Who Needs Jobs When We Have Right-Wing Dogma?

Tuesday night Harry Reid failed to break the obstructionist Republican filibuster of even debating a jobs bill. The cloture motion needed 60 and only got 50, every single Republican plus two conservative Democrats, Ben Nelson (NE) and Jon Tester (MT) refusing to allow President Obama's proposal to be brought up. The senators who did the biggest disservice-- in financial terms-- to their constituents were John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, two very right-wing Texas Republicans. By voting NO, they helped block the creation of 33,800 infrastructure jobs in their own state, along with $2.6 billion of spending on Texas roads, bridges, etc-- and almost an identical amount on money for Texas teachers ($2,565,500,000 for 39,500 teachers). They also nixed a Texas school rebuilding program that would have employed 30,300 Texans for a hefty $2.3 billion Texas stimulus. Cornyn and Hutchison turned down the biggest amount of anyone in the Senate.

Florida ideological extremist Marco Rubio was the second worst culprit. On behalf of hard-pressed Floridians he gave a big thumbs down to 20,500 infrastructure jobs (and $1,578,600,000 in infrastructure spending) plus $1,669,500,000 for 25,900 teachers and another $1,280,300,000 for schools that would have employed another 16,600 Floridians in school rebuilding jobs.

Alan Grayson shook his head sadly after Rubio's vote against the jobs bill. "One out of every nine Floridians is out of work," he told us. "We need every job we can get. Isn't that obvious?" Just down the road from Grayson's Orlando district, Nick Ruiz is running against Tea Party crackpot Sandy Adams-- yes, an actual member of Michele Bachmann's Tea Party Caucus-- and it was as obvious to him as it was to Grayson:

"The great myth of 2010 that all of Florida and America shall have to endure until we unseat him in 2016 is that Marco Rubio (R-FL) now represents Florida, when in truth, he does not. Rubio's senatorial GOP pop debut is simply a neocon scam, brought to you in large part by the Koch Bros., Inc. Tea party crusade against the people of the United States of America.

"The hustle, despite Rubio being elected in 2010, really fails on a representative level, because less than 50% of Florida even voted Rubio! Clearly, we wanted someone else. Rubio only won on a ticket split by Charlie Crist (I-FL) and Kendrick Meek (D-FL). Instant runoff voting anyone?

"Rubio's senatorial votes will always be against the greater interest of the American public, and decidedly in favor of the 1% that owns nearly everything you can see. As long as Rubio functions as a tool of the Koch Bros., ultra-socially violent, clockwork orange odyssey - you can count it."

Alan and Nick are on the same (Blue America) page

President Obama isn't on that page. But his messaging afer the the vote was... effective-- if not uplifting. But what do I know? Uplifting for me would be to start out with "I'm declaring my independence from the Wall Street criminals who got us into this mess and I've just fired Tim Geithner and Daley's kid and I told Eric Holder to either get some banksters behind bars or find a new job." Instead, he said:

Tonight, a majority of United States Senators voted to advance the American Jobs Act. But even though this bill contains the kind of proposals Republicans have supported in the past, their party obstructed the Senate from moving forward on this jobs bill. 
 
Tonight’s vote is by no means the end of this fight. Independent economists have said that the American Jobs Act would grow the economy and lead to nearly two million jobs, which is why the majority of the American people support these bipartisan, common-sense proposals. And we will now work with Senator Reid to make sure that the individual proposals in this jobs bill get a vote as soon as possible. 
 
In the coming days, Members of Congress will have to take a stand on whether they believe we should put teachers, construction workers, police officers and firefighters back on the job. They’ll get a vote on whether they believe we should cut taxes for small business owners and middle-class Americans, or whether we should protect tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.
 
With each vote, Members of Congress can either explain to their constituents why they’re against common-sense, bipartisan proposals to create jobs, or they can listen to the overwhelming majority of American people who are crying out for action. Because with so many Americans out of work and so many families struggling, we can’t take “no” for an answer. Ultimately, the American people won’t take “no” for an answer. It’s time for Congress to meet their responsibility, put their party politics aside and take action on jobs right now.

It's not like anyone couldn't have done the math in advance and been unable to predict the cloture vote. When you need 60 votes to end a filibuster-- and for Miss McConnell and DeMint everything is a filibuster these days-- there's no way to do it without some Republican votes, even if jerks like Nelson and Tester (not to mention Webb, Manchin, Lieberman, McCaskill, Landrieu and Baucus) don't escape from the reservation. As Reid said immediately after the vote, "Republicans unanimously voted against our nation's economic health to advance their narrow political interests. Republicans blocked a bill that would put nearly two million Americans back to work. And they voted against this job-creating bill despite previously supporting many of the ideas it contains, such as tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses."

You don't like the DMX rendition of Romney up top? How about this one that Romney put together himself?