You might recall that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, fresh off of their midterm successes, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal where they declared:
Looking ahead to the next Congress, we will honor the voters’ trust by focusing, first, on jobs and the economy.
January will bring the opportunity to begin anew. Republicans will return the focus to the issues at the top of your priority list. Your concerns will be our concerns. That’s our pledge
Looking ahead to the next Congress, we will honor the voters’ trust by focusing, first, on jobs and the economy.Let’s see how that’s working out so far:
The items on the left are what Boehner and McConnell claimed in their op-ed were important to Americans. The middle is the list of things Americans told the Pew Research Center’s January policy priorities survey were their priorities. The box on the right is what Republicans have been busying themselves with since December. There are actually 1,000 bills so far, but when they’re not naming post offices or officially congratulating sports teams on their victories, they’re re-proposing the same bills over and over again.
They’re very clever at naming them too, knowing most people won’t read the summary, let alone the text of a bill. Let’s take H.R. 186, “The Farmers Against Crippling Taxes Act”, makes you think they’re helping out your local farmer with tax credits or deductions doesn’t it? Don’t be silly, it’s actually just another bill to repeal the Federal estate and gift taxes; something most small farmers’ heirs will never have to pay, according to CBPP:
Only 20 small business and farm estates nationwide owed any estate tax in 2013, according to TPC.[10] TPC’s analysis defined a small-business or farm estate as one with more than half its value in a farm or business and with the farm or business assets valued at less than $5 million. Furthermore, TPC estimates those 20 estates owed just 4.9 percent of their value in tax, on average.[11]
The Republican bill would actually help so-called “farmers” like the owners of King Ranch, a business that includes “825,000 acres of cattle ranches and 60,000 acres of farms”.
There are really only a handful of recurrent themes in most Republican bills, whether they call them jobs bills, energy efficiency bills, or “consumer” such and such bills: repeal “Obamacare”, “religious freedom”, less corporate taxes, less corporate regulation, and drill/frack/keystone.
That’s not about to change because they make some silly promise to America.
(Links to bills in graphic: H.R.596, S.30, S.305, H.R.631, H.R.171, H.R.186, H.R.213, H.R.492)