DONE!!!!”

again sorry to all vampires.”

[Gaylord P Farqua]

01:36 PM on 01/09/2011

The Republican Party should be awarded some kind of medal for consistency. During the campaign they spoke in Frank Luntz slogans and did not produce a specific plan for all the wonderful improvements in our lives  awaiting us if we simply voted for the GOP/Tea Party. Now in office and still without a plan, the GOP/Tea Party has developed some new slogans and buzz words to throw at anything anyone comes up with that does not agree with whatever their philosophy is beyond ensuring that the richest Americans are taken care of.  It is surprising that they would fall in love with "job killers" as they were the chief architects of the economic mess that put millions of Americans out of work by "killing their jobs."