The other day I had commented that democrats had stopped short of accusing repubs of intentionally sabotaging the recovery for political purposes.
Well that was then. Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer have now made that charge. No big surprise I guess. Both parties have been raising the stakes. LINK
This is a very serious charge. One might argue that sabotage of this nature could lead to some serious consequences for an individual or individuals so accused. However, until dems formalize the charges on the floor of the senate it’s all bluster. That said, this is still a big escalation.
WASHINGTON — Republicans are sabotaging economic recovery efforts because it will help them win in 2012, Senate Democratic leaders charged Wednesday.
“Unfortunately our Republican colleagues in the House and Senate are driven by putting one man out of work — President Obama,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) declared at a Capitol Hill press conference called the day after Senate Republicans blocked an economic development bill that they have backed in the past.
Durbin pointed to remarks made by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in which he said the top goal of Republicans should be to make Obama a one-term President.
“You can see in the way that the Republicans are acting on the floor of the Senate and the House, that is their goal — their only goal,” Durbin argued.
“They want to play political games at the expense of getting this economy back on its feet,” he said. “They believe a weak economy is their best chance of winning the next election.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the number three Democrat in the Senate, seconded Durbin, noting that the GOP is opposing infrastructure investment that’s favored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — a major GOP ally. He also noted that Republican leaders recently derided a White House proposal to offer a new temporary payroll tax break as a “gimmick” when they’d supported such measures before.
“Now, all of a sudden, they’re coming out against it,” Schumer said. “Do Republicans really oppose a tax cut for businesses that created jobs? This is sort of beyond the pale.”
“If they oppose even something so suited to their tastes ideologically, it shows that they’re just opposing anything that helps create jobs,” Schumer added. “It almost makes you wonder if they aren’t trying to slow down the economic recovery for political gain.”
Representatives for McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) did not immediately comment on the accusation.
Durbin and Schumer fired the broadside as Vice President Biden continues to meet with a bipartisan group of legislators trying to craft a deal to cut the deficit and raise the federal government’s debt limit, which will be reached in August.
Democrats have insisted that investments and other methods aimed at creating jobs have to be part of that deal, pointing to weak recent employment reports as evidence that it’s too soon to simply resort to cuts alone as an economic strategy.
Once Upon a Paradigm 
I’ll believe it when somebody in the Senate gets Caned,
Senators are fairly well immune from being held to account for their actions. Caning isn’t in the cards by any stretch. Most could care less what anyone thinks. As for members of the opposing party. They probaly hold them in lower regard than citizens.
I was just reading about this at TPM, yes. Thank goodness Schumer is so vocal, but Dems need to step this up even more.
If they do this it has to be in a big way to draw the attention of the public to it. Which means the whole democratic caucus of both houses has to be on board and willing to make a big fuss over all the republican obstruction since Obama took office.
Repubs have been working overtime to block the recovery.
Demonstrating that is easy.
Getting the public to notice it isn’t.
Cutting SS and Medicare got the public’s attention. More are paying attention then a few months ago. The GOP’s freshman governors has raised the interest in grassroots liberal movements in those states that I have not seen since I was a kid. The Dems in the senate may become more vocal after some of the state recalls manage to push back with sucess.
I would love to see some of the recalls be successful. That’d really take the wind out of the sails of the republican goon squads.
Imagine the turnout for a recall vote. I bet it’ll be a problem. Lots of opportunity to screw around.