What Are Some of the Myths About The Recession

Fox "Straight News" "Save[s] The Economy" With Right-Wing Talking Points

In a series of segments called 10 Ways to Save the Economy, Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier promoted conservative talking points on the financial crisis, stimulus package, estate tax, and deregulation. The segments also frequently echoed the viewpoint of Fox News' conservative opinion programming. None of the ten segments advocated measures favored by progressives to help the economy.
Save The Economy Segment Pushed Claim That Government Programs For "Low Income Borrowers" Caused Financial Crisis

Save The Economy Segment Suggested That Government-Encouraged "Expansion Of Mortgage Lending To Low Income Borrowers" Caused Housing Bubble To "Burst." From the June 21 edition of Fox News' Special Report

...Rosen's Analysis Of Housing Bubble Similar To Right Wing Media's Previous Attacks On Legislation Which Encouraged Lending To Low And Moderate Income Neighborhoods, Such As Community Reinvestment Act. Following the financial crisis the conservative media, echoing reported Republican strategy, blamed affordable housing initiatives for the economic downturn. The primary initiative that came under scrutiny was the Community Reinvestment Act, which encourages lending to "low and moderate income neighborhoods." However, as Media Matters has documented, these right-wing attacks relied on several myths and falsehoods. [Media Matters, 10/10/08, 10/14/09, 11/16/09, 4/20/10]

In Fact, Fed Chair Bernanke Said Experience "Runs Counter To The Charge That CRA Was At The Root Of, Or Otherwise Contributed In Any Substantive Way To, The Current Mortgage Difficulties." In a November 25, 2008, letter Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said: "Our own experience with CRA over more than 30 years and recent analysis of available data, including data on subprime loan performance, runs counter to the charge that CRA was at the root of, or otherwise contributed in any substantive way to, the current mortgage difficulties." [Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, Letter to Honorable Robert Menendez, 11/25/08]

Law Professor Barr: Most Subprime Mortgages Were Not Issued By Banks Covered By The CRA. In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Michigan law professor Michael Barr said that while problems in the subprime lending industry were a driving force behind the housing crisis, only an estimated 20 percent of subprime mortgages were issued by depository institutions under the CRA. In his testimony, Barr stated:

Despite the fact that CRA appears to have increased bank and thrift lending in low- and moderate-income communities, such institutions are not the only ones operating in these areas. In fact, with new and lower-cost sources of funding available from the secondary market through securitization, and with advances in financial technology, subprime lending exploded in the late 1990s, reaching over $600 billion and 20% of all originations by 2005. More than half of subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies not subject to comprehensive federal supervision; another 30 percent of such originations were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts, which are not subject to routine examination or supervision, and the remaining 20 percent were made by banks and thrifts. [House Financial Services Committee Testimony, 10/10/08, via Media Matters]

Law Professor Barr: "The Worst And Most Widespread Abuses Occurred In The Institutions With The Least Federal Oversight." Barr also said:

Although reasonable people can disagree about how to interpret the evidence, my own judgment is that the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight.

The housing crisis we face today, driven by serious problems in the subprime lending, suggests that our system of home mortgage regulation, including CRA, is seriously deficient. We need to fill what my friend, the late Federal Reserve Board Governor Ned Gramlich aptly termed, "the giant hole in the supervisory safety net." Banks and thrifts are subject to comprehensive federal regulation and supervision; their affiliates far less so; and independent mortgage companies, not at all. Moreover, many market-based systems designed to ensure sound practices in this sector-broker reputational risk, lender oversight of brokers, investor oversight of lenders, rating agency oversight of securitizations, and so on -- simply did not work. Conflicts of interest, lax regulation, and "boom times" covered up the extent of the abuses -- at least for a while, at least for those not directly affected by abusive practices. But no more. [House Financial Services Committee Testimony, 10/10/08, via Media Matters]

Fox's Save The Economy Segment Pushed Dubious Claims About Tax Cuts

Save The Economy Segment Suggested That Lowering Taxes, As It Claims Reagan Did, May "Stimulate" The Economy. From Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier:

...In Fact, "No Peacetime President Has Raised Taxes So Much On So Many People" As Reagan. In his New York Times column, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman described Reagan's actual tax record:

Mr. Reagan presided over an unmatched economic boom. Again, not true: the economy grew slightly faster under President Clinton, and, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the after-tax income of a typical family, adjusted for inflation, rose more than twice as much from 1992 to 2000 as it did from 1980 to 1988.

But Ronald Reagan does hold a special place in the annals of tax policy, and not just as the patron saint of tax cuts. To his credit, he was more pragmatic and responsible than that; he followed his huge 1981 tax cut with two large tax increases. In fact, no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people. This is not a criticism: the tale of those increases tells you a lot about what was right with President Reagan's leadership, and what's wrong with the leadership of George W. Bush. [The New York Times, 6/8/04]

Politico: Reagan "Repeatedly Signed Deficit-Reduction Legislation In The 1980's That Melded Annual Tax Increases With Spending Cuts." In an article titled "Ghost of Gipper looms over GOP," Politico's David Rogers wrote: "[A] POLITICO review of Reagan's own budget documents shows that the Republican president repeatedly signed deficit-reduction legislation in the 1980's that melded annual tax increases with spending cuts just as President Barack Obama is now asking Congress to consider." Media Matters has also documented that this part of Reagan's legacy is often overlooked.

Economists Agree That Lowering Taxes For The Wealthy Does Not Necessarily Create Jobs. As Media Matters has documented, economists agree that lowering taxes for the wealthy does not create jobs. In fact, Tax Policy Center economist Howard Gleckman noted that "higher income households are more likely to bank the cash than spend it." Analysts at the CBO have also wrote that "increasing the after-tax income of businesses typically does not create much incentive for them to hire more or produce more, because production depends principally on their ability to sell their products." [Media Matters, 4/14/11]
Save The Economy Segment Suggested The Stimulus Didn't Work

Save The Economy Segment Pushed Right-Wing Talking Point That The Stimulus Did Not Work. The June 24 Special Report segment on how to "save the economy" "look[ed] at whether massive government spending has ever been the right answer." After presenting arguments from both sides, correspondent Doug McKelway said: "If there are any experts to answer the question of whether stimulus programs work, it might be the voter. In the year 2010 in 1936 voters, fed up with stimulus programs, elected conservative majority to Congress, majorities philosophically opposed to saving economy through the government spending."

Economists Largely Agree That The Stimulus Boosted Growth And Mitigated Job Losses. In March 2010, 70 percent of the 54 economists it surveyed "said the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act boosted growth and mitigated job losses." Furthermore, in a report on the effects of the American Recovering and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office noted that the stimulus added millions of jobs to the economy, raised real gross domestic product (adjusted for inflation) and lowered the unemployment rate. In June, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) said the "economy has now grown for seven straight quarters." In its report the CBPP added that "economic activity ... [had been] contracting sharply when policy makers enacted the financial stabilization bill (TARP) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act." Moreover, the White House Council of Economic Advisors' quarterly report from March showed that the stimulus increased gross domestic product and lowered unemployment. [Media Matters, 6/10/11]

Contrary To McKelway's Report, Economists Say New Deal Did Not Worsen Depression -- His "Conservative Course" Did. After McKelway reported that the Congressional Budget Office claimed the stimulus had a positive effect on jobs, he added that just as "Roosevelt's New Deal was dealt a second recessionary blow in 1937, four years after it was enacted, there is debate whether the Obama stimulus has run out of steam." However, numerous economists have said that the 1937 downturn actually occurred because Roosevelt reversed his New Deal policies, not because he continued them.

Krugman: Roosevelt "Eager To Return To Conservative Budget Principles ... Precipitating An Economic Relapse That Drove The Unemployment Rate Back Into Double Digits." [New York Times, 11/10/08]
Economist Dean Baker: FDR "Worried About The Whining Of The Anti-Stimulus Crowd ... When The Proper Goal Of Fiscal Policy Should Have Been Large Deficits To Stimulate The Economy." [Alternet.org, 1/6/09]
Economist Brad DeLong: "[M]ore 'Orthodox' Economic Policies" And Attempt "To Move The Budget Toward Balance ... Provide Ample Explanation Of That Downturn." [DeLong.typepad.com, 11/17/08]

While Attacking Obama's Jobs Record, Fox Regularly Ignores Statistics Showing The Stimulus Created Jobs. Fox regularly argues that the stimulus did not create jobs and that government spending does not work to stimulate the economy. In fact, as McKelway himself noted, "the Congressional Budget Office found the stimulus helped the economy." Furthermore, according to a March 2010 study by The Wall Street Journal, 70 percent of economists surveyed said the stimulus "boosted growth and mitigated job losses." [Media Matters, 6/13/11, 6/6/11, 5/31/11, 2/27/11, 2/18/11]

Two Save The Economy Segments Pushed Right-Wing Talking Point That Obama Policies Cause "Uncertainty"

Save The Economy Segment Pushes Theory That Businesses Won't Invest Because Of "Uncertainty" Caused By Health Care Reform And Financial Regulation. The June 30 edition of the 10 Ways to Save the Economy special was dedicated to the "uncertainty" supposedly caused by regulations. From the June 30 edition of Fox News' Special Report..

...Fox Has Previously Pushed The Conservative Talking Point That Obama's Economic Policies Hurt The Economy By Leading To "Uncertainty" In The Private Sector. During the April 3 edition of ABC's This Week, former Bush administration official Torie Clarke asserted that "What will really get the private sector humming and hire a lot of people is if they have predictability and certainty about things like regulatory regimes and are some of these trade agreements going to go through that we really need." Reps. John Boehner and Kevin McCarthy also said that "uncertainty" on tax cuts was hindering job creation during the September 26, 2010, edition of Fox News Sunday. Several Fox anchors adopted the talking point soon after Boehner's and McCarthy's comments. [Media Matters, 4/3/11, 9/27/10]

Krugman: "Uncertainty Is Just A Myth Being Made Up" To Blame Economy On Obama. Responding to Torie Clarke's comments on This Week, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman said: "The reason businesses are not investing is that they have tons and tons of excess capacity. There is a very clear relationship historically between the amount of unemployment and business investment. When unemployment is high, when capacity is low, investment is low there is nothing -- all of this stuff about uncertainty is just a myth being made up to blame this on Obama." [ABC, This Week via Media Matters, 4/3/11]

Fox Concluded Its Series By Pushing Another Right-Wing Talking Point On Deregulation

...But Special Report Failed To Note That Obama "Order[ed] A Government-Wide Review" "To Remove Outdated Regulations That Stifle Job Creation And Make Our Economy Less Competitive." In a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "Toward a 21st-Century Regulatory System," President Obama called for the United States to "strike the right balance" between regulations and their costs. He wrote: "Regulations do have costs; often, as a country, we have to make tough decisions about whether those costs are necessary. But what is clear is that we can strike the right balance. We can make our economy stronger and more competitive, while meeting our fundamental responsibilities to one another."

Historically conservatives have always been the party to evade responsibility for their actions. They lied about Iraq, WMD and connection to al Quaeda. Several hundred thousand people died, including over 4000 Americans based on those lies about Iraq. What has been the reply of radical Republicans - it was all worth it. The very same Republicans crashed the economy with their hands off economic policies - just let the too big to fail financial institutions do what they want and everything will be OK. That turned out to be a disaster of world wide consequence. They're lying about the economy now because, like Iraq, they are avoiding responsibility for their policies and the consequences of their decisions. The worse thing Obama has done is try to steer a course that was mostly conservative - three tax cuts for example - instead of pursuing more stimulus. Obama is guilty of not rebuilding the house Republicans burned down fast enough and that is about all he is guilty of.

Republican Liar of the Week Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) - DeMint Claims Government Revenues They’re At A ‘Record’ High

Republican Liar of the Week Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) - DeMint Claims Government Revenues They’re At A ‘Record’ High

It’s an often-repeated talking point among Republicans as Washington debates taxes and spending: “We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.” It’s recycled, like much of today’s Republican thinking, from President Reagan, but
stretched the argument to its breaking point on MSNBC this morning when he said that government revenues are currently at “record” highs:

DEMINT: Four of the last five years, we’ve had record levels of revenue. And next year we have projected the highest revenue levels in history. We don’t have a revenue problem.

Watch it:

The GOP talking point on spending vs. revenue fundamentally un-serious, as both are flip sides of the same balance sheet. But even so, DeMint is just wrong.

DeMint appears to be using nominal dollars to measure revenues, instead of revenue as a percentage of GDP, which is used by all official arbiters on revenue matters, including the Congressional Budget Office. And as a percentage of GDP, government revenue is nowhere near a “record” high. In 2010, it was at its lowest level in more than 60 years, according to data from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), at just at 14.9 percent.

Next year, revenues will still be at just 16.6 percent of GDP, several points below the average rates under every president since Franklin Roosevelt, including Reagan. The record high was 20.6 percent in 2000, which coincided with a balanced budget.

This makes sense — on top of lost revenue from the massive Bush tax cuts, the recession devastated economic output and thus the American tax base.

And DeMint seems to know this, choosing to qualify his statements about revenue with the odd time frame of five years to completely mislead viewers. He’s right that revenues in terms of dollars were at an all time high at one point in the last five years — 2007 — but he seems to intentionally ignore the fact that revenues fell of a cliff in 2009. In terms of actual dollars, in 2010, the government brought in $2.16 trillion dollars — down from $2.56 trillion in 2007.

Jim DeMint has always been part of that fifth column of Republicans who hate America, hate the poor, hate the middle-class. They hate the whole concept of democracy, a government by and for the people where we are all concerned with the common good.

The 10 Craziest Republican Governors in America and Their Radical Agenda

The 10 Craziest Republican Governors in America and Their Radical Agenda

10. Robert Bentley, Alabama. Bentley has been one of the quieter governors among the new class, but his lack of Chris Christie-like bluster has allowed some of Alabama's scarier provisions to sneak by unnoticed. A dermatologist who was accused of using his title “Dr.” on the ballot to sway voters, Bentley is also an evangelical Christian who declared on the day of his inauguration that “anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

No word if undocumented immigrants who happen to be Christian are his brothers. Alabama passed the nation's most restrictive immigration law just last month, surpassing Arizona's SB 1070 as the worst place in the country to be an undocumented immigrant—or be mistaken for one. The bill, HB 56, was called a “wish list of restrictionist immigration provisions at the state law level,” by Kevin Johnson, dean of the law school at the University of California, Davis.

The bill not only makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants to be in the state, but attempts to criminalize every aspect of their existence. It requires schools to ask students about their immigration status, and bans undocumented students from state universities; it makes it illegal to rent housing to immigrants, and allows police to ask for papers using “reasonable suspicion.” HB56 also makes contracts that undocumented people sign unenforceable—so if employers do break the law and hire immigrant workers, they can treat them as badly as they like without fear of repercussions. And that's just one possibility.

9. Nikki Haley, South Carolina. Nikki Haley, daughter of immigrants, is South Carolina's youngest governor, its first woman, and its first person of color. So we should be proud, right?

Not so much.

Haley defeated the good ol' boys on the campaign trail despite rumors of a sex scandal, mostly by outflanking them to the right. She used her status as the child of immigrants to tout a new, extreme anti-immigration bill, and took to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal to decry a decision by the National Labor Relations Board that Boeing was not able to circumvent its union workers by building new planes in non-union South Carolina. “It's called capitalism,” she wrote.

It's actually called union-busting. Boeing decided to move the assembly line to South Carolina after repeated strikes by the union workers in Washington State, and the NLRB ruled that the statements by company executives made it clear the move was in retaliation for union activity. Which is illegal.

Haley pushed for a picture ID law that would require voters to show ID at the polls before voting. In a state with a long history of disenfranchising people of color, the requirement, which makes it difficult for those without drivers' licenses to vote, brings back unpleasant memories.

Haley made national news before she'd even won her primary, but these days the news close to home isn't so good for her. “I believe she is the most corrupt person to occupy the governor’s mansion since Reconstruction,” John Rainey, a longtime Republican power broker told Corey Hutchins at the Nation. She's been replacing the old boys she promised to sweep out with confidantes and campaign contributors, and the only jobs she's created so far have been for close allies. Yet Sarah Palin-like, she remains popular on the national scale and appears to have far-reaching ambitions.

8. Jan Brewer, Arizona. It's Barack Obama's fault that we have Jan Brewer. Janet Napolitano was governor of Arizona, a popular Democrat in the state that gave us John McCain and Barry Goldwater. When she was tapped to become the new Homeland Security secretary, a border state with boiling-hot tension over immigration was left in the hands of the former Secretary of State, a Republican who went on to sign into law SB 1070, the “Papers Please” law that spawned the copycats in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and other states around the country.

Brewer likes to talk about the violent crime immigrants are responsible for, claiming “beheadings” despite absolutely no evidence, let alone links to immigrants, and blaming them for nearly every crisis her state (and the country) face.

She's also signed a law that aims to prevent unions from using member dues to fund political activity, and just for good measure cut funding for children's health care. She cut more than $72 million from health services, spearheaded a bill to eliminate KidsCare, the state's Medicaid program for children (though that failed, she pushed through an enrollment freeze on the program), and proposed eliminating the Early Childhood Development and Health Board. (Twenty-three percent of Arizona's children live in poverty).

In the interest of fairness, it is worth pointing out that Brewer has vetoed some of the more extreme bills coming out of the Arizona legislature this year. A “birther” bill that would have required candidates for office to submit a “circumcision certificate” or a “baptismal” certificate if the “long form” birth certificate constantly demanded of President Obama was unavailable was too much even for Brewer. And after the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Brewer shot down a bill that would allow guns on “public pathways” close to state schools. State Senator Kyrsten Sinema told the Daily Beast, though, that it's all part of a plan where legislators pass bills to satisfy extremist primary voters, and Brewer, who is not up for re-election, vetoes them.
7. Paul LePage, Maine. LePage, Maine's new governor, first made headlines when he told the NAACP to “kiss my butt” on local television. The civil rights group had expressed anger that the governor would not be taking part in local Martin Luther King Day events. He then joined the ranks of the anti-union crowd when he ordered a labor-themed mural moved away from the state's labor department, claiming that it was not “balanced.”

But LePage's animosity toward labor history extends well beyond art. He recently signed into law a bill that eases child labor laws, lowering restrictions on the hours and days teenagers can work. No word as to what he plans to do about those 8 percent of adult Mainers who are looking for work as well—they want pesky things like health insurance, benefits, full-time hours, and are more likely to know their rights and complain about them than 16-year-olds.

He's been so vitriolic that eight state senators from his own party wrote an op-ed published in three Maine newspapers, asking him to tone it down. "Belittling comments, whether they come from the governor or his opponents, have no place in Maine public life," they wrote.

And while conservatives in Congress take aim at Barack Obama's health care reform, LePage signed into law a rollback of consumer protections against health insurance companies, which can now raise premiums on individuals up to 10 percent a year. Previously, the state had to grant permission to insurance companies before they could hike premiums. Maine progressives are organizing against this move.

LePage is one of many who have also targeted the voting process, aiming to make it more difficult to register to vote and to cast a ballot. First the state eliminated its nearly 40-year-old same-day registration process, a process that was used by 60,000 in 2008 and is credited with being the reason behind Maine's high voter turnout rates. A bill that would have required photo ID to vote did not make it through the legislature. Voter ID laws disproportionately target the elderly, students and poor people who are unlikely to have drivers' licenses; they add one more layer of difficulty between voters and the ballot box. Conveniently, those are all constituencies that usually lean left.

6. Rick Perry, Texas. Oh, Texas. You've given us so much: Ann Richards and Molly Ivins, as well as George W. Bush. And now you have given us Rick “Goodhair” Perry, as Ivins used to call him.

Perry and his hair have been governing Texas since Bush left, and unless he succeeds in seceding from the union or running for president, it looks like he'll be there for a while. So he's had the time to rack up a truly unfair list of achievements, from executing at least one innocent man to hosting Ted Nugent at a concert where Nugent wore a Confederate flag shirt and shouted insults about non-English speakers.

But what has Perry done for us lately? Plenty.

He's signed a voter ID bill, making it harder for elderly Texans, students, and others without drivers' licenses to vote, passed a budget with $15 billion in budget cuts, and a bill requiring women to have sonograms before they can obtain abortions. While a woman can refuse to look at the sonogram, her doctor is required to describe it.

Perry also pushed a bill that would ban so-called immigrant sanctuary cities, putting yet more pressure on Texas' large immigrant population, and a bill that would prohibit “intrusive” airport pat-downs, to curry favor with angry libertarians. Both bills died in the legislature.

Maybe next he'll combine his legislative achievements and require that fetuses have photo ID. If he doesn't hit the national campaign trail, that is.

5. John Kasich, Ohio. Ohio's one of those states that becomes tremendously important to the national political scene come presidential election time. In between elections, it's often forgotten.

But Kasich has done his part to keep Ohio in the news, first by choosing an all-white, mostly-male cabinet (and defending that choice by saying "I don't look at things from the standpoint of any of these sort of metrics that people tend to focus on, race or age, or any of those things"), then killing Ohio's high speed rail project, which would have created jobs and provided faster, greener transportation for Ohioans and those traveling across the state.

The move that drew thousands to protest in the Ohio capitol, though, was SB 5, a bill that eliminates collective bargaining over health care and benefits, bans strikes, and institutes so-called merit pay for the state's public workers. Ohio drew some energy from Wisconsin's labor protests, but has created its own movement to fight back against the law. Just last week, workers marched in a “People's Parade” to deliver their petition to repeal the bill to the Secretary of State; 1.3 million signatures were collected on the petition, more than five times the number required to get the repeal on the ballot in the fall.

Of course, no right-wing governor worth his salt would pass up an opportunity to sign the country's most restrictive anti-abortion bill, right? A bill that would ban all abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected just passed the Ohio House and heads to the Senate.

Kasich's approval ratings have been the lowest for a first-term Ohio governor since 1983, dropping to a low of 33 percent, and Democrats are moving for a recall, though it's unlikely to happen while Republicans still control the legislature. Still, an unpopular Republican governor in the state spells good news for Democrats both on the state and national level.

4. Rick Scott, Florida. Rick Scott wins the award for being the least popular governor in the country. A mere 29 percent of Floridians think their governor is doing a good job.

The good news is Scott is so unpopular that even his party is abandoning their support of his agenda. State Senator Dennis Jones said of his state: “This is certainly not the ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’ that the public expected. If we added everything up, we’re probably in the negative this session for jobs, not the positive.” The bad news is that Scott might actually be the most extreme governor in the country, and he's not giving up on his agenda just because the legislature dislikes him.

Suzy Khimm at Mother Jones wrote:

In 1997, Rick Scott was implicated in the biggest Medicare fraud case in US history, stepping down as CEO of Columbia/HCA after the hospital giant was fined $1.7 billion and found guilty of swindling the government. As Florida's new governor, Scott is now trying to kill off an anti-fraud database that would track the fraudulent distribution of addictive prescription drugs in Florida, over the protestations of law enforcement officials, Republican state lawmakers, and federal drug policy officials.

And that's just one step. Scott was the founder of Conservatives for Patients' Rights, which was out to torpedo health care reform any way it could, and he rejected first $2.4 billion in federal funds for high-speed rail and then $1 billion to implement health care reform. He's slashed 10 percent from the state's education budget, and couldn't even get his own party to vote for an SB 1070 copycat anti-immigrant bill. And like Rick Perry, he's signed a bill that requires pregnant women to get a sonogram before they can get an abortion.

Like in Ohio, a deeply unpopular GOP governor in Florida could be the key to Barack Obama's reelection. Democratic strategists credit anger at Scott for surprise victories in mayor's races, and hope the anger will still be there in 2012.

3. Rick Snyder, Michigan. Michigan has given us one of the most frightening power grabs in a year of power grabs. Snyder's “emergency manager” legislation gives him the power to appoint a unilateral authority over a city or school district, who can then fire officials, close schools, void union contracts, and otherwise assume near-total control.

AlterNet reported recently:

In March, the Michigan legislature passed an update to state law that gave “emergency financial managers” expanded powers over cities and school districts facing financial distress. The provision drew protests immediately, with thousands converging on the Capitol on March 16, the day the law was signed. Unions and community organizations recognized the law as a threat, not just in the cities where emergency financial managers were imposed, but around the state, where unions would be pressured to make concessions in order to keep a financial manager from being imposed on them. Since financial managers have the power to wipe away a union contract with a pen stroke, the unions are left with an impossible choice—concede great chunks of hard-won benefits and wages, or risk losing it all.

That would be enough to land Snyder near the top of this list, except of course it's not all. Snyder eliminated the Michigan Business Tax and replaced it with a flat tax of just 6 percent for corporations, which essentially handed them a $1.8 billion tax cut. To pay for that cut, he cut education spending and of course public workers—and then eliminated the exemption that allows senior citizens not to pay taxes on their pension income. Yes, he taxed old people and cut funding from children to lower the corporate income tax rate.

Of course there are anti-choice bills moving in Michigan, as well as anti-immigrant legislation, and swipes at domestic partner benefits for university employees. But the “emergency manager” law is a unique accomplishment for Snyder, one that warrants the recall campaign against him.

2. Chris Christie, New Jersey. Chris Christie seems to have watched a few too many episodes of "The Sopranos." The New Jersey governor relies on bluster and swagger, taking shots at teachers and legislators and engaging in a very public name-calling match with the very same Democratic State Senate president who helped him pass what has been called the worst anti-union bill in the country. He's made himself a YouTube star, prompting cheers from the right and sending chills up the spine of the left, who fear Christie on a national level.

Christie was the advance guard for the class of 2010, knocking out former Governor John Corzine in 2009 amid cheers from the Tea Party and shivers from Democrats, who were sure this guy couldn't possibly win in New Jersey. He could, and he did, and even though 51 percent of voters now say they'd support someone else, the damage has been done. He's pulled money out of renewable energy and cut $820 million from education budgets—a move ruled unconstitutional because it “fell more heavily upon our high risk districts and the children educated within those districts.”

The reason his former buddy Steve Sweeney is so angry with Christie? After cutting a deal with the Democrats for the anti-union law, Christie used his line-item veto to slash programs Democrats had bargained for:

He mowed down a series of Democratic add-ons, including $45 million in tax credits for the working poor, $9 million in health care for the working poor, $8 million for women’s health care, another $8 million in AIDS funding and $9 million in mental-health services. But the governor added $150 million in school aid for the suburbs, including the wealthiest towns in the state. That is enough to restore all the cuts just listed.

No wonder Sweeney called him a “mean old bastard.”

1. Scott Walker, Wisconsin. We really ought to be grateful to Scott Walker. Because of him and the Wisconsin state legislature, dominated by the Fitzgerald brothers, progressives and especially the labor movement were reenergized. The Tea Party became yesterday's news as protesters thronged the capitol in Madison, refusing to leave for days while the Democratic state senators hid out in another state to prevent a vote on Walker's bill, which eliminated collective bargaining for the state's public workers.

Without Walker, public sector unions wouldn't have become a rallying cry for the left, that's for sure. But he picked the wrong fight in a state with a proud history of organized labor—a state that teaches labor history in the public schools.

Still, the bill passed, Walker's still in charge, and he's been taking aim at those who could defeat him. He got his way with a vicious voter ID bill and his budget cuts hit everything from the state university to the public schools to the state's health care program, one of the best in the country. He targeted rural broadband, people with disabilities and reproductive health care, and he's even messing with craft beer. (He really should know better on that one, but it seems there isn't a fight Walker's unwilling to pick.)

Walker's not eligible for recall yet, but the state senators who're supporting him are, and the elections are already moving forward. And like most of the other states on this list, the results in Wisconsin could have a big impact on the race in 2012.

The rightward shift in the country in 2010 didn't just bring us Tea Party-backed governors salivating over a chance to enact their agenda on the bodies of women, union workers, and immigrants. It also brought us some Democrats who seem to be buying into the same pro-corporate, anti-working people policies. So honorable mention here goes to:

1. Andrew Cuomo, New York. I know, I know, he just passed marriage equality, right? Well, he's taking a bit too much credit for that, since the Republican-dominated state legislature wound up bringing up and passing the bill simply because it was actually really popular right now to do so in New York. Meanwhile, Cuomo's refused to keep the popular “millionaire's tax” and cut a third of homeless youth shelter beds instead. Cuomo too has made enemies within organized labor, freezing workers' salaries and calling for cutbacks, mounting a political campaign even after taking office aimed at demonizing labor.

And this is the leading Democrat being discussed as a presidential candidate for 2016?

Research assistance on this piece came from Charles Monaco at the Progressive States Network.

Notice anything in common. These Republicans governors all ran on a campaign to create jobs. All of them have actually done as much as they can to increase unemployment and at the same time give millions in tax giveaways to corporations that are making record profits. They have all made education cuts which will affect future employment in their states. Business looking for educated young workers to replace retiring older workers will be out of luck. They're spending millions on making it more difficult for students and seniors to vote. They're spending millions to hunt down a relatively few undocumented workers. We all want immigration laws to be enforced, but there is such a thing as putting money into priorities first. People who are here to pick lettuce. wash dishes and cut lawns are hardly a top priority.

Is It True That Jobs Created by The Stimulus Cost $275,000 Each

Is It True That Jobs Created by The Stimulus Cost $275,000 Each, Cable News Networks Help Spread Republicans’ ‘Highly Misleading’ Stimulus Math

Back in January, the Republicans staked out their opposition to the administration’s economic stimulus package by claiming that it would cost $275,000 for every job created. “All told, the plan would spend a whopping $275,000 in taxpayer dollars for every new job it aims to create, saddling each and every household with $6,700 in additional debt,” said Rep. John Boehner (R-OH).

This number was derived by taking the entire cost of the stimulus package and dividing it by the number of jobs created in just one year, obviously inflating the per job cost a few times over. At the time, Paul Krugman called the Republicans’ number a “bogus talking point,” while Joe Klein dubbed it “phony-baloney propaganda.”

With the White House’s announcement last week that the stimulus package has thus far created 640,000 to 1 million jobs, the GOP is at it again. Don Stewart, spokesman for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), told reporters on Friday to “get out your calculators” and divide the spending by the jobs, ending with a figure of $230,769 per job. In addition to Republican lawmakers, Fox News, CNN, and CNBC have all repeated some variation of the number (using slightly different estimates) in the last few days. Watch a compilation:

The Associated Press’ Calvin Woodward, however, was not fooled, and today released a piece telling readers to “beware the math” coming from the Republicans:

Some Republican lawmakers critical of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package are using grade-school arithmetic to size up costs and consequences of all that spending. The math is satisfyingly simple but highly misleading…First, the naysayers’ calculations ignore the value of the work produced. Any cost-per-job figure pays not just for the worker, but for material, supplies and that worker’s output — a portion of a road paved, patients treated in a health clinic, goods shipped from a factory floor, railroad tracks laid. Second, critics are counting the total cost of contracts that will fuel work for months or years and dividing that by the number of jobs produced only to date.

As Woodward wrote, “dividing apples by oranges won’t settle” whether or not the stimulus package has been a success. But it seems to be good enough for the Republicans and all of the cable news hosts that they can get to listen.

One of the remarkable things about this bizarre right-wing meme, besides the childish math used, is the number of right-wing conservative web sites who parrot the talking point. Experts are not always right but so far several economists ( one of them a Nobel prize winner for economics) has said the math is a very dubious way of looking at the jobs created by the stimulus. None of the dozens of conservative sites I've read even have degrees in economics, much less any expertise on the subject. It is also ironic that conservatives, who by use of supply-side economic policy and failure to enforce financial regulation are responsible for the worse economic down turn since the Great Depression.

Another Big Lie - Conservative Republicans Are Steeped in American History

Another Big Lie - Conservative Republicans Are Steeped in American History

When Tea Party darling Herman Cain announced his candidacy for president in May, he decided to cite words from the U.S. Constitution to underline his key points. Unfortunately for Cain, he got his documents wrong. The passage he chose was from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.

Cain is not alone. There seems to be an epidemic of Tea Party Republicans botching historical accounts of the founding of the United States. Since Independence Day celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, and given the recent Tea Party problems with history, I thought it would be fitting to look a little closer at Cain's gaffe, as it has both symbolic and substantive importance regarding modern American politics.

Symbolically, Cain's problem with historical accuracy represents a major characteristic of the modern Tea Party-dominated Republican Party. Whether it is Sarah Palin's butchering of Paul Revere's role in the American Revolution, or Michele Bachmann's truly revisionist mangling of the facts to claim the founding fathers tried to abolish slavery (not to mention her belief that John Quincy Adams was a founding father, even though he was born in 1767), the Tea Party has shown a disdain for knowledge, facts and learning. History is not something set in stone, but rather something to be twisted and manipulated to support the immutable, ideological beliefs of the movement.

So if Palin or Bachmann plainly get American history wrong, the response isn't to admit it (after all, the statements are not debatable; Revere was not riding to warn the British, and slavery was enshrined as legitimate in the Constitution, notably through the three-fifths compromise). No, instead, their supporters tried to change history to match the statements of their leaders, which in 21st century practice means Palin supporters editing the Wikipedia entry on Paul Revere to reflect her mistakes, and Bachmann's followers doing the same for the page on John Quincy Adams.

The ignorance of Cain, Palin and Bachmann holds importance beyond a "gotcha" moment to demonstrate that these three individuals aren't up to the task of being president (similar to Mitt Romney's gaffe of telling an unemployed attendee at one of his events that he, too, was unemployed). More importantly, the lack of respect (or even caring about) facts, both by the candidates and their supporters, is indicative of the larger GOP approach to political positions. For example, Republicans support lower taxes for millionaires because that is what their core constituency and base ideology calls for, but they justify the position through unsustainable assertions that such tax cuts somehow create jobs, even though we know they don't (also here and here). Or, Republicans reject the existence of climate change to keep costs as low as possible for corporations regardless of the consequences, but justify their position by denying the existence of climate change, even though the overwhelming majority of scientists say it is real.

There are myriad issues for which Republicans rely on patently false assertions to back policy positions that may be otherwise unpalatable to the American public ("We're creating jobs" plays better than "Rich people shouldn't have to pay a lot in taxes"), but nowhere is this lack of respect for facts and history more prevalent than in the party's attacks on Barack Obama. Rather than oppose his policies on the merits, Republicans have engaged in a two-prong strategy of personal attacks meant to score political victories: First, they opposed every proposal made by the president, even if Obama called for the adoption of a policy once embraced by Republicans (i.e. becoming the Party of No, although I have argued they have evolved into the Party of F You).

Second, the right, including politicians and the right-wing, Fox News/Limbaugh propaganda echo chamber, has engaged in a coordinated assault to paint the president as being out of the American mainstream, regardless of the facts. They want you to think he is dangerous and un-American, that he was born in Kenya, and that his policy proposals are radical, and that he has no desire to keep Americans safe from terrorists with whom he actually sympathizes.

(Never mind that he has governed as a centrist and consistent with his campaign promises, which resulted in a hefty victory. For example, the stimulus package was smaller than many economists supported and included a ton of tax cuts; he didn't push for a single-payer system or even a public option as part of health care reform, instead getting behind a bill that pushed tens of millions of new customers into the hands of private insurance companies; and he stepped up the pursuit of Qaeda and Taliban targets, including drone attacks, taking out more terrorists than his predecessor, including Osama bin Laden.)

In right-wing rhetoric, the president is a threat to the American way of life, a socialist who wants to change traditional American values, even though there is no actual evidence to support these claims.

Why do these attacks matter? Well, that question segues nicely into the substantive problem with Cain's Constitution/Declaration gaffe, since the Tea Party regularly invokes an Obama attack on liberties, drawing on the Declaration of Independence (even if Cain thought he was citing the Constitution, not an insignificant error since the Constitution is the law of the land, providing a framework for our entire political system, while the Declaration is mainly historical in nature).

In his speech, Cain said:

"You know, those ideals that we live by, we believe in, your parents believe in, they instilled in you. When you get to the part about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, don't stop right there, keep reading. Cause that's when it says that when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. We've got some altering and some abolishing to do."

This kind of language should sound familiar, since it is the bread and butter of Tea Party ideology. And Cain is right about what the Declaration says (well, he got the wrong document, but he got the right sequence of passages). The second paragraph of the Declaration begins:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

And then the paragraph goes on to say:

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Warms the cockles of the Tea Party heart, right? Well, with a little more perspective and examination, not so much. First of all, I'm sure it's no coincidence Cain stopped where he did, since the next line of the Declaration is:

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes."

So yes, the Declaration supports "the Right of the People to alter or to abolish" the government when it becomes "destructive" to "unalienable Rights." But not for "light and transient causes." What did the founding fathers think were big enough threats to warrant revolution? The answer is right in the Declaration, a laundry list of grievances that make up the bulk of the document. It is a litany of charges that the King of England had impinged on American liberties by, among other things, engaging in the hindering and dissolution of of legislative bodies, ignoring laws, preventing the adoption of laws (including, much to the Tea Party's disdain, I'm sure, the "Naturalization of Foreigners"), interfering with the judiciary, quartering English soldiers, interfering with trade, and imposing taxes without consent.

In short, the founding fathers bristled at being ruled by a dictatorial monarch. It is easy to see how in the over-hyped, rabid and, most importantly, false and historically inaccurate rhetoric of the Tea Party, such a connection would be apparent, from the tyranny of a King to a president looking to institute a socialist/Nazi/Islamist dictatorship in the United States.

Only, much like Bachmann's and Palin's lack of knowledge of our history, Cain (and it's not like he is the only Republican who talks about Obama's assault on our liberties) completely misunderstands and misapplies the content and context of the Declaration's call for revolution. Republicans can't seem to understand that if the president disagrees with them on how to address the country's roster of problems, it doesn't make him a tyrant. It's doubtful the founding father would look kindly on anyone trying to argue that the Obama presidency was comparable to the reign of King George III.

The language of the Declaration of Independence doesn't provide the support the Tea Party thinks it does.

(As an aside, the core charges of the Tea Party against Obama are all false: They complain about taxes, but Americans are experiencing their lowest tax burden since 1958, with taxes lower than they were under Reagan. They charge Obama with wanting to take away their guns, but the president hasn't signed a single piece of gun control legislation, nor did he veto bills with pro-gun provisions attached. I could go on and on.)

Cain (and Bachmann and Palin) getting history wrong isn't just about a funny media story. Rather, the Tea Party's ambivalence about facts and history is a necessary component of the GOP political strategy, as the party seeks to continue its drive since the 2010 elections to return the country to the 1920s (attacking social safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security, busting unions, cutting education, catering to corporate special interests and prioritizing eliminating abortion, all while further increasing the historically massive divide between the very wealthiest Americans and the rest of us). As Think Progress tweeted last week: "REMINDER: Current deficit + economy product of crisis created by deregulation + huge tax cuts. Solution isn't deregulation + huge tax cuts." (Just look at Tim Pawlenty's tax cut proposal, for example.)

Republicans, to win in 2012, are relying on Americans to forget history, not remember it.

So on this Independence Day, which commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, let's take the opportunity to read the document and better understand what it did (and did not) say, and, more importantly, against what the founding fathers were actually rebelling.

And let's try and stick to facts and accurate history when debating the issues. I know cognitive dissonance can be troubling for an ideologue, but here is a tip: If you find yourself literally trying to rewrite history, you're probably on the wrong side of a debate.

More often than not the facts of history support liberalism. A political philosophy espoused by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Thomas Paine. Maybe that is why rabid right-wing conservatives keep trying to rewrite history or invent their own.

The Media and Propaganda - How Fox is Brainwashing America

The Media and Propaganda - How Fox is Brainwashing America

There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship - the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.

It is ironic that in the era of 24-hour cable news networks and "reality" programming, the news-to-fluff ratio and overall veracity of information has declined precipitously. Take the fact Americans now spend on average about 50 hours a week using various forms of media, while at the same time cultural literacy levels hover just above the gutter. Not only does mainstream media now tolerate gross misrepresentations of fact and history by public figures (highlighted most recently by Sarah Palin's ludicrous depiction of Paul Revere's ride), but many media actually legitimize these displays. Pause for a moment and ask yourself what it means that the world's largest, most profitable and most popular news channel passes off as fact every whim, impulse and outrageously incompetent analysis of its so-called reporters. How did we get here? Take the enormous amount of misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was in on 9/11, the belief that climate change isn't real and/or man-made, the belief that Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn't born in the United States, the insistence that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, the inexplicable perceptions that immigrants are both too lazy to work and are about to steal your job. All of these claims are demonstrably false, yet Fox News viewers will maintain their veracity with incredible zeal. Why? Is it simply that we have lost our respect for knowledge?

My curiosity about this question compelled me to sit down and document the most oft-used methods by which willful ignorance has been turned into dogma by Fox News and other propagandists disguised as media. The techniques I identify here also help to explain the simultaneously powerful identification the Fox media audience has with the network, as well as their ardent, reflexive defenses of it.

The good news is that the more conscious you are of these techniques, the less likely they are to work on you. The bad news is that those reading this article are probably the least in need in of it.

1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren't activated, you aren't alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypasses the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don't think rationally. And when they can't think rationally, they'll believe anything.

2. Character Assassination/Ad Hominem. Fox does not like to waste time debating the idea. Instead, they prefer a quicker route to dispensing with their opponents: go after the person's credibility, motives, intelligence, character, or, if necessary, sanity. No category of character assassination is off the table and no offense is beneath them. Fox and like-minded media figures also use ad hominem attacks not just against individuals, but entire categories of people in an effort to discredit the ideas of every person who is seen to fall into that category, e.g. "liberals," "hippies," "progressives" etc. This form of argument - if it can be called that - leaves no room for genuine debate over ideas, so by definition, it is undemocratic. Not to mention just plain crass.

3. Projection/Flipping. This one is frustrating for the viewer who is trying to actually follow the argument. It involves taking whatever underhanded tactic you're using and then accusing your opponent of doing it to you first. We see this frequently in the immigration discussion, where anti-racists are accused of racism, or in the climate change debate, where those who argue for human causes of the phenomenon are accused of not having science or facts on their side. It's often called upon when the media host finds themselves on the ropes in the debate.

4. Rewriting History. This is another way of saying that propagandists make the facts fit their worldview. The Downing Street Memos on the Iraq war were a classic example of this on a massive scale, but it happens daily and over smaller issues as well. A recent case in point is Palin's mangling of the Paul Revere ride, which Fox reporters have bent over backward to validate. Why lie about the historical facts, even when they can be demonstrated to be false? Well, because dogmatic minds actually find it easier to reject reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their interests. And they'll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted to question what they knew as fact.

5. Scapegoating/Othering. This works best when people feel insecure or scared. It's technically a form of both fear mongering and diversion, but it is so pervasive that it deserves its own category. The simple idea is that if you can find a group to blame for social or economic problems, you can then go on to a) justify violence/dehumanization of them, and b) subvert responsibility for any harm that may befall them as a result.

6. Conflating Violence With Power and Opposition to Violence With Weakness. This is more of what I'd call a "meta-frame" (a deeply held belief) than a media technique, but it is manifested in the ways news is reported constantly. For example, terms like "show of strength" are often used to describe acts of repression, such as those by the Iranian regime against the protesters in the summer of 2009. There are several concerning consequences of this form of conflation. First, it has the potential to make people feel falsely emboldened by shows of force - it can turn wars into sporting events. Secondly, especially in the context of American politics, displays of violence - whether manifested in war or debates about the Second Amendment - are seen as noble and (in an especially surreal irony) moral. Violence become synonymous with power, patriotism and piety.

7. Bullying. This is a favorite technique of several Fox commentators. That it continues to be employed demonstrates that it seems to have some efficacy. Bullying and yelling works best on people who come to the conversation with a lack of confidence, either in themselves or their grasp of the subject being discussed. The bully exploits this lack of confidence by berating the guest into submission or compliance. Often, less self-possessed people will feel shame and anxiety when being berated and the quickest way to end the immediate discomfort is to cede authority to the bully. The bully is then able to interpret that as a "win."

8. Confusion. As with the preceding technique, this one works best on an audience that is less confident and self-possessed. The idea is to deliberately confuse the argument, but insist that the logic is airtight and imply that anyone who disagrees is either too dumb or too fanatical to follow along. Less independent minds will interpret the confusion technique as a form of sophisticated thinking, thereby giving the user's claims veracity in the viewer's mind.

9. Populism. This is especially popular in election years. The speakers identifies themselves as one of "the people" and the target of their ire as an enemy of the people. The opponent is always "elitist" or a "bureaucrat" or a "government insider" or some other category that is not the people. The idea is to make the opponent harder to relate to and harder to empathize with. It often goes hand in hand with scapegoating. A common logical fallacy with populism bias when used by the right is that accused "elitists" are almost always liberals - a category of political actors who, by definition, advocate for non-elite groups.

10. Invoking the Christian God. This is similar to othering and populism. With morality politics, the idea is to declare yourself and your allies as patriots, Christians and "real Americans" (those are inseparable categories in this line of thinking) and anyone who challenges them as not. Basically, God loves Fox and Republicans and America. And hates taxes and anyone who doesn't love those other three things. Because the speaker has been benedicted by God to speak on behalf of all Americans, any challenge is perceived as immoral. It's a cheap and easy technique used by all totalitarian entities from states to cults.

Dr. Cynthia Boaz is assistant professor of political science at Sonoma State University, where her areas of expertise include quality of democracy, nonviolent struggle, civil resistance and political communication and media. She is also an affiliated scholar at the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace International Master in Peace, Conflict, and Development Studies at Universitat Jaume I in Castellon, Spain.

There are four more propaganda techniques used by Fox and the far Right conservative media in general at the link.

Republican Agenda Watch - States Making Deep Cuts Are Delaying Economic Recovery

New Fiscal Year Brings Further Budget Cuts to Most States, Slowing Economic Recovery

States have enacted deep cuts in education, health care, and other important public services in their budgets for fiscal year 2012 (which begins July 1 in most states). It is the fourth year in a row of budget-cutting for states, and the 2012 cuts are deeper than in past years. Of the 32 states that have enacted budgets, as least 24 are imposing significant cuts. These cuts will delay the nation’s economic recovery and undermine efforts to create jobs.

These enacted budget cuts will cause hundreds of thousands of Arizona families to lose health insurance, force the shortening of the school year for 86,000 preschoolers in Georgia, sharply increase university tuition in North Carolina and Washington, and cost jobless disabled individuals in Michigan one-quarter of their cash assistance, among a range of other impacts.

These and other budget cuts for 2012 are resulting principally from the lingering effects of the long and deep recession, which are causing tax collections in most states to remain well below pre-recession levels (despite modest recent improvements) and to lag far behind the growing cost of maintaining existing services. The cutbacks in services that many states enacted are not entirely necessary, because they have been exacerbated by federal and state actions and failures to act. The federal government, for example has provided $165 billion in emergency health and education funding to states, primarily through the 2009 Recovery Act, but those dollars are mostly ending June 30. For their part, many of the states that will implement very deep cuts in 2012 have failed to raise new revenue to replace some of the revenue lost to the recession. Some states even added to the cutbacks needed by reducing corporate taxes or other taxes — an ineffective strategy for improving economic growth that likely will do more harm than good.

Cutting state services not only harms vulnerable residents but also slows the economy’s recovery from recession by reducing overall economic activity. When states cut spending, they lay off employees, cancel contracts with vendors, reduce payments to businesses and nonprofits that provide services, and cut benefit payments to individuals. All of these steps remove demand from the economy.

Moreover, many of the services being cut are important to states’ long-term economic strength. For instance, research shows that in order to prosper, businesses require a well-educated, healthy workforce. Many of the state budget cuts described here will weaken that workforce in the future by diminishing the quality of elementary and high schools, making college less affordable, and reducing residents’ access to health care. In the long term, the savings from today’s cuts may cost states much more in diminished economic growth.
Majority of States Enacting Major Cuts in Important Public Services

As of June 27, a total of 32 states have enacted their budget for the coming 2012 fiscal year. Three-fourths of these states — at least 24 of 32 — are making major cuts to important public services. Five of the remaining six states did not have a shortfall that they needed to close for fiscal year 2012; the sixth state — Hawaii — raised substantial revenues to balance its budget and avoid crippling cuts.

...Because states still face these very large budget gaps, their best strategy will remain a balanced combination of modest spending cuts, new revenue measures to strengthen the revenue recovery, and (in a few states) utilization of remaining reserves. Instead, most states that have enacted budgets so far relied almost entirely on cuts to close their shortfalls — making the cuts they imposed deeper than necessary and impeding the economic recovery.

Only a few states raised revenue to help resolve their fiscal year 2012 budget shortfalls. Hawaii, for example, raised over $600 million in new tax revenue over the biennium by limiting tax exemptions for businesses and by eliminating the standard deduction and capping itemized deductions for higher-income individuals, among other actions. Illinois lawmakers enacted personal and corporate income tax increases to help address the state’s budget shortfalls for the current and upcoming year.

A few states made their problems worse by cutting taxes. Georgia, for example, enacted nearly $100 million in tax cuts, including $46 million to allow top income earners to claim unlimited itemized deductions on their income taxes. And Arizona reduced the corporate income tax rate and commercial property taxes, costing the state $38 million in fiscal year 2012, or 4 percent of the state’s 2012 budget shortfall.[3]

The cuts states have imposed since the recession began have impeded the nation’s economic recovery and cost hundreds of thousands of private-sector and public-sector jobs. State and local governments have cut 535,000 jobs in education and other areas since August 2008 and are forecast to continue to cut tens of thousands of additional positions each month. In addition, deep cuts in funding for services create a cycle of job loss in the private sector. When schools, universities, health agencies, police departments, and other units of government cut their budgets, they cancel contracts with private vendors and eliminate or lower payments to businesses and nonprofit organizations that provide direct services. As a result, the companies and organizations doing business with the state have less money to spend on salaries and supplies and may reduce the salaries of their workers or lay them off. When workers receive lower pay or lose their job, they consume less, and the ripple effect continues throughout the state’s economy, costing even more jobs.

States are facing these problems because of conservative Republican economic policies that are deeply un-American. Republicans could have prevented or made the recession much less severe if they had enforced those terrible regulations they're always complaining about. It would also have helped if they would have paid for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of charging them to future generations. Now rather than raise revenue conservative Republicans are taking Medical care from the elderly and poor while cutting taxes once again for wealthy individuals and corporations. If tax cuts were a magic dust that created jobs we would not have the high unemployment rate we have now. It appears that conservative Republicans are maliciously sabotaging the economy for petty and spiteful political gain. There is nothing patriotic about that.