Listening to this garbage from 11th CD Republican nominee Keith Fimian, I kept trying to find a ray of optimism, positivity, reality or truth. I found none. Instead, I found fearmongering, demagoguery, wild oversimplification, and outright mendacity. I could spend hours ripping this speech apart, but just a few points.
1. Republican Keith Fimian acts as if the debt is a new problem, one that suddenly arose when Barack Obama became president (in the midst of a nasty recession that was caused, in large part, by Republican economic and deregulatory policies). In fact, the U.S. national debt largely was accumulated under Republican administrations, including Ronald Reagan ($1.7 trillion), George HW Bush (+$1.4 trillion), George W. Bush (+$4.4 trillion). Combined, those three Republican presidents increased the U.S. national debt by $7.5 trillion, to $10.7 trillion by December 2008. In short, the Republican Party has been, and continues to be, the party of debt extraordinaire. The last president to bring us a budget surplus? A Democrat named Bill Clinton. So much for Keith Fimian’s theory.
2. The concept that only the private sector “creates jobs” is simply false. It’s particularly ironic that Keith Fimian is running in the 1th Congressional District, which contains scores of federal employees, of federal contractors (including military contractors), and of companies that provide services of all kinds – health care, education, entertainment, food, you name it – to those federal employees. Is Keith Fimian claiming that the residents of the 11th CD don’t work at real jobs? Is he claiming that the military and military contracting, the intelligence community, etc. are not real jobs? If not, what is he claiming? We’re all ears, Mr. Fimian!
3. Fimian outright lies that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the “stimulus”) hasn’t created jobs or helped small business. In fact, the “stimulus” provided $237 billion in tax incentives to individuals, $51 billion in tax incentives to companies. It provided $100 billion for education, including “$53.6 billion in aid to local school districts to prevent layoffs and cutbacks.” It provided $105 billion in infrastructure spending – transportation, water, public lands, environment, energy infrastructure, energy efficiency and renewable energy. It provided $14.7 billion for housing, $7.6 billion for scientific research, $4 billion for state and local law enforcement, and $1.1 billion in waivers on interest payments for state unemployment trust funds. What exactly, among these items, does Keith Fimian oppose? And, on what grounds exactly does Fimian disagree with the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which estimates that the “stimulus” “[i]ncreased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million,” while “lower[ing] the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points?” Again, we’re all ears Mr. Fimian, can’t wait for your detailed analysis! (snark)
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