McCAIN'S ECONOMIC POLICIES STAY THE COURSE TO KEEP THE BUSH ECONOMIC MIRACLE ROLLING ALONG

I woke up to the news that the Bush Regime's economic miracle of unregulated market capitalism and "free trade" (free of protections for society) has inspired an unemployment rate of 5.1%. The Bush Recession grows deeper and more painful. And John W. McCain is eager to make it worse by supercharging the agenda and policies that caused it-- much the way Herbert Hoover did when he followed Calvin Coolidge. According to this morning's NY Times "the economy shed 80,000 jobs in March, the third consecutive month of rising unemployment, presenting a stark sign that the country may already be in a recession." The Washington Post points out that "U.S. employers have now eliminated more than 232,000 jobs in the last three months. The U.S. has not lost jobs for three months in a row since mid-2003, as the effects of the tech bubble's collapse and the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington were beginning to dissipate."

Sharp downturns in the manufacturing and construction sectors led the decline, the biggest in five years. The Labor Department also said employers cut far more jobs in January and February than originally estimated.

There were fewer jobs in March than there had been five months earlier. In the last 50 years, whenever there has been an employment downturn like the one of the last few months, a recession has followed.

On top of that, wages for those who do have jobs continue to lose buying power as inflation ramps up. Remember those secret Cheney energy meetings he wouldn't allow anyone to know about? This is the result. This morning David Sirota's column in the Denver Post shows how McCain's breathtaking flip flops "have run that 'Straight Talk Express' into the ditch of hypocrisy. Just look at McCain's actions on two huge issues: energy and campaign-finance reform... Now, rushing to build a war chest, McCain is doing everything short of putting a For Sale sign on his forehead. During a nationwide fundraising tour, he was showered with big donations after defending the lobbyist-written trade policies that have driven down wages. He is sure to raise even more cash as he shows his Keating Five roots shilling for the financial industry. Last week, approaching the 21st anniversary of that scandal, McCain followed the advice of banking executive-turned-campaign-adviser Phil Gramm and demanded Congress oppose new Wall Street regulations in the wake of the credit crisis.

"Indeed, this reversion to form is McCain's catharsis of corruption, proving the senator is just another hired gun. In so publicly embracing Big Money, his message has become a series of embarrassing admissions-- a campaign version of the book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. There is just one difference: This Arizona hit man expresses absolutely no remorse."

Meanwhile McBush allies at Big Oil seem to be laughing off consumer pain at the pump. "Rising gasoline prices and flush profits are putting the oil industry on the political defensive in Washington, but industry executives gave little ground Tuesday to hostile members of Congress or angry truckers on the road. Top oil company executives [and their Republican allies like Arizona Congressman John Shadegg] pushed back against attacks on their industry at a congressional hearing, calling for the right to drill in off-limits areas and criticizing a proposal that would take away billions of dollars in tax breaks for oil to subsidize renewable energy technology."

Tuesday, Congressional Democrats used a hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming to revive their case for legislation that would repeal $18 billion of tax incentives for oil and natural-gas producers and use the savings to finance tax credits and other incentives for wind-power projects, solar panels and more energy-efficient cars.
 
The proposal has been stymied once by opposition from President Bush and Senate Republicans. But with voters fuming over rising fuel prices, Tuesday's debate offered a new opportunity for Democrats to pummel the oil industry.
 
The hearing coincided with scattered protests around the country by independent truckers upset over the sharp rise in the price of diesel fuel, which now is more than $4 a gallon in many parts of the country. Some truckers pulled their rigs off the road, demanding that contractors pay them more to cover higher fuel costs.

The oil executives threatened that if Congress takes away their tax breaks they will simply "shift more production and exploration overseas, and lessen overall energy production." The McBush Republican philosophy of unregulated laissez faire capitalism was bad when McCain was born (as the Great Depression kicked in, the last time a succession of corrupt Republican adminstrations of, for and by the super rich drove our country into dire economic calamity). The policies (the greed and selfishness agenda) implemented by Bush-- with the help of rubber stamp Republicans in Congress like McCain-- and now being espoused by McCain and his lobbyist-driven presidential campaign, are wrecking the economy to an even worse extent.