Giving Us the Business

There is no more predictable line of reasoning from the GOP than this: every piece of good economic good news between now and November 2012 will be the result of their takeover of the House in 2010.  That’s a no brainer.  I foolishly thought that this argument would first be heard in late spring, and then become a steady drumbeat by caucus time in the fall.

If you are on the side of the House majority, though, why wait?

Here's an exchange between conservative senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Bloomberg News' Al Hunt (courtesy of Washington Monthly) that puts this argument forward right now:

HUNT: Let me talk about the Obama administration and business. Corporate profits are soaring. Goldman Sachs named 110 new partners. Bonuses are flowing. S&P has risen more than in any three-year period since the tech bubble. General Motors is -- the IPO. This isn't an anti-business administration, is it?
KYL: I would contend that, for the last two years, it's been highly anti-business. Some of the results that you just talked about, I suspect, are coming from the fact that we extended tax rates that the president did not want to extend, but was willing to do so at the end of the year last year.
HUNT: But, of course, all these things happened before that.
KYL: No, all these things are, I think, partially a -- a result of the knowledge now that taxes are not going to be raised in the next two years.

“I have to wonder if even Jon Kyl believes his own rhetoric on this. For two years, the senator has argued that the Obama administration's policies were bad for businesses. While those policies were being implemented, businesses fared pretty well, and profits soared.

Asked to explain how this is possible, Kyl believes a tax policy that wasn't crafted until December can explain private-sector growth for the previous 11 months.

In other words, business leaders in, say, March 2010 could see into the future, accurately predict a tax policy that would be drawn up in December 2010, and then shape their practices accordingly -- in the process making Republicans responsible for private-sector growth, even while they were complaining that government policies were preventing such growth.”

Get ready to keep up with this logic, America.  The GOP is ready to take credit for everything they fought against.  As I recall, according to right wing thinking, Obama owned the US economy just before taking the oath in 2009.  “Stop blaming Bush”, I believe that has been the battle cry.

What a country.

Sen Kyl's remarks don't deserve the whole joke, but I'll at least give him the punchline: "His lips are moving."